peak_bgr
New member
It was me and Nancy again, midweek, we had postponed this climb a week ago due to weather conditions, and it worked out to our advantage. First of all it was as clear a day as one could imagine, and today as I write this it’s snowing like crazy. Not that we didn’t have our battles with the snow.
We got a 5:45am start at the Loj being the only two cars in the parking lot. We set off setting a most excellent pace. The trail was very hard packed, and going was rather fast. We were to the Wrong Peak col in no time, where we dropped our packs.
The snow was pretty deep over to the rock wall, we hiked along the base of the wall to the left and after a few really steep steps up, I found myself between a rock and a hard place, literally. The ledge I was on was a solid thick sheet of waterfall ice that my snowshoes just couldn’t bite into. We were a mere 20’ from the top; we had great views from this spot, so we called it enough and went back to our pack.
On we continued to Algonquin first, we thought it was a good idea to get the two furthest first, and Wright on the return. We donned our crampons, strapped on our snowshoes and up we went. The views behind us were amazing; we could clearly see the Green Mountains peaking through an under cast over Lake Champlain.
The wind started to pick up as we approached the summit; I made the mistake of putting my goggles on my head and not on my face. They froze up quite nicely. The wind on the summit was almost enough to knock a person over, with a wind chill of -25. We quickly exited the summit, only to fight the wind all the way to tree line near the base of Boundary.
The herd path was blown in a little, but relatively easy to follow all the way to Boundary, and Boundary 2. Between Boundary 2 and Iroquois was a fight for almost every step. We couldn’t see the herd path at all. We found ourselves walking very lightly in hopes of finding a solid step. Most of the time it was spruce traps-some as deep as 5 feet. When I fall into a spruce trap I go all the way to bed rock, so climbing out usually just makes the whole bigger. Once we were on the shoulder of Iroquois the rock gave us solid steps to the not quite as windy summit of Algonquin.
The trip back was simply following our tracks back, even those deeps ones. We were back at the base of Algonquin rather quickly, but still in the trees, enjoying an energy snack. We were dreading the reclimb of Algonquin, and by being out voted 1 to 1 I lead the charge. I kept myself on the Colden side of the ridge to avoid the high winds coming from Indian Pass, it was a little steep, but much less windy, and much less ice.
Up on top for the summit shots we missed earlier and down to the Wright Trail. We climbed Wright leaving our packs at the junction, and to our surprise hardly any wind on Wright, for once Algonquin was blocking it all. The hike out was fast, sliding where we could. We were back at the car at 2:15pm. Great hike, great company.
We got a 5:45am start at the Loj being the only two cars in the parking lot. We set off setting a most excellent pace. The trail was very hard packed, and going was rather fast. We were to the Wrong Peak col in no time, where we dropped our packs.
The snow was pretty deep over to the rock wall, we hiked along the base of the wall to the left and after a few really steep steps up, I found myself between a rock and a hard place, literally. The ledge I was on was a solid thick sheet of waterfall ice that my snowshoes just couldn’t bite into. We were a mere 20’ from the top; we had great views from this spot, so we called it enough and went back to our pack.
On we continued to Algonquin first, we thought it was a good idea to get the two furthest first, and Wright on the return. We donned our crampons, strapped on our snowshoes and up we went. The views behind us were amazing; we could clearly see the Green Mountains peaking through an under cast over Lake Champlain.
The wind started to pick up as we approached the summit; I made the mistake of putting my goggles on my head and not on my face. They froze up quite nicely. The wind on the summit was almost enough to knock a person over, with a wind chill of -25. We quickly exited the summit, only to fight the wind all the way to tree line near the base of Boundary.
The herd path was blown in a little, but relatively easy to follow all the way to Boundary, and Boundary 2. Between Boundary 2 and Iroquois was a fight for almost every step. We couldn’t see the herd path at all. We found ourselves walking very lightly in hopes of finding a solid step. Most of the time it was spruce traps-some as deep as 5 feet. When I fall into a spruce trap I go all the way to bed rock, so climbing out usually just makes the whole bigger. Once we were on the shoulder of Iroquois the rock gave us solid steps to the not quite as windy summit of Algonquin.
The trip back was simply following our tracks back, even those deeps ones. We were back at the base of Algonquin rather quickly, but still in the trees, enjoying an energy snack. We were dreading the reclimb of Algonquin, and by being out voted 1 to 1 I lead the charge. I kept myself on the Colden side of the ridge to avoid the high winds coming from Indian Pass, it was a little steep, but much less windy, and much less ice.
Up on top for the summit shots we missed earlier and down to the Wright Trail. We climbed Wright leaving our packs at the junction, and to our surprise hardly any wind on Wright, for once Algonquin was blocking it all. The hike out was fast, sliding where we could. We were back at the car at 2:15pm. Great hike, great company.
