peak_bgr
New member
It was one of those mornings where I lay in bed after the alarm goes off and I say to myself I really don’t want to get up. We had set plans about a week earlier to go in and get Skylight and Grey, knowing they had been broken out. Knowing in our mind the conditions would be good we decided on a little later start, 7am. At 7:15am we got rolling on the trail.
The trail all the way to Lake Arnold was hard packed and in great shape. At Lake Arnold we talked with a couple who camped there that night and was planning on Colden up and over. The trail now was barely broken. Only a couple skiers had been through the day before. This was a very thin track making for hard uneven walking, and the continuous push through 3-5 inches of snow. We descended all the way to the base of Colden slide like this. That is where the ski tracks stopped and went to the slide. We know didn’t have any track to follow. There was a slight packed trail, more like an indentation in the snow to follow, but we still had to push3-6 inches of snow. At the area of the floating bridges we were pushing through upwards of 8 inches in the snow drifts with no sign of a trail left at all. We didn’t figure this would last; the trail up to Lake Tear has got to be well broken. It wasn’t
From the intersection we pushed through a consistent 6 inches with snow drifts up to 10 inches. You could see where it had been broken last weekend but that’s it. The closer we got Lake Tear the deeper the snow and the trees had started dropping their snow. Snow balls the size beach balls in spots were in the trail. As the trail flattened out and came to Lake Tear the trail disappeared completely. It didn’t look like Gray had been touched in weeks. So we went for Skylight first in hopes that someone had been to Gray from Marcy and we could take that herd path up and over Marcy. We broke trail, now in spots over a foot. We hiked over Lake Tear to get to Four Corners.
No one had been up skylight in a week, I would estimate. No sign of a trail at all, only very short section. We dropped our packs for the hike up. At this point I was feeling rather generous and I thought I would let Brian break trail from a while-I’m nice like that. I had forgotten that the SOB can walk on water, frozen water seemed to be the same. I was still pushing down 4 inches on his 6 inches and he walked right over 90% of the spruce traps. We couldn’t stay on the trail, there were very few trail disks to follow, and they must have been buried. It seemed like spruce trap after spruce trap in a couple sections until we could get to sections of open slab rock that are buried in snow, so no spruce trees to deal with. It was very windy up on top and the views were excellent, first time I had view from this peak. Down we went very quickly to Four Corners and got on our packs and hiked back to the Gray herd path.
We again decided to drop our packs, knowing in our hearts that no one had been to Gray from Marcy in a long time. We followed the herd path for all of about a tenth of a mile, before we lost it and just started bushwhacking up. We headed straight up the cliff section which took forever, fighting waist deep snow. At the top Brian took over again looking for open pathways through the trees. All he seemed to find were spruce traps. Actually, all I found were spruce traps, he just pissed them off. Nearing the summit Brian took off and left me behind to deal with more spruce traps. 2 of which were over 8 feet deep. They swallowed me alive and very quickly. I had to hike and push myself downhill to get out of one. The last one I was just walking along, I could see Brian standing on the summit, and then I couldn’t that was the one that I had to climb the tree branches with snowshoes to get out of only to fall in another in 10 feet. I was never so happy to see the summit; it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to go the half mile from trail to summit.
We descended in fifteen minutes back to our packs. The trip out was very fast, but the climb back up to Lake Arnold was grueling on the legs. Back at Marcy Dam we saw the couple that we met at Lake Arnold coming down the trail from Avalanche Lake. We were back to the car before dark. 10 hours and 45 minutes later.
The trail all the way to Lake Arnold was hard packed and in great shape. At Lake Arnold we talked with a couple who camped there that night and was planning on Colden up and over. The trail now was barely broken. Only a couple skiers had been through the day before. This was a very thin track making for hard uneven walking, and the continuous push through 3-5 inches of snow. We descended all the way to the base of Colden slide like this. That is where the ski tracks stopped and went to the slide. We know didn’t have any track to follow. There was a slight packed trail, more like an indentation in the snow to follow, but we still had to push3-6 inches of snow. At the area of the floating bridges we were pushing through upwards of 8 inches in the snow drifts with no sign of a trail left at all. We didn’t figure this would last; the trail up to Lake Tear has got to be well broken. It wasn’t
From the intersection we pushed through a consistent 6 inches with snow drifts up to 10 inches. You could see where it had been broken last weekend but that’s it. The closer we got Lake Tear the deeper the snow and the trees had started dropping their snow. Snow balls the size beach balls in spots were in the trail. As the trail flattened out and came to Lake Tear the trail disappeared completely. It didn’t look like Gray had been touched in weeks. So we went for Skylight first in hopes that someone had been to Gray from Marcy and we could take that herd path up and over Marcy. We broke trail, now in spots over a foot. We hiked over Lake Tear to get to Four Corners.
No one had been up skylight in a week, I would estimate. No sign of a trail at all, only very short section. We dropped our packs for the hike up. At this point I was feeling rather generous and I thought I would let Brian break trail from a while-I’m nice like that. I had forgotten that the SOB can walk on water, frozen water seemed to be the same. I was still pushing down 4 inches on his 6 inches and he walked right over 90% of the spruce traps. We couldn’t stay on the trail, there were very few trail disks to follow, and they must have been buried. It seemed like spruce trap after spruce trap in a couple sections until we could get to sections of open slab rock that are buried in snow, so no spruce trees to deal with. It was very windy up on top and the views were excellent, first time I had view from this peak. Down we went very quickly to Four Corners and got on our packs and hiked back to the Gray herd path.
We again decided to drop our packs, knowing in our hearts that no one had been to Gray from Marcy in a long time. We followed the herd path for all of about a tenth of a mile, before we lost it and just started bushwhacking up. We headed straight up the cliff section which took forever, fighting waist deep snow. At the top Brian took over again looking for open pathways through the trees. All he seemed to find were spruce traps. Actually, all I found were spruce traps, he just pissed them off. Nearing the summit Brian took off and left me behind to deal with more spruce traps. 2 of which were over 8 feet deep. They swallowed me alive and very quickly. I had to hike and push myself downhill to get out of one. The last one I was just walking along, I could see Brian standing on the summit, and then I couldn’t that was the one that I had to climb the tree branches with snowshoes to get out of only to fall in another in 10 feet. I was never so happy to see the summit; it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to go the half mile from trail to summit.
We descended in fifteen minutes back to our packs. The trip out was very fast, but the climb back up to Lake Arnold was grueling on the legs. Back at Marcy Dam we saw the couple that we met at Lake Arnold coming down the trail from Avalanche Lake. We were back to the car before dark. 10 hours and 45 minutes later.
