peak_bgr
New member
I told myself I would never do this peak again after the first death march last summer. Well with a little twist of the arm there I was again looking up at Blue Ridge. Doing it a different route this time, maybe it won't be so bad-that was the first bit of talking to myself I did yesterday;the other conversations I had with myself I can't share on a family site.
Well luckily we have a resource that we can use to enter the area from the Hoffman Fish and Game Protective area. Thank you for guys for the use of your well maintained roads. The road was frozen over, hard pack mud on the way in-the way out was a little soupy. Answering my question as to why the member parked at the gate just doesn't drive through.
We followed a few different roads to the powerline where the well maintained road turned to an old jeep road with some downed trees, over hanging branches, washouts and all kinds of fun stuff. Then it just vanished into the side of the mountain
The woods were quite clear from here however so we started a stiff climb up the ridge to a small bump NW of Spruce Mountain. This was where it starts to get fun. Up to this point there was no snow, but once we dropped slightly off this knob into the small vallet the snow started appearing. Small patches-mostly avoidable, but gave good traction on the climbing, unlike the leaves covering the ice. From here the climb up to just around 2900' was more snow, now getting deeper, but still hard enough to walk on. The woods are getting a little thicker, we ended up having to traverse the side of the ridge a little in spots to avoid some wet evergreens. Oh, did I mention it snowed some the night before, and the trees were pissing on us all day-fun stuff.
Now on the summit of what we called North Blue Ridge, we were all getting pretty wet (me, Brian, Alan, Rik). Now my feet were also getting cold and stupid me I only had my hikers.
The climb from here was pretty mellow, a ton more snow-in spots only a few inches, in others it looked to be feet. We were postholeing on the summit ridge a foot to two feet, luckily not continuously. We all had snowshoes but no one really had the urge to strap them on.
Blue Ridge has two summits, both of which hae identical number of contour lines, so we did both. According to the GPS it looks to be the SW summit is the higher one by about 10 feet or so. I guess you'll just have to do both to be safe. Actually it seemed as though the tricky part was getting from one summit to the next, in the trees you can't see the other; and yet again the GPS on this summit just seemed tempermental. Anyhow, no views, surprised?
Congrats to Alan on #91, and Rik on #??, and to Brian and I for having to relive it.
Well now my shoes have about a cup of water in each and with everystep I take I can feel the water pushing though my toes,that is until I couldn't feel my toes anymore. I had to get moving and I did.
I stopped part way down for a snack and a drink and listened for the other guys for about 10 minutes, then my feet got cold so I started down again and didn't stop until I got out of the snow. I was back on the first bump and sat around for 20 minutes but heard nothing, got cold and decided to return to the car. Well it wasn't my car, so, no keys-no soft seat-no heat. After fifteen minutes I started walking up and down the Blue Ridge road a few times to warm back up. 30 minutes after I reached the car, I could get in a warm up. Sorry guys for leaving you back on the ridge, but I could not warm up without moving, I guess next time I'll have Maddi dress me in the morning.
Well luckily we have a resource that we can use to enter the area from the Hoffman Fish and Game Protective area. Thank you for guys for the use of your well maintained roads. The road was frozen over, hard pack mud on the way in-the way out was a little soupy. Answering my question as to why the member parked at the gate just doesn't drive through.
We followed a few different roads to the powerline where the well maintained road turned to an old jeep road with some downed trees, over hanging branches, washouts and all kinds of fun stuff. Then it just vanished into the side of the mountain
The woods were quite clear from here however so we started a stiff climb up the ridge to a small bump NW of Spruce Mountain. This was where it starts to get fun. Up to this point there was no snow, but once we dropped slightly off this knob into the small vallet the snow started appearing. Small patches-mostly avoidable, but gave good traction on the climbing, unlike the leaves covering the ice. From here the climb up to just around 2900' was more snow, now getting deeper, but still hard enough to walk on. The woods are getting a little thicker, we ended up having to traverse the side of the ridge a little in spots to avoid some wet evergreens. Oh, did I mention it snowed some the night before, and the trees were pissing on us all day-fun stuff.
Now on the summit of what we called North Blue Ridge, we were all getting pretty wet (me, Brian, Alan, Rik). Now my feet were also getting cold and stupid me I only had my hikers.
The climb from here was pretty mellow, a ton more snow-in spots only a few inches, in others it looked to be feet. We were postholeing on the summit ridge a foot to two feet, luckily not continuously. We all had snowshoes but no one really had the urge to strap them on.
Blue Ridge has two summits, both of which hae identical number of contour lines, so we did both. According to the GPS it looks to be the SW summit is the higher one by about 10 feet or so. I guess you'll just have to do both to be safe. Actually it seemed as though the tricky part was getting from one summit to the next, in the trees you can't see the other; and yet again the GPS on this summit just seemed tempermental. Anyhow, no views, surprised?
Congrats to Alan on #91, and Rik on #??, and to Brian and I for having to relive it.
Well now my shoes have about a cup of water in each and with everystep I take I can feel the water pushing though my toes,that is until I couldn't feel my toes anymore. I had to get moving and I did.
I stopped part way down for a snack and a drink and listened for the other guys for about 10 minutes, then my feet got cold so I started down again and didn't stop until I got out of the snow. I was back on the first bump and sat around for 20 minutes but heard nothing, got cold and decided to return to the car. Well it wasn't my car, so, no keys-no soft seat-no heat. After fifteen minutes I started walking up and down the Blue Ridge road a few times to warm back up. 30 minutes after I reached the car, I could get in a warm up. Sorry guys for leaving you back on the ridge, but I could not warm up without moving, I guess next time I'll have Maddi dress me in the morning.
