Jay H
New member
Warnings, postings and the apocolypse seemed to be not in our favor today, as Maria, kevin, and I attempted Balsam Mt. I got back from a local snowshoe saturday, with a phone call from Maria telling the sky is falling and that there were dire warnings about staying out of the catskills and such. We had some tentative plans with folks to possibly meet and car pool over to McKenley hollow, but most of them fell through. Mudhook was a possibility to meet us, but I picked up Maria on schedule for the hour's drive to McKenley hollow. Lots of downed trees along 47 (and the thruway) but everything was passable. getting to the trailhead, the snow plow turnaround is plowed out but the trailhead parking wasn't. I went to scope out the trail, at which I hear the owner of the Shangri La asking me if he could help. So I walk over and talk to him about our situation, he, very kindly offered to let us park there so we made arrangements. Maria and I had my Outback and Kevin had his car, I had my shovel and kevin, had actually 2, so all of us decided to just shovel out a lane, that was 2 cars deep, such that I parked at the Shangri la and Jim (if he came) and Kevin parked at the trailhead. Hey, I know we all pack shovels for a reason, so why not get nice and warmed up with shovelling. We left a note for Jim so he knew he could park in front of kevin's car and off we went, around 9:20am. At the register, we found the 2 guys before us headed off to Eagle and Big Indian and we had a fresh trail from then on...
2.5 miles, and about 4 hours later, we hit the summit of Balsam... Epic snow, epic depth and an epic hike. Very fortunate that Kevin had 36" tubbs cause I think he needed every inch. I was sinking in 5-6" walking behind kevin in my 25" Lightning Ascents, about perhaps one in a handful of times I felt I wish I had longer snowshoes... This was a very epic hike, the blue blazes from the col to the summit were barely above the snowline and it was impossible to completely follow the trail. So we were on and off the blazed path as we made our way. And there was a 100ft section on the trail to the col that was absolutely a bear to go up, we had to switchback all over the place to get above the seriously human-eating drifts and the steepness of the trail. no butt sliding today!!!!
Absolutely hardcore hike today, probably my hardest hike this winter.. The 4 hours straight summit was rewarded with lunch at the summit and a trip back down. Ran into a solo hiker coming up who had MSRs (no tails!) who would no way would of made it more than 1/2 mile if not for our trail. he was sinking in quite nicely with his MSRs even with all of our tracks..
So, Balsam is open for business, even a nice two car length spot shovelled out at the trail and now Maria is 1 hike closer to her finish.. She earned this one.
Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/Balsam2010228
Bonus pictures of my backyard on saturday:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/PyramidMtn2010227
Jay
2.5 miles, and about 4 hours later, we hit the summit of Balsam... Epic snow, epic depth and an epic hike. Very fortunate that Kevin had 36" tubbs cause I think he needed every inch. I was sinking in 5-6" walking behind kevin in my 25" Lightning Ascents, about perhaps one in a handful of times I felt I wish I had longer snowshoes... This was a very epic hike, the blue blazes from the col to the summit were barely above the snowline and it was impossible to completely follow the trail. So we were on and off the blazed path as we made our way. And there was a 100ft section on the trail to the col that was absolutely a bear to go up, we had to switchback all over the place to get above the seriously human-eating drifts and the steepness of the trail. no butt sliding today!!!!
Absolutely hardcore hike today, probably my hardest hike this winter.. The 4 hours straight summit was rewarded with lunch at the summit and a trip back down. Ran into a solo hiker coming up who had MSRs (no tails!) who would no way would of made it more than 1/2 mile if not for our trail. he was sinking in quite nicely with his MSRs even with all of our tracks..
So, Balsam is open for business, even a nice two car length spot shovelled out at the trail and now Maria is 1 hike closer to her finish.. She earned this one.
Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/Balsam2010228
Bonus pictures of my backyard on saturday:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslugyahoo/PyramidMtn2010227
Jay
