Neil
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Hahaha! I tricked you into opening my TR of a hike in the Sawtooth Range! 
The one that got away. Sawtooth 11.
Just to dissipate the suspense that I'm sure has been building, we didn't make it to the top of Sawtooth 11 yesterday.
The moment came at 2:10 PM. After analyzing everything that there was to analyze we turned around. We were less than 100 vertical feet and about 1/8 of a mile from our goal.
And now for the details:
* This was a multi-purpose trip. I was looking to do something obscure and wanted an uncertain outcome. Something about going to lots of trouble when "success" was uncertain appealed to me.
* I also wanted to bag the last remaining Sawtooth summit on the 770 list, even if it wasn't on my list and this gave the woods wandering some added purpose and focus.
* Finally I wanted to take a look at where Dunbar and I thought we should have gone below Sawtooth 2-South when we did the 5 Sawtooths as an overnight.
I recruited Pascal from Fousderando.com (french hiking forum). It seems that now I have to find a new crop of unsuspecting hikers to come with me on these trips. Pascal had never been to the Sawtooths before and I had told him it was the land of milk and honey so he was very much looking forward to seeing that. I told him we would surely be able to pet the lambs that frolic in the Sawtooth pastures and pick ripe grapes from the low hanging branches.
We had skis and were ready to ski the 4.3 miles but to our delight the road was open and freshly plowed beyond the summer trailhead. "Milk and honey, Pascal, milk and honey" said I.
There didn't look to be enough snow to ski in to the Number 4 Lean-to's (Twin Horse LT's) so we put on our snowshoes and at 7:40 were on our way, signed out for Sawtooth 11. It took us 4 hours to get to the Lean-to's due to the snow. The snow was much deeper on the Ward Brook truck road and we decided that the first 4-5 inches to hit the Blueberry Footpath melted before it started accumulating.
Every stream crossing was open and flowing. Skiing the trail would have been a huge PITA. ( Joe Cedar)
Already by the Calkins junction I was thinking we would only be doing the summit of 11 and turning around. Perhaps a 6am start would have made the difference. A 6am start wasn't in the cards however, due to having real lives that support, among other things, our hiking lives.
There were two basic route choices that interested me: up the drainage to the 2-South - 11 col and around to the summit or straight up the ridge.
I knew they each had there risks and advantages and went for the ridge in spite of it's southerly exposure and wind catching geometry. Once being committed to the ridge it would be impractical to bail and drop into the drainage due to time constraints.
It went really well. The woods were open by southern exposure Sawtooth standards. It was the snow conditions that slowed us down. There was not enough snow and too much snow. Our snowshoes hit bottom and couldn't get purchase on the frozen ground. So the trees served to propel us upwards and my forearms are stiff and sore today.
Naturally, as we ascended the forest thickened. There were lots of big Birches but even more little Balsams that are gradually taking over. The Balsams , even covered with a very thick coating of snow (enough to completely hide all the branches) offered no resistance and we plowed right through them, getting soaked in the process.
We had 5 star views of Seymour East, Seymour and Seward. The ridge that runs west off of Sawtooth 2 south and which lay directly north of us served as guide, and using the compass, we were able to determine just how slow we were really going.
No electronic navigation devices were used on this trip and because we had to make some large detours around cliffs and lost visual contact with the aforementioned ridge we navigated using the lay of the land and trusting the compass. Two drops, hidden between the contour lines tried to fool us but can be interpreted easily as 2 rounded swellings of the contour lines.
Anyway, the woods remained mercifully easy for us to make horizontal progress but the snow really did hinder our vertical progress, which came as no surprise after traveling the trail and road to the Lean-to's.
And then, just as we could spy the final climb to the SW end of the summit ridge, BANG! The full brunt of nature's handiwork brought us to a grinding standstill. Forward progress came at the expense of huge expenditures of time and most importantly, energy. I was wishing I was 2 feet tall. We were sucker-punched after being led directly into this impressive fist. It was such an amazing place just to be at. Other than the Sewards we could see some High Peaks off towards the East and SE.
We were 20 minutes from our turn-around time of 2:30 and it was clear that 20 minutes was not going to suffice so the decision was an easy one to make. Had we had an extra hour we would have descended about 50 feet and made a cross-sloping traverse to the NE, below and to the NW of the summit ridge. Ie. an end run around that nasty chaotic creation of wind, sun and irrepressible biological life.
It really didn't matter and we had sort of asked for it anyway so down we went feeling pretty good. Then I took a branch in the eye. For about 2 minutes my entire universe was composed of this incredibly intense hurt, radiating from my eye into every cell of my body. I lost my contact lens and the eye in question was my dominant one so the steep slippery descent along our trail was an interesting challenge. Pascal went first and I followed. I had a pair of glasses and more contacts but it wasn’t the time or place to fuss around with contacts and my glasses would have gotten covered with fog and wet snow. I learned how to use my non-dominant eye quite quickly.
Hillman's first Law of Bushwhacking states that anything you take on a bushwhack is to be considered expendable but I didn't think it extended to body parts.
It took us 65 minutes to get back to the LT. It had taken 150 to get to where we turned around.
At Blueberry LT we stopped and I changed into dry clothes, we ate and drank and got our headlamps out. The long walk out towards the sunset and gradually into total blackness with a few stars was one of the best walks I have ever had in my life and it is now a part of my permanent memory bank. What had required 4 hours of steady trailbreaking on the way in required about 3 ¼ hours of leisurely and tired but happy trudging on the way out. The cold night air, when you breathed it in was like a magic elixir.
No pictures from me because I forgot my camera in the car. Pascal took a few and I’ll try and get him to upload them.
At the trailhead we met a guy who was on his way in to spend the night at Blueberry LT and tackle Seward in the morning. We had bestowed the gift of a broken trail into the LT on him and he was very happy about that. I forgot to ask him he was from the forum.
The one that got away. Sawtooth 11.
Just to dissipate the suspense that I'm sure has been building, we didn't make it to the top of Sawtooth 11 yesterday.
The moment came at 2:10 PM. After analyzing everything that there was to analyze we turned around. We were less than 100 vertical feet and about 1/8 of a mile from our goal.
And now for the details:
* This was a multi-purpose trip. I was looking to do something obscure and wanted an uncertain outcome. Something about going to lots of trouble when "success" was uncertain appealed to me.
* I also wanted to bag the last remaining Sawtooth summit on the 770 list, even if it wasn't on my list and this gave the woods wandering some added purpose and focus.
* Finally I wanted to take a look at where Dunbar and I thought we should have gone below Sawtooth 2-South when we did the 5 Sawtooths as an overnight.
I recruited Pascal from Fousderando.com (french hiking forum). It seems that now I have to find a new crop of unsuspecting hikers to come with me on these trips. Pascal had never been to the Sawtooths before and I had told him it was the land of milk and honey so he was very much looking forward to seeing that. I told him we would surely be able to pet the lambs that frolic in the Sawtooth pastures and pick ripe grapes from the low hanging branches.
We had skis and were ready to ski the 4.3 miles but to our delight the road was open and freshly plowed beyond the summer trailhead. "Milk and honey, Pascal, milk and honey" said I.
There didn't look to be enough snow to ski in to the Number 4 Lean-to's (Twin Horse LT's) so we put on our snowshoes and at 7:40 were on our way, signed out for Sawtooth 11. It took us 4 hours to get to the Lean-to's due to the snow. The snow was much deeper on the Ward Brook truck road and we decided that the first 4-5 inches to hit the Blueberry Footpath melted before it started accumulating.
Every stream crossing was open and flowing. Skiing the trail would have been a huge PITA. ( Joe Cedar)
Already by the Calkins junction I was thinking we would only be doing the summit of 11 and turning around. Perhaps a 6am start would have made the difference. A 6am start wasn't in the cards however, due to having real lives that support, among other things, our hiking lives.
There were two basic route choices that interested me: up the drainage to the 2-South - 11 col and around to the summit or straight up the ridge.
I knew they each had there risks and advantages and went for the ridge in spite of it's southerly exposure and wind catching geometry. Once being committed to the ridge it would be impractical to bail and drop into the drainage due to time constraints.
It went really well. The woods were open by southern exposure Sawtooth standards. It was the snow conditions that slowed us down. There was not enough snow and too much snow. Our snowshoes hit bottom and couldn't get purchase on the frozen ground. So the trees served to propel us upwards and my forearms are stiff and sore today.
Naturally, as we ascended the forest thickened. There were lots of big Birches but even more little Balsams that are gradually taking over. The Balsams , even covered with a very thick coating of snow (enough to completely hide all the branches) offered no resistance and we plowed right through them, getting soaked in the process.
We had 5 star views of Seymour East, Seymour and Seward. The ridge that runs west off of Sawtooth 2 south and which lay directly north of us served as guide, and using the compass, we were able to determine just how slow we were really going.
No electronic navigation devices were used on this trip and because we had to make some large detours around cliffs and lost visual contact with the aforementioned ridge we navigated using the lay of the land and trusting the compass. Two drops, hidden between the contour lines tried to fool us but can be interpreted easily as 2 rounded swellings of the contour lines.
Anyway, the woods remained mercifully easy for us to make horizontal progress but the snow really did hinder our vertical progress, which came as no surprise after traveling the trail and road to the Lean-to's.
And then, just as we could spy the final climb to the SW end of the summit ridge, BANG! The full brunt of nature's handiwork brought us to a grinding standstill. Forward progress came at the expense of huge expenditures of time and most importantly, energy. I was wishing I was 2 feet tall. We were sucker-punched after being led directly into this impressive fist. It was such an amazing place just to be at. Other than the Sewards we could see some High Peaks off towards the East and SE.
We were 20 minutes from our turn-around time of 2:30 and it was clear that 20 minutes was not going to suffice so the decision was an easy one to make. Had we had an extra hour we would have descended about 50 feet and made a cross-sloping traverse to the NE, below and to the NW of the summit ridge. Ie. an end run around that nasty chaotic creation of wind, sun and irrepressible biological life.
It really didn't matter and we had sort of asked for it anyway so down we went feeling pretty good. Then I took a branch in the eye. For about 2 minutes my entire universe was composed of this incredibly intense hurt, radiating from my eye into every cell of my body. I lost my contact lens and the eye in question was my dominant one so the steep slippery descent along our trail was an interesting challenge. Pascal went first and I followed. I had a pair of glasses and more contacts but it wasn’t the time or place to fuss around with contacts and my glasses would have gotten covered with fog and wet snow. I learned how to use my non-dominant eye quite quickly.
Hillman's first Law of Bushwhacking states that anything you take on a bushwhack is to be considered expendable but I didn't think it extended to body parts.
It took us 65 minutes to get back to the LT. It had taken 150 to get to where we turned around.
At Blueberry LT we stopped and I changed into dry clothes, we ate and drank and got our headlamps out. The long walk out towards the sunset and gradually into total blackness with a few stars was one of the best walks I have ever had in my life and it is now a part of my permanent memory bank. What had required 4 hours of steady trailbreaking on the way in required about 3 ¼ hours of leisurely and tired but happy trudging on the way out. The cold night air, when you breathed it in was like a magic elixir.
No pictures from me because I forgot my camera in the car. Pascal took a few and I’ll try and get him to upload them.
At the trailhead we met a guy who was on his way in to spend the night at Blueberry LT and tackle Seward in the morning. We had bestowed the gift of a broken trail into the LT on him and he was very happy about that. I forgot to ask him he was from the forum.
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