Scotzman
New member
Trails/Route: Lake Road, Gill Brook, to Colvin, back to Fish Hawk Cliffs, to Indian Head, back to Gill Brook, to Lake Road
Hikers: BorealChick, Tracy and myself
Equipment used: Microspikes, crampons, trekking poles
We had a lazy start to the hike with the intentions of doing Colvin and Blake but when we summited Colvin and reassessed our time and energy decided to drop Blake and do Fish Hawk Cliffs and Indian Head instead. The lake road was a bit icy right at the gate so we donned our microspikes, but as we traversed the road, the fresh couple inches of wet snow ended up causing heavy balling under our micros and bare boots would have been the better choice. When we reached the turnoff for Colvin we dropped the micros and decided to bare boot up to just below the junction with Elk Pass.
Looking over to Giant Mtn
As we made our way up Gill Brook Trail we were welcomed by a large flock of chickadees, who were feeling very social and serenaded us for a bit. We actually saw and heard lots of birds on the trails today, chickadees, pine siskin, crossbills and bluejays. It made the walk through the woods that much more enjoyable!
View of the Great Range
From the junction with Elk Pass on up to Colvin we encountered a number of steep, icy scrambles that really made the crampons come in handy. There was enough snow though that snowshoes would have been usable also, and even crossed paths with a woman on her way back from Blake that was using microspikes. With the heavy, packy snow I was happy to leave my crampons on for the rest of the way till we hit the road again. The anti-balling and just the grip really made traction a non-issue.
Snow descent off Indiant Head
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Just below the summit of Colvin is that one tricky rock/ice scramble with a very narrow foothold that took some teamwork for us to make it up and down but we managed both ways with any incidents.
The views we had from the top were very nice! I had forgotten the extent of view from Colvin, and the snow squalls held off till after we were off the summit so we were able to enjoy the great vista. On our way down we decided to add the Fish Hawk Cliffs and Indian Head loop into our trip. None of these trails appeared to be broken out, well we didn't see any track in the snow, but the snow level was such that it was a non-issue breaking trail. Just as we were leaving Fish Hawk the snow started to come down and at time pretty heavily. The trail up to Indian Head and then back down was steep on both sides but we didn't encounter any ice, just snow and steepness. The ladder on the trail from Indian Head to Gill Brook was in good shape thankfully and our return trip to Gill Brook and back out to the road was a blissful winter walk through the snowy woods.
Full pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/110641657393510920540/ColvinFishHawkIndianHead?authkey=Gv1sRgCPe62Z2rtK7JIA#
Hikers: BorealChick, Tracy and myself
Equipment used: Microspikes, crampons, trekking poles
We had a lazy start to the hike with the intentions of doing Colvin and Blake but when we summited Colvin and reassessed our time and energy decided to drop Blake and do Fish Hawk Cliffs and Indian Head instead. The lake road was a bit icy right at the gate so we donned our microspikes, but as we traversed the road, the fresh couple inches of wet snow ended up causing heavy balling under our micros and bare boots would have been the better choice. When we reached the turnoff for Colvin we dropped the micros and decided to bare boot up to just below the junction with Elk Pass.
Looking over to Giant Mtn
As we made our way up Gill Brook Trail we were welcomed by a large flock of chickadees, who were feeling very social and serenaded us for a bit. We actually saw and heard lots of birds on the trails today, chickadees, pine siskin, crossbills and bluejays. It made the walk through the woods that much more enjoyable!
View of the Great Range
From the junction with Elk Pass on up to Colvin we encountered a number of steep, icy scrambles that really made the crampons come in handy. There was enough snow though that snowshoes would have been usable also, and even crossed paths with a woman on her way back from Blake that was using microspikes. With the heavy, packy snow I was happy to leave my crampons on for the rest of the way till we hit the road again. The anti-balling and just the grip really made traction a non-issue.
Snow descent off Indiant Head
Just below the summit of Colvin is that one tricky rock/ice scramble with a very narrow foothold that took some teamwork for us to make it up and down but we managed both ways with any incidents.
The views we had from the top were very nice! I had forgotten the extent of view from Colvin, and the snow squalls held off till after we were off the summit so we were able to enjoy the great vista. On our way down we decided to add the Fish Hawk Cliffs and Indian Head loop into our trip. None of these trails appeared to be broken out, well we didn't see any track in the snow, but the snow level was such that it was a non-issue breaking trail. Just as we were leaving Fish Hawk the snow started to come down and at time pretty heavily. The trail up to Indian Head and then back down was steep on both sides but we didn't encounter any ice, just snow and steepness. The ladder on the trail from Indian Head to Gill Brook was in good shape thankfully and our return trip to Gill Brook and back out to the road was a blissful winter walk through the snowy woods.Full pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/110641657393510920540/ColvinFishHawkIndianHead?authkey=Gv1sRgCPe62Z2rtK7JIA#
