Jay H
New member
The long planned sewards attempt, planned for saturday the 27th started well, with us getting to the summer lot around 6:15am and leaving a full snowshoe attempt on Calkin's brook.
We mostly followed blown in tracks up the trail and to the base of Calkin's Brook... Since I am the fastest hiker in our little party of three (Mimi, Catman, me) after a couple of bailouts before the event, I broke trail for most of the herdpath, doing an OK job navigating, going up a bit early, I managed to refind the path on a couple of the feeder streams and after that, we did good on breaking the correct trail after that.
However at about 3950' Mimi wasn't feeling great and was wet and cold so we turned back.
Fast Forward to Monday, I was determined to reap the seeds that I sewn on saturday and return to Donalson and Emmons and possibly Seward if the cards were right. Sunday, as you all known was super warm, like in the low 50s in Tupper lake and very gusty winds... But monday was just about freezing and Corey's Road was another skating rink so being solo, I did not want to risk getting stuck so I parked at Rock Pond, about 1/2 mile in from the gate and consigned myself to walk the extra 2.5 miles each way. Got to the summer trailhead around 7am and immediated noticed the trail is now a stream and all melted out. Since I used crampons to walk the icy road, I left my crampons on, but after about 1/2 mile, even that was silly so I barebooted all the way after that to the base of Calkin's Brook.
On saturday, the brook itself was frozen and I managed to put my left snowshoe through the thin ice. Monday, that was not a problem as there was no ice to be found!!! So I shimmyed across the brook on the myriad of trees just above the path crossing. Still barebooting til about 1/2 mile past the brook, I finally put on the snowshoes. This time I corrected my mistake on saturday and followed the actual herdpath closer to Calkins... Try not to follow my tracks uphill, stay close to the brook. Eventually, I repicked up saturdays path and I tried to block it off with some twigs. Anyway, making good time, since the path was broken and got again to the point where we turned back. Nobody else has broken out and I saw 1 person signed in on sunday with "Seward or seymour". So I break the now-hard snow to the flat summit ridge on Donalson. Clouds abound, but temps were fairly mild, hovering around the upper 20s...
Getting to Emmons was relatively mild as I was able to follow the herdpath all the way to Emmons... Took my bearing to some clouded peak, but the clouds did break enough for me to see Emmons as I was descending on the herdpath, just west of the col between the two. Descending to 3800' which surprised me, but my bearing was good and the path is obvious (when you are on it). Left at 7am from the summer lot, summit of Donalson at 10:25, Summit of Emmons at about 11:45, including about 15 minutes of idiot time when I unknowingly dropped my map in the ziploc bag and I spent like 15 minutes walking back trying to find it...
The snow on the summit was perfect, hard and crusty, such that following my trail back to Donaldson wasn't as easy as it could of been but a couple of icy ledges, including one tricky one on Emmons that I had to skirt in my snowshoes, I got back to the summer lot at about 4pm and to my car 2.5 miles up around 4:45pm.
Tired but happy... I got a view of Seward on my return but no tracks and no time, however, I did not see the herdpath off to Seward either. I know there was a cairn there when I was there a few years ago... Next time!
Jay
We mostly followed blown in tracks up the trail and to the base of Calkin's Brook... Since I am the fastest hiker in our little party of three (Mimi, Catman, me) after a couple of bailouts before the event, I broke trail for most of the herdpath, doing an OK job navigating, going up a bit early, I managed to refind the path on a couple of the feeder streams and after that, we did good on breaking the correct trail after that.
However at about 3950' Mimi wasn't feeling great and was wet and cold so we turned back.
Fast Forward to Monday, I was determined to reap the seeds that I sewn on saturday and return to Donalson and Emmons and possibly Seward if the cards were right. Sunday, as you all known was super warm, like in the low 50s in Tupper lake and very gusty winds... But monday was just about freezing and Corey's Road was another skating rink so being solo, I did not want to risk getting stuck so I parked at Rock Pond, about 1/2 mile in from the gate and consigned myself to walk the extra 2.5 miles each way. Got to the summer trailhead around 7am and immediated noticed the trail is now a stream and all melted out. Since I used crampons to walk the icy road, I left my crampons on, but after about 1/2 mile, even that was silly so I barebooted all the way after that to the base of Calkin's Brook.
On saturday, the brook itself was frozen and I managed to put my left snowshoe through the thin ice. Monday, that was not a problem as there was no ice to be found!!! So I shimmyed across the brook on the myriad of trees just above the path crossing. Still barebooting til about 1/2 mile past the brook, I finally put on the snowshoes. This time I corrected my mistake on saturday and followed the actual herdpath closer to Calkins... Try not to follow my tracks uphill, stay close to the brook. Eventually, I repicked up saturdays path and I tried to block it off with some twigs. Anyway, making good time, since the path was broken and got again to the point where we turned back. Nobody else has broken out and I saw 1 person signed in on sunday with "Seward or seymour". So I break the now-hard snow to the flat summit ridge on Donalson. Clouds abound, but temps were fairly mild, hovering around the upper 20s...
Getting to Emmons was relatively mild as I was able to follow the herdpath all the way to Emmons... Took my bearing to some clouded peak, but the clouds did break enough for me to see Emmons as I was descending on the herdpath, just west of the col between the two. Descending to 3800' which surprised me, but my bearing was good and the path is obvious (when you are on it). Left at 7am from the summer lot, summit of Donalson at 10:25, Summit of Emmons at about 11:45, including about 15 minutes of idiot time when I unknowingly dropped my map in the ziploc bag and I spent like 15 minutes walking back trying to find it...
The snow on the summit was perfect, hard and crusty, such that following my trail back to Donaldson wasn't as easy as it could of been but a couple of icy ledges, including one tricky one on Emmons that I had to skirt in my snowshoes, I got back to the summer lot at about 4pm and to my car 2.5 miles up around 4:45pm.
Tired but happy... I got a view of Seward on my return but no tracks and no time, however, I did not see the herdpath off to Seward either. I know there was a cairn there when I was there a few years ago... Next time!
Jay
