February 26, 2011, ok why not Marshall?

[BlackSpruce]

A not so early morning gave us warmer than expected temperatures but Gary as usual was stomping at the bit pretending to be cold so he decided to get going even though we still had a good ten minutes to go before our 8AM official start. And pouf he was gone ... out of sight for the rest of the day as it happened! Alex and I had barely time to park the car before Carl and Inge rolled in. Within minutes we were on the trails on our way to Cliff and Redfield via Lake Arnold. Alex and Carl were still with us at Marcy Dam but then moved ahead after that point when a climber on his way out began recounting his previous days misadventure to Inge. As he was heading to Marshall via Indian Pass and up Cold Brook Trail, he fell into the brook and got soaking wet to his knees. He decided to abort his trip and headed down to the Lake Colden Outpost where Margaret kept him for the night so that he could dry and warm up. Even though an experienced winter climber, the experience had left him shaken. When Inge and I arrived at the Avalanche Lake and Lake Arnold Trails intersection neither Carl or Alex where in sight. Knowing my husband’s acute no sense of direction I immediately got worried and went through my usual Inspector Clousot routine. Sure enough the trail towards Lake Arnold had only ski tracks, not an anomaly as there were a large numbers of skiers enjoying the perfect snow conditions. Nevertheless I decided to backtrack a bit and check the trail towards Avalanche Lake and sure enough I quickly spotted Alex’s one-of-a-kind snowshoe imprint! Had Carl been walking behind Alex we would have been chasing after them in a hopeless direction. It’s only upon reaching the shore of Avalanche Lake that we spotted them already almost at the other end of the spectacular pond! They were plenty of people and signs around but of course being men they were neither going to ask for directions or glance at the posted information... Recalling that Cory had told us last weekend that there was a beautiful and heavily travelled path up Herbert Brook – and since Alex, Carl and Inge “needed” Marshall - we decided to head that way figuring that it had only snowed yesterday, mostly fluffy and not that much. Obviously since Gary has completed the Forty-Six 46 times and is now nearing his ninth winter round we were not worried about him finding his way to Cliff and Redfield. At Lake Colden we stopped to say hello to Margaret who told us of coming back to the cabin, and noticing that the woodshed door was ajar. She went in and found the aforementioned climber inside shivering all wrapped up in his space blanket. Margaret said that once inside you could tell that he was completely soaked. We are very fortunate to have dedicated and knowledgeable people such as Margaret and Nate taking turns manning the outpost during the long winter months. With Carl leading the way, we then proceeded across Lake Colden which had no large icy area like Avalanche and soon, 11H15, reached Marshall herdpath. Not only the thread was deep but others were ahead of us. It was not only easy going but peacefully beautiful travelling up Herbert Clark Brook. It was my seventh winter visit to the mountain and having no desire to reach the summit I fully enjoyed every minute of the picture perfect landscape and decided to have lunch at the tiny marsh at 3975’ waiting for the peak baggers. Carl, Inge and Alex were back down within 15 minutes a little bit dejected to have found/smelled someone had just been smoking by the summit sign and thrown the cigarette butt at his/her feet... As we descended the sun came out some, so we went to enjoy the scenery from the new lean-to on Flowed Land, then quickly back on Lake Colden which we toured thoroughly all the while enjoying Colden majestically standing above us. Skiers were plentiful and we even met Ranger Dell who refused to order up a scenic helicopter ride! As Inge and Carl had considered climbing Colden on the way out, we looked for the trail which was broken but the 1.6-mile 1950’ information at the intersection sign immediately killed that idea. Heading towards Avalanche Lake we were in awe noticing among the icy patches and bare rocks areas of the tracks left by skiers who had skied down Colden’s impressive slides while we were leisurely climbing Marshall. We again took our time to savour Avalanche Lake’s dramatic scenery before moving on. We met with Margaret again, now with Ranger Chris, on top of Avalanche Pass which gave us a last rest stop before reaching the Loj area around 5PM. Gary had signed out at 4:25 after climbing Cliff. He reported that Cliff’s cliffs were rather dangerous coming down but that he was lucky since Cindy, Brian and Jack, who had set off much earlier in the morning with the same plan, had gone for Cliff first!