U
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The weather was so good, I forgot about poor spring conditions.
We went up via Cascade Brook and down via Beaver Meadow Brook. The snow appeared on the way up shortly after the lookout for Rainbow Falls (which was spectacularly living up to its name). We started with gaiters and stabilicers, moved on the snowshoes and poles when the snow deepened. After the right turn at the fork (left goes to Sawteeth) we should have put on crampons because there are some very steep parts and snowshoes just don't provide enough traction. There's one area with a steep drop-off which I wasn't thrilled about. At Pyramid Peak (stunning views) we changed to crampons. From the summit along the traverse to the descent it's not obvious what to put on your feet because it's rock alternating with ice and snow. We kept our crampons on and managed fine. The trail down was annoying. There's no real monorail and at some point after post holing 10 steps in a row, we changed to snowshoes. However we were still post holing with the snowshoes and again the trail was too steep and slick and the snowshoes didn't provide enough traction, so after about a minute we changed back to crampons. It was a long and tiring descent. I spoke to someone, who was wearing the mini-crampons, who descended the trail we came up and he was post holing a lot too on his descent.
All this to say that it's a great hike, but next time I'll do it either in winter or late summer or fall. The views on the top are stupendous, but trail conditions were tiring.
K
We went up via Cascade Brook and down via Beaver Meadow Brook. The snow appeared on the way up shortly after the lookout for Rainbow Falls (which was spectacularly living up to its name). We started with gaiters and stabilicers, moved on the snowshoes and poles when the snow deepened. After the right turn at the fork (left goes to Sawteeth) we should have put on crampons because there are some very steep parts and snowshoes just don't provide enough traction. There's one area with a steep drop-off which I wasn't thrilled about. At Pyramid Peak (stunning views) we changed to crampons. From the summit along the traverse to the descent it's not obvious what to put on your feet because it's rock alternating with ice and snow. We kept our crampons on and managed fine. The trail down was annoying. There's no real monorail and at some point after post holing 10 steps in a row, we changed to snowshoes. However we were still post holing with the snowshoes and again the trail was too steep and slick and the snowshoes didn't provide enough traction, so after about a minute we changed back to crampons. It was a long and tiring descent. I spoke to someone, who was wearing the mini-crampons, who descended the trail we came up and he was post holing a lot too on his descent.
All this to say that it's a great hike, but next time I'll do it either in winter or late summer or fall. The views on the top are stupendous, but trail conditions were tiring.
K
