Gray, Skylight and Redfield walkabout, March 5, 09

[BlackSpruce]

As the weatherman was making wonderful promises Gary and I decided it was high time to go for the loop we had dreamed about for a while. From Lake Arnold we broke trail in various amount of windblown snow all the way to Redfield summit but always above a hard base. Gray offered us blue sky, hot sun and sticky snow. Still it wasn’t that hard to carry some of it to the snowfields of the summit ridge. The sign was under the snow and the marker barely above, which meant we were standing on about 8 feet of packed powder. Then down we went for a lunch being served right on time along the shore of Lake Tear. As we left Lake Tear it became clear that I had made the wrong choice being in front for Skylight instead of Gray, from then on till the tree line the wind had blown a good foot of wavy snow on this Northern slope. We touched Colvin’s bolt to make sure we could count the summit for one of our list and immediately headed towards Redfield. A bit of a way, still in the hard packed snowfields, with complete views of the Moss Pond valley with Redfield towering over -1.2-mile, down 655' and up 335'- we held a power meeting regarding the way we would attempt to travel -considering that a visit to Moss Pond was priority number one. Gary, always ready to break trail down, forged ahead in the now rather tight forest. He did a good job scouting the handful of spruce traps we encountered but didn’t seem to appreciate the job much for what I heard every time… About a quarter of a mile from the pond, well rested and having soaked up all the “new-to-me” views I took over the trail breaking, lucky me within 5 minutes we were in much more open territory and got to the pond without delay. Still having the luxury of time we enjoyed the site and its spectacular views of Marcy. The 150’ ascent from the pond to Redfield summit ridge snowfield was a tough contract. The snow was surprisingly deep, it’s very steep at first and tree hugging is a must. Once on the ridge it was a very welcome easy sailing to the summit of Redfield where we found a recently broken herd path down to the Uphill Brook lean-to. Back at our cars 12.5 hours later not only had Gary completed his 34th round of the 46 but we had already decided that next time we will let go of Gray.