Neil
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Today’s hike would be the third time I would hike the Lower Great Range including Sawteeth. The first was with JoeCedar in 2006 and the second was this summer in June. (7½ hours, 5000 calories burned).
At just before 7 am Spike, Brew and I signed out for the Lower Range. The security guard came out and warned us that a hiker had slipped the day before and hurt himself and he had assisted the rangers in the rescue. The mishap had occurred on the road. I guess if you don’t mind the irony of injuring yourself on the AMR road then it’s the best place possible to require a rescue.
Thus forewarned, we braved the low friction of the road in bare boots. The ice was only present when there was no canopy overhead. We put microspikes on just after crossing Wedge Brook. Up to that point the trail was pretty much bare. We switched to crampons at Wolf Jaw Notch although you would prefer to wear crampons most of the way down the Wedge Brook Trail.
On Lower Wolf Jaw crampons were essential gear and an ice axe was a very handy tool to have. The ice was quite hard although here and there it was surprisingly soft with water flowing across it. We left our packs and poles down below and made the round trip in less than an hour.
Upper Wolf Jaw was a lot harder. It required much greater an effort to make the crampons and axe do their jobs properly. Spike had no axe but he made out fine being tall, thin and young.
I was quite surprised and impressed with the amount, thickness and hardness of the ice. This was my 5th hike since December 21 and each one has been strikingly different from the others. We felt that once we reached the top of Armstrong we would be home-free but then I remembered that one pitch as you start the descent into the Gothics-Pyramid col. I began to fixate on an image of a vertical wall of ice and was increasingly regretting not having brought any rope or webbing. Down in the Arm-Gothics col we stopped for a feeding break. Because I chill immediately when I stop I prefer to carry several zip-locks of cut-up bars of various sorts in my pockets and graze continuously all day. So while Brew and Spike dined I paced back and forth along the trail to generate at least a bit of warmth.
At this point Brew called it quits and said he would hike out very slowly down the Beaver Meadow Falls trail. I suggested it would be easier to descend the Weld trail via Gothics than the never-ending trail off of Armstrong but due to my infusing the outing with my paranoia of the descent towards Pyramid he decided to go with the bird in the hand approach (or is it the “better the devil you know…approach?).
Anyway, it took 10 minutes for my fingers to feel warm and only 20 to reach the summit of Gothics. The suspense was mounting as we headed towards Pyramid and the dreaded pitch turned out to be a cake-walk. (I had been secretly hoping that the sunny exposure would have kept it clean.) Our spirits soared with the realization that we were going to achieve our objective of all 5 summits and not back-track to the Arm-Gothics col. This would put Spike at 23 winter peaks for his 33rd birthday gift and it would put me at 13 for my single season round.
The next thing we knew it was 2:30 and we were snapping pics of everything in sight from Sawteeth’s summit. It was all downhill from there. Roughly 2/3 of the way to the road from the col we switched from crampons to micro-spikes. In the approaching darkness Rainbow Falls seemed to be aglow from within, as if it was phosphorescing stored daylight. I took a dozen pics trying different settings and zooms, including a couple in RAW format.
The most dangerous part of the day was yet to come - the road - that frictionless, down-sloping, serpentine hiker trap. The upper half was dry and we were able to cruise at a good clip and then without warning Spike nearly wiped out. We put up with the nonsense of nearly whiplashing our spines (while carrying microspikes in our hands) for about 6 close calls before taking 30 seconds out of our busy day to put the spikes back on.
We signed out at 5:30 for a 10 ½ hour day with 7250 calories burned (in my case, probably a lot less for Spike) versus 5000 back in June. On the drive home I fell asleep but luckily was not driving.
-PICTURES-
At just before 7 am Spike, Brew and I signed out for the Lower Range. The security guard came out and warned us that a hiker had slipped the day before and hurt himself and he had assisted the rangers in the rescue. The mishap had occurred on the road. I guess if you don’t mind the irony of injuring yourself on the AMR road then it’s the best place possible to require a rescue.
Thus forewarned, we braved the low friction of the road in bare boots. The ice was only present when there was no canopy overhead. We put microspikes on just after crossing Wedge Brook. Up to that point the trail was pretty much bare. We switched to crampons at Wolf Jaw Notch although you would prefer to wear crampons most of the way down the Wedge Brook Trail.
On Lower Wolf Jaw crampons were essential gear and an ice axe was a very handy tool to have. The ice was quite hard although here and there it was surprisingly soft with water flowing across it. We left our packs and poles down below and made the round trip in less than an hour.
Upper Wolf Jaw was a lot harder. It required much greater an effort to make the crampons and axe do their jobs properly. Spike had no axe but he made out fine being tall, thin and young.
I was quite surprised and impressed with the amount, thickness and hardness of the ice. This was my 5th hike since December 21 and each one has been strikingly different from the others. We felt that once we reached the top of Armstrong we would be home-free but then I remembered that one pitch as you start the descent into the Gothics-Pyramid col. I began to fixate on an image of a vertical wall of ice and was increasingly regretting not having brought any rope or webbing. Down in the Arm-Gothics col we stopped for a feeding break. Because I chill immediately when I stop I prefer to carry several zip-locks of cut-up bars of various sorts in my pockets and graze continuously all day. So while Brew and Spike dined I paced back and forth along the trail to generate at least a bit of warmth.
At this point Brew called it quits and said he would hike out very slowly down the Beaver Meadow Falls trail. I suggested it would be easier to descend the Weld trail via Gothics than the never-ending trail off of Armstrong but due to my infusing the outing with my paranoia of the descent towards Pyramid he decided to go with the bird in the hand approach (or is it the “better the devil you know…approach?).
Anyway, it took 10 minutes for my fingers to feel warm and only 20 to reach the summit of Gothics. The suspense was mounting as we headed towards Pyramid and the dreaded pitch turned out to be a cake-walk. (I had been secretly hoping that the sunny exposure would have kept it clean.) Our spirits soared with the realization that we were going to achieve our objective of all 5 summits and not back-track to the Arm-Gothics col. This would put Spike at 23 winter peaks for his 33rd birthday gift and it would put me at 13 for my single season round.
The next thing we knew it was 2:30 and we were snapping pics of everything in sight from Sawteeth’s summit. It was all downhill from there. Roughly 2/3 of the way to the road from the col we switched from crampons to micro-spikes. In the approaching darkness Rainbow Falls seemed to be aglow from within, as if it was phosphorescing stored daylight. I took a dozen pics trying different settings and zooms, including a couple in RAW format.
The most dangerous part of the day was yet to come - the road - that frictionless, down-sloping, serpentine hiker trap. The upper half was dry and we were able to cruise at a good clip and then without warning Spike nearly wiped out. We put up with the nonsense of nearly whiplashing our spines (while carrying microspikes in our hands) for about 6 close calls before taking 30 seconds out of our busy day to put the spikes back on.
We signed out at 5:30 for a 10 ½ hour day with 7250 calories burned (in my case, probably a lot less for Spike) versus 5000 back in June. On the drive home I fell asleep but luckily was not driving.
-PICTURES-
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