kltilton
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2004
- Messages
- 398
- Reaction score
- 47
I was planning on spending part of my vacation near Stowe, VT to do some cross-country skiing, but the snow conditions did not cooperate. I decided to go over to visit my aunt anyways, so I headed up to the Long Trail to try and bag The Chin on Mt. Mansfield.
I had a feeling my snowshoes wouldn’t really help me much, but plain old running shoe weren’t going to cut it. I made a pair of screw shoes (http://skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm) to help me get up the mountain. They worked quite well up to the Taft lodge where the trail had been packed out quite a bit. As I started to get closer to tree line there was about four inches of fresh snow which made the going a little slower. The approach to Eagle Pass isn’t very steep though, so breaking through the powder was the only tough part.
After reaching Eagle Pass I started to ascend the Chin but found very early on that I wouldn’t be able to make it without crampons. There was one pitch that was all snow, but just too steep. I was only a quarter of a mile form the summit, but was almost at my turnaround time of 1h 10m. I snapped a couple of photos and made my way back down.
This is where the screw shoes proved there worth. Having a few screws in the heel gave me just enough traction that I could lean back and glissade where I needed to. The trip up took me 68 minutes, the trip down only took me 28 minutes! It was fun to do some mountain running in another state on such a nice day.
Photos
I had a feeling my snowshoes wouldn’t really help me much, but plain old running shoe weren’t going to cut it. I made a pair of screw shoes (http://skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm) to help me get up the mountain. They worked quite well up to the Taft lodge where the trail had been packed out quite a bit. As I started to get closer to tree line there was about four inches of fresh snow which made the going a little slower. The approach to Eagle Pass isn’t very steep though, so breaking through the powder was the only tough part.
After reaching Eagle Pass I started to ascend the Chin but found very early on that I wouldn’t be able to make it without crampons. There was one pitch that was all snow, but just too steep. I was only a quarter of a mile form the summit, but was almost at my turnaround time of 1h 10m. I snapped a couple of photos and made my way back down.
This is where the screw shoes proved there worth. Having a few screws in the heel gave me just enough traction that I could lean back and glissade where I needed to. The trip up took me 68 minutes, the trip down only took me 28 minutes! It was fun to do some mountain running in another state on such a nice day.
Photos
