Tom Rankin
Well-known member
Well, I lied last time. When we turned around and walked back last time, it took 4 or 5 minutes. But that was from where I thought the herd path was. It turned out that one of our wanderings nearer the stream was actually much closer to the herd path. So, our previous efforts were worth about 10 - 12 minutes of normal forward progress. So........
We started at 6:00 and hit the UpHill lean-to, 7.9 miles later, at 9:15. The trip across the lakes was well broken out and fast. Kerry, Mark, and Linda caught up to us and passed us, but waited for us on Lake Colden. We all took a quick break at the lean-to and then got ready to move out. The trail was broken out by Al K., and others, who used our start up over Spruce Trap Knoll, (a feature that we fell into several times last time), to continue on to the summit. It looks like the snow must have settled down quite a bit, because in places they only sunk in a few inches. However, in other places they still found the bottom of deep traps! We maneuvered our way around these places carefully. Above 4000', the previous crew had forged their own herd path. It must have been quite a bit of work. It did lead straight to the summit, so we thanked them many times for their hard work.
At this point it was only 10:50. For the 4th time this week, we were standing at a summit with dead calm air. The sky was still clear, but we knew the storm was coming. We were all surprised by the views from this summit! We could see Allen across the Valley, just a few feet away!
Many other high peaks could be made out as well, including Skylight, Gray, Marcy, Gothics, the Macs, Marshall, Pinnacles, etc. I suggested the other 3 just 'whack over to Cliff, but they just laughed at me! Neil probably would have said "Sure, let's go!"
We retraced out steps to the car, getting back just after 3:20. We met Matt the Ranger for the 5th time this Winter, as he was just starting out from the Loj for a ski run.
Kerry, Mark, and Linda took a side trip to Cliff, and made it there as well. Way to go guys!
(Boy, I'm getting really behind on posting some of the fabulous pictures Laurie took! One of these days...).
We started at 6:00 and hit the UpHill lean-to, 7.9 miles later, at 9:15. The trip across the lakes was well broken out and fast. Kerry, Mark, and Linda caught up to us and passed us, but waited for us on Lake Colden. We all took a quick break at the lean-to and then got ready to move out. The trail was broken out by Al K., and others, who used our start up over Spruce Trap Knoll, (a feature that we fell into several times last time), to continue on to the summit. It looks like the snow must have settled down quite a bit, because in places they only sunk in a few inches. However, in other places they still found the bottom of deep traps! We maneuvered our way around these places carefully. Above 4000', the previous crew had forged their own herd path. It must have been quite a bit of work. It did lead straight to the summit, so we thanked them many times for their hard work.
At this point it was only 10:50. For the 4th time this week, we were standing at a summit with dead calm air. The sky was still clear, but we knew the storm was coming. We were all surprised by the views from this summit! We could see Allen across the Valley, just a few feet away!
Many other high peaks could be made out as well, including Skylight, Gray, Marcy, Gothics, the Macs, Marshall, Pinnacles, etc. I suggested the other 3 just 'whack over to Cliff, but they just laughed at me! Neil probably would have said "Sure, let's go!" We retraced out steps to the car, getting back just after 3:20. We met Matt the Ranger for the 5th time this Winter, as he was just starting out from the Loj for a ski run.
Kerry, Mark, and Linda took a side trip to Cliff, and made it there as well. Way to go guys!
(Boy, I'm getting really behind on posting some of the fabulous pictures Laurie took!
One of these days...).
