Skylight and Gray, from Flowed Lands camp, 6/20/09

DreamFarmer · Jun 22, 2009

As it turned out, Mtnlady and I were both at peak #41 and both had Skylight and Gray on our lists to do. So, we made the plan to get these 2 peaks while camping at Flowed Lands.
Hike in Friday and camp, “easy day” Saturday getting 2 peaks, camp Saturday, hike out Sunday. Good plan, but of course nothing was easy.
Hiking in from Flowed lands went smooth. Mtnlady was ahead of me by 2 hours and I thought for sure she would get a L/T. I left my tent in the car, didn’t get a L/T and slept on the ground for 2 nights under my tarp.
The mosquitoes were bothersome so I wore my head net to bed and sprayed around my neck where it poked though the opening in the sleeping bag.
I think we were hiking by 6 the next morning as the rain held off and the bugs were gone.
We spent a lot of energy and time jumping around mud-puddles for the whole day and I think this was mentally and physically tiring.
The clouds were low and we couldn’t see much of Mt Colden when we got to the Dam.
We proceeded on , with optimism that the clouds would blow away by the time we summited. The temperature was nice, no bugs, and everything smelled rich and wonderful . Sometimes I would get clobbered by that balsam smell-it was lovely.
On the way up to the Uphill L/T, we started seeing the occasional bear track, then frequently. One of the last ones we saw was a little one, inside a bigger one. We hoped we may be following them and we would get a glimpse, but no such luck.
We took a break at the Uphill L/T and were visited by a friendly Pine Martin. While we were there another hiker stopped in who was staying there by himself. He had just finished Redfield and we would see him on Gray too. He had a great Tattoo !
From the Uphill L/T we proceeded to the trail to 4 corners and headed up. This was all new territory for me and Mtnlady and it was neat to finally see Lake Tear of the Clouds where we took a break and chatted with 3 dudes from Ottawa who were lugging giant packs up and over Marcy to camp somewhere.
The trail up to Gray is right at the end of Lake Tear which we decided to do first. That climb had one pretty dangerous spot to negotiate. It reminded me of Cliff or Colvin where you have to use hands and feet . I had dropped my pack before I headed up and was happy I did. We waited at the top for the clouds to open but they never did.
At 12:30 we headed down and were happy to get by the “bad spot” and on our way to 4 corners and Skylight.
We were expecting the climb to Skylight from 4 corners to be similar to Gray but it wasn’t. It was pure delight instead. As we got higher and higher we were wondering when it would start to running into the poopy stuff but it was smooth sailing right up to treeline. We were so delighted. We hit the summit by 1:45 and hung out for an hour waiting for views to open up. It was calm and the sun was warming us up through the clouds even though you could barely see it. We could see far enough around to see all the exposed rock on the top but not much further and it was dead quiet except for an occasional chickadee.Once, the views opened towards Colden and Gray but it lasted for less than a minute.
It was a nice time and place.
After we left it was just the usual “grind it out” back down to the bottom. You move faster but you know you are working. We took breaks as needed and appreciated how lucky we were to not get rained on, have few bugs, good temperature and oh yeah, 43 peaks each. About 4 PM we encountered a father and son just beginning to climb from the intersection near Feldspar L/T and they said they were heading for Skylight. They had finished Redfield already. Sounded like a little late in the day for that so I asked if they had their headlamps. I got sort of a weird look and a hesitant “yeah”. I hope they made it or turned around.
We were beat when we got back to camp around 6PM but we changed and fired up some Raeman Noodles . Conked out by 8 PM, up at 4:30 AM and out ! Great weekend, even if there were no views. Mtnlady is good company, tough , and easy on the eyes !