BlackSpruce
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- Sep 8, 2003
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According to Russell M. L. Carson, Couchsachraga was one of the four great hunting grounds of the Iroquois. In 2010 it is all shameless peak baggers list hunting the mountain towering over the Cold River. Knowing that it was only a matter of putting one foot in front of the other we left the parking lot ready to bag all three before dark. Well, one is allowed dreaming even though I believe that it was an easier climb back up Times Square in the 1920s when Couch was sitting at 4000’. With all the pounding of the last few decades the summit now packed down to 3820’ offers tolerable* views which explain why climbers, the rare few suffering from extreme winter peak bagging, summit Couch West. Oh, it’s a mere .6-mile away down 670’ and up 210’ from Couch’s perch but one has to return. It certainly would be much less climbing from the valley but being 15 miles away from the Sewards summer trailhead along a seldom travelled route in summer and likely deserted at this time of year much trail breaking would have to be expected.
The dream team was made of Gary and Inge on their 7th winter visit, Kerry on 3rd, Alex on 2nd, I on 5th and the only sane of mind, Carl and Brian. on their 1st. Once near TS we soon realized that while a St. Gabriel farmer is proud of his corn maze a fair number of winter climbers worked on their own Santanoni Ridge labyrinth the last few weeks! Lucky for us (been there done that) we did not circle around for long before heading to Panther via the most beautiful path ever. Above 3800’ there is more snow on the trees than on the ground making for an extraordinary ``cathedral`` landscape. The surrounding splendours make for extremely tough going for trailbreakers. All day we kept marvelling at the gang who the previous week had opened a route to Panther and to Couch. Later, back to TS, we didn’t find the broken path to Santanoni, but anyway we were too late and too tired to insist.
While the rest of our group was already heading up and out from the Couchsashraga’s “great and dismal wilderness”, Alex, Brian and I arrived at the summit at the same time as Pierre (Oncoman)who sort of came out of a spruce trap from behind the summit tree. Pierre was quite a sight. When he told us that the views from Couch West were awesome we all thought: “Yeah, sure!”. Drenched as if he had just gone for a swim he looked like a man who had drifted off and finally arrived on a deserted island. To his credit within a few minutes he had his self back and appeared to be almost ready for more of the same. Being reasonable he only headed out via TS and kept a Henderson North visit for the next day!
What a bummer, we all thought we were tough but Pierre reminded us that we were just lucky vultures!
PS: ``Tolerable views`` is James R. Burnside’s rating in his delightful book Exploring the 46 High Peaks.
The dream team was made of Gary and Inge on their 7th winter visit, Kerry on 3rd, Alex on 2nd, I on 5th and the only sane of mind, Carl and Brian. on their 1st. Once near TS we soon realized that while a St. Gabriel farmer is proud of his corn maze a fair number of winter climbers worked on their own Santanoni Ridge labyrinth the last few weeks! Lucky for us (been there done that) we did not circle around for long before heading to Panther via the most beautiful path ever. Above 3800’ there is more snow on the trees than on the ground making for an extraordinary ``cathedral`` landscape. The surrounding splendours make for extremely tough going for trailbreakers. All day we kept marvelling at the gang who the previous week had opened a route to Panther and to Couch. Later, back to TS, we didn’t find the broken path to Santanoni, but anyway we were too late and too tired to insist.
While the rest of our group was already heading up and out from the Couchsashraga’s “great and dismal wilderness”, Alex, Brian and I arrived at the summit at the same time as Pierre (Oncoman)who sort of came out of a spruce trap from behind the summit tree. Pierre was quite a sight. When he told us that the views from Couch West were awesome we all thought: “Yeah, sure!”. Drenched as if he had just gone for a swim he looked like a man who had drifted off and finally arrived on a deserted island. To his credit within a few minutes he had his self back and appeared to be almost ready for more of the same. Being reasonable he only headed out via TS and kept a Henderson North visit for the next day!
What a bummer, we all thought we were tough but Pierre reminded us that we were just lucky vultures!
PS: ``Tolerable views`` is James R. Burnside’s rating in his delightful book Exploring the 46 High Peaks.
