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This turned out to be a very interesting hike after all. "After all" because I assumed I would be doing it solo and planned accordingly. Then mid-week Randomscooter lets me know he's coming and soon thereafter lines up JoeCedar and Pin-Pin to "tag along" - yeah ,right. Then Doug says he's coming. Finally, on Friday I get word from Rik that he and Eric will probably be coming too. So now with Friday's new snow on top of a packed but likely not very firm trail I was very happy to have my personal trail breaking army lined up.
6:30 at the trailhead and JoeCedar shows up and that's all. We wait for a while and sign out as a party of 3 at 7:00. (Doug had PM'd the night before to say he was stuck at work and Pin-Pin wanted to add Colvin/Blake so he was going to do the loop in the opposite direction and had said to leave without him.)
The trip up the road was silent winter beauty and we followed fresh prints as far as the turn to the Arm/Gothics col. A lone set of prints from the night before led us to the campsite on Gill Brook and from there we were on our own in about 6'' of fresh snow. The day had a heavy feel to it and new snow was falling. By the time we made Elk Pass there was between 6 and 12'' of snow which remained constant up to the summit. The trail was usually discernable but barely. You knew when you went off it, right away.
I was expecting the worst for the climb up to Nippletop but we took our time and much to Tom's content, rotated the leader with military regularity (or shall I say precision?). The snow was slightly wind packed so there was little backslipping. The light was beautiful. One of those glows you get with clouds all around but directly overhead very thin cover and occasional blue sky.
Up at the junction we were pleased to have arrived before Alain and headed up to the summit. The clouds were lifting and we had some views although Dix was still covered. Back at the junction we met and chatted briefly with Alain. Now we would have his trail and vice versa. We reflected on the fact that he left after us, was alone and had broken trail all the way up the Leach trail, over Noonmark's shoulder, over Bear Den and Dial and then climbed 600 more feet in 2.2 miles to our position.
Off we went to Dial and who do we meet en route but the rest of the army - Rik and Eric. I had mentioned earlier that I should have checked my PM box from Tom's house and Tom had theorized that if they got a late start they probably did Dial first. Sure enough Rik had PM'd saying our start time was too early for the new papa, Eric. Now we all had a much better trail. The skies improved and we had views of the Dix Slides, the Range from Dial and the Giant slides. The next big feature was the burn on Noonmark and it made my day. The wind was blowing hard, the views were extraordinary, we were warm and dry and it was all downhill from there on out.
The toughest section of the hike was the final mile on the road. Suddenly I had sore hips, a sore foot and my knee hurt.
All in all it was another fantastic day spent outdoors. Thanks everybody who was a part of it.
Pictures.
6:30 at the trailhead and JoeCedar shows up and that's all. We wait for a while and sign out as a party of 3 at 7:00. (Doug had PM'd the night before to say he was stuck at work and Pin-Pin wanted to add Colvin/Blake so he was going to do the loop in the opposite direction and had said to leave without him.)
The trip up the road was silent winter beauty and we followed fresh prints as far as the turn to the Arm/Gothics col. A lone set of prints from the night before led us to the campsite on Gill Brook and from there we were on our own in about 6'' of fresh snow. The day had a heavy feel to it and new snow was falling. By the time we made Elk Pass there was between 6 and 12'' of snow which remained constant up to the summit. The trail was usually discernable but barely. You knew when you went off it, right away.
I was expecting the worst for the climb up to Nippletop but we took our time and much to Tom's content, rotated the leader with military regularity (or shall I say precision?). The snow was slightly wind packed so there was little backslipping. The light was beautiful. One of those glows you get with clouds all around but directly overhead very thin cover and occasional blue sky.
Up at the junction we were pleased to have arrived before Alain and headed up to the summit. The clouds were lifting and we had some views although Dix was still covered. Back at the junction we met and chatted briefly with Alain. Now we would have his trail and vice versa. We reflected on the fact that he left after us, was alone and had broken trail all the way up the Leach trail, over Noonmark's shoulder, over Bear Den and Dial and then climbed 600 more feet in 2.2 miles to our position.
Off we went to Dial and who do we meet en route but the rest of the army - Rik and Eric. I had mentioned earlier that I should have checked my PM box from Tom's house and Tom had theorized that if they got a late start they probably did Dial first. Sure enough Rik had PM'd saying our start time was too early for the new papa, Eric. Now we all had a much better trail. The skies improved and we had views of the Dix Slides, the Range from Dial and the Giant slides. The next big feature was the burn on Noonmark and it made my day. The wind was blowing hard, the views were extraordinary, we were warm and dry and it was all downhill from there on out.
The toughest section of the hike was the final mile on the road. Suddenly I had sore hips, a sore foot and my knee hurt.
All in all it was another fantastic day spent outdoors. Thanks everybody who was a part of it.
Pictures.
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