Why the CAIC isn't always right: Mt Sneffels 14,150'

Peak:

Mt. Sneffels - 14,150 feet

End Result: Lots of fun and experience gained but no attempt on summit from Lower TH
Elevation Gain: 3,000 Ft.
Total Mileage: 10
Climbers: Micah (me), Matt, Ben
This will be rather long, but I hope to point out what types of safety calls we were constantly having to make and how our due diligence most definitely prevented us from any fatalities. While this may be boring for the experienced snow winter/spring mountaineer, it may be very valuable for the less experienced while providing great beta for those looking for a shot at this mountain.
I normally don't post TR's with failed attempts, but in this case I feel that I can provide some good beta and would say that I don't feel as bad when there are conditions out of my control preventing the bagging of a summit which is always just a bonus to me on top of the Zen that these trips usually provide.
My normal routine this winter has been to seek out peaks 1-2 weeks in advance and do all of the necessary research and acquire partners as necessary. To be honest, the hardest part always seems to be talking someone into going. If it was summer, I would be more likely to solo, but not in winter. Two weeks ago, not realizing that this was Easter weekend, I decided to plan a trip for Sneffels this weekend, hoping for my first Ski descent this spring. I choose the Lavender Couloir route for skiing with a avy danger backup of the class 3 ridge route both from Yankee Boy Basin. I got Matt on board from the start and then Ben, my brother-in-law, who hardly gets to come on trips calls me up and asked my mountain climbing schedule. I invited him along to Sneffels knowing that my tent only holds three. Without more partners and another worthy tent, I was forced to kick the dog out. A couple of days later, we realize that we have planned a trip over Easter. I thought this would never fly with the wives, but sure enough they let us go (this will probably never happen again).
On Tuesday, I called the Ouray Sherriff who told me that there was 26" new snow from the previous few days and that CR361 (Camp Bird road) was usually plowed to at least camp Bird. I then called Telluride Ski patrol, knowing they were nearby to see what kind of Avalanche activity they were experiencing. They said just minimal slide activity and recommended that I call Helitrax who guides Heli and Cat skiing in the area. Helitrax told me that the snow was surprisingly stable up in the Imogene area but that they hadn't seen Yankee Boy Basin. They had been throwing bombs out and couldn't even cause any slides but said to caution to the coming storm.
Matt and I went over to Ben's the Wednesday night before to lay out gear and ensure that we weren't bringing double and unnecessary gear as well as that everyone had the proper gear. I like to see what my partners are carrying and it keeps me accountable for having the right equipment as well. As a failed miss-communication attempt on my part, Ben did not have any of his gear ready. He was under the assumption that Matt and I were showing him our gear. I was not happy with this as he was not willing to grab his gear as we went through everything. He insisted that he had everything and would get it packed in time. While he ended up not missing anything pertinent, I was very uncomfortable with this.
Anyhow, Friday came with the report of increased CAIC conditions to Orange for the Northern San Juans and the report of the largely loved climbing guide being in an avy death only 10 miles from Sneffels peak. This scared the crap out of me but I decided that we would go to scout things out if anything and proceed with extreme caution. We left Colorado Springs at around 4:30 PM with our sights set on making it to Ouray and as far up CR361 as Ben's 4runner could make it.
3 miles down the road and we were still only driving in the freshest 4" of snow. What happened to the forecasted 12-16? We saw a humongous recent slide.
You can't tell from the pic, but some of the snow blocks were larger than our vehicle and the runout was no kidding about 30' deep. This is very spooky to see in the dark. Another half mile down the road and we run into this

Thrown off by how scary that seemed, we decided to sleep in the car (parked in a safe position clear of avy danger) and re-evaluate our trip in the morning. 0630 Rolled around eventually and we woke up to about 8" of new snow overnight. For sure it was a bad idea at that point to make an attempt on the summit with the new loading. With low hopes, we decided to venture past the sign with no packs for a small hike and a gander to see what lay ahead around the corner. With a half mile trek down the road, we were pretty happy with the recently plowed roads minus the previous night's snow and made our way back to the car. Our new plan was to just have a fun hiking trip and possibly a summit if conditions permitted. All members of the party were involved in the decision as with all of our decisions to come. After making some oatmeal for breakfast, we departed at about 0930 AM on Saturday. We decided not to carry skis and snowboards as the conditions didn't seem right. A short while later, we made it back to our half-mile point with unknown conditions ahead. While this next photo looks scary, it was rather safe. There wasn't much snow above it to slide and the tractors had cut the road for us for the next 4 miles.

Yep. That's right. I said 4 miles. We didn't have to wear snowshoes for the first 4 miles up CR361 from the sign because the plows have been maintaining all season long. What a treat after slogging in waist deep sugar through the Sawatch all season long. Finally, the sun came over the ridge.

Up that first 4 miles, the trail was for the most part safe, we had cliffs to the right and a valley to the left. Our only real worry was ice falling off from above.

Soon after, we made it to the infamous "c" cut out of the rocks for the road.

Just passed the C, you see why the Ice festival is in Ouray,

Having just trained for and run a half marathon in 1:50:02 in Gateway, CO in late March, I was feeling good. I lost 15lbs and was carrying my lightest snow climbing/camping pack of the season. I wasn't even kicking that hard and I was having to wait for my partners. You can't blame them though and I was not upset. I was just feeling good. Matt is still recovering from 10 fractures in his heel less than a year ago and Ben is a father of 3 and holds two jobs. I was just happy to be out here in this beauty with unknown territory ahead. The adventure was really feeling great so far.

While deeply buried, there was actually an emergency call box up here. I noted this in the case that I would have to use it later on.

Another pic of the road up after it turns to CR26 . Can anyone name that peak in the upper right?

How about now? It is the same peak?

Making it to our 4 mile point. We reached the green colored cabin with security cameras and had to make a decision to split left or right in front of that peak. We donned snowshoes and didn't consult the maps. It appeared that the road only went up the basin to the left. We all were sure left was the way to go. We began to take turns cutting trail at 200 steps each and trading off. By the time my second lead came up, I was feeling great and my partners were beginning to fade fast with their energy levels. I just kicking 250…300…350…400…450 steps. I could have kept kicking and felt great but I wanted to share some of the work so I didn't also wear out. Shortly after my lead, I was beginning to doubt our decision to turn left. The terrain didn't look right. It didn't look like the maps. We could see the end of the basin and at 11,350 feet there was no Lower Trailhead with a bathroom and no where else to go that made sense without climbing a peak that was clearly not above 13,500'.

We finally checked the GPS after 1,000 feet or so of elevation gain and a mile of trekking in snowshoes. This is a good time to note that I had not seen even one natural avalanche up to this point. I was constantly testing snow everywhere and was very happy with the results. With tired and saddened partners, I led us back down the mile and 1,000' to where the split was to go up to Yankee Boy Basin. It was 2:30 by this point and the outlook of reaching the 12,400' upper TH was looking grim. I felt up to pushing but my partners were growing weary. We sat down about an hour for some mash potatoes and green beans lunch and made a shelter from a footprint. At 3:30ish we made our way to the lower TH. I laid most of the track for the next mile and 1000' or so elevation gain or so past the lower TH. Both other guys did a good amount of cutting, but I felt the best and didn't mind. Somewhere past the lower TH, my partners were saying we need to make camp. I wanted to press on but also knew that it wasn't good to press those who are tired. This never turns out well. We finally picked our spot and began to dig in. The snow was coming out in almost perfect blocks. We dug down about 5' a giant hole to fit the tent, and a firepit with ice benches around the outside. An hour or so later, we had a fortress and enough wood for a small fire for about an hour. The snow was unbelievably deep.
Matt getting out supplies for cooking dinner-

Me making some water to top off all of our nalgenes and for dinner and hot tea. Warm drinks and food warm the soul. My newly purchased 700 fill puff from the Garage sale also warmed my soul.

Ben and I sitting in front of the tent ready for a fire.

Dinner and the fire came and went. (we had to make vent holes for oxygen for the fire by poking holes from the top of the snow down into the pit with a probe and then trekking poles. We climbed into the tent right at about dusk and had hot tea and played Go Fish with my miniature card deck. After seeing Sgladbach's idea of a sunrise summit on Easter, that was our original plan. Due to unknown conditions, we opted to not go for that option. Throughout the night we heard fierce wind (we were glad we were below the surface in our cozy 4 season 2+ man tent. We also heard several avalanches. There were at least 10 definite occasions that we could hear activity. 5:30 rolled around and we discussed the plan of the day. If the wind was this fierce at 11,400', what was it going to be like at 14,150? Was it worth it with the avy conditions? We have beacons, probes, and shovels but that doesn't mean we want to use them. Those are just insurance in my mind. Knowing that even in optimal conditions a summit was unlikely due to the fact that we were not starting from the upper TH, I was ready to call it. My partners also agreed that a summit wasn't in our cards this trip. We decided to sleep in for a couple of hours until 0730 or so and then had an oatmeal breakfast.
I have been keeping my boots uncomfortably in my bag all winter and haven't liked it. This time we decided to experiment and leave them out in the vestibule. We still kept water and fuel within to keep them from freezing. Well, our boots were frozen solid in the morning. I stuck mine in my bag for the last hour and the other 2 gents didn't . Mine thawed rather quickly while icing my legs. At least they were easier to put on. The others had problems getting theirs on and with the cold for a good hour after putting them on. Mine felt great. I would say an hour of bag time was great and I didn't have to suffer the night with those giants. With an entire day ahead of us and nothing to do but hike out, we decided to try our luck at a snow cave. Matt and I have been wanting to do this all season but haven't had the right snow. This snow was perfect. We began to dig and dig and take turns digging and breaking down and packing camp.

An hour or so of work later, we had the start to a great 3 man snow cave. We decided not to go all of the way to finishing because we weren't going to really use it. Although after digging in, we all wished we did this the evening before and slept in there. We rounded the inside for strength but didn't smooth things down which will make the thing drip all night. The vent holes from the firepit ended up all 3 being inside. What we didn't do was level the floor and then make an entrance that you have to crawl up into. We just had a gaping hole. The snow was over 8' deep right here. I know because I dug to the ground. That is so much snow.
After a while, Matt spotted a couple of animals making use of our new man cave.

It was a nice 32 degrees inside

And we all cut out custom seats and headrests

Now the snowcaving escapade was over and it was time to return to the car. I used sunscreen on my face the day prior and the other two didn't. The result was that their faces looked like plums. After us all donning our sunscreen, we set off. The scenery was beautiful.



You can tell how fierce the night time winds were. Our tracks were almost completely blown in.

Looking around at all of the slide activity, we were concerned but happy we didn't decide to go for a summit. If there were this many small scale natural slides, I could only imagine the size and magnitude of a slide triggered by one of us.

Here is one small slide that wasn't there the day fefore


Ok WARNING!!!!!!!!!, this is where things get a bit weird. The sun was just so warm, I couldn't resist. You can't go on an adventure with mountainmicah83 without experiencing the strangest things. 2 strange mountain men (one in Scooby doo chonies) came out of the woods ready for a fight. (Yes they put on sunscreen everywhere.) This was only an hour or so from the car and an interesting way to get a tan. I can't believe I'm posting this…

Passing back by the popsicle section, we proceeded with caution. 2 of the larger than human icicles broke off while we watched. (No we didn't walk under any).

The last part, I didn't get a photo of but about ¼ mile before the car there were the huge popsicles that were much higher up and breaking off. We put on helmets and proceeded with extreme caution, knowing that one of those could easily kill one or all of us. 10 minutes after making the car, a giant one actually broke free and crashed down and rained ice for a good 30 seconds. That would surely have made it a bad day. Happy to be alive, we got one more pic of the mountain men that tagged along.

On the way out, I grabbed a photo of the runout of a new slide that didn't exist a day and a half prior. Scary!!!.

I wonder why they call Ouray "Little Switzerland."

With no photos of our trip to Ouray hotsprings (that rents swimsuits) and the Ouray Brewery (which was closed till 4:30 but still let us in for a drink, we were on our way home. We picked up Ben #2 who said he was Ben #1 in Montrose and dropped him off in Buena Vista. Normally, I wouldn't do this alone but with 2 pistols and 3 able bodied young men, we weren't too worried. Ben #2/#1 had some great stories of his 35+ years of bumming around. He said he wasn't able to get a job in Durango and was headed to somewhere near Steamboat. We shared a PBR or 2 with him and let him out in Buena Vista and finished our trek home.

All in all, It was a great and fun trip even without a summit. I feel we made smart decisions and I will now live to go back and climb it again another day. Any takers???

Thanks for reading.

See you at the top!

Fear and Loathing Winter Redemption: La Plata Peak 14,336'

Peaks:

La Plata Peak - 14,336 feet

6-7 Feb La Plata First attempt called at 13,300' due to weather conditions (Matt and Micah)
19-21 Feb Shavano attempt called at 12,200' due to black avalanche conditions (Matt, Sean, and Micah)
28 Feb- Shavano gear recovery mission (Micah, Matt, Baz)
13 Mar- La Plata Success (Micah, Jeremy, Baz)

The plan at the beginning of this year was to bag at least 1 14er summit in every calendar month. Note the term "at least" because spring, summer, and fall will obviously be more peaks. With success and a fun trip climbing Kelso Ridge at night, camping on the summit of Torreys, and bagging Greys the next day in January, the year was off to a good start.
Then came February. Even with starting off with the first week in February, I had no success with my goal that month. It doesn't help that I have had college classes every other Sat until noon. Why go to college? All of this gear is friggin expensive and has to be paid for.
Like many times, my friend Matt and I over-aspired and decided that we wanted to conquer the coveted route of Ellingwood ridge in calendar winter. While I am confident in our abilities that we have the skills and are fully capable, our first mistake was that we attempted this on one of those weekends that I had school. We arrived at the La Plata TH at about 3:30 and were on foot by about 4:30 PM on Sat 6 Feb to find some of Matt's church friends that just finished snowshoeing at the TH. This was awesome because it wasn't planned. You must understand that along with camping gear, and winter gear, we were required to carry mountaineering ropes, harnesses and some other climbing accessories to weigh us down.

Our goal was to make treeline by dark, and the top of the ridge at about 12,700 before bedding down for a night bivy. From there we would take 1-2 days to conquer the ridge, summit La Plata and return via the standard winter Northwest Ridge route. After departing and just boot packing down the first ½ mile or so of road and ½ mile or so of trail, we arrived at the point where the standard trail took a hard right and we began to cut our own trail. For anyone that hasn't been in the Sawatch this season, the snow is super fluffy. No matter that we had snowshoes, this was one of the last pictures before the pain started.

After this, we were sinking up to our thighs trying to get to treeline under the start of Ellingwood ridge. With only 2 people to cut trail, our body temps were super high with our fast beating pulses. After a while, the darkness set in and we could see based off of our progress that we were still at least a good full hour to treeline. Because we did not meet our goal of treeline by dark, we decided to call off Ellingwood ridge. 2 good hours of hard sweating and we had to bail. We decided to go for the standard winter ridge route and instead of cutting hours of new trail, we decided to return via our freshly cut trail back to the main trail some 2 miles back. The return was easy going and we made it back in about 45 minutes. From there, with our new plans, we continued ascent on our newly cut trail looking for the flatter contour area on the ridge around 11,500'.

Eventually, we made our campsite, stomped out the area, set up the tent and built a fire. After awaking at daybreak and having some backpacker's pantry biscuits and gravy, we made our way towards treeline. You know you are getting close when you look back at the other mountains and you appear to be level with tree line over there.

Arriving at the treeline crux, there were a couple of guys with a beautiful husky that were packing up that had summited the evening before. It appeared that their route on the "crux" worked well for them so we decided to trace their line. It was a beautiful morning. We ditched our snowshoes under where it got steep and switched into crampons and we were off.


As soon as we gained the top of the crux, we were slammed with heavy 35+ MPH winds.

We did get this awesome view of our coveted Ellingwood ridge.

We pressed along this abnormally long ridge as the wind levels increased until we arrived at about 13,300'. To the north weather looked great.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any pics but the reason we turned back was because the winds picked up so strong we could barely stand and there were dark clouds appearing to be moving fast from the south west. Neither one of us felt like being stuck in a blizzard so we called it. Now 1000' from the summit and we were bailing. I can't believe it. We took some bummed out self portraits and made our hasty descent.


Fairly fast, we returned to our camp at 11,500. After a beer, we packed up.

With no success, we returned home recharged with the zen from the mountains, but a longing for redemption.


As a break from La Plata, Matt, Sean and I planned our next trip to leave Colorado springs on 19 Feb (Friday) after work. As it turns out, this was one of the biggest snow storms of the season. We leave Colorado Springs at around 7 PM on Friday and head for Buena Vista. Figuring we were already late, we decided to stop into Eddyline to see what all of the fuss has been about. Unfortunately, we were not very impressed. We were expecting a brew pub type atmosphere and we discovered a restaurant. Our next step was to order a beer. Sean and I ordered Ambers and Matt ordered the Porter. The porter had hops and you could see through it and it did not even somewhattaste like a porter. It was more like a weak IPA. Being unimpressed with the beer, we made the command decision not to stick around for an expensive pizza and risk being further disappointed. We stopped at City Market because it was the only place open after 8PM in the town and got some day old Jo Jo fries and fried chicken for dinner at a discounted price. Finally, after a long and snowy drive, we arrive at the point in the road where we can't drive any farther in my wife's Honda CR-V at 3 miles from the summer TH. We pack our gear and are ready to step off as two other guys show up in a Subaru. They decide to camp at the trailhead for a ski/ride down the angel the following day. With already 8+ fresh inches of snow we began down the road.

It was snowing so hard, having a headlamp on was blinding as the beam reflected off of the snow came down. The front man had to hike using light from behind. We hiked 2.2 miles before deciding to call it a night at .8 miles from the summer trailhead. Thank God we had my new (to me) 4 season mountain hardwear 2 man tent. The three of us setup and crashed for the night. We awoke at daybreak, made our water and oatmeal and stepped off. The other 2 dudes passed by about 20 minutes before we stepped off and we caught up to them at the summer TH. It was still snowing hard and never let up. With 5 of us to cut trail, we made our slow progress toward the top of the mountain. Once again, the snow was agonizing averaging thigh deep the entire time. By 4 PM, we made it to about 11,700 where the other 2 guys made their hasty descent and we setup camp for the night. With a fire to dry off and 2 rounds of dinner, we hit the sack with hopes for a couple of summits the next morning. Sunday we woke up, readied our equipment and stepped off.
At around 12K feet, the snow looked about like this:

If you didn't notice from my other pics, I carry a pistol on my belt. Well just before picture 14, I dropped it gun (holdster included), and did not realize it at the time. Whoops. As you can see in picture 15, it was not there

At this point, the now 14" new snow was a heavy pack on some old hoarfrost layers. There were cracks and whumphs all over and we weren't even on steep slopes yet. At about 12'200 we were running short on trees and there was a large snow slope sitting at about 25 degrees. With one large crack, we decided to begin cutting some blocks and testing the snow. After clearing the front and sides, we began to cut the back. As soon as the back was cut, the block released on its own. OUCH! At only 25 degrees, we were scared to continue on. We turned back, packed up camp and sustained the pounding snow on the way down. After reaching the ridge at about 10,000', I look down to realize that my pistol and holdster is not on my belt. OH NO! I knew that I hadn't fallen in a while so it had to be far up there. With my two hiking partners being exhausted, they set up a shelter and I dropped pack and headed back up to look. They told me I had an hour and a half and they were coming to look for me. Without a pack, I kicked butt. It took me about 45 minutes to get back to 12 K and I was looking in every awkward hole in hopes that I would spot my pistol. In no time, I reached our turn around point. I dug and scraped all of the snow away in the area and had no luck. I quickly descended back to our camp site and thoroughly searched there with no luck. From there, I made excellent time and made it back to the 10K spot with my partners in about 10 minutes. I was so distraught that I lost my pistol. We finished out the hike in the heavy snow.
After a stop at Amicas in Salida on the way home, we drove back to Colorado Springs with a blizzard for the remainder of the drive.

With a low probability for success, Matt agreed to head out with me the following weekend and take some metal detectors to search for my gun. He was brave for doing this because his wife was full term pregnant at this point. After borrowing one metal detector and purchasing another, we headed out early Sunday 28 feb from Colorado Springs at about 3 AM. I offered to rent him some Nordic skis for the 3+ mile approach to the TH and use Dancesatmoonrise's method. I have been watching that in the reports and nothing beats not sliding back to the car. This time we were only able to park the car 3 ¼ miles from the summer TH and set off from there with my mountain loving dog, Baz. Going up the road was about the same pace as snowshoes although we were able to ski the downhill sections which was a nice bonus. Although there wasn't too much new snow, it was deep off of the packed trail.

I didn't really get too many photos of this trip but all in all, we knew we didn't have to start detecting until we were between 10 and 12K because that's where I lost it. At 10K, we busted out the detectors and began our slow scan. After a while, we made it to our old camp site and had no luck. After a rest we continued on. At almost our max elevation from before just above picture 14, I found it. UNBELIEVABLE! It was buried about a foot under the trail right in the center. I was so excited. After ensuring that it was aimed in a safe direction with a safe background, I proceeded to fire it. Buried in the snow for a week, and it fired like a champ. Amazing! The search ended up taking too long to make a shot at the summit so we took another rest back at camp and headed down. Oh how nice to carry a day pack and not have to carry all of that winter camping gear.

So there I was, elated that I found my gun but saddened that I had 3 trips to the mountains with no summits. It was time for some redemption. 13 March was my day. I talked my good friend Jeremy into tagging along. It was time for him to gain a summit as well. After moving to Colorado last year, we have brought Jeremy on 3 other 14er trips and the worst things always happen and he has yet to grab a summit. At no fault to him, he has not had success. He is a great climber, partner, and winter companion but we have not had success. I think we probably need to bring him on a summer hike to a 14er at some point to show him how easy they really can be. After getting out of school on Saturday, I met Jeremy downtown Colorado Springs at the St. Patty's day 5K to watch our friend Rachel run. We left from there at about noon and arrived at the Trailhead at about 2:30 PM. I was excited and ready to go with my new Scarpa $400 boots I got on sale at Moutnain Chalet for $269 and my new 700 fill puff and new goretex pants from the REI garage sale. These items were making me feel much more confident than my older gear.

With a packed trail we stepped off at about 3:00 PM and headed out with Baz for our summit. The plan was tentatively to make it to treeline just below the crux on the ridge and assess if we would make a shot for night or chance that the storm for Sunday wouldn't be that bad. At almost treeline Baz was as energized as ever and ready to continue on.

In great time, we arrive at treeline crux of the ridge. There is definitely a good amount of new snow from a month ago.

We stomped out a good area that was a safe distance from the slide area and setup the tent. We were both feeling great and the weather was optimal so we decided to ready our packs for a summit. Shortly after, we were off. We saw some new tracks skirting around the crux to the left. I didn't want to mess with that because I knew of the potential slide danger on the side so we made our way up the crux. The last route I had didn't look as safe so we chose a slightly different line that eventually hugged the rocks. The slope was super stable and 10 minutes after dropping the snowshoes at the bottom, we were at the top. Now it was just a long long ridge walk with less wind. There were a few 20 MPH or so gusts but nothing too horrible. Now, the thing with a night hike is that you can't get great pictures. With neither one of researching the moon schedule, we kept waiting for the moon to come out and it never arrived.
I felt great still and I didn't want Jeremy to tire out so I stayed in front with Baz. There were some sections that were hard snow, some dry, and some drifts ranging from a few inches to feet. I just kept kicking steps so Jeremy could follow.

He was amazed at my ability to keep pushing and leading and cutting trail. Eventually we came off of the gentle ridge and began our true ascent. Knowing the terrain to 13,300', I was good. After that, we played the false summit game. With no moon, every section seemed like the summit block and I really didn't feel like pulling out the GPS. Eventually at probably 13,900' Jeremy was tuckered out. This is the nipple to the right and lower from the summit. There were several drifts that we had to crawl over because we were sinking waist deep. I guess we should have carried the snowshoes up from the crux. Knowing the summit was not that far off, Jeremy agreed to wait for me while I gained my redemption. I wouldn't have left him unless I felt that he was safe. There I went, thinking every ridge was the summit. Finally, about half an hour after parting from Jeremy, Baz and I arrived at the summit. There was clearly nothing higher around and it was pitch black minus the stars.
The summit register was probably buried somewhere under here

I sat down and sucked on a clif shot.

I went back to head down to Jeremy, I flashed my light and he flashed his back. He looked pretty close. After I began do descend, I quickly realized that Jeremy was much farther down than I thought. After connecting, we headed down. He was beat down physically and mentally from not getting to the summit and just followed behind me. I was tired as well but overwhelmed with my success. Eventually, we made our way back down the long long ridge and carefully descended the crux. We arrived back at our treeline camp at about 1 AM with the skies still clear. We crawled in our bags while Baz picked the iceballs from his paws. I have found that he can't manage on steep slopes with the grip-trex booties because they just don't have the traction that his crampon like paws have. We got the water boiling and cooked up some chicken a la king out of the dehydrated bag. It was so good and we were so tired. We were glad to be able to sleep in knowing that all we had to do was hit the car.
I awoke to hear howling and screaming winds and snow hitting the tent. The 4 season tent was feeling solid. Not having to climb the next day, I tried a new method of not putting my boots in my bag to keep them from freezing overnight. Sleeping in the mummy bag without boots was absolutely amazing. I peaked outside to see it snowing hard with giant flakes with a out 100' visibility. We cooked up some oatmeal and warmed up. Eventually, we ventured out into the snow. There was already 6 new inches.



Had we woken up to this and were supposed to hike, I most likely would have bailed. I was so glad we opted for the night hike.



I may look like a dork here… like always I guess, but this bended over tree has significance. A month ago on the ellingwood ridge trip to La Plata, we folded over this tree (without breaking it of course) so we would know where we turned off for Ellingwood ridge. Surprisingly, it was still there.

We made it to the car very quickly and were off and back to Buena Vista. With a quick stop at Pancho's, we were headed back to Colorado Springs with snowy roads for the 4th trip in a row. Why does it always snow on the way home?

Anyhow, thanks for reading about our journey's.

See you at the top!