It was an excellent Adventure. The weather was great and the scenery fantastic. I took 4 hours of video tape that will take me a week or so to go through and make a nice little home movie out of it. The only bad part was one of our crew had an issue with his hiking boots. He had them for 15 years and I think he finaly wore them out. We were thinking of having them bronzed by the time we got back down. Duct tape and all. lol
The other bad part was right when we got to Iceberg lake there was one last group of 5 or so people heading back down. About 40 minutes or so after they left one of the girls (MJ) came back up to the camp and asked for some help. Her friend(Steph) hurt her knee bad and couldn't make it down the first steep snow chute, and the other 3 or so people they were with kept goin down. So 4 of us went down and took their packs back up and gave Steph a knee brace we had with us and helped her back up to the top. It wasn't a major, major injury, but as much pain as she seemed to be in there is no way she would have made it back down on her own. Calls were made and the next day a choper made a couple trips to take them back down.
I am not sure what they woulda done if we hadn't been there. MJ's phone couldn't get a signal and there was nobody else around to help them. They would have had to either try and make it back up to the camping area themselves and wait for someone to come by with a phone, or try to set up their tent on the snow and let MJ go back alone the next day to get help. Either way woulda sucked bad. Hopefully one of the other guys that left them called someone when they got down. The girls missed some flights and meetings I guess, but at least they got back down the mountain without getting hurt any worse. On the bright side, I bet the view from the chopper was pretty cool.
One of our group wasn't feeling that great and stayed at camp with the girls till they got picked up.
Here are a few pics, I'll try to get some of the helicopter at iceberg lake from the video this weekend.
The old broken in boots are now SERIOUSLY broken! Duct tape, extra shoe laces, and a few silent prayers kept em together though.
Treking through the snow above Upper Boyscout lake
Getting closer.
A welcoming committee at Iceberg lake.
If ya look real close you can see the helicopter down there picking up one of the girls. They only had room to take one down at a time. It sure beat trying to walk/crawl down.
Going up the chute was about the only time I used the crampons. With my brother blazing a trail with his big feet it wasn't bad at all. They also helped hold the boots together too. hehe
Man that's a hike and a half up that chute!!
And we made it!
All in all, it was a great trip. Alot better than the first time I went up 6 years ago. A couple tips from the first trip: The MR can be done with a cast on your arm, but I really wouldn't recomend giving blood 2 weeks before doing it. And Ice Axes make good jumper cables.
Ahh the adventure..
I'll post more pics this weekend.
