It started according to plan, leaving the Shepherd Pass TH at 11:00 am on Friday, trying to hit a weather window between the high winds forcast for Thursday and the next pending storm on Tuesday 3/30. The original schedule was to hike to the vicinity of Mahogony Flat or Anvil Camp, proceed the next day to Shepherd Pass and camp there, a summit bid on day 3 and hike out on Monday. However there were only three of us (Mike had work issues) so realistically the summit was no longer our goal... James had never been on snowshoes before and Keith's interest was more in line with winter camping and trying out his new short skis... I had thought the most likely scenario was to split into two groups on day 3, but with the existing winter conditions it would no longer be possible to split the group now that there were just three of us. No big deal. We would reconoiter the route as far as Shepard Pass (12,050')
We also had a multitude of gear issues. I had forgotten my sleeping pad. Also my gortex bottoms, but that was much less of an issue. James sent Keith an EMAIL as we approached Lone Pine the previous night, and as Keith was already entrenched in the WP Hostel, he went about trying to find something for me so I wouldn't need to purchase one the next morning. Doug volunteered a makeshift sleeping pad in the form of some leftover highly compressed styrofoam that he had insulated the Hostel walls and ceilings with. It was somekind of space-age material with R400 insulation rating, hard as a brick and about an inch thick. Keith cut it into six-inch sections (about 7 of them) and taped them together with some parcel post tape he happend to have in his car. Bingo. I had a pad, although dubious of its comfort, I was sure it would insulate me, and it was damned lightweight!
The other issues were the snowshoes. James and I had MSR Denali's, and Keith the same thing, only a few years older model before they converted the plastic teeth on the bottom to aluminum. We left the extender tails in the car on Keiths recommendation, which turned out to be a correct decision. We all overpacked on the food side, but that is normal for us. We had two jetboil stoves (with three tops) and 10 units of fuel. (James a 4x can and a single, Keith 3 singles and Mark 2 singles). In retrospect, this was about right, as we never camped very close to either creek.
Off we went. The first hour was a nice hike, scattered snow patches but still easy to follow the trail. Just as we crossed Symmes creek the second time (at the base of the huge climb up to the saddle) the snow became about 2ft deep and was still firm. I think it was about 12:30. We climbed for about an hour before we started breaking thru the crust to the point of being uncomfortable and put on snowshoes; continued on for about 2 more hours on terrain roughly 20 degrees slope and, according to my GPS, directly over the main trail. It was quite enjoyable and not much of a problem, staying for the most part in a single track and not really sinking much thru the crust unless the leader went too close to a tree well or a partially buried boulder.
At 3:30 pm and roughly 8000' we should have stopped and made camp. Bad decision by Mark. We continued on up the increasingly sloped couloir and by 4:30 we were in aweful snow conditions and a bit left (east) of the trail by about 300 ft. The snow was unconsolidated and we were breaking thru the thin crust, sinking thru about 12 inches of extremely light powder, and if not careful, would break thru another 1/4" crust layer and posthole down another 2-3 feet! And we were on 40+ deg slope. I wasn't worried about avalanche issues, but the progress was so slow we were making only 30ft of elevation gain every 10 minutes. Our switchbacks were sometimes only 8-12 paces in length. On either side we either ran into no crust, which was impossible to make any progress, or thicker crust which would to require us to remove snowshoes and put on crampons. We tried to traverse right, to the other side of the main trail, but more of the same. We could have alternated snowshoes/crampons but that would not have been any faster as it would have meant 20 or 30 changes of gear. I don't think having the extensions on the shoes would have helped (at least not on the steep sections).
Finally we just decided to push on, stopping at 6:30, camping, exhausted, just as the sun was gone and the moon rising. We built a platform for two tents at 8650ft, still 400 ft from the top of the Symmes/Shepard shoulder. The weather had been awesome all day, and so the night was clear, but cold.
We got up early the next morning but it took us quite a while to get moving. Keith and I had not been winter mountaineering in a few years, and our movements were slow and awkward; and we had neglected to tell James a few tricks. Keith had put warm water bottles in his boots the night before and I had slept on top of mine, but James had left his in the vestibule, and they were now frozen. But the day had dawned clear and beautiful; we couldn't believe our luck with the weather. Keith had an accident when closing his uber-sharp mini knife (actually the thing was a field scalpel some army medical pal had given him), so while James did some first aid on the thumb, I took off breaking ground up the final 400 feet. The conditions were still the same so I am at a loss as to how we might have better approached this, certainly early in the day did not help, I still broke thru the crust constantly. If Keith's shoes had had the metal teeth on the bottom I could have saved a bit of effort by using the icy patches, but that would only have helped marginally. We had a nice, early, hot lunch at 9050', while looking south to the next section.
It turned out to be easy, just a jaunt over to the next saddle, and I used snowshoes, but James and Keith managed it without (this snow had consolidated, as it probably had 4-5 hours of sun each day). We set up a nice camp and lounged around all afternoon. James eyeballing some more local minor peaks to climb the next day and Keith contemplating what he wanted to do. My original hope was to lighten our load after the first night by leaving one tent behind and sqeezing the three of us into the SierraDesigns 2/3, a 4-season model meant to sleep 2 spaciously, or 3 in a head-toe-head configuration. I had also hoped to at least make Shepherd Pass, but this looked doubtful now. The end result was that the next day, Keith packed up and headed out, James climbed two differant peaks just off the trail from us, and I set off to day hike as far as I could to Shepard Pass, promising to return to camp in time to rendevous with James, and then follow Keith trail back down Symmes Creek. We had toyed with the idea of hiking out via Shepherd Creek, as we could see snowshoe trails down there, but I was afraid of the bushwacking once the snow line disappeared at 7000'. My day hike revealed that the next section to Mahagony Flat was almost completely free of snow (only had to lace up once for 10 mins), and then just fine from Mahagony Flat to Anvil Camp (had to bushwack a few times to avoid a couple of patches).
Beyond Anvil Camp it appeared that showshoe and postholing would once more be in order, but I was out of time and had to turn back. I think I could see the switchbacks under the snow, but I have never been on the trail before, so could not be sure. Possibly it might be firm enough for crampons if attacked early enough in the day. The return trip to camp was the highlight of the weekend, as I had a pair of BigHorn sheep pass directly in front of me as they crossed the trail. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough with the camera and only got pictures of their tracks. They appeared to both be females (or young but large males), I'm not much of an expert on such things, and it is only my second sighting in all my years in the mountains.
Back at camp, pick up James and head down the Symmes Creek gully. This time we stayed to the west of the main trail (about 200 ft), much more in the trees. Same conditions as the inbound trip, except going downhill we were able to kind-of ski/glissade on our MSRs, by keeping up our momentum, not sinking in too often except at the very bottom late in the day. We actually tried several times to get right in the middle of the gully, directly over the trail, but that was the worst option.
And the part you've been waiting for the most? If you waded thru all the above jibberish, I want to say that Doug's leftover construction foam makeshift sleeping pad performed wonderfully. The nights were cold (18deg on Fri & 10deg on Sat) but I was only chilled where I protruded from the sleeping bag. A big Thank you Doug.
Pictures (unedited as of yet) at:
http://melville1955.smugmug.com/Other/Tyndall20100326/11675623_wGoop#823740998_2efcC
