We rolled into Manker Flats around 7 pm. We decided to be lazy and to risk a long dig-out the next day and ditched the village trail for the hut trail, basically. When I made the left onto the other side of the street to park by the trailhead, I saw the distinctive blue of LED headlamps. I drove up alongside them to ask what they were doing, and as it turned out, it was exactly the same as us!
The hike up was pretty cool: until the hut we were in the clouds and visibility was terrible, but from then on we only needed to look over our shoulders to remind ourselves of what was coming. One of the guys from the other group took a fantastic long exposure shot of all of us silhouetted against orange storm clouds, and I really hope he remembers to e-mail it to me. From the S ridge on the left side of the bowl, the dark clouds moving in from the Pacific looked like giant waves coming to crash on us.
The wind picked up midway up the S ridge. According to the anemometer it was only 25 mph, but it was around 18 degrees F so it felt pretty chilly. On the summit we tried to stake our tent down in stronger winds, and after we succeeded in this and numbing our toes and fingers, a strong gust snapped one of our poles. The orientation of the tent wasn't the greatest, and I think there's a chance that a better one might have saved the tent. In any case, we were too lazy to move camp down at this point and we were too excited about sleeping on the summit, so we played the filling for our nylon sandwich through a long night of fabric slapping our faces.
I decided to try some new leather uninsulated hiking boots on this trip to see how they held up to mild winter mountaineering. Verdict: 18F + strong winds = too cold. I hate to put wear on expensive boots like the Nepal Evos or plastics, but in this case it would have saved me some howling pain as my toes rewarmed in my sleeping bag.
In the morning we hung around the summit a little to play in the
wind. The snow was all getting blown off the summit onto the north face. After deciding that the Devil's Backbone would be the most awesome descent in these conditions, we headed off on a 130 degree bearing until we came to the notch between Harwood and Baldy, where the wind was consistently 45 and pretty miserable. There were lots of knee-high drifts already. This is where my buddy learned that goggles go a long way in blowing snow...
The
Devil's Backbone was excellent, as you can see. Balance is hard on lightly dusted scree, especially in wind!
Our gamble was lost, and when we finally got back to the car it took us half an hour to dig ourselves out and to get chains on. After we finally got moving, there was such ecstasy and such loud yelping for joy that I started for home while the windshield was still foggy. Ten seconds later, the car stopped and the wheels started spinning. The plowed part of the road and the two foot drifts off to the side looked exactly the same, and now the car was immobilized on a pedestal of snow. After over an hour of digging, we were again free and headed home, steaming, soaking wet, shivering, and quite deliriously happy.
Next weekend should be some excellent fun again on the home mountain!
oh yes that hot cholate too. pm me this afternoon. Arthur
Arthur 