Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Hair Club for Mountains I

June 4 
The good single track I'd been so enjoying the day before gave way to snow within half an hour of leaving camp.
Snow. More slow, wet, challenging snow.
I 'be been thinking a lot about this lately: I'm
about two weeks to a month early to this trail. This Is mostly because of the big snow year. But as a question of preference, I'll carry water through a desert over postholing through snow. Deserts are easy -- just carry more water. But this constant snow challenge is unpredictable, both in the immediate and medium terms. With every step, snow is unpredictable because it may Kenny's not hold your weight. The mental and physical energy of bracing yourself to fall through the snow's crust like it's a trap door is exhausting. But snow also means you naught slow down to a mile an hour, making it hard to know how far you can make it in a day.
I navigated up the drainage through forested snowfields, then through exposed ones. As I approached the ridge, above treeline now, I saw a cleft in a rock face and just decided to climb it hand over hand. At this point, a little light rock climbing was preferable to that snow.
 
The ridge was alpine tundra, half-covered in snow. I layered up for warmth, wind stripping all my heat away, and walked across the wide open spaces. The ridge opened into a Mesa, then narrowed into a knife edge, then opened again.
I smelled elk, and then saw them. Before I could help it, I'd scared a new mama elk away from her baby, young enough that it couldn't follow and stayed on the ground. A year or two ago Lily and I were charged by a cow elk trying to defend the herd's babies, so I gave the whole tableau a wide berth.
The trail dove off the side of the ridge into a bowl holding that same thick, deep, wet snow, not even softer in the day's heat. The bowl also held Heart Lake, a half-frozen glacial lake.
 
Just past the lake was Baldy Cabin, a stout little shack in good repair. I took a long look and the Pork and Beans in the cupboard but figured someone else needed it more than me. And J had so, so much food. I munched a Monster Size Slim Jim in what I hoped was a contemplative pose and struck out to get back up and out of the snowed-in bowl. 
The trail was visible under patches for about half a mile, then disappeared entirely. I have up on following it's route and just struck off cross-country to regain the ridge. It's something g I've been doing a lot of on this trip: Just figuring out where I need to be and walking there however I want. 
Back on the ridge, I crossed over Baldy Mountain, momentarily above treeline, and the started to make my way back down through the snow. There were hours of taking a heading, plunge-stepping through snowbanks and downed trees in that general direction, and then checking the GPS. 
Finally, below 10,000 feet, the snow abated and I followed the Gold Creek drainage, half on trail and half cross-country. There were various abandoned mine remnants, and the graffiti carved into the trees dates back to the 1930s.
The trail bottomed out at Cabresto Creek, and I turned right into a dirt road. My stress level dropped as I realized I'd be walking on a nice, smooth road the rest of the day. I walked up stream, trading Cabresto Creek for Bitter Creek, then following Comanche Creek into a beautiful valley overhung with cliffs. 
Well after dark, I passed an abandoned hunting lodge, now left open to the rats and teenagers. I poked my head in and but did not linger. I'm not overly superstitious, but I also don't make a habit of nocturnal loitering in abandoned lodges with massive stone fireplaces in remote mountain valleys. Because it's incredibly creepy, that's why. Now I was in the position of needing a place to sleep, but all of the flat land being occupied by an archetypal haunted lodge. 
I climbed up onto a ridge and found a flattish spot in the pines. As I fell asleep, I could see lightning illumination the sky further down the valley.

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