Where: Silver Peak– Snowqualmie Wilderness
When: Sunday April 5th, 2009
With: BoeAlps
Goals: Navigate to the summit
Already our 4th BoeAlps outing!
I was out of bed by 4:30am. All my gear had been packed the night before; I just needed to eat breakfast and prepare lunch. After a hearty bowl of oatmeal and preparation of my banana-peanut butter-chocolate chip-tortilla, and gathering snacks, I was pretty much set.
I was 5 minutes early to meet the group at the park and ride and there was only one other person there, I couldn't believe it. This person was Mike, an instructor who also helps out with the basic rock class and intermediate climbing class. Soon others showed up and all was well. Before carpooling to the trailhead we verbally checked that everybody had their 10 essentials.
We carpooled to the tiny trail head and after putting on our gators and helmets and going over the possible routes to the summit, we were on our way. The first part of the trail had been conveniently packed down by the Saturday summit crew. We left the trailhead at 7:20am with high spirits on a gorgeously sunny day with a 45 degree starting temperature.
The team is only as fast as the slowest person, so we had them lead. About a mile in, Ken and I took over the lead and the navigation. Admittedly, we were still following the Saturday crews bootpack, but we were still taking bearings!
At one point, when the packed trail merged, we followed the trail that went straight up the mtn. Very soon after we realized that this trail seemed very odd, for it had very steep steps, I also noticed that the footprints seemed to be leading down the mountain. After informing Ken, the current leader, we took a bearing and realized we were probably on the Sat teams decent trail. We backtracked slightly to a trail that a lone snowshoer had made (instead of backtracking slightly more to the Saturdays teams bootpack). We followed this for awhile, keeping in mind our current traverse should be increasing about 6 degrees in elevation.
We crossed a few bridges that were piled up with about 4 feet of snow. One bridge had a railing; the snow was so high that you could have walked evenly on the snow and railing.
Fortunately there were no epic falls, only slightly concerning ones.
Soon we came to an impassible gully. The snowshoer had walked across a tree we deamed unstable. So, we decided to traverse up, in an attempt to go around it. This “up” meant going up a 35 degree pitch, all while we were making our own trail.
It was hard going. When you're breaking trail, you break about 30 steps and then let the next person do the same. It is surprising how hard breaking 30 steps is when you sink in snow up to your waist. We never did find a spot to cross the gully, and continued upwards, at a very slow pace.
Some of our team are amazing steppers. Ryan and Matt in particular (the youngest, most in shape guys). Mike, one of the instructors, would actually walk along side of us, breaking his own trail, and somehow still always end up in front of us, even though he never got a break (other than waiting for us to catch up). He's super tall, so I feel when I sank up to my hip, he was only sinking up to his knees.
With such slow going it was obvious the summit was not attainable. Instead, we hoped to reach the ridge and get a nice view. Slowly but surely we succeeded in this feat, and at the top, three of us whipped out “ridge treats” (aka “instructor treats”). Last hike, we neglected to bring treats for all to share and sure heard about it. This time we were trippley prepared. Ken brought chocolate chip cookies, Evelyn brought carrot cake (that is edible for those with siliacs) and I brought decadent bars (condensed milk, plus tons of nuts, chocolate chips, graham cracker base, and oatmeal) and some no-bake cookies with peanut M&M's. Every single person that had a bar said they were the most amazing things ever. I agreed. Mmm!
After some photos and a snack break, and an explaination from Ron of all the surrounding peaks, we left the summit, going north (a different way than we came up). The traverse down was much harder than last Sundays.
The snow was everchanging. Most times it would be packy snow, but sometimes there would be lots of powder, other times there would be a combination, sometimes there was a crust. You never knew what you were going to get. Either way, the packy snow meant for really hard going. We still beat our uphill time by about 3x, but we should have been able to sail down!
Every trip many of us lament that we do not have our snowboards. Perhaps after this basic class is over we'll have to organize some snowboarding trips with our new crew. Near the top of the slope the trees were so perfectly spaced for a fun ride down the mountain (especially when you hit powder!).
The other teams (Sat and Sun) had similar problems sumitting. One team climbed Guy Peak, which in good conditions will have the team summiting in about 2.5 hours. It took them over 6 hours to get to the false summit. The team climbing Red Peak had to turn back because of extreme avalanche danger (going through a big bowl). Every team really struggled with this new snow.
Our entire trip was about 2500 ft in elevation.
At the restaurant afterwards we cheered to summit treats.
When: Sunday April 5th, 2009
With: BoeAlps
Goals: Navigate to the summit
Already our 4th BoeAlps outing!
I was out of bed by 4:30am. All my gear had been packed the night before; I just needed to eat breakfast and prepare lunch. After a hearty bowl of oatmeal and preparation of my banana-peanut butter-chocolate chip-tortilla, and gathering snacks, I was pretty much set.
I was 5 minutes early to meet the group at the park and ride and there was only one other person there, I couldn't believe it. This person was Mike, an instructor who also helps out with the basic rock class and intermediate climbing class. Soon others showed up and all was well. Before carpooling to the trailhead we verbally checked that everybody had their 10 essentials.
We carpooled to the tiny trail head and after putting on our gators and helmets and going over the possible routes to the summit, we were on our way. The first part of the trail had been conveniently packed down by the Saturday summit crew. We left the trailhead at 7:20am with high spirits on a gorgeously sunny day with a 45 degree starting temperature.
The team is only as fast as the slowest person, so we had them lead. About a mile in, Ken and I took over the lead and the navigation. Admittedly, we were still following the Saturday crews bootpack, but we were still taking bearings!
At one point, when the packed trail merged, we followed the trail that went straight up the mtn. Very soon after we realized that this trail seemed very odd, for it had very steep steps, I also noticed that the footprints seemed to be leading down the mountain. After informing Ken, the current leader, we took a bearing and realized we were probably on the Sat teams decent trail. We backtracked slightly to a trail that a lone snowshoer had made (instead of backtracking slightly more to the Saturdays teams bootpack). We followed this for awhile, keeping in mind our current traverse should be increasing about 6 degrees in elevation.
We crossed a few bridges that were piled up with about 4 feet of snow. One bridge had a railing; the snow was so high that you could have walked evenly on the snow and railing.
Fortunately there were no epic falls, only slightly concerning ones.
Soon we came to an impassible gully. The snowshoer had walked across a tree we deamed unstable. So, we decided to traverse up, in an attempt to go around it. This “up” meant going up a 35 degree pitch, all while we were making our own trail.
It was hard going. When you're breaking trail, you break about 30 steps and then let the next person do the same. It is surprising how hard breaking 30 steps is when you sink in snow up to your waist. We never did find a spot to cross the gully, and continued upwards, at a very slow pace.
Some of our team are amazing steppers. Ryan and Matt in particular (the youngest, most in shape guys). Mike, one of the instructors, would actually walk along side of us, breaking his own trail, and somehow still always end up in front of us, even though he never got a break (other than waiting for us to catch up). He's super tall, so I feel when I sank up to my hip, he was only sinking up to his knees.
With such slow going it was obvious the summit was not attainable. Instead, we hoped to reach the ridge and get a nice view. Slowly but surely we succeeded in this feat, and at the top, three of us whipped out “ridge treats” (aka “instructor treats”). Last hike, we neglected to bring treats for all to share and sure heard about it. This time we were trippley prepared. Ken brought chocolate chip cookies, Evelyn brought carrot cake (that is edible for those with siliacs) and I brought decadent bars (condensed milk, plus tons of nuts, chocolate chips, graham cracker base, and oatmeal) and some no-bake cookies with peanut M&M's. Every single person that had a bar said they were the most amazing things ever. I agreed. Mmm!
After some photos and a snack break, and an explaination from Ron of all the surrounding peaks, we left the summit, going north (a different way than we came up). The traverse down was much harder than last Sundays.
The snow was everchanging. Most times it would be packy snow, but sometimes there would be lots of powder, other times there would be a combination, sometimes there was a crust. You never knew what you were going to get. Either way, the packy snow meant for really hard going. We still beat our uphill time by about 3x, but we should have been able to sail down!
Every trip many of us lament that we do not have our snowboards. Perhaps after this basic class is over we'll have to organize some snowboarding trips with our new crew. Near the top of the slope the trees were so perfectly spaced for a fun ride down the mountain (especially when you hit powder!).
The other teams (Sat and Sun) had similar problems sumitting. One team climbed Guy Peak, which in good conditions will have the team summiting in about 2.5 hours. It took them over 6 hours to get to the false summit. The team climbing Red Peak had to turn back because of extreme avalanche danger (going through a big bowl). Every team really struggled with this new snow.
Our entire trip was about 2500 ft in elevation.
At the restaurant afterwards we cheered to summit treats.
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