Went solo from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. The weather report
was dismal with predicted winds of 70 mph. I wanted to get out, though, and
figured I'd just turn around when it got miserable. Note that I didn't say I'd
just turn around when it wasn't any fun anymore since there wasn't a lot of
fun on this trip. I wonder why I do stuff like this sometimes. I don't feel
I'm that cut out for it. Honestly, I just want to say that I did it, more than
I really want to do it. I doubt that feeling is very rare.
I went on my light Randonee gear with my heels taped, incorrectly as it turned out, and they still chewed up my feet. I knew I had huge blisters on them before I had gone two hours and ditched them just above Mills Lake, but not before following an unmarked path up a drainage to Loch Vale - the wrong direction! I skied back down the gully and got on track again. I also didn't take the usual shortcut on the way up to the trail junction. That was a mistake as well.
When I ditched my skis, I had two-inch blisters on the insides of both heels. I have such a horrible time with boots. I really like this light ski gear and will continue to try and solve this problem. Here I used a novel idea for climbing Longs Peak in winter...I switched to running shoes! The key was the neoprene Kahtoola Flight Deck boots that I put over them. These babies kept my feet warm and the built-in cleats
on
the bottom provided great traction in the snow. Further up, on the rock slabs,
the cleats bit surprisingly well. It wasn't ideal footware for that surface
by any means, but it worked and I didn't need to remove the outer boot.
It took a long three hours to make Black Lake with the last 20 minutes involving postholing through the blown-over trail.I had to posthole across Black Lake as well and then the real work started: breaking trail up the steep slope above the lake. Here I thought about turning around, but it was still early and I wasn't cold, so I kept going. I was listening to a book on my iPod, so I was entertained as well.
I finally got to the talus above and then worked my way over to the Trough. I was hoping to just kick steps up the Trough, but when I sampled the consistency a couple of times I went in to my knee. That was way too much work and I worked my way up the rocks and slabs on the left side.
I was moving ridiculously slow and was very tired. I wasn't eating or drinking, which I knew I had to do, but stopping in the cold, windy conditions is a prolem for me since I get cold easily. I was wearing softshell bibs and two shirts with a Gortex shell over the top. When I hit the wind at treeline I added a light down jacket over the top because I didn't want to take off the shell to add any layers underneath.I finally stopped after four hours and ate my bagel sandwich.
When I finallly got to the top of the Trough I stopped to down the last bit of hot chocolate from my insulated water bottle. I left my pack and ski poles here and continued with just my ice axe across the Narrows and up the Home Stretch. The wind was at my back on this final section and that was nice, since it was blowing about 50 mph. On the summit, I could barely stand up.I made the top in 6.5 hours.
On the descent I found the Trough to be much harder than I thought. In fact, it was too hard to safely glissade. I careful kicked and cleated my way down the Trough, but the going was so much easier than the rocky slabs. I was getting super tired and lamented leaving my skis so low. Actually, I both hoped and dreaded the appearanc eof my skis. I knew the boots would be very painful on my exposed blisters. And indeed it was, but it made the descent much quicker and I could do more of the work with my arms, poling myself along. I got back to my car after 9 hours and 49 minutes.