St. Charles Peak, Wet Mountains (CO)
Sept 10, 2020 18:16:55 GMT -8
zeke, panatomicx, and 3 more like this
Post by cweston on Sept 10, 2020 18:16:55 GMT -8
Well, the Wet Mountains lived up to their name today.
The snow storm ended overnight, and highs around 40 were forecasted in the Wet Mountain Valley today, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I've done this hike before, so that was a small help in following a snow-covered trail. (Predictably, mine were the first set of human footprints.) Also, the trailhead is off a paved road, a couple miles south of Bishop's Castle. The dayhike I originally thought I might do today was Marble Mountain in the Sangres, but that's a couple miles up a 4WD road, so that was out of the question today. (The dirt roads were very wet and slippery this morning.) Just driving to the trailhead was gorgeous: I regularly visit the mountains in summer, but not so often in winter, so it was a nice reminder of how scenic the mountains are in snow.
The summit of St. Charles is about 4.5 miles and 2,500 ft of gain. So, a nice little climb in good conditions. Today, it was considerably more work, and I'm honestly pretty whipped.
I hit the trailhead around 10:30. There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground here. The weather was dreary but probably (just) above freezing. Clearing skies were in the forecast.
This being a solo hike in challenging circumstances, I set several rules for myself. It was an automatic turnaround if:
•I was ever less than 100% certain that I was on the trail.
•The sky did not show signs of clearing before noon (it did, about 11:15)
•The sky did not show signs of clearing before noon (it did, about 11:15)
•The snow was consistently deeper than about 6 inches (I fudged a bit on this during the last half mile)
•I did not reach the summit before 2:00. (There was a small chance of precip around 4:00)
Given those restrictions, I really didn't expect to make the summit, but everything went right in order for that to be possible.
The travel went as well as could be expected. The lack of sun was keeping the snow bombs and the dripping from the trees to a minimum, and I could avoid them by moving quickly where the snow was disturbed and discolored from falling snow bombs. As the sun increasingly appeared, I knew that it would be, for all intents and purposes, raining from the trees the rest of the way. I had a windshirt over a merino top. I decided to just stick with it, knowing that the windshirt would not be able to keep me dry, since climbing in a rain shell is bad juju for me, even when the temps are 40ish. I had a second base-layer in my pack, so I knew I'd have a dry shirt to change into for the descent. It was hard regulating my temp because climbing in 6 inches of heavy, wet snow is very hard work.
Of course, as I got nearer to the summit, the weather became worse. I was now in more like 8+ inches of snow, and it was a real push to the summit. When I got there (about 1:30), it was completely socked in and cold and windy like Siberia. If I'd stuck around, I might have gotten some windows with views of the Sangres (it's a million-dollar view in clear weather), but there was no way I was going dally there. I changed my shirt (brr) and put all my layers on to nibble on some lunch. (I also didn't want to give the wind a chance to erase my footprints from the treeline to the summit.)
I was so cold when I headed down that I, a sweat machine, left my puffy on under my rain shell, and my winter gloves on, for about the first half hour of the descent. I wore my real rainshell on the way down: I needed it for the slush bombs, and descending in 40ish temps worked just fine.
I got back to the car around 4:00, just absolutely whipped. I don't do a lot of snow hiking, except short walks around home. That was a lot of work.
I start a 5 day BP in the Sangres tomorrow.