I had to drive in to work today for the 3rd time this year. It was not a result of time, energy, scheduling, weather, or anything like that. It’s because I installed the new 9-speed Ultegra cassette (rear gear pack, this one ranges from 12-27 teeth as opposed to 13-21 of the old one) on my bike last night, and the chain is incompatible. Dismayed, I updated the spreadsheet that I track my bike to work schedule, and this single day took me from 93% biking down to 89%. I never realized how good it feels to start the day off with some exercise until I was forced to miss it. I need to get this taken care of post-haste. The search for a chain begins…
Belated Valentine’s Day on Quandary Peak
Amy and I planned to go climb her first winter 14er on Sunday, but Valentine’s Day spilled over and we never made it. This turned out to be a good thing, as the weather was reportedly cloudy on Saturday (though forecast to be sunny), and it turned out to be sunny on Sunday (despite the forecast calling for clouds and snow).
I crawled out of bed at 4:45 yesterday morning not entirely psyched to be up that early, but not too bothered since bedtime came at 8:45 the night before. I dressed, ate, filled up some cups and a thermos with coffee, threw my stuff in the car, and it was off to Amy’s. There, Amy dressed and got stuff together, I ate more, carried her stuff to the car, and we hit the road around 6:30. Right at 8am, we pulled into the parking area for the trailhead. “Was I supposed to bring my poles?” “…seriously?”
Amy looking like a runway model.
As we were getting ready, the legendary Horton the Quandary Dog ran across the street to greet us. He waited impatiently for us to start going by attacking trees.
8:15 and we’re off, with one pole a piece.
Snowshoeing and skinning up with only one pole turned out to be pretty reasonable, despite my expectations.
This photo was taken at our first of several rest breaks. Horton had stuck with us so far, rarely venturing more than a few feet away. I was astonished. He again got impatient as we rested, so he attacked some more trees. I found the carnage from this incident still covering the entire trail on our way out.
A couple snickers later (as well as Horton demanding some food) and we were back to the races.
Amy and Horton, out for a hike on a beautiful February day.
I was having gear issues here, and Amy took advantage of the opportunity to put some distance between us. This may have been where I strapped my skis to my back and started booting it, but I’m not sure. Skiing back through here was not an option, as the wind stripped all the snow in the foreground of this picture by the time we got back down.
This is the best scenic I took of the day, in my mind. Polarizers are amazing for getting deep blue skies like this. The trail follows the ridgeline all the way up.
Here’s Amy, pointing out the rest of the way up. We were both getting pretty tired here, and the sails on our backs certainly weren’t helping us through the strong winds, but we kept moving as best we could.
There were many moments when it looked like we weren’t going to make it. A couple other people who caught up to us dropped out and turned around due to exhaustion. Amy eventually started counting out 25 steps at a time between breaks. I decided to go with her, as I was moving pretty slowly at this point as well. The number moved up to 30 steps before long.
Nearing the top, she asked out many more times she’d have to take 30 steps. “Five” was the answer. “Five” turned out to be roughly half of reality, and roughly 300 steps later, we made it.
The way down was exhausting, and we both just wanted to be out of there. No extreme radgnar skiing photos, as it was bulletproof sastrugi most of the way down. I’m sure Horton wanted to go home ASAP so he could down a huge bowl of food, but he stuck with us the entire time. I’m amazed that he took such a liking to us, and never went off with anyone else who passed us or who we passed.
It was a huge relief to finally see the car again after seven and a half hours on the mountain. When we got back and were unpacking, Horton stopped briefly to say goodbye, and walked back home. As I was packing my stuff into the car, I noticed something that would’ve been great to have up top in the cold: a full thermos of coffee, still warm.
Live from the summit of Quandary!
14,265, cold, and ready to ski. Full report later!
Wordle
I ran across this a while ago, but never did anything with it. This morning, I plugged in the RSS feed for my blog into Wordle, which spits out an image with major words (i.e. no “and,” “a,” “the,” etc.) with size dependent on the frequency of each word’s respective use. It’s interesting what came out of it.
Planning. Always planning…
…and buying. With the Rainier trip a mere four and a half weeks away, I’m starting to go into overdrive on figuring out what I need, what I don’t need, how to carry it, how cold I’m going to be, what my 30,000 calories of food should consist of, if we’re going to be able to bed down in the shelter at Camp Muir or not, and I’m buying a lot of crap that I’ve been getting by without for a while. Some things I would’ve bought soon anyway, like the 0 degree down sleeping bag or the AT soles for my ski boots. Some I probably would’ve held off for another season, like the down jacket I’ve got coming. And of course, there are things I wouldn’t have purchased at all, like snow pickets, pulleys, a bunch of ‘biners, a second battery for my Canon 30D, and an expedition sled to drag all this crap half way up the mountain. It should all be worth it though, as in a month I’ll have a winter ascent of Rainier under my belt – assuming the weather cooperates.
I can’t wait.
Windy and gray at A-Basin
Shocking, I know. Went up skiing with Nate today despite a near-total lack of snow in the past month. I didn’t mind riding a chair, as I had several weeks of earning my turns. We made it up in time to catch the first chair. I’ve been there when the chairs start spinning countless times, but I’ve never actually been on the first one to go.
As is to be expected when it hasn’t snowed substantially for a month, conditions were less than ideal (though not terrible). Due to the wind, Zuma didn’t open until around noon. A couple quick laps through there were plenty as the whole thing had baked in the sun for weeks and it was hard as a rock.
The snow was far better on the front side, particularly off to the west end of Pali.
Until next time…
First “long” ride of the year
Yesterday, Nate and I decided to take advantage of the amazing weather by going on an extended bike ride after work. I left work at 3:30, met Nate downtown, and we worked our way to the Cherry Creek trail after that. An 1h10m and 23 miles later we made it to my house, just as the sun was getting ready to set. What an amazing early February it’s been. My lower back was hurting from the seat position, so I adjusted it today and hopefully it’s where it needs to be now. We’ll see.
In other news, I’ve got a busy evening of planning, packing, and programming my GPS for a trip up Longs in the morning. With any luck, I’ll be able to post live from the Summit!
Update: I’ve backed out on the Longs climb, as I’m not comfortable with the current conditions without a partner. My particular concern is icing on the homestretch due to the long warm spell followed by the sudden storm. Emergency contact people, don’t worry about me.
Natural Slide at Berthoud
This was taken in Current Creek, just north of Berthoud pass, on Sunday morning. It’s a natural slide on a southeast aspect, probably in the range of 40 degrees. If you look closely, it appears that it released at the small rock outcropping, likely due to the heat and sun. The layers that let go match what we found on a nearby SE aspect, that being ~8″ to a slick crust and then another one ~6″ down. You can see that it stepped down to the next layer fairly close to where it released.
Another Beautiful Day at Berthoud Pass
Yesterday was a phenomenal day on Berthoud Pass. Although it had been warm, sunny, and dry for a few days, the forecast called for it to be cold, cloudy, and windy with a chance of snow. Nate, Jay, and I went up early to get in a good day in the backcountry before heading home to watch the Super Bowl. We pulled into the parking lot about 7:45 and met up with a guy from TGR and his girl for a quick lap. Half an hour later it was completely socked in and snowing fairly hard, though the wind was probably down in the single digits.
We made quick time to treeline on the West side of the pass, and planned our route down into Current Creek.
The most fun section of skiing for the day followed on the initial descent from this point. Unfortunately the snow and clouds killed visibility. None of the shots came out particularly well, but here’s one of Nate to show just how poor the visibility was.
Once we got down to the Current Creek parking lot (and after much anger and frustration from the lone boarder in the group after dealing with lots of flat/slight uphill traversing), the skies cleared. Nate, Jay, and I discussed our options and decided to head up into CC, just to get out and do some exploring. After maybe half an hour of skinning, the view was amazing. The cirque to the West looked amazing. There was even a gigantic cornice at once spot that hung out well away from the ridgeline, and looked to be at least 50 feet off the hill below it. I suggested to Nate that he ride off the end of it, but didn’t seem too interested.
It was so warm we all had to stop and delayer.
Close to there is a section called Postage Stamp. It looked like a fun ski, so I pulled up under it and started digging a pit, as I’d been warned that it’s a face that tends to slide. A few minutes later Nate and Jay got there, and started digging pits of their own. Thanks to Nate for taking a picture that makes me look like Humpty Dumpty.
I won’t go into details other than to say there were quite a few very weak layers every several inches down to about 2′. Gently putting my shovel blade in the snow to separate a column is all it took for this section of the slab to break out.
Here’s Nate having transitioned his board back together and getting ready to dig…
…and now searching for instabilities.
Jay found the exact same thing I did in terms of weak layers and slabs. That block of snow is one layer with totally clean shears on each side.
I took this shot as we were getting ready to leave of two guys I had seen heading up Russel Peak from the pass. They had spent the morning going all the way around the cirque. I’m not sure if they were trying to drop in anywhere, but they showed up at the top of Postage Stamp as we were getting ready to leave. I don’t know where they went from there, as I didn’t want anyone bringing down those slabs on us and so we took off quickly. The ski out was through terrible trap crust and we were just glad to be done and out of it by the end.
The forecast all across the state is for heat and sun all week without so much as a trace of snow, so it could be pretty ugly next weekend. If the weather holds out, I’m looking at going and climbing something for the climb rather than the ski in a week.
Berthoud Pass Preview
Despite the forecast, it was gorgeous today. Full update tomorrow sometime.
Through Polarized Eyes 
