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| North Star Mountain |
The hardest part about winter climbing is deciding on
clothing and gear. I’m a real pussy when
it comes to cold feet. My regular boots
which are just full grain leather and no added insulation which get cold quite
quickly, so I opted to go with my heavy plastic mountaineering boots this
time. The good part with plastics is
your feet are toasty warm all day even with temps dropping into the high negatives,
but the downside is they weigh a ton.
I'm not sure how much they weigh, but they feel like 10lbs each and when
covered in snow they feel even heavier. I
wore my thick thermal plants and had three layers on top and bottom. This turned out to be way too much. With the movement up the mountain I was
quickly sweating. I didn’t even wear a
hat most of the day, when the wind kicked in I just used my thin buff on my
head instead of my heavy snow cap. Then
the final decision that hurt me was leaving my snow shoes in the car. The beta I found sounded like a hard packed
trial the entire way so we just put on micro spikes at the car as we left the
trail head.
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| Wheeler Mountain |
The fog/cloud whatever it was, was still really thick at
this point. But every now and then we
could get a view of what lay ahead of us, and it was quite intimidating. From this point I really wished I had packed
my snow shoes. With my big moon boots I
found myself post holing to my knees as we worked on gaining on the small shelf
around 12,080ft. This was definitely the
hardest part of the climb, very very exhausting. It was only a few hundred feet…or that’s at
least what it felt like to the shelf.
From the shelf on the snow was much more wind packed now being above the
tree line. Spikes worked in this area,
but many times I wished I had my crampons to get a better bite into the snow.
At this point I knew I would not be going to the summit
today and I think I knew that before we started. I told Paul to take off and I would go up as
far as my body allowed. He took off like
a jackrabbit, I was very impressed! I
kept my slow trudge up the ridge and my hip flexors were starting to cramp
up. I’m sure the post holing earlier
just destroyed them, and the rest of my legs were quite tired so I knew it
wouldn’t be wise to press myself up another 1,000 vertical feet of thin
air. I think it is a very wise thing to
know our limits and I hit mine around 13,100ft so I called that a day.
I could see Paul high on the mountain and all looked well
for him so I took my time enjoying the amazing views above the clouds. The wind had picked up by now so I took out
my puffy down jacket and gloves and warmed up quite quickly. I started heading down about a quarter mile at
a time, just enjoying being high up on the mountain. You never really want to leave, but usually
the cold wind changes your mind rather quickly.
Skis would have been nice, but my skill level is still that of resort
style skiing.
After I got back down into the tree line I finally found a
nice log to take a seat and wait for Paul.
Since I was on a snail’s pace coming down it did not take him long to
catch up. I waited there eating Oreo’s
and drinking water for about 20-30 minutes till Paul arrived. He is a machine! We rested for a few when he arrived then made
the last mile back down to the car. I’ve
never had a failed trip in the mountains and this was not going to be the
first. Every trip brings its own beauty
and experience, just because you don’t summit a mountain doesn’t mean it was a
failure. The only time you fail is when
you don’t go on a trip. Everyone stay
safe in the cold of the winter, but get off your butt and enjoy the season!
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| GPS Track |
Date: 1/16/2013
Starting Elevation: 10,825ft
Quandary High Point: 13,120ft
Total Gained Elevation: 2,300ft
Distance: 4.90 miles
Time: 3:50 moving, 3:22 stopped.
Climbing Partner: Paul
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