More Fun in the Snow

I decided to take a day off last week and play in the snow. Tuesday night I loaded up the super trooper with winter weather gear, boots, goretex bib, snow shoes, gaiters, etc. I always feel a little silly loading up all of this cold weather gear into my car when it is 50F and raining, but I do it in the garage anyway. That helps me stay dry and conceal from the neighbors how much a of a gear freak I am. Sad.

Maxwell Butte, a measly 6250 feet though it may be, turned me back twice before. So, I decided to make it up this time come hell or high water. Wednesday morning, I left for the mtns as Akiko was heading off to work. She was not happy about that.

On the drive up I started to get worried, because there was a lot less snow in the mtns and the temps were a lot warmer than in previous weeks. I did not want to march through slush. 100 miles later I was pulling into the Sno-Park parking lot still not convinced that I wasn't going to be walking in corn mush all day.

People who have ridden in my old Scout or traveled across the country with me in my VW will appreciate this part of the story. At the trailhead parking lot, which is about an eight of a mile long, the restrooms are on one side of the lot by the entrance exit to the highway and the trailhead is at the other. I parked the super trooper near the potties for a quick pee-break. When I got back in to drive across the lot to the trailhead, I turned the key and got little more than a quiet "click" from the starter.

I got out and started pushing, once I had enough speed, I hopped in and popped the clutch to get it started. No problem. When I parked it on the trailhead side of the lot, I made sure I had pointing downhill...easier to pop start using gravity.

At the trailhead we were alone with the blue skies and a balmy but strong wind. It was about 40F with lots of big tall grey clouds on the horizon to the south. Franny and I headed up the trail at a quick, but not crazy pace. We made it to the trail junction at the lake (see previous entry) in a little over an hour. I stopped to check out the summit, which you can see from the lake. I feel silly calling it a summit, but that doesn't matter, because I couldn't see it anyway.


The "top" of Maxwell hidden by clouds. That thing you can't see in the center of the picture is the top.

Up to the lake the trail had been pretty well packed out, but it was warm, the snow on the ground was sticky, and the snow in the trees was melting and chunking off. Kinda crappy conditions. That is, as far as walking around in the mtns in the snow on a Wednesday morning can be called crappy. Luckily the temps started getting colder and the snow "dryer" as we climbed further. At about 6000 feet there was 18 or so inches of new snow on top of a 10 foot-ish base. I turned around to snap this picture just before the clouds completely engulfed us.



Clouds moving in quick. This was the last time I saw the other side of the valley during this walk.

Up to this point I had been wearing shorts, long thermal underwear and my gaiters. It probably looks as bad as it sounds, but luckily there are no mirrors out there and Franny is not very judgmental as far as fashion faux pas go. I changed into my bib snow pants, because ahead of us was a labyrinth of snow ghosts and tall drifts. At this point in the climb the pitch was steep enough that I was kicking steps into the snow to make forward progress. I figured I might need a little more than shorts to keep the snow out.


The entrance to the labyrinth of snow ghosts and drifts that I had to navigate. It was a blast.


It took a while to get through the trees and the drifts, but we made it just as the snow kicked in.

There was no view from the top. So, I put on an extra layer found some shelter from the wind and ate lunch in the hopes that the wind would blow the clouds off and I could get a decent picture. After a half hour of waiting and walking around up on the top, there was still no visibility. So, we headed down.


Here is the little bit we could see to the southwest. All the other directions looked the same...


And here we are heading back down. Right about in the middle of the screen, where my tracks are no longer visible, is where I had to kick steps into the snow. The whole way down I was thinking about how much fun it would be to snowboard down this and wondering how badly I would mangle myself trying to ski down it.

Franny and I took our time heading back. All together it took us about 7 hours for the whole walk. I was pretty tired, but Franny was ready for more.

The super trooper fired right-up on the first try.

Denied again

It is not really a big deal, but there is this little hill that will not let me climb it. It's name is Maxwell Butte. it is around 6600 feet high and it is in Oregon's central Cascades. Yesterday was my second try and my second failure. I may try again, but I may just go do something else instead. The big reason that I have been getting my ass handed to me is the amount of snow - about 4 feet at the trailhead and I don't even want to think about how much at the top. A somewhat smaller, but nonetheless contributing reason is that I am an old fat lazy bum.

Anyway, no big story. Tried to snowshoe up with Franny and only got to 5600' before hitting my pre-determined turnaround time of 2 pm. In the morning I followed ski tracks up. I met the two skiiers at lunch time and passed them. The skiers caught up to me again at my turnaround point and informed me that I was nuts for trying to walk up. "Try skiing it. Really."

Maybe next year I will try it on boards. It has been years, but I think I can still pull it off. My toy budget for Winter 2010/2011 is, however, already long gone.


Trail head markers. You can see the ski tracks in front of me. Out here there are signs at all the trailhead parking lots telling the low-life showshoers to stay the hell off the tracks made by the far superior race of skiers. I tried to do so as much as possible, but sometimes the trail was just too narrow. The guys I met today were cool about it and actually made fun of the silly parking lot signs, "it's snow for christsake!" I didn't ask to get a picture of them because they were enjoying a little mother nature while enjoying a little mother nature...


Fork in the road. This was the only other true trail marker all day.


If you look really closely you can see the unofficial trail markers that I was trying to follow. Once I could see the top, I luckily didn't need these.


A closer look. Think "Needle in a Haystack." You can also see Franny doing pretty well here. At times it way pretty tough for her and she could only walk in my tracks.


Here is Ms. Franny having a little tougher time of things.

Looking back across the valley (N Santiam Valley is what it is I think). I should look at the map and figure out which peaks those are. No the greatest picture either. In spite of the cloudy sky in the photo, the sun where I was standing was so bright that I could not see a damned thing on the viewfinder screen.

1000 feet left to go. Still breaking trail here. The snow is retardedly here. Judging by the maturity of those tree tops just poking through the snow, I would guess they are 8+ foot tall trees.

It was a fun walk even if I did not make the top. Maybe next time. One thing is for sure, Franny and I are tired today. I haven't been this worn out and sore in years. Awesome!