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!