We saddled into snowshoes right from the parking lot. The first 5 minutes were flat-ish. Soon, the grade picks up and we had to stop to take layers off. I kept on my rain jacket. Light fluffy snow. Soon, no more tracks. Going up treed slope, very steep. At one point, one by one, we started to slide down. D slipped down to W, and W slipped after the impact, and stopped by my arm. H slid farther down, was caught by a tree. There, K decide to turn around. Her husband M went down to her, on the way, slipped to a tree. Seeing all this, A decided to bail. But she came with C, so C had to downclimb to give her car key. But she didn't come back up. Only one hour in, we lost half of the group. The rest of us took off snowshoes, put on micro-spikes and ice-axes. D put on crampons. Too bad, I brought a helmet, but not crampons :(
The trail goes east side of the creek. Many icicles, water was still running. We had to drop down to cross the creek. Then go straight up again. Once left the trees, the view was very good. We were above the clouds. The slope is relentlessly steep. But I didn't sweat much (my progress is slow - I was the slowest of the 4), nor drinking much (my water bottle was inside my backpack, hard to reach). Many times, without proper foodhold, I had to punch the ice axe down, and pull myself up. My arms got very sore.
The upper ridge was quite windy. When the gust was blowing, the snow was kicked up and hit my face like bullets. At one point, D sat down and not wanting to move, saying that he couldn't see anything (his sunglasses were fogged up). It was cold. I put on a fleece inside my rain jacket. The fingers of my ski gloves were frozen hard, so was the strap of my hiking pole. My pole was frozen, so difficult to shorten or lengthen (one tip: do not use ski brasket on steep hills, use smaller brasket on your pole. Ski brasket makes your pole slip). I had to take off my knee strap, because it couldn't stick any more. There, we met a couple coming up in crampons.
12:30pm when I got to the top. 5 hours to do less than 2 miles! H was heading down. W went down earlier. The view at the top is, of course, fabulous. It's a twin top. The farther one is slightly higher. Be careful to stay off the edge. D and I went to the true summit.
Took a few photos and headed down shortly before 1pm. No place to hide from the wind.
On soft snow, going down was easy, can just slide. The snow balls up under your butt which halts your slide. On icy slopes, it was frightening without crampons. Every step took me forever. I slipped multiple times, none far (either held by my ice axe, or by a tree). Last, I slipped right at the TH: snow packed hard by many people. H and D waited for me. It was ~3:15pm. All still under the clouds. The (now) half empty parking lot was also icy. Drive and walk carefully here.
I was dropped off downtown. Walking home, eating my sandwich (didn't have time to eat lunch on the trail), holding on a semi-disintegrating paper bag (my wet boots), a large backpack (snowshoes inside), semi-wet clothes and hair, I sure looked like a homeless person. I was cold, wet, tired, but energized.
