Max Carmichael's Blog, page 18

April 2, 2022

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Published on April 02, 2022 11:34

March 28, 2022

A Walk in the Park

Nothing exciting or spectacular to report this week. Sunday’s hike was a personal milestone in that I was finally able to return to the highest-elevation trail in my regional circuit. It crosses a 10,000′ peak, traversing a densely forested north slope that retains deep snow late in the season. Our unusually cold winter finally broke during the past couple of weeks, so I guessed that I could now handle whatever snow remained up there with my normal 3-season boots.

Over the years, as I increased my capacity for longer hikes, I’d encountered a catastrophic blowdown on the far side of the peak which obliterated the crest trail. Becoming accustomed to bushwhacking and routefinding, I’d fought my way through that blowdown, and through a half mile of wildfire deadfall beyond it, eventually reaching a saddle marking the crest trail’s junction with feeder trails coming up major side canyons. Out and back, that hike amounted to almost 20 miles round-trip on the crest trail, which felt like quite an accomplishment. Not only did it include climbing over, under, and around the blowdown and deadfall. I also believed I had that part of the trail to myself – I never saw evidence of other hikers making the effort I was making.

The trail starts at an 8,200′ pass and traverses alternately across east-and-west-facing slopes, climbing steadily through exposed burn scar high in the sky, with long views across the southern landscape, until it reaches intact stands of pine and fir at the top of the peak. It crosses the peak through beautiful alpine meadows and groves of old-growth conifers, passing near a famous fire lookout which is the destination for most hikers.

The temperature in town was forecast to reach the high 70s, and I found it warm enough at the pass to take off my sweater. The sky was mostly clear with a few wispy clouds. It can be windy up there on the ridgeline, but was fairly calm during the climb.

Shortly after entering the forest on the flanks of the peak, I saw another hiker coming down the trail toward me. This stretch of the trail to the fire lookout is the most popular trail in our region, because it’s the highest elevation – hence coolest – hike accessible to the nearest low-lying cities – Las Cruces and El Paso. So I always expect company here. We stopped and had a lengthy talk. In his late 20s or early 30s, tall and slender, he was from California and completely unfamiliar with local culture and habitats. He couldn’t get over how much brush and deadfall he found in our burn scars – he’s apparently accustomed to easy, groomed trails.

He’d come prepared for backpacking and spent the night on the peak, returning in frustration after failing to find water up there. He shook a floppy, empty water bottle at me and said his filter had become clogged with melting snow. But he was impressed with our “real wilderness” – as opposed to what he was used to farther west – and wanted to return for a longer stay.

Leaving the popular trail behind on the far side of the peak, I was prepared for my hike to begin at the big blowdown, which no longer seemed like an obstacle for me. Imagine my surprise when I reached the saddle and saw an opening had been cut through those giant ponderosa logs!

A trail crew had arrived some time after my last visit, toward the end of our monsoon in early September. My first reaction was actually disappointment, and my disappointment grew as I discovered they’d logged and brushed almost all of the trail from the saddle to the distant junction. What had become a fun obstacle course was now like a wilderness superhighway.

Wildlife was sparse on the ground and in the air. It was too early for migrating birds, and I saw no deer or elk. With the trail clear, I had no trouble reaching the junction saddle in good time, so I stretched out on the ground. The temperature was still mild, but the sky was being covered by a thin cloud layer, and wind was picking up.

Climbing from the saddle exposed me to a fierce wind out of the southwest, and I had to snug the chin strap of my shade hat. Wind and cloud cover dropped the air temperature but the gradual climb back to the peak kept me warm. Still, the higher I climbed, the stronger the wind became.

Nearing the peak, my acculated elevation gain for the day exceeded 4,000′, and I could definitely feel it. Remaining patches of snow were unstable enough to throw me off balance several times, so I had to focus on staying calm and composed. Then, descending out of intact forest on the other side, the wind reached gale force, nearly blew me down, and tore my hat off despite the chin strap. I was able to chase it down and had to carry it for much of the remaining descent. It was now cold enough to require the sweater.

About halfway down, I spotted the smoke of a wildfire, 20 miles west and a few miles north of the highway I’d be driving home. Then I came upon a mysterious piece of blue synthetic fabric about two feet long, labeled “Mission Enduracool.” It had obviously been dropped by the young hiker from California. I stuffed it in an empty pocket. At home I learned it’s some sort of high-tech “cooling towel”, apparently used by athletes. After decades of running, hiking, and backpacking in the Mojave Desert, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Wonders will never cease, and it remains a mystery why someone would need it at high elevation in late winter.

Then, only a few hundred yards before the trailhead, I came upon that floppy water bottle. Yeah, I know, I’m prone to losing things on hikes, but I generally make the effort to go back and retrieve them. This California hiker was shedding gear right and left, and he didn’t have the wind for an excuse – it started long after he would’ve returned to his vehicle.

All in all, it was a hike on thoroughly familiar ground that offered nothing new, but still felt like an accomplishment – after a long winter, the high ground was again accessible, and from now until next winter I’d have a lot more choices in my hiking routine.

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Published on March 28, 2022 09:24

March 21, 2022

Bushwhacking the Last Frontier

It hurts to write this. Standing at my desk, with my laptop and papers raised on cardboard boxes because my back pain won’t let me sit, an ache throbs up the back of my legs, and I’m so exhausted I can barely think.

I’m not sure why – I’ve done much harder hikes than the one I did yesterday. It may be allergy – I had my first bad attack of the current season a few days ago, my eyes have ached and watered since, and a headache kept me awake much of last night. These things will pass.

I’d been wanting to get back to the range of canyons in Arizona near the Mexican border, but didn’t want to repeat the hikes I’d done there recently. I finally decided to try a trail I’d been avoiding because according to the description, most of it would be easy, and the rest might be impassable. I wanted to reach the crest, which would reward me with 4,000′ of elevation gain, but I was actually looking forward to some bushwhacking. It would be a final frontier of sorts – the last major trail on this side of the range that I hadn’t hiked yet.

Our weather was getting cooler, but under a clear, sunny sky at lower elevation than home, I hit the trailhead with my sweater off. Climbing up a long canyon with spectacular rock formations and exotic vegetation, it’s the most popular trail in the range, so there were 8 vehicles parked in addition to mine, but I knew most of them would be birders, confined to the first mile or so. And that’s what I found – I passed all eight groups, including many young people, in less than a mile and a half. Nobody else was actually hiking the trail.

Birders are seldom friendly – they view strangers as annoying interruptions in their competitive hobby. One older man was actually hostile – when I wished him a good morning, he scowled and said “Is it morning? I’m not so sure.” I checked my Arizona-adjusted watch and said we still had an hour and a half of morning left. His wife smiled but he kept scowling as I passed.

As I left them all behind, my sweat began attracting flies and I had to pull on the old head net.

The trail description claims it’s level for the first four miles, but I found that it climbed 1,100′ in that distance, which is hardly level. Being popular, it is much better maintained than trails back home, at least in the first few miles. Virtually all of it lies within federal wilderness. The rushing creek, draining from snow still clinging to the crest, is lined and clogged in many places with debris from floods after the 2011 wildfire, so the trail is occasionally diverted high upslope.

But I do love the riparian canopy here, visually dominated in winter by the leafless white sycamores, with oversize yuccas and agaves along the trail. The map and trail description mention an apple tree about three miles in from the trailhead, but I never found it, enjoying maples and dark groves of majestic cypress instead.

At the four-mile point I reached the noisy confluence of two creeks. The main stem came down from the right, draining the vast upper canyon whose rim I’ve hiked many times. But the trail continued straight up a side canyon. According to the trail description the next stretch was in worse condition, but I found that a lot of work had been put into logging, brushing, and grading it during recent months. It was very steep and much of it was rocky, but the only thing slowing me down was my stamina – I had to stop more often than usual to catch my breath.

One strange thing about this tributary creek was its color. Where it was rushing it looked clear, but where it pooled, it was a pale, opaque turquoise.

Narrow, hemmed in by cliffs, the side canyon climbed 1,500′ in the next two miles. Patches of snow still clung to slopes above, and I was excited when I reached a small stand of aspens.

But just beyond the aspen grove, the creek disappeared underground, and I emerged in a small basin where several side drainages converged. The maintained trail ended there, and the only thing that beckoned me forward was a pink ribbon above a brushy, trackless slope which had burned intensely in the old wildfire.

I followed a series of ribbons through the brush and bunchgrass for a few hundred yards, and came to a chaotic erosional gully choked with boulders and logs from above. The ribbons continued across it into a thicket, so I scrambled over, and began fighting my way through dense brush, much of it thorny locust, up the opposite slope in search of more ribbons. I’d brought the map with me but was trusting to the ribbons now.

Several hundred yards up this slope the ribbons ended, but the brush remained thick. High over my right shoulder I could see the snowy crest, still a thousand feet above, where I’d hoped to end my hike. But I wasn’t going to fight my way through locust all the way up there, and that log-and-boulder-choked gully would be no easier.

A more attainable goal loomed ahead of me: a lower ridgeline where I knew there was a trail I’d approached from the opposite direction more than a year ago. Somewhere in my current vicinity there was supposed to be a spur trail that led up there, but it seemed to be buried or hidden in thickets. I saw a minor spur of the mountain ahead of me, across a minor drainage, that was sparsely forested but showed no thickets, and might be a direct route to the ridge. Getting there was not easy – fighting through more thorns, climbing over logs, descending steep boulders, clawing my way up a loose slope – but as I approached, I saw a trail on that spur where no trail was supposed to be.

When I reached it I found it was just a game trail that quickly disappeared, and I found myself ascending a knife-edge ridge choked with sharp rock outcrops, random deadfall, and more thickets. Looking at the surrounding landscape, I saw I’d picked one of the more difficult routes to the high ridge, but I’d committed myself, so I kept climbing. After about 45 minutes I’d only gone about an eighth of a mile, but I suddenly emerged on the spur trail and felt I had a real chance at reaching the ridgetop.

I’d be cutting it close. Bushwhacking had used up a lot of time, and as usual I wanted to finish the hike in time for beer and burrito at the cafe. And although the spur trail had good tread, it was overgrown with thorns and blocked by huge logs and deep, debris-filled gullies. I even had to carefully cut steps across a long, steep patch of snow, where I found footprints from weeks or months ago, evidence there was somebody in these mountains as crazy as me.

Soon enough I reached the trail junction on the ridge, and got my reward – a new view to the southeast of the range and the mountains of Mexico beyond.

The wind was howling up there and I had to hurry back. I didn’t want to repeat that bushwhack and wondered if I might be better off taking the other trail back, but checking the map I could see that route would be at least a mile farther. I thought I might return on the spur trail as far as the tread lasted and see if I could find a shortcut to the main trail.

In the event, the spur trail disappeared high above that thicket where the ribbons had led me earlier. It ended at a sheer-sided gully ten feet deep, so I had to fight my way down through thorns to the big boulder-and-log-choked gully above my earlier crossing. This was as hard as any bushwhacking I’d done, but I finally reached the pink ribbons and the trackless traverse that led me to the small basin and the resumption of the maintained trail. I figured I now had just enough time to reach the cafe, if I walked fast down that steep trail.

I hadn’t seen or heard much wildlife on the way up, but just before reaching the confluence of creeks, I heard a sharp, catlike cry. Then, under the canopy of the lower canyon, two spotted towhees dashed into a bush at my right, then a woodpecker landed on a tree trunk at my left. Shortly after that I came upon a solitary whitetrail doe that merely sidestepped up the slope a few yards as I passed her.

Dark clouds had been blowing over. I finished my first beer while waiting for the burrito, then drank another half glass, so I had to stay in the motel that night. Heavy rain began to hammer the roof after dark.

In the morning, I saw a dusting of new snow on the upper slopes. Rain fell sporadically during the drive home, and it was actually snowing lightly when I entered my hometown.

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Published on March 21, 2022 17:33

March 19, 2022

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Published on March 19, 2022 08:07

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Published on March 19, 2022 08:07

March 14, 2022

Sometimes a Pleasant Hike

Apologies to my loyal followers for the long hiatus between hiking Dispatches! No surprises – life’s been a little challenging lately, and an earlier attempt to resume my hiking routine was kind of a bust.

This Sunday morning, the time change confused me, because I rely on my iPad’s alarm to wake me, and the iPad was set on Phoenix time from a flight I made months ago. The time change makes New Mexico an hour later than Arizona, so I was sure I’d lost an hour of hiking until a mile or so up the trail when I realized the sun – and my body – was still on the old time, and despite what my watch said, I had a full 8 hours to do a serious hike.

The hike I’d chosen was actually my third choice for the day, because I’d done it before and it had ended inconclusively, short of a ridge top, at a logjam of wildfire deadfall. But the important thing, after a hiking hiatus, was that it gained me plenty of elevation. It was a real workout.

The day started just below freezing but temperatures were expected in the 50s by afternoon, under clear skies. The creek in the canyon bottom was running strong from continuing snowmelt. Small butterflies were everywhere.

This is the canyon whose middle stretch is choked with debris flows and deadfall, twisting between sheer bluffs and giant boulders that require constant detours. The trailhead logbook featured a recent entry from a couple who’d continued over into the next canyon, to the remote creek junction I’d bushwhacked to last year. They’d done it as an overnight and complained about the bad trail condition – I’d done it as a day hike.

One thing that surprised me in the canyon was the large number of seemingly healthy firs and alders which had fallen recently. I don’t think of a narrow canyon with sheer walls as supporting the kind of wind that could bring healthy trees down, but it’s hard to imagine a hidden disease that would weaken such different species, and drought shouldn’t be an issue in this well-watered canyon.

The trail traverses steeply out of the canyon to a pass where the trail into the next canyon begins. But from there, I continue up and across the west wall of the first canyon, snaking around massive rock outcrops and following a scarcely visible but well-remembered route which is now only maintained by elk. In fact, elk love this trail so much their scat and tracks were all over it. There was no sign of human use since my last visit here – this route is generally believed impassable.

Like before, I was able to follow the elk trail all the way to the deadfall logjam near the ridge top. Whereas my first visit had been frustrating – the top is tantalizingly close – this time I was just glad to be back hiking and reaching my highest elevation since last summer – 9,750′.

I’d tweaked my back, which remains on the edge of severe pain, climbing over a big log in the trail, so the first thing I was looking for on the way down was a clear, level spot to stretch. It took me nearly a mile to reach that, because the upper trail traverses and switchbacks across steep and rough ground, including talus slopes. Finally stretching on a grassy saddle high in the sky, in the warmth of the sun, felt wonderful.

I reached the vehicle exactly 8 hours after starting. No adventures, and at this point that’s a good thing!

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Published on March 14, 2022 12:07

February 23, 2022

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Published on February 23, 2022 16:38

February 21, 2022

Shadows in the Snow

Still excited about my new boots and gaiters, I was looking for more snow this Sunday. If you’re only wearing boots, there’s definitely a limit to the depth of snow you can move through. I’ve skied and snowshoed over snow in the Sierra Nevada that was fifteen feet deep. But historically, my part of the Southwest has never seen the snow depths people a little farther north have to deal with. And with climate change, our annual accumulation at the highest elevations now seems to be two feet or less. Knee deep is bearable for short distances.

Before getting the new gear, I’d been avoiding one of my favorite trails in winter, because it goes through the bottom of a narrow, shady canyon that collects deep snow, stays cold, and holds snow and ice from winter into spring. From that canyon bottom, the trail climbs to the 9,300′ crest, where I was hoping to continue up a 9,700′ peak, depending on how much snow I found. This would be a revelation – for the past three years I’d completely given up on those elevations in the winter.

The range I was headed for averages a thousand feet lower than our mountains at home, and based on the forecast I expected temperatures into the seventies on sunny stretches of the hike. In fact, I wondered how much snow would even be left this long after the New Year’s storm, even with the light snowfall we had during the past week. Most people outside our region would be surprised simply to see snowy mountains 40 miles from the Mexican border – unaware that the mountains of Mexico itself get plenty of snow.

Approaching from the northeast, I could still see snow on north slopes above 8,000′. I had the choice of driving up the rough 4WD road to the trailhead, or walking it, and I chose to walk in order to prolong my hike with more distance and elevation. What I wasn’t sure about was being able to reach the peak in the time I had – on my last visit I’d remarked at how strangely long it takes to reach the crest, probably because parts of the climb are really steep, and the passage through the shady canyon is just plain slow.

In my first view of the upper slopes I was excited to see that the waterfall was still frozen. Snow was patchy below, as expected – I was surprised to find patches even below 6,000′. And even before the waterfall, at 7,800′, I faced long traverses in calf-deep snow.

Last week’s storm had dropped a couple of inches here, so there were clear tracks of a couple who had hiked to the waterfall overlook with two dogs, probably two or three days ago. Beyond that, the trail switchbacks across a vertiginous slope to reach the saddle at the mouth of the hanging canyon. I put on my gaiters before proceeding. That slope bore knee-deep snow with the much older tracks of a single male hiker. He had cut corners in a couple of places where the slope was just too steep to be safe with this much snow.

I’d taken off my sweater shortly after starting the hike, and made it this far in just my shirt. Considering how much snow there was on this steep north slope, I was surprised to see the first butterfly of the season.

From the saddle, the trail traverses at a gentle grade across a forested, mostly snow-free south-facing slope down into the hanging canyon that feeds the waterfall. Just before reaching the deep snow of the canyon bottom, I saw the first lizard of 2022 dashing under rocks beside the trail.

As expected, the snow in the canyon bottom was up to two feet deep, but I could hear the creek running underneath it. I pulled my sweater back on. It was impossible to tell where was solid ground and where was running water, but I’d been here enough to generally remember – until at one step my boot sank more than knee deep.

I mostly followed the tracks of the hiker who’d preceded me weeks ago. His tracks had been smoothed over by last week’s dusting, but I could tell he was using trekking poles, especially to traverse the steepest, least stable slopes. I wondered how far he’d gone.

As expected, it seemed to take forever to get through that canyon bottom, but it was a beautiful place to be stuck in.

The other hiker’s tracks continued up through the old-growth forest with its patchy snow and past the Forest Service cabin below the crest. But the tracks ended just before the trail junction at the crest. A howling wind comes over that saddle – it’s always crisscrossed with recent blowdown – and the snow at the junction was both knee-deep and trackless, although it had melted and refrozen enough to have a hard crust.

It was late enough now that I knew I wouldn’t make it to the peak. But I had enough time to go another mile at least, so I proceeded north toward the saddle below the peak, where the snow appeared patchy – I could see the trail in the opposite direction traversed more deep snow.

It was an easy, fairly level trail until about a third of a mile before the saddle, when I again entered deep snow.

The wind at the saddle, which faces southwest, was fierce! I gazed wistfully at the peak above – it was only a half mile and a few hundred vertical feet away, but if I took the time to climb it I would probably miss the burrito and beer at the cafe and end up starving as well as tired on the two-hour drive home.

I definitely enjoyed the return hike more than the climb up! I was torn between rushing and taking it easy, but mostly I took it easy and enjoyed the beautiful snowy canyon and the exquisite frozen waterfall.

In fact, despite a slower than usual pace, I reached the vehicle 45 minutes before closing time, allowing me to obey the speed limit on the narrow, winding road out of the mountains. It wasn’t until after dinner, on my way up the lonely highway toward the interstate, that I fell prey to a sheriff’s deputy hiding on the dark roadside. I had to endure 15 minutes of apocalyptically flashing lights to find out he was only giving me a warning.

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Published on February 21, 2022 09:20

February 14, 2022

Field Test

After solving part of my wet feet problem with a pair of waterproof boots, I finally had to take the next step and get gaiters. This is a no brainer for people in the Cascades or northern Rockies, but hard to swallow for someone living near the Mexican border!

The fact is, I’ve been researching gaiters – along with snowshoes – for years, ever since I started hiking the high mountains year-round. In my less ambitious earlier years, I simply turned back when the snow got too deep. But it’s not just snow that gets my feet wet – even a heavy dew during our summer monsoon can soak my pants and wick through my socks all the way to my toes.

Even with waterproof pants, the act of walking forces snow up between the pants and the boots to get the socks wet. Gaiters are the only solution. Having to accumulate so much gear drives me crazy – it accelerates the cycle of consumption and it all has to be cleaned and maintained regularly. But there’s no way I’m going to abandon those mountain hikes just because of weather. A big reason why I hike is to experience, and learn from, habitats and ecosystems in all conditions.

The snowshoe option remains off the table. It would be relevant for hiking fresh powder during or right after a storm, but most of my snow hiking comes later and involves a lot of elevation change, transitioning repeatedly between snow and bare ground. Most of the snow I encounter is patchy – covering trail distances from a few yards to a hundred, and either wet or frozen. It doesn’t make sense to carry snowshoes that I’d have to keep putting on and taking off a half dozen or more times per hike.

More and more, I’m turning to hunting suppliers for well-made outdoor gear. I still respect REI for being a co-op, but they simply don’t stock the best quality gear in many categories. After years of research I ordered a pair from Stone Glacier, a high end supplier in Montana that produces fancy seasonal catalogs similar to Patagonia featuring full-color stories on conservation.

The hike I chose to test them on is one of my old favorites, the trail which took me into our local wilderness for the very first time, three years ago. In many return visits I’d learned that the 9,500′ saddle at the high point of the trail accumulates knee-deep snow by January. I was hoping the gaiters would allow me to get past the deep snow and proceed down the other side for another two miles to a distant trail junction at a dramatic rock outcrop.

But the first thing I found is that the notorious backcountry horsemen had mutilated this trail too – their recent work has butchered all my favorite nearby trails. Most of my pictures from today’s hike document the damage, but I won’t bore you with any of those.

Nature had more dramatic changes in store at the bottom of the canyon: more birds than I’ve encountered yet this winter, and an explosion of flies and gnats, which doesn’t bode well for our warm seasons. The day had started below freezing as usual, but midafternoon temperatures were forecast to approach 70, and the creek was already stranded with vibrant algae.

Another hiker I will call Bigfoot, along with his big-footed dog, had preceded me to the saddle. They’d been turned back by the knee-deep snow, but I wasn’t. I ended up grudgingly post-holing for another quarter mile, expecting to emerge from the deep stuff farther down the back side. But I was forgetting that the back side is a steep north slope, shaded in winter, holding snow until late spring. I couldn’t stomach any more post-holing.

On the way back to the saddle I stopped in a short bare stretch of trail to check inside the gaiters. Snow had driven up inside them and was packed against my pant cuffs all the way to the top of my boots, so I had to fine-tune the fit. Fortunately they’re adjustable enough that I was able to minimize the leakage going back. They did make my lower legs feel significantly hotter, but it was worth the trade-off to stay dry in the snow.

I’ve had cheap gaiters in the past – these are the real thing, tough and well-thought-out.

Despite all the habitat damage by the horsemen, and having to cut my hike short, I was feeling pretty good about the day as I started down from the crest. Unfortunately after the first half mile I developed severe pain in my left ankle. Damn, it seems I just can’t finish a hike anymore without ending up in pain! I couldn’t even figure out what was causing it – something about the fit of the new boots had triggered either inflammation or nerve pain around the back of my inside ankle bone, and walking downhill became unbearable. I tried lacing the boots lower, but that had no effect at all. I wedged a bandanna/handkerchief between the boot and the ankle, and that helped but kept working its way out. Finally I found an adhesive-backed felt pad in my pack that I applied directly over the ankle bone, and that enabled me to slowly limp the five miles and 3,700 vertical feet back down to the vehicle.

In the end I concluded that I’d simply tied the boots too tight on the way up. With their stiff soles, I’d felt my heels slipping on the steep climb, and kept lacing them tighter and tighter, which ultimately must’ve tweaked my ankle bone.

During the slow descent past vegetation hacked by the horsemen, I again pondered the irony of our “wilderness areas”. Aldo Leopold’s invention is popularly viewed as preserves of raw nature protected from human interference. But just like the Anasazi country of the Colorado Plateau or the Indian mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, these wilderness areas are actually cultural landscapes of our European legacy, with abundant colonial artifacts like mines, fences, corrals, and developed springs, modern trails maintained for the enjoyment of privileged white people, and wildlife wearing the radio collars of colonial scientists.

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Published on February 14, 2022 10:54

January 31, 2022

Floating in a Void

After last week’s scary experience with wet hands and feet in near-freezing conditions, I finally broke down and got a pair of waterproof mountaineering boots. I guess I was in denial all those years, believing like most people that I shouldn’t need waterproof boots in the arid Southwest, and after all those decades of hiking in the desert, convinced that all I really needed was breathable boots to keep my feet from overheating in the summer.

So for this Sunday’s hike, I was looking for some deep snow to test the new boots. For the first time since our New Year’s Day snowstorm and my misconceived snow hike with the UTVs, I actually wanted a trail that ventured above 8,000′.

But we’d been having an unusually cold winter, so that New Year’s Day snow was mostly still up there. The high-elevation trails near home would require me to spend most of the day slogging through knee-deep snow. That made me think of the trail over in the “range of canyons” that climbed a steep north slope to a clearing at 8,000′, then spent over 3 miles traversing an exposed south-facing slope to finally connect with the crest trail at 9,300′. Snow on that south-facing slope would’ve melted by now, so it was one of the few ways I could reach 9,000′ in winter, but I knew that when the trail cut back into side drainages it would have to traverse short sections of north-facing slope that remained in shadow, preserving isolated patches of deep snow a hundred yards or more wide.

Those patches should give my boots a test, while the overall distance and elevation gain should help “break in” the new boots, which are the stiffest I’ve ever worn. After last week’s wet pants and freezing legs, I would also wear my “upland hunting” pants, which are both waterproof and thorn-resistant. The cuffs adjust to fit tightly around the boots like gaiters, so I should be fully prepared for deep snow.

Approaching the mountains from the northeast, I could see there was still plenty of snow around the crest.

With all that snow up above, I was surprised to find the first creek crossing dry, and where it was still running a little farther up, the level was unusually low. Apparently low temperatures persisted here, too, so the snow that remained on shaded slopes up above was keeping frozen and releasing its moisture slowly, a good thing for the habitat.

The new boots were so stiff it felt like walking in ski boots at first. I kept tightening them to keep the heels from slipping and raising blisters. This is what most hiking boots used to be like – you had to rub oil or wax into them to limber them up, and spend days or weeks breaking them in. My feet were starting to hurt before I even reached the halfway point in the high “park”.

Long before that I passed a friendly retired couple from Wyoming, the only other hikers I saw that day.

Past the “pine park” I turned the corner into the big canyon and began traversing the burn scar, parallel to the spectacular snow-draped slopes of the opposite side. Partly cloudy conditions had been forecast, and I was hoping I might even get some weather. But the alternating sun and shadow during the climb meant that I had to keep stopping to shed or add layers to keep from overheating or chilling.

When I reached the patches of snow on north-facing cutbacks, I found they were covered with frozen crust – something I should’ve anticipated this long after a storm. So instead of testing the water-resistance of the new boots, they became a scary test of my ability to kick footholds on steep, smooth slopes where a slip would’ve sent me sliding a hundred feet or more down toward rock outcrops or standing snags in the gullies. My feet were now really sore and side-hilling in the new boots made me grit my teeth. It took me 20 minutes to cross the first 100-yard patch.

But after safely crossing the two biggest patches, I realized it was doable and focused on what was ahead. In previous years, it had taken me three tries to reach the crest on this trail – the traverse had seemed really daunting. Today I’d gotten a late start, so my time was limited, but I was determined to reach the crest. And despite the many stops and the slow snow crossings, my pace on dry trail was good and I thought I could do it.

Wind increased the higher I got, and whenever clouds came over, the wind chill became brutal. In shadows between shrubs over 9,000′, I encountered tiny surviving patches of snow 2 feet deep, showing just how much snow that New Year’s storm had really dumped here. I finally made it to the “bleak saddle” at 9,300′, but only by assuming that a trail that took me over 4 hours to ascend could be descended in less than 3 hours. As usual, I wanted to get back to the vehicle in time to catch a burrito and beer at the cafe before its 6pm closing time. I’d done this hike 5 or 6 times before, so my guess was based on experience. I prefer trails like this that involve hard work early in the day and reward you with an easier hike on the return.

I was able to literally run down much of the trail on the way back – it’s very rocky, but there are stretches of steep fine gravel that beg to be taken quickly. When I reached the pine park, I could tell I was cutting it close and had just enough time to finish the hike and drive to the cafe, if I maintained my pace on the next section.

The boots were still stiff, but I was developing a little more feel for them. My feet were hurting a lot, so I loosened the laces on the last, steepest descent, and found that helped. The last half of the trail was mostly shaded so I had to pull all my layers back on to keep warm. And then my left hamstring began cramping, from crossing patches of icy snow. It was all I could do to avoid the cramp taking over and paralyzing me with pain.

Still, I managed to reach the vehicle with just enough time to reach the cafe before closing. There was only one other table occupied, by a couple in their late 70s, probably birders. That burrito and beer were as good as usual and convinced me to get a room for the night. All clean from a very hot shower, lying in a strange bed, I tried to imagine the canyon, ridges, peaks, and rock formations outside my room. But with the heat turned off, the room was absolutely silent and darker than any place I could remember sleeping in, and I felt like I was literally nowhere, floating in a void.

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Published on January 31, 2022 12:18