|
After taking a direct path across the
snow-covered lake, I headed up the Dodge Cutoff to the Hi-Cannon
Trail. The Dodge Cutoff had not been used recently and required a
bit of route finding skills to follow, but I made it without any
real problem.
The snow was growing deeper and the
trail steeper as I climbed higher up the side of the mountain. My
real test of the day came when I reached the Hi-Cannon Trail ladder.
The ladder itself was mostly buried, the snow packed tightly between
what little of the steps that was visible, and the degree of the
slope and crustiness of the icy snow made it virtually impossible
for the crampons on my snowshoes to gain enough traction for me to
just walk straight up. The best alternative was to climb up next to
the ladder, between it and a sheer rock face. I got up about halfway
before I realized that I could go no further without taking off my
snowshoes and digging out some footholds with my poles. I did not
have my ice axe with me, which would have greatly helped.
Carefully, I undid each snowshoe, one at
a time, and heaved it up into the softer snow above the ladder. Then
I chipped out a foothold a little higher than where I was standing,
climbed carefully up to it, and then repeated the process. The final
move required me to grab hold of a small tree, and pull, swinging
myself up over the brink and around the corner of a small buttress.
I was up.
In front of me was one snowshoe, the
other was off to my right behind some scrubby trees. The problem was
that once I stepped off the packed portion of the trail to try to
reach the wayward snowshoe, my bare-booted feet postholed deeply
into the soft snow and hidden tree wells. I put on the one snowshoe
again, but I still couldn't safely reach the other one, my one bare
boot sinking and tripping me up as I tried to make my way close
enough to reach out for it. I got as close as I could, and tried to
snag it with my pole. I almost had it, and then suddenly and without
a sound ,,, it sailed down the slope and and flew quickly out of
sight. Considering the difficulty I had getting up the ladder area,
I decided that it would be easier and safer going up than back down,
and so said goodbye to my snowshoe.
Little by little, as it was slow work
hobbling around on one snowshoe, I made my way up to the summit,
ready for a nice rest and a meal at the snack bar. My ordeal had
gotten me thoroughly soaked, partially from scrambling around in the
snow and partially from sweating from the exertion. At any rate,
after getting some soup and a diet coke, I went into the bathroom
and changed shirts, which helped somewhat.
I was faced with a dilemma; I couldn't
go back the way I came, not on one snowshoe on the steep slippery
trail. I could walk down the side of the ski trail, but as I rightly
guessed, the Ski Patrol would not care for that tactic, not with all
the skiers out on the slopes on what was now a nice bright sunny
day. The tram would have been the perfect solution had it been
running, but it was closed down on this weekday, and the Zoomer
Chairlift, which ended at the top of the mountain, only went a short
distance down the upper part of the mountain. In the end, the Ski
Patrol decided to give me a short ride on a sled down to the top of
the long Peabody Express Chairlift, which I rode the rest of the way
down to the bottom. They really didn't like the idea of my walking
around anywhere on the ski trails.
Actually, they were particularly
helpful. Besides arranging for the chairlift to stop to let me on,
they also made a call to the base lodge to get a shuttle to drive me
back to my car at the Lonesome Lake Trailhead.
Unfortunately, on the ride down, all I
could think about was the movie Frozen, which we had recently
seen, about snowboarders stuck on a chairlift at a closed ski area
at night. I was not amused when the lift stopped for a minute when I
was about halfway down.
In any case, it was an adventurous day. |
Closeup of
Lonesome Lake Hut from the middle of the Lake. The Kinsman loom
in the mists behind the trees. |
 |
