Not wanting to miss any of the fun during this wonderful February, I headed out again today for another snowshoe hike. I’ve been thinking of doing a Chip Down or Bosterson-type ridge climb and really was anticipating the adventure.
Arriving at the junction of the frontage road up to the Herman Cr. TH, I looked at the rutted tracks and briefly hesitated before driving in but it worked out fine. No one seems to have driven up there in two or three days. There’s still a foot or so of icy and compacted snow on most of that short road segment and I don’t think anything less than a 4WD SUV could make it until it thaws out a bit. If you decide to go and don’t have an SUV, the berm has melted back enough that there’s a few spots to park on the north side of the frontage road.
There’s some beauty even in a burned up forest when covered in a nice blanket of snow:
Heading out, now with spikes on, the first section to the Herman Creek Trail/Nick Eaton junction was well tracked and easy going. I donned my MSR’s there and continued on. At the sixth switchback on the Nick Eaton Trail, I thought I’d traverse about 500 feet south to the ridge where the USGS map (incorrectly) shows the trail to be. Alas, the snow was so deep and light, I was sinking nearly two feet down, even with snowshoes, when I started traversing over. I gave up that plan and continued to follow the faint bootprints/snowshoe prints of a few previous hikers.
Those bootprints were hard to spot as I climbed higher:
The weather folks have been saying this is the third coldest Feb. in about 80 years. I looked up the detailed data and found out something even more interesting: It’s been the number one most consistently cold Feb. too. Here’s a graph: Those other years had a major outbreak of primo cold arctic air that we did not get this year but even without that, we came in a solid third.
In the gorge the temps have been much lower and what this means for snowshoeing is that the snow that’s fallen, especially at even moderately higher altitudes has not compacted much and is very light and powdery – and hard to snowshoe in!
The recent snow of the past two or three days and the near constant wind had filled in previous tracks but there was just enough evidence to pick out the route. Soon things changed. Either the most recent snow or the drifting had completely obliterated previous tracks or, perhaps, those adventurers had turned around. In any event, above about 2,600’ elevation, there was simply no trace of a route. Well, now to enjoy that ridge climb! I went directly up the rest of the ridge, postholing a foot to two feet all the way to the start of the main ridgeline. I wanted to continue on the ridge that heads over to Indian Point but could not find the trail junction anywhere. I knew the route traversed along the ridge that ends in Indian Point so headed that way – I thought! As it turned out I picked the wrong ridge. I never made it to Indian Point but eventually found the Gorton Cr. trail, about a mile short of IP. It was getting late and I was still a bit tired from Monday’s adventure on Hamiton so decided to head on back.
This was a very scenic and enjoyable hike and though the snow was seriously deep it was a lot of fun and a great workout!
I think I’ll go back tomorrow to see where I went wrong and maybe do the rest of the Gorton Creek trail by looping through Deadwood. With luck, I’ll remember to take my GPS this time.
Hike # 29
6.7 miles, 2,655’ EG, 4 hours, 41 minutes.
