Our original plan was to hike out on ptarmagin ridge, which is a ridge up to Mount Baker, but we were thwarted by crappy 50 degree weather in July. Not only was it 50 degrees, Heather Meadows was essentially in a cloud, so you could barely see the next car parked next to you. So, sighting glaciers and rock formations in the distance was obviously going to be a long shot.
So, we made due and went to the trail that i would honestly consider my arch nemesis: Hannegan Pass. This trail and i have history. bad history. quick explanation:
July 2009 - my trail running book expounded on the natural beauty and exquisite trails of the Hannegan Pass trail with a solid running grade and 2000 feet of vertical over 4.5 miles to this pass. Well, the book lied. a lot. this is what happened:
1. the road to the trail was closed. This meant, i had to run 5 miles up the damn road to get to the trail head.
2. once on the trail, it was so over grown with devils club & stinging nettles that my legs were in pain and swollen within the first 5 minutes.
3. there were numerous ROCK slides that had occurred since the book was written, and very little trail work, so i spent more time climbing over rocks then actually running on a trail.
it was so bad, i turned around nearly on the brink of tears, ran out to the main road and then hitchhiked back to Glacier. My dad has a good story about what ensued after that, but lets just leave it with me apologizing for still not paying him back for the $30 collect call he accepted.
Februaryish 2010: Ruth Mountain
I thought I was going to die. I'm pretty sure that Frankie still chooses not to speak to me about this trip based solely on my desire to have someone pull me through the woods and up this mountain. It all started when i couldn't side hill on my skis. Actually, scratch that. It started when i didn't sleep the night before because of a dog, and then had to get up at 5am for this tour.
back to the story
once we got to the trailhead, we started traveling up the valley, and i couldn't side hill to save my life on my skis, so i started boot packing. But this is only after i slid down some death ice wall to alder zone. Really, i only fell about 5 feet, but i was tired and upset. I then just booted the rest of the time up to the saddle right below Ruth Mountain. Then an argument between our trip leader and newly self designated trip leader ensued, people went separate ways and i stayed put in the saddle with someone else. Then, after the summit attempt was made, we rode down a few thousand feet, which was fun, but then had to hike back out the 5 miles of avy debris and rock slide disaster. We got back to the car 12 hours later and i passed out in the parking lot.
Here are some of the photos to survive that trip.
which brings me to Thursday morning. and i'll leave that for tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment