Snowflea
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- Joined
- Sep 5, 2003
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Peaks: Isolation, North Isolation, Slide/Gulf Peak, Boott Sput
Trails: Rocky Branch, Mt. Isolation, Davis Path, Glen Boulder, Boott Spur
Conditions: Mostly a packed out superhighway under 2-4" new fluff w/some drifting all the way to Isolation. 4-8" new fluff over about 4 feet of hard, consolidated snowpack w/some deeper drifting and difficult route finding on Davis Path to treeline. Bare rock, ice, and very hardpacked snow above treeline. Hardpacked, barebooted, steep choppiness most of the way down Boott Spur Trail once in the trees.
Suggested equipment: Snowshoes, full crampons (we carried only Hillsounds and wished we'd brought the big ones), sunglasses, poles for whacking snow off chest level trees, GPS or GPS app
Turned out to be a much better weather day than we'd expected, and our stars apparently aligned to give us perfect timing today! After spotting a car at Pinkham, where the wind was howling, we continued down to Rocky Branch TH and started up the broken out, hardpacked trail in bareboots. The trail conditions were fast, and before long we found ourselves at the start of the Engine Hill bushwhack. The current route has a lot more twists 'n turns, ups 'n downs than other times I've done it, but we weren't complaining as it was broken out and we were still barebooting it.
At this point there was a couple of new inches of snow with some areas of drifting such that we had to really look for the broken out route at times. The current bushwhack route brings you out not at the last water crossing but 2 before that, so you still have to cross Rocky Branch 3 times... unless you want to bushwhack some more. All crossings were done in bareboots without breaking through, and the water levels were pretty low.
Once we hit the Davis Path and headed for Mt. Isolation, we put on snowshoes (since there was a bit more drifting on the ridge) and dropped our packs for the round trip to the summit. We took an interesting off-trail route to the summit but the regular spur trail down and both agreed that we liked the "Cruddy Direct" route better. Temps had been nippy enough earlier that I'd gotten out a balaclava and hand warmers, a first for this winter, but by the time we reached our packs, the wind was mellowing and the temp increased to about 20.
The fun started here. I'd done the Isolation-to-Boott Spur section of Davis Path a couple of times in winter years ago and never had any problem following the trail. This time it felt like a bushwhack. The snow-covered branches were often at chest level, and it looked like no one had been on this trail since about 1997. We figured either the trail wasn't getting regular maintenance or, more likely, there was about 4 feet of consolidated snow up there. There were no visible blazes at all, ever. Oh, I forgot to mention the blowdowns... They actually weren't as bad as we'd expected though.
At some point we topped out on North Isolation. I know this because of my super groovy iPhone app: iHikeGPS, which IMO is the best, coolest, most transformative innovation (for me) in winter hiking since Televators and Microspikes. iHikeGPS was also instrumental in getting us back on the "trail" about 284 times between the Isolation Trail and treeline (and, amazingly, used only about 5% of my battery. Your results may differ.).
Finally - voila! - we made it to treeline. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the wind pretty wimpy, the views stupendous (they had been all day so far), the route finally easy to discern, and not another soul in sight. We cut the corner (look at a map) and beelined it for the out 'n back to Gulf/Slide Peak. My partner switched to Hillsounds while I eyeballed the beautiful snowfields and kept the snowshoes on. In another 20 minutes we were on top of Boott Spur, just in time to notice a wall of fog/clouds moving in and enveloping the Presies.
The steeps of upper Boott Spur Trail were interesting: hardpacked and icy in spots. I finally switched to my Hillsounds, and they ended up working okay, but I kicked myself for not bringing full crampons since this really was full-on crampon territory. The going was rather slow for awhile, and we met our only other hiker of the day, a guy who was doing the Boott Spur-Glen Boulder loop. At long last we made it back into the trees, and the rest of the hike was a steep slog downhill, but thanks to the solo hiker, we didn't have to search for anymore trail today.
Thanks for a great day of hiking, Cruddytoes!
Trails: Rocky Branch, Mt. Isolation, Davis Path, Glen Boulder, Boott Spur
Conditions: Mostly a packed out superhighway under 2-4" new fluff w/some drifting all the way to Isolation. 4-8" new fluff over about 4 feet of hard, consolidated snowpack w/some deeper drifting and difficult route finding on Davis Path to treeline. Bare rock, ice, and very hardpacked snow above treeline. Hardpacked, barebooted, steep choppiness most of the way down Boott Spur Trail once in the trees.
Suggested equipment: Snowshoes, full crampons (we carried only Hillsounds and wished we'd brought the big ones), sunglasses, poles for whacking snow off chest level trees, GPS or GPS app
Turned out to be a much better weather day than we'd expected, and our stars apparently aligned to give us perfect timing today! After spotting a car at Pinkham, where the wind was howling, we continued down to Rocky Branch TH and started up the broken out, hardpacked trail in bareboots. The trail conditions were fast, and before long we found ourselves at the start of the Engine Hill bushwhack. The current route has a lot more twists 'n turns, ups 'n downs than other times I've done it, but we weren't complaining as it was broken out and we were still barebooting it.
At this point there was a couple of new inches of snow with some areas of drifting such that we had to really look for the broken out route at times. The current bushwhack route brings you out not at the last water crossing but 2 before that, so you still have to cross Rocky Branch 3 times... unless you want to bushwhack some more. All crossings were done in bareboots without breaking through, and the water levels were pretty low.Once we hit the Davis Path and headed for Mt. Isolation, we put on snowshoes (since there was a bit more drifting on the ridge) and dropped our packs for the round trip to the summit. We took an interesting off-trail route to the summit but the regular spur trail down and both agreed that we liked the "Cruddy Direct" route better. Temps had been nippy enough earlier that I'd gotten out a balaclava and hand warmers, a first for this winter, but by the time we reached our packs, the wind was mellowing and the temp increased to about 20.
The fun started here. I'd done the Isolation-to-Boott Spur section of Davis Path a couple of times in winter years ago and never had any problem following the trail. This time it felt like a bushwhack. The snow-covered branches were often at chest level, and it looked like no one had been on this trail since about 1997. We figured either the trail wasn't getting regular maintenance or, more likely, there was about 4 feet of consolidated snow up there. There were no visible blazes at all, ever. Oh, I forgot to mention the blowdowns... They actually weren't as bad as we'd expected though.
At some point we topped out on North Isolation. I know this because of my super groovy iPhone app: iHikeGPS, which IMO is the best, coolest, most transformative innovation (for me) in winter hiking since Televators and Microspikes.
iHikeGPS was also instrumental in getting us back on the "trail" about 284 times between the Isolation Trail and treeline (and, amazingly, used only about 5% of my battery. Your results may differ.).Finally - voila! - we made it to treeline. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the wind pretty wimpy, the views stupendous (they had been all day so far), the route finally easy to discern, and not another soul in sight. We cut the corner (look at a map) and beelined it for the out 'n back to Gulf/Slide Peak. My partner switched to Hillsounds while I eyeballed the beautiful snowfields and kept the snowshoes on. In another 20 minutes we were on top of Boott Spur, just in time to notice a wall of fog/clouds moving in and enveloping the Presies.
The steeps of upper Boott Spur Trail were interesting: hardpacked and icy in spots. I finally switched to my Hillsounds, and they ended up working okay, but I kicked myself for not bringing full crampons since this really was full-on crampon territory. The going was rather slow for awhile, and we met our only other hiker of the day, a guy who was doing the Boott Spur-Glen Boulder loop. At long last we made it back into the trees, and the rest of the hike was a steep slog downhill, but thanks to the solo hiker, we didn't have to search for anymore trail today.
Thanks for a great day of hiking, Cruddytoes!
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