Oldsmores
New member
Enjoyed great shepard's pie and Ubu at the brewpup before getting to one of the Loj's leanto's, thoughtfully provided by Little Rickie. Crazymama arrived shortly thereafter, and we all turned in pretty early.
Rickie and Jim talked me into breakfast at the Loj Saturday morning. It was delicious, but I'm not sure it was a good idea. When I eat breakfast it's normally oatmeal, and I tasted corned beef hash most of the way up Algonquin.
Crazymama and I met Lurkette at the TH and we were off about 8:15. It was almost too warm, and we stopped quickly to get down to a thin base layer. I had never met either of the ladies before this, so we were all trying to find a good pace. Crazymama started by telling us how slow she was, then proceeded to lead the pack until my heart rate was about 220 (at least it felt like that). When we got to the real climbing, Lurkette took over. She's got to be all of 5 ft tall, but she is a relentless uphill machine. She did politely stop and wait for us periodically, but I wasn't making much conversation as I gasped for breath.
Snow conditions were about perfect. Crazymama and I had some snow balling under our snowshoes lower down, but that ended as we got a little elevation. We followed some tracks up to the Wright junction, but they headed up Wright, so we broke trail the rest of the hike. It really wasn't too taxing - just an inch or two that had fallen overnight.
Made the summit of Algonquin in good time and I'm thinking "BREAK TIME", but the ladies were having none of that. There wasn't much in the way of views anyway, so we inched down over some ice/rime covered rocks down to the col with Boundary, where they graciously let me catch my breath, Lurkette even giving me half her pb&j sandwich. The route up Boundary, then on to Iroquois, kept disappearing in the clouds, then magically opening up to let us see a cairn. I was extremely disappointed when we hit the nub between the two and I checked my GPS to find we weren't on Iroquois yet. Now I'm not a keeper of lists, and would probably have turned around at that point, but the two relentless winter peakbaggers wouldn't listen to me, and shamed me on to the summit of Iroquois.
A word about conditions: It was 40° on Algonquin's summit, with no wind - I've been up there in colder conditions in July. Once we got clothing adjusted to the warmth, it was altogether pleasant. It was the perfect day to do Iroquois. Just the tops of the trees were poking through the snow in the cols, and the snow was consolidated so we were never sinking more than about 3 or 4 inches. There were some icy patches on Algonquin, but we never considered pulling out the crampons, and my axe stayed on my pack (as usual
).
The walk down was uneventful, except for some AWESOME butt-sliding. Lurkette even invented a new technique for preventing snowshoe drag, but I'll let her describe it.
All in all, it was a great way to end the winter season. Good weather, good mountains, and great company. Many thanks to Crazymama and Lurkette for letting me tag along and motivating me to visit Iroquois.
Oh yeah, after driving into LP Saturday night to take care of some business, got to spend some quality fire time (and wine) with Rickie and Kevin at the leanto. Thanks again to Rickie for his hospitality.
Rickie and Jim talked me into breakfast at the Loj Saturday morning. It was delicious, but I'm not sure it was a good idea. When I eat breakfast it's normally oatmeal, and I tasted corned beef hash most of the way up Algonquin.
Crazymama and I met Lurkette at the TH and we were off about 8:15. It was almost too warm, and we stopped quickly to get down to a thin base layer. I had never met either of the ladies before this, so we were all trying to find a good pace. Crazymama started by telling us how slow she was, then proceeded to lead the pack until my heart rate was about 220 (at least it felt like that). When we got to the real climbing, Lurkette took over. She's got to be all of 5 ft tall, but she is a relentless uphill machine. She did politely stop and wait for us periodically, but I wasn't making much conversation as I gasped for breath.
Snow conditions were about perfect. Crazymama and I had some snow balling under our snowshoes lower down, but that ended as we got a little elevation. We followed some tracks up to the Wright junction, but they headed up Wright, so we broke trail the rest of the hike. It really wasn't too taxing - just an inch or two that had fallen overnight.
Made the summit of Algonquin in good time and I'm thinking "BREAK TIME", but the ladies were having none of that. There wasn't much in the way of views anyway, so we inched down over some ice/rime covered rocks down to the col with Boundary, where they graciously let me catch my breath, Lurkette even giving me half her pb&j sandwich. The route up Boundary, then on to Iroquois, kept disappearing in the clouds, then magically opening up to let us see a cairn. I was extremely disappointed when we hit the nub between the two and I checked my GPS to find we weren't on Iroquois yet. Now I'm not a keeper of lists, and would probably have turned around at that point, but the two relentless winter peakbaggers wouldn't listen to me, and shamed me on to the summit of Iroquois.
A word about conditions: It was 40° on Algonquin's summit, with no wind - I've been up there in colder conditions in July. Once we got clothing adjusted to the warmth, it was altogether pleasant. It was the perfect day to do Iroquois. Just the tops of the trees were poking through the snow in the cols, and the snow was consolidated so we were never sinking more than about 3 or 4 inches. There were some icy patches on Algonquin, but we never considered pulling out the crampons, and my axe stayed on my pack (as usual
).The walk down was uneventful, except for some AWESOME butt-sliding. Lurkette even invented a new technique for preventing snowshoe drag, but I'll let her describe it.
All in all, it was a great way to end the winter season. Good weather, good mountains, and great company. Many thanks to Crazymama and Lurkette for letting me tag along and motivating me to visit Iroquois.
Oh yeah, after driving into LP Saturday night to take care of some business, got to spend some quality fire time (and wine) with Rickie and Kevin at the leanto. Thanks again to Rickie for his hospitality.
