Excellent conditions throughout, soft packed. Good quality snowshoes, with crampons required. Crampons can also be useful.
Was supposed to be a Gothics loop, but some lessons learned: a hiking group is only as strong as the weakest member, good equipment matters in winter, excellent fitness and decent summer hiking ability does not necessarily translate to good winter hiking ability. Two of our group of 5 had trouble on the steep bits with slipping while using their snowshoes. One of them forgot to take crampons. Things were eventually solved by my loaning said person my snowshoes and then using my crampons. Too much time and not enough energy of our weakest member had us descend after reaching Pyramid Peak. Those still in snowshoes made extensive use of sliding on their rear ends during the steep bits on the descent.
However, still an awesome day in the mountains, with excellent weather, sunny and warm, a nice change from recent days and days to come.
Was supposed to be a Gothics loop, but some lessons learned: a hiking group is only as strong as the weakest member, good equipment matters in winter, excellent fitness and decent summer hiking ability does not necessarily translate to good winter hiking ability. Two of our group of 5 had trouble on the steep bits with slipping while using their snowshoes. One of them forgot to take crampons. Things were eventually solved by my loaning said person my snowshoes and then using my crampons. Too much time and not enough energy of our weakest member had us descend after reaching Pyramid Peak. Those still in snowshoes made extensive use of sliding on their rear ends during the steep bits on the descent.
However, still an awesome day in the mountains, with excellent weather, sunny and warm, a nice change from recent days and days to come.
