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Skiing Down Baldy Sans Skis As some of you may know my birthday just so happens to fall on the 2nd day of May each year. This event has been occurring now for twenty seven whole years. Some of you may know that the number twenty seven is kind of an interesting number for the fact that it's prime factorization is 3 * 3 * 3 or 3 raised to the third power. This will be the last time in my life that I will be a number raised to itself (4 raised to the fourth power is two hundred and fifty six, I'm not holding my breath on living that long). So to kick off my twenty seventh year of existence off in the right spirit I decided to get up early with six friends and hoof my way up from the beautiful spring day in the valley to see what it was like on top of the snow covered peaks in early May. Take note fellow humanians, the snow on these mountains doesn't come off until around early July. In the spirit of good will, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on my provisions, which included the following:
A
whole loaf of freshly baked, hard crusted, "chew until your jaw hurts" bread.
A bunch of grapes
A 1 pound container of brownie bites
A
Bible Bar (which was exceptionally tasty)
A dark chocolate bar
A package of Teriyaki Sticks
A bag of peanuts
A block of smoked Gouda Cheese
Two tomatoes
A gallon of water mixed with Gatorade (to prevent freezing)
It would be safe to scientifically say, I brought a "shit ton" of food. Why so much food you ask? Well, I'm hoping to do some long distance backpacking this summer and I figured I could use some weight training...through the snow...climbing thousands of feet...with just a stick instead of treking poles. In hindsight, perhaps it was a bit excessive, but at the time it seemed like a grand idea to carry around a banquet on your back.
The following morning we set out to drop a vehicle off at the M and than car pooled to the trail head at Middle Cottonwood (just north of Sypes Canyon). I was very fortuitous to find a nice walking stick just waiting there for me at the trail head. Little did I know how useful it would be
climbing up the snowy slopes of saddle peak. The weather was cool down in the canyon, but it was supposed to (and did) heat up into the seventies that day. So sporting a throw jacket, some sweet facial hair and a very heavy pack we hoofed off towards the snowy peaks of the Bridgers. Middle Cottonwood Canyon, is a very nice drainage with some nice flowing creeks climbing up the foothills surrounded by evergreens and some pretty neat rocky outcroppings. We hiked a couple of hours to the base of the mountains where the snow started to appear here and there in little clumpy white islands peering out of the evergreens and the shadows of rocky crevices. The further we hiked the larger the islands of snow got, until it was no longer islands of snow, but a whole damned continent climbing towards the sky.
I'ld like to take a little time to reflect upon the idea of temperature control. The neat thing about changing elevation is that the air cools off the higher you go and as one hikes your body warms up and wants to sweat, but at the higher elevations and cooler temperatures you can really
push your muscles because it takes a lot more work to heat your body up to a point where it wants to sweat. So if you plan on doing a sub-alpine hike in early spring make sure you either keep moving or when you stop to put those layers on! It's cold up in 'thar mountains!
Hiking up the mountain to the ridge was somewhat of an ordeal. The snow was deep (over six feet for sure) and the climb up the snow pack was tough. The steepness of the ascent definitely had us breaking out the snowshoes to get a better grip on the snow and to prevent post holing (this is where your leg falls through the snow all the way up to your hip). This was my first time ever to see a
Snow Cornice up close and personal. They're pretty amazing and it is mind blowing to think that a mass of frozen water can defy gravity in such a magnificent way. After much huffing and puffing and careful stepping to avoid some hard icy snow patches that would send me sliding back down the mountain we made it to the final ascent of Saddle Peak.
For those of you unfamiliar with Saddle Peak it's a shale mountain, it's a steep pile of rocks basically and now it was a steep pile of rocks partially covered in snow. It was so steep in fact that at some point I had to take off the snow shoes to get better traction going up the mountain and at one point it was quite a scramble grabbing trees, digging in footholds and doing whatever you could to get up the mountain. It was a challenging and miserable climb, but well worth it once we got to the peak of Saddle.
Once to the top of Saddle Peak we were greeted by the wind. My gosh, that wind could blow. It cleared off a part of the whole ridge for us to walk on, but it also ripped through us like we weren't even there. I put on every layer I brought with me just to prevent the wind from sucking out all the heat in my body! We dined for a little bit at the top of saddle to raise our blood sugar and spirits (Al did some push up's, what a man) and than started down the
ridge back to the M where it was hard to believe that the temperature was rising into the comfortable seventies. Now on top of the ridge is the home of the Kingdom of Cornices. This kingdom is around most of the year, but relocates to a undisclosed location in the summer. Believe it or not Cornices peel off from the mountains when it's time for them to take a vacation and when no one is looking they fly off to their previously agreed upon vacation destination. It's my opinion they go to Bermuda to lie around and catch some sun after hanging around in the mountains for most of the year, but hey that's just me. Luckily on our trek southward back to Bozeman we got to run in the King of the Kingdom of Cornices himself, Ole' King Cornice, he was very polite and let us walk over his back to get to the cliffs further south where we would eat the banquet feast I had so much labored to bring to the top of the mountains. Sitting down amongst the snow covered cliffs (it's where all the baby cornices hang out, kind of like a cornice kindergarten) we
dined on all the riches I brought up. We ate until we were full and I still had some food left enough in fact to have a second meal when we got to Baldy (the last summit of our descent) it was rather uncanny to finish an exerting twelve mile hike on a full stomach. On the way down Baldy the snow was so well packed and Baldy so steep we decided it would be better to ski down it instead of hike and so we did as you can see from the video I've included (Jon Wixson I believe is the one who kisses his feet half way down the mountain). And so the trip ended with us skiing down from the winter of the ridge into the spring of the valley to Al's house for a nice refreshing beverage or two at the end of the trip!
I'll leave you with one small word of advice if you plan on taking this trip:
The best thing I brought on this trip was three extra pairs of socks. I changed my socks often on this hike and it definitely made the trek that much more enjoyable.
One
more thing: This is a great hike to do with Mustache Wax! I was having difficulty in the warm spring air keeping the mustache molded, but up in the cold mountains one application of Mustache Wax was good for the entire day!
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