Old Baldy attempt 

• February 23, 2003

Hiking with Mark.

This hike was doomed from the start. With a starting temperature at the parking lot of -20 degrees Celsius I knew things could turn ugly - fast! Five minutes in, my feet were already very cold, and within twenty minutes we were both in considerable discomfort. We continued for one and a half hours before deciding that it simply wasn't worth the risk of getting frostbite. Turning back, after about ten minutes of downhill hiking our feet began to warm and we decided to give it another shot. One hour later, we encountered the same problem. We might have made the summit had we repeated that cycle, however, it would have taken us too long and would have been extremely physically demanding. We gave up and headed back to the car, enjoying some unbelievable winter scenery.

    
Looking across the valley at The Fortress (left) and Mount Galatea (right)

    
The Wedge, as seen from Evan-Thomas trail

    
Fisher Peak from Evan-Thomas Trail

Misery... nothing but misery! The day was plagued with terrible weather and even worse decision-making, turning what should have been a easy 4-6 hour stroll into a 9 and a half hour nightmare. 

Mistake no. 1: leaving our snowshoes in the car. About 2.5 km into the hike, we found ourselves post-holing in relatively deep snow. Mark suggested we turn back to get our snowshoes, but I thought it would be too much effort and so we continued without them. A couple of hours in, the clouds cleared, giving us beautiful views of Mount McDougall and Old Baldy Mountain (not to be confused with our destination - Old Baldy - the lower ridge to the southwest). This increased our motivation a little, however, our progress was dreadfully slow due to the deep snow.

Our only good decision of the day was to leave the trail (which obviously we couldn't even see!) and head west, up steep slopes, directly to the ridge. Upon arriving there, however, the snow situation was even worse. I managed fairly well, crawling half the time (to more evenly distribute my weight and avoid sinking) and walking on top of the snow the rest. Poor Mark was not so lucky, post-holing almost to his waist on every single step. This forced us to descend down to the very scenic cliffs, where we traversed below them. Unfortunately, the weather suddenly turned, the sun and clear sky giving way to heavy, low-lying clouds and snow.

Eventually we had no other way to go except up, and once again we were on the ridge in deep snow. The summit came into view, but because we couldn't stay on top of the snow, we were moving at a snail's pace and becoming extremely frustrated. Our snowshoes would have made the push to the summit fast and enjoyable. By now, it was snowing heavily and our visibility was greatly reduced - only the faint outline of Mount McDougall could be made out. Finally, 5 and a half hours after leaving the car, we stumbled to the summit, where we were treated to magnificent views of absolutely nothing! Even Mount McDougall was now shrouded in thick clouds. Since the only purpose of ascending this "big hill" was to see the spectacular views mentioned in Daffern's book, it was exceedingly disappointing to get there (especially given what we went through to achieve the summit) and be denied even a glimpse of our surroundings.

Mistake no. 2: after a brief stay at the summit, we elected to descend via the described route. Our rationale was that: a) it couldn't be any worse than our ascent and b) descending in deep snow would much easier than ascending - we were dead wrong on both accounts! The depth and hard crust in the top layer of the snow made every step excruciatingly difficult, making our descent even slower than the ascent. It was also taking as much if not more energy. We tried to Crazy Carpet down with limited success. Eventually, we had to move out of the descent gully, traversing steep slopes where the snow was not as deep. Still a significant distance from the trail, with the snow coming down, I actually thought that we might have to spent the night in the valley. Fortunately, we soon found the trail, where travel was much easier. Along the way, we encountered two huge gullies full of avalanche debris. One of the slides had obviously been an enormous one (at least a class 3), leaving a trail of broken tree stumps and large piles of torn up tress at the bottom. From here, we followed our ascent tracks back to the car in relatively good time.

Probably our most miserable outing to date - I wouldn't trade it for anything! 

    
Mark, on the east slopes of Old Baldy

    
Traversing below steep cliffs

    
Our "phenomenal?" summit view

    
Mark at the summit