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Mileage: 16 RT
Vertical: 5700
Time: 15 hours (you can probably do it quicker)
Team: summitlounger (Greg), mickey's grenade (jeff), yikes (Jim)
Playing the wait-and-see game of Winter 14ers, we were able to coordinate a last minute trip before the arrival of a forecasted storm. We considered both single day and camp-out options, settling on a single day push to take advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday (and Jeff and I were reluctant to haul a heavy overnight pack down into the basin). Since Greg was heading from Crested Butte, Jeff and I met him at the trailhead at 5am. Note: the Bachelor Rd was well plowed and had a huge parking area.
The valley up to the Equity Mine sees a fair amount of snowmobile traffic, so no trail breaking was required until we started to head up to the saddle.
Jeff had setup camp low in the trees on the prior weekend, having to cut the trip short due to a storm. He had planned on climbing up a rib to gain the 2nd saddle.
We expected a fair amount of snow down in the basin floor and our expectations were met. It was a very steep drop through the trees in deep snow. It wasn't too bad trenching the deep snow since we had gravity on our side (having to trench up that steep hill would have been awful). Once we reached the bottom (11200), we made a traverse around the hill trying to avoid losing any unnecessary elevation. A few spots of waist deep snow were challenging, but otherwise we made slow but steady progress.
Once we reached the base of San Luis proper, we fought our way out of the creek bed, climbed up increasingly steep snow, and eventually gained the ridge. The ridge provided a snow free ascent.
After a quick stop on the summit (a little longer for Jeff and Greg), we descended off the mountain back to the valley floor.
I was struggling with foot pain, so made my way slowly back up the steep hill side and back to the saddle (1100' gain on the return). The hike down the road to the vehicles was a death march, but these things typically are.
Cheers
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
Congrats on getting the summit. A question for Greg: Do you feel the tail fins on your Lightning Ascent snowshoes help? I have the exact snowshoes and am wondering if getting the fins is worth it.
Winter 14ers are always fun...... 1/26/2016 5:10pm
youngk2844- I am glad I brought the tails. I think once the trenching is more than knee deep it is worth it. Jim has the same shoes, and I was floating better. He claimed I was lighter than he is, but it was the tails. In hindsight, Jeff probably would have brought his 36" shoes knowing what was in store for us. It is hard to know how much or how deep the trenching will be at the TH. Is it worth it to carry the extra weight? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It was worth it on San Luis- it has a reputation.
Abe- if I were to wear my birthday suit on the summit of my winter finisher, would you attend?
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