I've done that postholing in 3-4 ft of snow in all that large deadfall. Add postholing to any bushwhack to bump it up a couple notches. Or darkness.hokiehead wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 7:35 pm other than a few miserable but short passages through horrible willows (Scott Gomer descent from Sawtooth, Casco Pk) that I'll call a BW4, the worst extended bushwack I've done is Copeland Mtn in RMNP from Wild Basin. I'll give that a BW3. Then, when exiting the forest, we got the opportunity to talus hop up the slope another 1000'.
Other common things are willows (IPW and recently Sawatch) and the gamble/scrub oak in the foothills. Those oak branches don't move. I ended up hanging in a large patch that filled a gully, caught like a fly in a spiderweb. Hit lots of wild rose vine thorns in some gulches too. Lots of that to trip over and land on in the east.
One of my worst was going up around Thousand Falls in RMNP. Was more east of the creek and going up the wrong bump at first, jungle of huge fallen trees with all their big branches, between trail ridge and fall river roads. Eventually got better.
The "shortcut" through Hells Hip Pocket in the Never Summers is bad, due to a steep loose slope. Left me scraped up and bloodied. Didn't save any time over the ridiculous 3 mile switchback of Red Mtn trail as the other half of our crew who took the trail met us at the same time on the ditch road.
More often than not shortcuts are more work.
Getting lost in Mt Zirkel wilderness up North Fork of Elk creek was like being in the Everglades of CO, waist to chest deep grass and about 50 creek crossings attempting to minimize that. Then got into the big lilies.