Hardpack

The snow sloped hard to the left, a few inches of powder over a solid sheet of hard-packed snow.  Wind howled over the ridgetop, driving lateral flurries of refrozen snow into my eyes and down my collar.  I’d been picking my way across the face of this ridge in the scree fields, where rocks still poked above the snow, but I had arrived at a break in the visible scree – this was a white patch I couldn’t avoid crossing.  And it would be tough.  I was at 10,900 feet, aiming for a pass at at 11,100 feet, and I was struggling to jam the edges of my boot soles deeply enough into the hardpack to support the weight of my backpack and me.  But I’d developed a system that had carried me this far.  It was time to use it again.  I stepped quickly with my uphill foot then slammed the inside of my downhill sole into the snow as hard as I could.  But the snow gave.  My left foot slid out and I was on my butt, sliding sideways downhill.  Accellerating.  Downhill I saw a low isolated rockpile then thirty feet further an outpost of scree.  I pivoted  my feet downhill so I could brace before hitting the rocks.  I slid over the low rockpile with an unpleasant bump and sped toward the larger pile before I could even think to curse.  I dug my heels into the snow but it didn’t slow me down and then whump – I slid into the lower rock field, boots-first.  I flexed my knees to absorb the blow.

I laid back in the snow.  “Shit,” I said to no one in particular because there was no one else at 10,870 feet.  “That sucked.”  No serious injuries, I could tell, but my butt hurt from sliding over the low rocks.  I would later find that my tent bag had ripped, but the tent itself was fine.  But this, I thought, was a warning: I could get hurt this way.  Getting hurt up this high would be bad.  If I hit my head and lost consciousness I’d be in real trouble.

I had been struggling all day to climb over hardpack.  As I got higher and the snow got firmer, I lost the ability to go uphill – I’d have to find a outcropping of exposed scree, climb up it, then move laterally to another patch of exposed rocks.  Duke, who skittered across the hardpack with little problem, struggled in the rocks.  But since I couldn’t climb on the hardpack at all, our only option was to climb in the scree, then go sideways across the hardpack.  But now I was struggling to do even that.  The exposed rocks were getting rarer; the snow patches wider.  I looked at the terrain above me.  If I couldn’t cross hardpack, I couldn’t get over this mountain.  I knocked the snow off my gloves.  And I couldn’t cross hardpack.

Back at the truck was a pair of snowshoes.  They were heavy, bulky and ungainly, but they had metal teeth on the bottomsides, like crampons.  My pack was already heavy with winter clothes and six days’ food supply, and I’d already invested a morning and part of an afternoon in this trek, but it looked like I was down to one option.

I turned around.

In such a way I lost the benefit of a day’s hard hiking.  But at least coming down was fun – I zipped closed the vents in my waterproof pants and, when I got to a snow field I had to cross, I’d find a spot with no rocks and slide down it with one boot extended and the other tucked under the opposite knee like a baseball slide.  My pack protected my head from hitting the ground, and I could slide down until I hit the rocky patch where I wanted to stop, then use my momentum to pop up like Rafael Furcal stealing second.  I felt pretty cool, actually.

I’m camped in the truck tonight by Mono Lake.  It’s warm and I’m dry.  Tomorrow I’ll strap the snowshoes to my already-heavy pack and, assuming my hipbones don’t snap, try the Sierra crossing again.

(I wrote this entry the night after my retreat, which was Thursday, October 29.  By the time it posts I’ll be back in the mountains.)

 The view from lunch.  Looks tranquil, but it the air up there was cold, thin, and fast-moving.

Duke and I stumbled upon a one-room cabin out there.  It would have been lonely.

 The trail I wanted to follow was buried under the snow, but I was heading up this way and to the right of the peak shown here.

Google Earth image of part of route.

Mono Lake, to where I retreated.

Who's the man?  Duke's the man!  Michelle and Sandra, two German girls visiting Mono Lake.

POSTSCRIPT.  Right now, I am backpacking in the Sierras.  I will probably be gone on that backpacking trip for a week or more, so this blog entry is one that I prepared ahead of time and scheduled to post in advance.  I’ll start writing “live” posts again when I’m back to my truck and computer.  While I’m gone, there will be no new blog entries for Saturday or Sunday.