Grandeur Peak West Ridge with MattVH and Dorsimus:
Up at 4:30 am to meet the fellas at the WR parking lot. Our plan was to do the loop (WR to summit, down Church Fork, Pipeline back to WR). It was windy and COLD at the start. I mean cold!!! It took us a few minutes to get moving and luckily when we got up on the west ridge the wind settled down and we all warmed up. The snow was deep and there were two sets of tracks going up and I was hoping they went all the way to the top, but I knew the chances were low. I had hoped that someone would have already put in a nice track for us all the way to the top because if we had to break trail it was going to be slow.
The tracks petered out about half way up the mountain and from there it was deep powder that we had to break all the way to the top, at times we would sink to our waist. Slow. It was a total slog! About 3/4 of the way up we figured that running the entire loop was probably out because of time, but we would assess that on the summit. We all took turns breaking the trail, but I think Dors did the most. At some point we started noticing blood in the snow and Dors was leaking DNA all over the hill. I think he had a gash in his knee from falling on a rock and he also had a wound on his foot.
Up on the summit ridge the snow was crotch sinking deep and we all took turns breaking through the powder. Finally on the summit we took some pics and all had a gel and it was clear that we were the only dummies to summit since the storm, which surprised me because I thought for sure someone would have come up from Church Fork by now. It took us over 2 hours to get to the top which is about an hour longer than normal. We were all running out of time, so the loop was out. We messed around on the way down shooting a lot of video and goofing off and I started to have a lot of ice buildup on my socks/shoes and tights and it was uncomfortable, but I never stopped to get it all off and when we finally got down I noticed a lot of blood on my socks and I had some pretty big oozing wounds on my heels and ankles. DUMB! I haven't bought new gators since mine were stolen out of my car and now I'll pay for it. We did have a total blast though laughing just about the entire time and enjoying some killer views while getting in a pretty good workout. | 