I bit off a little more than I wanted to chew this morning. The plan was to climb Thaynes peak with my friend Matt. I have never climbed to the summit of this peak before, although I have been on the nearby summits. The peak is just under 10,000 feet, so we knew there would be snow up there, but we both felt like there would be a 'beaten' path to the top.
I set my alarm for 4:30, but my backup alarm was set for 3:30 and I didn't realize it until it woke me up an hour early. I couldn't get back to sleep, and just as I dozed my son woke me up because he needed some loves, then when I dozed again the alarm went off. I wasn't feeling it at all, but I was hoping to get in a groove.
I met Matt at Dans Grocery store by Millcreeek Canyon and it was a quick drive to the Desolation trail. Both of us were feeling sluggish and we slowly made our way up the trail. I made a stupid mistake and left my gaiters in the car. DUMB DUMB! I was just being lazy and it would come back to haunt me. After a mile we were in snow the rest of the way. We followed a gully that got pretty steep, and just as we thought there were bucket steps in the snow, which was good because we didn't bring our snowshoes or ice axes.
It was really slow going and the gully was pretty steep. About 3/4 of the way up the steps stopped, and it was taking us a lot longer than we thought it would. Both of us thought we could climb this peak and get back down in about 3 hours, but we were wrong. The conditions were not good.
The last half mile was slow and painful. It was steep and we were now post-holing to our knees with every step. We took turns breaking trail, but it was bad. Not having my gaiters made it even worse and my boots were getting wet and my feet very cold. I couldn't keep the snow out of them. We were both determined to make it to the top though, so we slogged on and cursed a lot.
We finally made it to the top after 3 hours and the view was fantastic. It was now windy and snowing a little, so we didn't stay long. We dropped down off of the summit to get out of the wind to take a break and I had a Hammer gel and Matt had a sandwich. The long slog back was just horrible. My feet were numb and my shins were getting trashed by the snow while I plunge stepped down. We did have a few glissades, but not as much as we would have liked.
The hike down was pretty uneventful and we made it back to the car for a total time of 4:36. It was a lot more work than I wanted to do today, but we had a really good time anyway.
3K + elevation gain. | 