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| Me climbing the brothers |
Set out from the Garden Parking lot at 8:30am expecting a cold, rainy, 6hr fall hike. Rain fell on us the entire day. After the first hour of hiking we noticed some snow cover on the ground, but nothing to really slow things down. After 2 hours, the snow depth increased to ankle depth, and we passed two women who were lost trying to find the DEC marker. Glenn and I passed them and they followed our trail up. After 3 hours of hiking, the snow depth was mid-shin depth. Soon after the snow depth was knee deep and soon thigh deep. We contemplated turning around as we hadn't brought snowshoes-not expecting this kind of snow in October. Just as we pondered turning around another lone male hiker had followed our trail up and stopped to talk to us when the two girls came up with a GPS indicating that we were only 500ft from the summit. We all decided as a group that we should continue. Glenn broke the trail up to the summit sometimes being in hip deep in snow on his 6'2" frame.
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| Glenn and I enjoying the snow! |
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| Glenn thigh deep in snow! |
We stumbled upon by accident the summit ladder under about 40cm of snow and finally summitted around 1:15pm. A glacially slow hiking pace! We were actually crawling in places! At the summit our new friends Izzy, Heidi and John met up with us and we all celebrated together. They of course thanked us for breaking trail for them ALL the way up! We couldn't find the summit marker but saw a sign to Yard Mtn so we knew we were there. Of course the summit views were absent due to the cloud cover. We were soaked to the bone after being rained on, and wading through snow-we used up all our spare clothes. I wish I had put my baskets on my poles and had brought my snowshoes! We made a quick descent down to JBL which was pretty uneventful other than the fact that the numerous brook crossings were tricky due to the swollen river banks and the crossing rocks being submerged. At the JBL lean-to a doe deer approached me and touched my glove! I'm saddened to think that these wild creatures are so human habituated-people should be ashamed feeding wildlife. A slushy walk out to the Garden parking lot ended the anticipated 6hour hike to an 8 hour epic! Summit #10 will be a memorable one for sure!
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| Glenn and I on the summit! |
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| My summit shot! |
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| Finished! |
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