Twelve of us ventured down to Newcombe through a horrible snowstorm on Friday January 27th. It was a 'Snow Day' where the buses are cancelled so Glenn and I had an easy day at school without classes and exams and was able to leave a bit early to get a headstart in the storm. We followed Pat and Debbie down which turned out to be a good thing as I wasn't confident navigating the route and when we we got there all the road signs were covered in snow so routefinding could have been impossible!
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| Views from Colvin of Basin |
The alarm went off at 5am at the Tamarack cabin where 6 of us slept. The other cabin labelled the Pilot's cabin where the remaining 6 slept also awoke at 5. The gange was off to do the Santanoni range but as I have already completed it I had thought of doing Allen. Due to the mild weather above freezing the entired week before the trip, most of the river crossings were open and so we decided to consider other options. I decided to drive over to Keene Valley to bag Blake and Colvin, two peaks that I need for my 46'er quest. At 5:30am we were out the door and driving the Blue Ridge road over to Keene Valley. We pulled into the Ausable parking lot around and hour later and had signed in at the register by 6:57. Temperature at the car was -3 degrees celcius. Within meters of the register we had to don our microspikes. The Lake Road was sheer ice! I guess the storm the night before had brought freezing rain to Keene Valley, not snow.
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| Atop Colvin |
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| View of Blake |
By 9am we were at the Elk Pass-Colvin junction. There we switched our traction devices to snowshoes. You could have probably continued on in crampons or microspikes but I wanted to avoid post-holing and wanted to use the heel lifter bar on the steeper sections of the ascent that did come in handy. Climbing up to Colvin's summit we encountered many steep icy pitches that proved to be quite tricky in parts. The temperature was around zero and we stripped down to baselayer without hats or mits on all the ascents. We landed on the summit around 10:15am and were pleased to see many views of Great Range and Nippletop. We quickly took some pictures and marched across towards Blake, and passed a group of two gentlemen from Buffalo who had been ahead of us until this point.
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| Negotiating ladders with snowshoes on |
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| My Blake summit shot |
Again, we encountered some steep and icy sections desceding Blake and two ladders! We arrived at the Col and noticed that no one had travelled the trail down to the lake. We ascended immediately up to Blake and our heel lifter bar worked magic up the steep icy sections. Before we knew it we were up the 600ft. Glenn had nicked his finger on his new snowshoes so we bandaged him up, ate some lunch and took our photos. The two gentlemen caught up to us on the summit of Blake just as we were leaving at 11:57. On our descent we figured out the best way to descend was to downclimb backwards down the ice in order to keep things safe. This technique was slow, but the safest way to proceed. We marched our way up out of the col with our heel lifter bars in action again and passed another group of guys headed towards Blake. We arrived back at the Colvin summit about 1:15 and took another break to fuel up and enjoy the views. The clouds had lifted so we took a few more photos and carefully downclimbed numerous steep pitches down towards the junction. There were a couple times I wish I had had a ice axe.
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| Descending backwards |
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| The Lake Road or "Ice" road |
On the past 3 hikes I have been testing out a new jacket called the Mountain Hardwear Drystein jacket made of the new Dry-Q Elite fabric that is dubbed the new Gore-tex. It claims that it breathes so well that it doesn't need armpit zippers. I am pleased to report that the jacket stands up to all its claims. I am amazed at how much longer I can leave my shell on. Fabrics like the Dry Q are going to revolutionize the industry I'm sure.
At the junction again we switched back to the microspikes and marched out to the Lake Road and signed out at the register at 4pm.
Totals for this hike: 23.6km, 4373 ascending, 9.5 hours
