After the road side, snowy campsite north of Frisco it was time for !Erika to head back to her responsibilities in Minnesota and it was time for me to continue West, West to Los Angeles. We parted ways and I spent the better part of the day recouping from the last few and getting ready to my second 14'er attempt. This time with skis.
Leaving relatively early the next morning after some dark coffee I headed up to the base of Quandary Peak just out of Breckenridge, CO. Quickly, I realized that I had no ski poles for the ascent. This, I deemed minor and headed out climbing the peak with my backpack, some supplies and skins on my back country skis.
The morning was calm, bright and frigid. As I climbed, each white, wispy exhalation hung around me like a frozen cloud. The trail snaked up through the trees, across frozen meadows and through small draws normally choked by willows. I emerged above the three line at 12,000 feet and was greeted by blasts of a cold westerly wind sometimes gusting closeto 50 mph. There was a long, relatively exposed ridge line just in front of me the lead directly to the summit. I slowly and steadily made my way along the ridge line greeting other climbers while ascending and fired up that my first 14,000 foot summit was moments away.
The summit was really breezy, make that cold...and breezy. So, my skis were quickly on my feet and I was putting my signature in the mountain with some, so-so stem turns. Making my way down, there was a really appealing bowl just to my left, but I was warned by a few locals that this was ttypically wind loaded and safety was an issue so I followed the ridge-line down, down, down. I've got to say the without poles, it was a more than interesting ski.
I arrived back and my car and thought, this calls for a celebration and how better to do such a thing than mix up a nice bowl of instant oats and dried milk. Yum.
