The worst thing is I had read online people complaining about the gate opening late for plowing, but I had no idea when "late" was. Now I know.
So we had two hours to kill in a wet, dark Longmire afte 4-5 cups of coffee in a Subaru with no cell coverage. Needless to say a level spastic bored ensued for ~60 minutes when we got suspicious that the gate may be open(we weren't in clear in sight). Sure enough they had opened the gate at ~8:00 and we were on our way, though we'd lost the right to be the first car up.
We arrived at
a snow covered lot and low vis conditions.We donned our gear and headed up slope. Following the normally familiar Skyline Trail was slightly more challenging with out 400 ft vis, and ground conditions between 1 inch of ice and 10 inches drifts of powder but we managed to follow it almost the whole trip. We arrived at a snowfield under the step ascent to Panorama Point and confirmed our decision to not bother going higher. A solo skier right behind us and 5 minutes later 4 hikers proceeded on to Panorama point. We saw both return within about 30 minutes reporting a near white out, not surprising given the lack of features past pebble creek and the sub 1/4 miles visibility and 20+ mph wind.
We dug a mediocre protective trench out near a large bolder(probably not good protection after all), removed pack and proceeded. The medium depth powder and gentle slope led to little excitement though a pleasant run while dodging scattered rocks. We did a second lap and decided that we needed a kicker on a short steep section. 1 hours later we had a knoll of loose powder and scatter old corn. This "kicker" offered a distraction from the conditions as we were sheltered.
After giving up on that we returned to our packs above and met some rocket scientists in frozen jeans. The winds had increased and the temps actually decreased through out the day. We ate lunch as we watched them ascend to P.P. (I later estimated the windchill to ~6 degress) till we lost sight in the swirling snow. After our Ramen and tall can of Busch we heard said geniuses hooting and hollering their way down and wining about their frozen jeans. We broke "camp" and rode down our slightly farther than we had, but no where near as far as Julie and I had 2 Julys ago(within 200 of the lot). I proceed to put a gouge in my board. Down hiking is not fun but at least we were leaving the coldest parts behind.
A quick load of the gear and we headed to Ashford
Copper creek (a climbing class discovery) blackberry pie and stew provided after ride refreshment capped a rough day of riding but alas a still good day.
