Short Movie - more of a sound track really, with headlamps
The weather actually cooperated quite nicely; it was clear(!) and not too cold, although a tad on the windy side up on top. And with the new moon, the stars were fantastic! I was on the late side on arriving having not pried myself out of the U-district until 4:40. Picked up Ania at East Gate and headed out after the main group. Given the weather of the past few weeks, I had been expecting a bit of a mud-bath on the new section of trail, but it really wasn't bad. Then up through the mossy canyon, across the little plateau, and suddenly there's a fork in the trail. A fork? what the fork? there aren't any forks in this trail..... Took the right fork, which stopped ascending and started contouring down and east/north with lights visible off to the right again. Turned around at that point and went back to the less-prominent left fork, which was indeed the trusty Old Si Trail. Snow pack started shortly before intersecting the usual Si trail, and was pretty slick packed ice up to the rocks, where we found the rest of the group huddled out of the wind behind one of the larger rocks. There wasn't much room so we convinced everyone to move on up a bit to the stand of trees, which was a little less windy, and we could pull out the usual stash of goodies we've come to expect on the more decadant hikes. Mark had brought hot cocoa with an assortment of gold schlagger (?), Rumpleminze, and other shots. Russ and Chris upped the class level several notches by pulling out cheese, crackers, 3 Martini glasses (*real* glass, mind you NOT that lexan stuff), Olives and Gin. Next time, I'll be expecting the checked table cloth. Bruce had a bottle or two of Elysian ESB, and there was more hot tea, brownies, cookies and other great stuff. Don brought in the final treat of hot cocoa, generously laced with Old Creek (?) Bourbon. YOW. So we toasted the stars, the mountain, and a "bunch of drinkers with a hiking problem" before slip-sliding back down the top ice chute. We tried to find dinner at the base, but managed to arrive at two spots 1 minute after they stopped serving. ah well, hike down faster next time.
Happy Holidays to all,
I'm back to Colorado today, so have a good ski season!
M<
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