Wind Rivers (2009) Winds April 2nd through April 13th of 2009

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It was a team of six of us meeting at the White Pines Ski Area, some 10 miles out of Pinedale, where we had reserved a cabin for the night of April 2nd. The cabin actually ended up being one half of a duplex condo that slept four, the kids, in a loft with four twin beds and two rather nice bedrooms containing queen beds that slept the two elders of the team.

With the youngest two team members arriving later in the evening, we retired a bit late in the evening but the steady drone of snoring soon put those of us up in the loft into a deep sleep with me only waking once during the night to climb the steep stair case down to the bathroom.

We all slept well only getting up in time to pack up and head over our pre arranged breakfast in the ski area cafeteria when they opened at 9:00 am. The breakfast was very relaxing with it being Friday and the cafeteria being nearly vacant.

With a short easy day planned to our first campsite, we boarded the ski lift along with our pulks and arrived at the west summit of 9,330 ft. Fortification Mountain at 12:30 pm.

We hooked up to our pulks and headed down some 260 ft. to the pass between the west and east summit of Fortification Mtn. at 1:00 to begin our climb to our first camp on the 9,413 ft. east summit.

We gained the east summit about two hours after leaving the west summit and began building two 9 ft. diameter igloos after we had lunch and took in some of the sights in the area. Our senior member made hot drinks for the team as the other five of us built the two igloos. This resulted in three of us building one igloo and two building the other igloo assuring that we would complete one igloo sooner than the other giving us an early shelter should it be needed.

After completing the first igloo we shifted our work to the second igloo finishing it by dusk and we all moved into the igloos to settle down and eat our evening meals before retiring for the evening.

It had been warm spring weather the day of our arrival at camp, which resulted in icy breakable crust on the snow the first morning at camp. We ate our breakfasts and headed out on a short ski trip along the route to our second camp.
 We were a bit tired because of the igloo building the day before but we did make it to the junction of the Sweeney Creek, Fortification Mountain and Elkhart Park trails before heading back to our first camp for the evening.

It had been a rather overcast day and the weather moved in through the evening resulting in about 6 inches of snow through the night. We awoke to a glorious sunrise and a pristine camp with the fresh snow.

We decided to spend four nights in our first camp as two of the team members had only planned on spending four nights before heading back out due to work obligations.

With the fresh snow, Chris Townsend and I decided to go for a ski and check out the route to our second camp via  the route I had planned before discovering that the route we had broken the day before was marked with blue blazes and very easy to follow through the woods.

We dropped about 200 ft. down through trees while on a northern exposure which had a soft base of snow with a fresh layer on top from the recent snow through the night. The skiing was some of the best I’ve had for a few  years and was over much to soon as we reached a large meadow at the bottom of the hill before beginning the ascent along the route I had laid out from Google Earth. The route proved to be very fun to follow and we soon arrived at the trail junction we had broken trail to the day before which coincided with route I had planned.

From the junction, we found that the marked trail followed my planned route so we began following the blazes until we lost them shortly before a large meadow close to where we could join the Pole Creek Trail which would take us to our planned camp at the head of Miller Park. As the time was getting late and we knew where we were, we decided to head back to camp to enjoy the evening eating and relaxing.

Upon returning to camp, we found that my son and his best friend had built/attached a seven foot igloo to the igloo the three of us had been staying in. Chris moved into the igloo with the addition giving more room in the 9 ft. igloo for the other two team members.

The following day was a gloriously clear day and we hung our gear out to dry on the branches of some dead trees while we went skiing around the summit taking pictures and doing a bit of exploring. We hung out at camp that evening socializing and resting for the next big day of moving to our second camp.

Our fourth morning at the first camp proved to be another gloriously sunny one while Chris and I packed in preparation to heading out to our second camp. We also handed my son and his best friend any extra gear we weren’t planning on using and they took it down the mountain on their way back to civilization the same day.

It didn’t take very long getting ready to leave which felt a bit too hasty considering it meant I’d be saying goodbye to my son but Chris and I knew we had a big day ahead of us with the continued trail breaking to our second camp and building another igloo for the two of us.

It was a quick goodbye and we headed off down off the summit choosing the blazed route instead of my planned route because it dropped 100 ft. less and had been traveled much more giving us a well packed trail for pulling our pulks. The trail actually proved quite wide as my son and his friend had also snowshoed part of the route.

After getting down from the summit proper, the trail ended up on a shoulder that led across to the beginning of a rather long moraine that we follow the top of. The moraine dropped off steeply on both sides. The meadow, my planned route, laid some 120 ft. down to the left and Sweeney Creek flowed some 600 ft. below us on the right. The moraine ridge had a few rises as we slowly gained altitude while traveling along it. The trail however was marked mostly along a steady uphill course that wrapped around a bit when getting to one of the humps. The views were rather limited due to the thick woods but the going was easy and made up for the missed views on my planned meadow route.

We pushed a little harder than any of our earlier excursions of the trip and soon reach the Sweeney Creek junction where we stopped for a quick snack. The junction is at the south end of a nice meadow that the trail follows and the snow had softened up quite a bit with a wet slushy layer on the surface. A glorious day for sure as we ate in the sun and wondered how the two team members still at the first camp were faring with moving into the expanded igloo with the 7 ft. addition. We felt confident that they were going to have a blast staying an extra day or two before heading back out. They had supplies for the entire ten night trip but didn’t know how long they would hang out at camp.

After eating our snacks and hydrating well, we headed out following the trail across the meadow and then through some sparse trees before reaching where the trail starts a steeper grade. I’d noticed that the climbing skins on my skis were sticking a bit when passing through shaded spots after the meadow crossing, meaning that our skins had gotten wet while taking a break and crossing the sunny wet meadow.

We continued to push hard up the steeper grade that had enough sun on it that my ski skins didn’t freeze up. We soon reached a high point where our return trail, from this area, dropped down to the meadow below the Pole Creek trail. I skied down through the thick woods with pulk in tow and soon came to a spot were it made more sense to traverse to the meadow in order to reach the meadow at a higher point.

As I began the trail breaking through the cold powder my skins started freezing or balling up but I was just able to break them free with each stride. I also noticed at this point that Chris was no longer behind me so I decided wait for him.

I stood there a bit and he didn’t appear so then I moved a bit to see if I could get a different perspective through the trees. My skins had frozen up solid while standing and within a few steps I had about a foot of snow balled up under my skis. It’s a skiers worse nightmare to have the skins freeze up and there I stood wondering what had happened to my buddy Chris who I couldn’t even go help due to the frozen skins.

Quickly, I took my skis off to scrape the skins and apply some skin wax to prevent them from balling up so I could get back up to Chris if needed.

Before I could finish waxing my skins, Chris appeared while struggling also with freeze up. He saw me and saw that I had taken a traversing route to the meadow. He turned onto the traversing route and his skins immediately froze up. We both ended up scraping the snow off our skins and waxing the skins but the wax worked and we were on our way again.

We came out of the woods into the meadow that had been our furthest reach so far for the trip. We would be back to route finding and trail breaking again from this point on but we continued to push hard and soon crossed the meadow and headed up into the woods where the Pole Creek trail crosses the hill some 120 ft. above the meadow.

We didn’t know what to expect for a trail but we found a trail that was wide and obvious. The trail had also been broken a few days earlier by a snowmobile and the fresh snow that had fallen on it from last couple storms made it very easy to follow and easy to travel on.

Although it was still a trudge, the wax on our skins was working very good and the lunch we had upon reaching the trail fueled us enough that we made good time. We moved on while wondering what we would find when we reached the Wilderness Boundary. We wondered if the snowmobile had turned around at the Wilderness Boundary or if he had continued on into the Wilderness, which would mark the trail for us, as there were no blazes on the Pole Creek trail.

We found that the snowmobile had indeed turned around at the Wilderness Boundary but it also appeared that he was also a skier and skied into the Wilderness Area, which marked the trail even further for us.

We followed the snowed over ski tracks until they reached a long meadow just before Miller Park. We then decided to start using the meadow system that stretch through the woods to the top end of Miller Park where we intended to build an igloo for our second camp. The snow in the meadows was much more consolidated and easier to travel on than even the snowed over tracks that went into the woods.

We followed the meadow system while passing through bands of trees that separated the meadows and soon came out into Miller Park a short distance from the pass where the Miller Lake trail drops over the other side and down to Miller Lake. From the pass, we headed south to our intended campsite on top of a high area I thought would give a great view. We found the high area wooded though and chose a campsite a bit east of the high point and down in a small clearing that was a little lower than the pass. It gave a nice view but not nearly as good as the view from our first camp.

It had been a pretty hard day with the strong pace we had set, so we ate a quick lunch before beginning to build our 8 foot igloo for the two of us, while hoping that the sun would hold it’s heat a bit longer and keep the snow surface soft.

The igloo building was easy as we began building with the 8 inches of fresh snow covered with a thin layer of spring slush but we soon used up the fresh layer and the surface slush also began turning to a layer of ice due to the east facing aspect of the campsite and the angle of the late afternoon sun. We ended up building the last of the igloo with the deeper layers of snow that also had layers of ice on top of them due to earlier spring conditions. Overall, the igloo building wasn’t as strenuous as the igloos at the first campsite but we still went to bed late after a late dinner.

The next day we took it easy, resting up and eating often, to regain our strength but still went to bed a bit tired. It had been overcast all day and we awoke to fresh snow again on our second morning in the new igloo with low clouds just above us giving us some pretty flat light for taking photos.

We decided to get out skiing in the fresh snow to loosen up our muscles, do some route finding and begin breaking trail towards our third campsite above Eklund Lake.

The day seemed rather dismal as we left camp but as we traveled the small meadows and fresh snow lightened our spirits. The route finding proved to be interesting and slowed us a bit but we made good time and felt quite elated from breaking trail in the fresh snow. We passed the Photographers Point area without going over to check out the view because there wouldn’t be a view with the low clouds.

After passing Photographer’s Point, we traversed a hillside over to flatter terrain that led all the way to Eklund Lake. We gained some 30 ft. more than needed while traversing but the going was easy and we soon reached the junction of the Sweeney Creek trail and the Eklund Lake trail. The junction was in the middle of a large flat meadow that dropped down off both sides of the pass and the trail was completely hidden under snow.

Continuing on, we passed through some sparse trees and soon entered another clearing that led us to small rise above and west of Eklund Lake where we stopped for lunch.

We had some views of the glacial knob just south of Eklund Lake as we were approaching the lake but the route we hoped to climb to the knob summit and our third campsite had been out of sight behind the knob. The route was also hidden by clouds as we began eating our lunch but the clouds moved a bit as we ate lunch giving us a clear view of the route up a steep slope leading to Two Top Lakes and the knob summit.

It was an obvious route and we felt no need to route find or break trail any further to our third campsite as the day was wearing on and we were looking forward to a fun ski back to our second campsite.

We had been skiing with wax instead of climbing skins because we weren’t pulling our pulks and the relatively flat trail going back to the Photographer’s Point area went fast, it felt heavenly to be skiing a packed trail in fresh powder. After passing Photographer’s Point, the trail started descending steep enough that we glided along on our skis, sometimes at high speeds. It was the best day of skiing on the trip, other than the short run down to the meadow from our first campsite on our third day of the trip.

It seemed that we got back to camp to quickly but we had a big day coming up on our return to Eklund Lake with our pulks and then climbing the 300 ft. tall glacial knob to build our igloo at our third campsite. We ate large meals, rested and retired early in preparation for the upcoming move to campsite 3.

After getting one of the best night’s sleep I’d had on the whole trip to this point, I awoke up to nearly cloudless skies and a glorious sunrise casting a warm glow on camp that promised a good day of travel.

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