| Whiteout on James Peak Trip Report |
Geography Parents  Loading... Trip Reports
| Whiteout on James Peak   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 39.85220°N / 105.6894°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Apr 20, 2002 | Page By: peakwolf Created/Edited: Oct 6, 2002 / Object ID: 168708 Hits: 658 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
I was asked to substitute-lead a ski trip up James Peak via St. Mary's Glacier and the southeast face for a fellow leader in the local mountaineering club. We knew the weather was going to turn, but on the way up the glacier it was sunny and the temperature was climbing. We were all stripped down to long underwear tops. The climb up St. Mary's was short but continuous, and we finally topped out (somewhat sweaty) about a half hour after starting up. Since this was the worst Colorado winter in 100 years the big tundra plain was practically bare of snow, instead of being completely white as far as the eye could see. This early in the season it was shocking to see so little snow, but we hefted our skis on our packs and set off hiking for James. We stopped at a big rock outcropping past the top of the glacier for a snack. I for fun marked the snack place on my GPS, which I was using for the first time. We headed for the base of the wide southeast face and noticed the clouds were starting to build. About halfway up the expansive southeast face we could see that clouds were very slowly moving in, but it looked like we would have plenty of time. As we got to the last flat spot before the summit, one of the party was starting to slow down. She said she was OK but after about 15 minutes it became clear that she was getting sick. At the base of the summit, I decided to stay with her and let the rest of the group go to the top (big mistake!). We had a clear defined meeting place, and we were only 15 minutes from the top, max. Well as we waited for 20, then 30, then 40 mins, the weather quickly deteriorated. Why were they taking so long?! I was starting to wonder if we missed them in the whiteout. Finally after about 45 min, I saw the first skiers coming down. One person had trouble getting her climbing skins off at the top where it was pretty windy and she didn't have much experience, so it took a very long time. Luckily we were all able to meet even in a pretty severe whiteout, thanks to good planning about the meeting place. The way down the southeast face was challenging, but we knew to stay left to avoid getting into a wrong drainage. It was a little hard to ski because visibility was bad (not to mention the horrible boilerplate snowpack!) and some people were feeling the vertigo you get when you can't tell what the slope angle is during whiteout conditions. We stayed close together until the bottom of the slopes where we hit the flat tundra. At that point we thought we were home free. We had a short glimpse of the big rock outcropping that marks the route to St. Mary's and then the clouds closed back in. By now we were getting pelleted with snow and the temperature was had dropped to about 20 degees. I was in the back of the group making sure the person that was ill could keep up, while one of the stronger members was leading off towards the big rock. We hiked into a silent haze of cloud. When we got to the gulley that should have been St. Mary's Glacier, it didn't look right. It was narrow and steep and there were no footsteps in the snow (St. Mary's is always really cut up from all the traffic). We realized we were essentially lost. We spent a little time discussing where we were, but everyone had a different idea of where we had gone wrong and what direction to travel to put us back on route. As leader I decided to follow my GPS route to the rock outcropping I had marked in the morning. Although it felt like we were headed in exactly the wrong direction (and I was told this several times), we persevered following the GPS route. All you could see was white and a few yards of dormant tundra ahead of you. All I could think about was "this is James Peak, easy ski trip, I've been up it a million times, how could I be lost?" After about 35 minutes of walking in eerie non-visibility, the big rock pile finally emerged from the haze. We had made it back to "known space"! From there it was easy to get back down the glacier. As an added bonus the snow had somehow softened up even through the cloud cover and morphed into pretty decent corn snow for a fun descent to the trail! What's the moral of the story? Even if you have been up a mountain 5 times and you are in Colorado where it rarely whites out, pay attention to your surroundings and take compass bearings. Oh yeah, and believe your instruments.
|
|
Indian Peaks (CO)
