Basin and Saddleback

February 19, 2012

While we were cooking supper under Slant Rock last night, an older gentleman stopped to chat. When we told him of our plans to climb Saddleback with full packs, he informed us that the idea was crazy, very dangerous, and his hiking club had banned anyone from doing a trip on this route during the winter season. Ok, so this kept me up in the tent half of the night, and gave me dreams of falling off Saddleback mountain when I was sleeping. Anyway, we discussed the route amongst ourselves and then just decided to go ahead and take a look at it, making our own decision when we got there. Besides, I was supposed to do a reconnaisance of this climb for the mountaineering club that I belong to in preparation for another group in a couple weeks. This turned out to be a good plan, as climbing Saddleback cliffs was an absolute hoot of a good time. I got up at 05:30 into a cool (but not cold) winter morning. As I started coffee Shaughn and Ivan appeared. It took quite a while to get enough snow melted for water and to pack up camp, so we hit the trail around 08:00. A sunny day greeted us and we immediately started climbing a very steep snowy trail up Basin. Fabulous views of Haystack and Marcy greeted us from the occasional lookout. The climb up Basin was accomplished with snowshoes, sometimes requiring the use of an ice axe. When we got to the treeline, we stopped briefly to rehydrate, re-energize with some food, and layer up for the exposed summit cone. The climb to the top from here was almost a bit of a disappointment, after all the preparation. As once you rounded a corner, you found yourself on top! Nevertheless the views were spectacular. The trail down the back side was difficult to follow. Faint tracks indicated that at least one party had gone before, but most of the trail markers were buried in the deep snow. A steep downclimb on an exposed snow slope brought us down into the trees, and at some point we lost the trail. We bushwacked down to the col between Basin proper and the false summit and regained the trail at this point. After a quick break we hiked over to Saddleback, all the while viewing the ominous looking rocks that we would have to climb up. Breaking above treeline at said rocks, the wind was strong and very cold. We suited up into alpine apparel, strapped on our crampons and began the climb. The first section was some class 3 mixed climbing, requiring some dry tooling and occasional front pointing into cracks in the rock. This followed a class 4 ramp of ice, which while not technically challenging was very exposed. We were very careful not to fall here as death would likely have been the outcome. Lastly was a rocky ledge requiring two axes followed by a steep snow ramp which led right to the summit. We were all laughing as we completed this route as it was exactly the type of challenge we were looking for. After the obligatory summit photos, we got down off the wind exposed summit back into the forest where we took a break. The rest of the journey back to the car was a long walk, down fairly gently declining terrain. We came to a slide (which looked like a new Irene one) and met a group of skiers who were making some turns in the crusty snow. At the bottom we had a proper lunch while lounging in the warm sunshine. A long slog out from here ensued, with us transitioning from snowshoes, to microspikes, and finally to bare boots as the snow was completely gone as we approached Keene valley. Four winter summits in a weekend, fantastic weather, about 16 hours of hiking over the two days, makes this a very memorable trip.

Basin mountain in the early morning light.