Rocky Ridge Traverse

December 28, 2015

From soaking in the rain yesterday, we went to a winter wonderland as there was a few centimeters of snow overnight and the temperature dropped to a more reasonable temperature of -6. Same team as yesterday (Ivan, Claudia, Katja, Deb, and myself) drove out in two cars. We dropped Ivan's car at Chapel Pond and continued on to New Russia. The trail started off fairly easy, even with the new snow, so we bare booted as more snow lightly fell from the sky. As we climbed it got colder, and the stiff wind had us zipped up in our shells. As we started climbing Bald Peak, the mud underneath the snow began to freeze and we put on our microspikes. Some route finding was required up Bald, as the blazes were hidden under the snow, but not too difficult to navigate on this peak. At the summit we layered up and had a short break. As we left the summit towards the giant erratic, the sun came out and we got to enjoy the lovely views for the rest of the day. Climbing up to the ridge was slow going as a some were tired. I stayed at the back, layered up as I was not generating enough heat to keep warm. We stopped for another brief break at Mary Louise Pond and then made the final climb up to Rocky Peak. Views abounded, and we took several photos by the big summit cairn. Ivan and Katja had planned to turn around here and go back the way we had come, but after the endless traversing over all the bumps of the ridge, they both figured the climb up Giant was an easier proposition. We made the long descent and then started climbing again for the last 800' vertical journey. It got very icy, and I switched to crampons, while the others stayed in their spikes. At the junction, we found Ivan sitting down, and Deb had already scampered off towards the summit. Katja and Claudia both did not want to hike the remaining 200m, so I went up alone, and almost immediately ran into Debbie coming down. I convinced her to go up with me, so she happily oblidged and we grabbed the summit to ourselves with its fantastic view of most of the high peaks of the ADK. The wind was now calm, and the sun was shining so we sat down for 10 minutes to drink some tea, eat a sandwich and enjoy the view. We finally went back down and found that the others had already left. The ridge trail was very icy so I remained in my crampons all the way down to 2600'. For the most part this worked better than the microspikes, but at one point the ADK trail nastiness got me. A root caught the point of my pon, which caused a trip. This would have been fine except I then hooked a point in my gaiter on the other leg and then not so graciously tipped over. Fortunately the landing was easy and my pride was hurt more than my body. The last thousand feet was easier terrain and we had to switch on the lights for the last twenty minutes as darkness fell. Arrived at Chapel Pond after a 9.5 hour day.

A little more wintery today as we climb towards Blueberry.