Day 40: Post-holing through the San Juan's

Mileage: 11.5 miles (716.9-728.4)

We woke up at 4am so we could start walking before the snow started to melt. By 5:30 we were treated to a great sunrise. We were quickly ascending to 12,400 ft so we could see everything as the morning light crept into the sawtooth peaks. To our north, we spied Gunsight Pass, a U-shaped contour in the divide, and were thankful we weren't going up it. 

After we reached our crest we had to descend close to 1,000 ft back into the valley below so that we could head up the next ridge. We were able to walk on top of the snow in the valley and part of the way up the ridge before we started post-holing. Karma led the charge up the ridge with tireless energy. We topped out by climbing over the hump, with ice flows on either  side of us. Up top we took a leisurely break so Karma could warm his feet, which had gotten chilly on the climb. 

I took over breaking trail on the way down, not even realizing how steep it was until we climbed the opposite ridge and looked back at our tracks. It's pretty amazing to think how many people behind us will follow our footsteps up and down these peaks.

By midday we had another long climb contouring up to the divide. The snow was even slushier than the day before and sometimes we'd sink in up to our hips. Following Karma wasn't much better as I'd often break even deeper into the snow with each step. Man, how we wished we had snowshoes.

As we made it up to the pass we noticed quite a lot of coyote tracks - neither of us realized they came up to such high elevations. We also spotted more Ptarmigan, as well as some marmot tracks.

Once we topped out on the pass we took a look at our map and decided to take the spine of the actual Continental Divide, rather than following the trail which went lower down below the peaks. At first, it seemed like a great decision, with awesome views of the u-shaped glacial valley below, where I imagined the grizzlies would hang out. Unfortunately, the gentle ridge coming off to the west turned out to be a jagged cliff's edge of hoodoos. Basically, rock spires which formed a spine connecting one peak to the other. 

We took a look at it and decided to try it out, not wanting to backtrack up the 500' ridge we'd just descended. At first, it seemed okay - nothing that we hadn't tackled previously. But then the spires started to be too far apart to walk from one to another - only sharp crests of rotten snow with a steep drop on each side connected them. After some scrambling and finding the rock was pretty loose, we decided to head down below the ridge and then climb back up. As I was going down I triggered a mini-avalanche and snow rushed down the slope and crashed into a spire below. Not wanting to trigger anything else, I skirted along a spire's edge, pulling myself up a few rocks to reach the final slope that led up a friendly ridge. As I pulled up one of the rocks I was hanging onto came off the cliff, but luckily my feet and other hand were solid. I had flashbacks to previous misadventures and realized we'd made a mistake coming down here.

After I reached safety I advised Karma to take a gentler route. I lost sight of him for a few minutes and began to worry so I dropped my pack and ran back down toward the spires. I yelled, "Karma! Karma!" but I got no response. I'd imagined he'd fallen and it was all my fault for encouraging us to take an alternate route. I kept yelling and yelling until finally I heard a voice from below say, "I'm not dead, just 40 ft more!"

I was incredibly relieved, apologized profusely, and hauled Karma's pack up the rest of the ridge to give him a break. We both agreed no more alternate routes. I was thankful we were both safe and sound, and vowed not to get into another situation like that.

On the way back down towards the trail we ran into some very large bear tracks in the snow. Grizzly or black bear, we'll never know. We found a stream and as we began cooking dinner it started snowing very heavily. We agreed to make camp early and hope it cleared up so we could make an early start the next day. The next 8 miles were above 12,000 ft and we couldn't afford to be caught up there in a storm. We mused that our alternate route actually saved our butts because if we hadn't taken it, we'd probably be up high in the storm, which was producing thunder and lightning while it snowed. I've never seen lightning while it was snowing. It was frightening. We're both happy to warm in our tents, but we're not sure how long we'll have to wait out the storm...

The bear tracks leading away from ours. Grizzly or Black Bear?