The First Trip of Winter: An F in the Sewards

Since I didn't do blog entries for our first few trips of winter earlier, I decided to go ahead and write those up now. So, this is an OLD trip, but a NEW blog entry. : )

Paul and I spent weeks and weeks talking about the upcoming winter climbing season. We discussed trip options, how to attack the peaks, etc. We knew we had a lot on our plate with 23 peaks to climb, but we also knew it was within our abilities.
The climbing season began on Dec 21 (a Sunday). Paul and I had decided to take some time off work and to spend the entire two week holiday season in the mountains. We thought it would be fun to celebrate the holidays in the snowy north. We came up with an extensive plan which we thought we could handle. Paul designed and built a futon platform for my car thereby creating an elevated sleeping space while utilizing storage space underneath. We bought food, organized meals, gear, you name it. We were set.
We headed up to Tupper Lake on Saturday the 20th with the intent on hiking the Seward Range over several days. The idea was that Paul would drag a sled with gear (lightening our pack loads) and we'd hike in, attempt Seymour either the first day or the second, and try the three Sewards (Seward, Donaldson, Emmons) the next day and possibly hike out--all depending on conditions and how we felt.
We had a tasty dinner at the Lumberjack Inn in town and headed to Coreys Road where we would see if we could get to the summer trailhead. The road is not always plowed in the winter and sometimes they close and lock the gate. If that happens, one must park on the road and hike in from there. It ads an additional 3.5-4 miles depending on where you start from. Unfortunately, because of recent snow, the road was impassable and we had to park at the winter trailhead. Obstacle number 1. We went to sleep for the night and woke up with a hopeful attitude.
We started off down the road and made our way to the summer trailhead. No one had been in (we weren't surprised). We hiked down the trail and the snow was deep. No broken trail. Paul was struggling with the sled because the snow was so soft. It was exhausting. It was snowing pretty heavily and we still hadn't made it to the lean-to. It has to be just ahead we kept telling ourselves. The sled was making things very difficult for Paul and he was wiped out by the time we did arrive at the lean-to. We knew we were not going to make an attempt on Seymour that day. We opted to set up our new tent instead of sleeping in the lean-to. We did so and climbed in our sleeping bags and took a nap. It was still early in the day, but we were quite tired already.
We napped, lounged, etc the rest of the day. Had a meal and slept for the night. We decided we'd get up early and make an attempt on Seymour the next day. Up relatively early and down the unbroken trail we went. The snow was very deep, as we'd received quite a bit of snow all day on Sunday and Sunday night. It was slow going. Paul was doing a great job of navigating but soon we found ourselves on a steep section in thick brush. We knew we'd lost the herdpath and knew which direction we needed to head, but it was too difficult to get there with the brush. Also, Paul was concerned about the snowpack. We weren't sure how stable things were because the snow was soft and there wasn't much of a base beneath it. There was an area of blowdown we were near and he didn't feel comfortable with us going through it. We were both physically exhausted but knew we were on the wrong track. I had gotten whipped in the eyeball by a tree-limb so my eye was burning and watering and my attitude was really poor. Paul was as tired as I've ever seen him. We knew the decision to turn back was best.
Back down we went and we arrived at the tent early again. Same story of napping, lounging, melting snow for water and hot water bottles for the sleeping bag--yay. We discussed our options. Neither one of us wanted to go back for Seymour but we felt confident in our attempt. Why not attempt Seymour and hopefully make it, then hike out? Our original plan had us hiking out with already completing 4 peaks. Here we were already prepping for day 3 with zero peaks. Part of us wanted to just hike out the next day. Forget Seymour. But, we were already that far in there, why not just stay and try again? Seymour was the furthest peak out. If we could at least get that, the other three peaks could be attempted later.
Up early again and we faced a cold morning. We knew it was going to be sub-zero temps, but wow it was cold. I was having a tough time staying warm for the first part of the morning, but once we started climbing, I did finally warm up. We followed our tracks until we branched off toward the direction we thought we should have gone. At this point the trail became very steep. We were basically on the slide itself and it was incredible. The snow was knee-thigh-waist deep and it was super slow going. We did the best we could, but we were not making progress fast enough. We were concerned about daylight and we topped out only .3 mile from the summit. Talk about heart wrenching. Reluctantly AGAIN we turned back and headed down. We both were clearly too exhausted to try to hike out. The interesting thing is that we saw tracks. Others had been in. Paul noted that the tracks followed our old tracks from the day before. Uh oh....well, maybe they had been able to find a better way.
We'd been having problems with condensation in the tent and we decided that we'd sleep in the lean-to that night. We knew the temperatures were supposed to be warmer and indeed we could feel it. It did snow lightly that night and every once in a while the wind would blow a little snow in the lean-to and you'd feel snow crystals on your face. It would give me a chill, so I tried to keep my back to the open side. I didn't get much sleep the whole trip and was pretty tired but so was Paul.
We packed up gear the next morning and made decent time along the broken trail out toward the car. And what did we find when we got to the summer trailhead? The road had been plowed! It figured!
So, it was 4 days, while we saw signs of people we actually didn't see anyone AND we didn't summit any peaks. That was a big drag. It was Christmas Eve and we were bummed. We were starving when we got out, but soon found out that nothing in the small town of Tupper Lake seemed to be open. What to do! The one place that was open was the Dunkin' Donuts in the gas station in town. I had a bagel and Paul had a bagel sandwich and that was enough to take the edge off.
We both were beat down and were not sure what to do. We'd planned on staying up there, but decided that we needed to retreat. To rethink things. Plans had changed completely. Fortunately, from Tupper Lake it was only about a 2 1/2 hour drive to Paul's parents house. We called to make sure we could come to stay and they welcomed us. We were able to clean up, dry out, warm up, do laundry, and sleep in a warm bed. Paul's mom made their traditional sausages (but earlier than midnight!) and for Christmas breakfast we made egg nog french toast. It was delish.
Paul's parents left to head to Paul's younger sister's house and we spent the afternoon sorting gear, food, and packing for another trip. Since we felt as though we needed a confidence boost, we decided we'd try a shorter trip. We figured on heading to hike Esther.
We left the warmth of the house and headed to Megan's (Paul's sister). There, we visited and hung out for a little while before we hit the road. We opted to get an early start, so we passed up dinner (though it smelled great) and headed north.
We took backroads for a while and were having trouble finding something that was open on Christmas. Once on the Northway, I even used the GPS to find restaurants and I called to see if they were open. Only one was: Denny's. We were pretty hungry at that point, so we decided to roll the dice and give them a try. We couldn't believe how busy they were! It was a small restaurant and was quite crowded. We got our food and it was tasty! I was surprised, as I've been to horrible Denny's restaurants and I wasn't sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised and it was good to know where it was, because later it became a favorite stopping place for several of our other trips home.
Back on the road with full bellies and as we approached our exit, decided we'd stop by the Ausable Club parking area to check out what was going on there. Maybe we'd reconsider our trip....TO BE CONTINUED...