Date: January 13 and 14, 2017
Location: Indian Peaks Wilderness Area
Distance: 9 miles round trip
Cumulative Elevation Gain: 1,000 feet+/-
Weather: Winter time!
Group: Tyler, Joel, Ethan, Mat
After a busy fall that interfered with some backpacking trips, we started the year off right with a trip into the Indian Peaks Wilderness. We headed in via the Waldrop Trail, which is more scenic and avoids some of the day hikers that head straight to Brainard Lake.
This area has been getting a lot of snow lately and the trees were covered (up to 18 inches on some branches).
From the start of Waldrop to Brainard Lake, the trail had generally been broken by others and was only drifted over in some stretches.
We saw a few day-hikers at Brainard and had to start breaking our own trail shortly after that point.
The new show was light, fluffy powder. Even with 30-inch snowshoes, we were consistently sinking 12 inches. This made for some really slow going. Fortunately, with four of us we could rotate through the lead position.
After setting up our tents, eating some snacks to make up for some of the hardest snowshoeing I have ever done, and warming up in our bags for a bit, Tyler and I hiked part way around Mitchell Lake to scout out potential snowboarding opportunities.
We found some options, hiked back to camp for some dinner, and decided to get up at 5AM to hike up the mountain.
After some dinner a beautiful full moon rose. Its pale light coupled with the snow made for some amazing scenery.
The following morning was beautiful. The moon was setting towards the west while the sun was coming up in the east.
Setting moon
Rising sun
We dug a few test pits to evaluate avalanche potential. Fortunately, everything looked good. After climbing for an hour and a half, Tyler was as far up as he could safely go. He made a beautiful run (tracks can be seen below) down the mountain on his snow board, making the 10 lbs worth the haul for this trip.
We headed back to camp, grabbed some food, packed up, and started the much easier hike out.
