Post-Hike Run

Walk to the Car

Wildcats A-D (551-552/576)

The Wind is Thy Enemy

Winter Warriors

First hike since September and lets just say it was not a warm welcome back. Absolutely frigid temperature and abysmal trail conditions on top of that. Wore spikes up the ski trails, which while groomed were still quite soft... and super windy. 

Put on the snowshoes at the summit, and more or less broke trail across to A. Someone did hike these yesterday, but they were the only one. Snowshoes helped obviously, but not as much as I would have liked or have thought. First time in this new pair, and I was not impressed. Maybe it some of it was the trail, but I don't think the Lightning Ascents lived up to their reputation today.  Despite many feet of snow, felt like I was on a monorail cause if I stepped a few inches too far to one side I would sink down like a foot. 

Made my descent down Wildcat and decided that if the trail up Carter Dome was broken, I would continue, but if not I would turn back. While not ill-prepared, I could have used another layer or two for my head as I sweat through my fleece headband ascending Wildcat and only had a hat and normal headband left unfrozen. A facemask would have been nice, but I can't wear those with my glasses, so I just had to put up with a frozen face.

Anyway, the trail up Carter Dome looked broken, so I went for it, but after a couple hundred meters, it was down to one set of snowshoe tracks that were more like ghost tracks as whenever I would step there, I would sink several inches and slide down a couple feet. After probably 5-10 minutes of literally 1 step forward, 2 steps back, and needing to use all fours just to make any progress, I decided to just call it a day. 

Pretty bittersweet about all of this. Skipped hiking the last two weekends due to weather, forcing my hand for an all or nothing today. All of this after already delaying my GRID progress/ completion by a year last year due to what was fantastic marathon training which ultimately ended up in a terrible race. And now here I am again, one year later, pushing this off one more year. I won't make the same mistake this time, so I will continue plugging away the next couple months, but will feel a lot less pressure to get the other 20 mountains I'm supposed to get in March and April

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Jacob Wormald

Wildcats A-D (551-552/576)

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Post-Hike Run

Walk to the Car

Wildcats A-D (551-552/576)

The Wind is Thy Enemy

Winter Warriors

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