November 14, 2010

Eddy's Exploration

We were exploring, experiencing new territory, pushing our boundaries to new frontiers.

We were lost.
Doc Enjoying the Route
No fault of Doc's as I had been to Eddy's a few times and he had not.  After I lost the trail, and then skied in a circle, I'm sure Doc wondered if he ever would make it to Eddy's.  But, we persevered and finally made it after a 2-hour 'exploration' of Eddy's.
Turnagain Arm View Looking Northeast from Eddy's
Below 1500 ft elevation, the snow was crunchy, but above that magic elevation, the snow was excellent.  The slog from the highway was covered well and the alders were mostly bent over and buried, but finding stream crossings is a little more difficult early in the season.  We left our skins on for most of the slog back due to icy breakable crust below 900 ft el.  There is a well worn trail, but the wet gloppy snow that slid from the trees has obscured it in a few places.  After losing the trail outbound, we toured too far southwest and wound up on the west (wrong) side of Ingram Creek canyon, but some route finding put us back on the trail.  It was pretty silly getting so far off track given the GPS-marked route (click to enlarge) I posted a couple of seasons ago.  We had no route finding blunders on the return leg, and our headlamp contingency went unused.
Looking South at Ingram Creek Headwaters
Eddy's Alpine Bowl - Who was Eddy?


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