| Trip Report: |
The trail from Granite Flats to the meadow in the first pass on the north side of Box Elder Peak was good and dry. I made it to the top in 3.5 hours. There was still significant snow cover in the meadow and that proved to be the case for almost the entire length of the trail between the meadow down to the trail junction on the west side. The west side trail also had significant snow cover on the upper reaches, usually just in the shaded areas. The big surprise came when I arrived at the approach to the pass on the south side of the peak and found complete snow cover there. Navigating by map and compass, I slowly picked my way across the steep south face of the mountain -- losing my footing only once. Fortunately, that was only a short, although breath-takingly fast, slide down to the bottom of the snowfield. The snow was wet and slippery on the surface, and heavy, compacted, and grainy everywhere -- typical late spring snow. On one long stretch of snow covered switchbacks - I sat down on my rear end and glissaded down several hundred feet to the trail clearly visible at the bottom. Some sections, particularly in the snowslide canyon on the east side of the mountain, it was just too dangerous to try to stick to the trail. Usually it was just too darn steep to chance it going across the snow (even though I had my ice trekkers on), but in the slide canyon there was a stream flowing audibly under the snow, and I incurred a lot of additional time there trying to find a place where the snow had melted back from the stream so that I could cross the stream without the dangers of trying to walk over a snowbridge. What a day! |
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