Video: Happy to be on the summit - http://vimeo.com/32281123
Mid last week AdrienBC proposed the idea of camping on the summit of Sigurd Peak. We said "Why not"
We got a bit of a late start, putting boot to trail just after 10am. 7hr's before dark with ~10km's of distance to cover, ~2100m's of cumulative elevation to gain with overnight packs on our backs and thigh deep powder snow everywhere.
We could do it.
We met Stoked and one other gentleman on the trail on the way up. They where clearing the trail of downfall. Much Kudos for that. We soon hiked into the snowline at ~800m's elev. at my estimates. From there it just got deeper and deeper. AdrienBC and bcroadtrip did pretty much all the trail breaking as myself and Springbow found it hard keeping pace with them even in the broken trail. They're fast. We topped out on the ridge and donned our snowshoes. The ridge was socked in for the majority and the snow was deep and unconsolidated. It made progress very slow along the ridge crest. But we pushed on. As we came up on the summit the winds really picked up and the temperature plummeted. It was after 4pm when all finally reached the summit.
The winds where howling and we where all starting to lost body heat fast. Thoughts of hanging around to enjoy the summit quickly turned to thoughts of getting our tents pitched before dark (it already felt like dusk but it was hard to know as it had been dark and overcast all day) and getting warm. AdrienBC dropped off the other side of the summit and found a section of the ridge with softer, less wind encrusted snow that was sheltered a little by a tree island. We took out our snow shovels, leveled out our tent pads and pitched our tents in a brief respite from the wind. We were cold enough at this point and the snow was powdery enough that we didn't bother digging down much to give us a snow wall around our tents. We pitched on top of the snow and hoped our tents would survive the night. Once pitched we pretty much all got into our respective tents and didn't really leave them until the next morning. I hopped into my sleeping bag right away with all my clothes on and shivered uncontrollably for a good 20 minutes before getting my core temp back up. AdrienBC and bcroadtrip elected not to boil water and just had a cold dinner.
Myself and Springbow wanted the warmth of a hot meal so we took the time to get some water boiled, had dinner then turned in for the night at around the late hour of 7pm. The night was far from calm. mountain-forecast.com said there would be gale force winds in the vicinity at that elevation and it really felt at times that our tent was going to be picked up with us in it and blown off the mountain. At times the tent was pushed so far down by the wind that I'd wake up feeling pinned down by the sides of the tent. Add to this that we where using a 3 season tent so we where getting loads of spin drift blown under the fly and into our tent. It was a restless night for all of us, but in the relative calms between gusts we'd catch a few zzz's. The next morning we dusted off the layer of snow that was covering all our gear inside our tent and awoke to a calm weather window for breakfast.
We could see dark ominous clouds in the valleys around us, but over Sigurd Peak there was blue skies and sunshine. We went back up to the summit to take it in as we didn't really have the opportunity the day before. After a short time on the summit we returned to camp, took some photos, had our breakfasts, exchanged stories of the night before then packed up and headed out. Shortly after leaving camp the winds and clouds returned for our egress. I was extremely thankful that we had a calm weather window to dismantle our tents. Doing so in those winds would not of been enjoyable. Our descent was quick and uneventful. We made it back to the cars in about 3hrs30 by my estimates. All in all another excellent day and night in the mountains. Link to Clubtread Trip Report http://www.clubtread.com/sforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=41875
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