Today was a big day and the first real mountain challenge. Our target – gerting up, over and down Forester Pass on 4.011m / 13,153ft.

Exhausting day! First we had to climb 3,000ft and the trail was no help since it was burried underneath several feet of snow. So we decided for the more or less straight line to the pass which also saved us from crossing a massive creek which had swollen to a size which was not fordable anymore. We cut the creek at its tributaries and went into the wall.

 

This hike is turning into a little mountaineering expedition. Due to the melt and and still massive amount of snow there are many lakes and streams below the snow which depending on the thickness of the snow bridges become dangerous to cross. Good terrain reading required.

Traversing of the snow fields until we got to the very steep rock face of the pass.

Once we got to the the wall we all switched to ice axes. I took the lead since I am the one with most mountaineering experience. We picked up a young girl yesterday – “McGyver” – which is not prepared for this kind of stuff. We couldn’t really let her do it on her own… Since she didn’t bring an ice axe I gave her mine and started cutting switchbacks into the ice wall with my shoes and walking poles. The last bit was fairly steep and you could feel the tension in thr group since it was the first time for almost all of them.

Once we got out of the ice and onto
the rock the trail was a lot safer. We stopped for a short break and McGyver said that she was very dizzy and about to lose conciousness. She started shivering and took her socks off. First signs of hypothermia… So we wrapped her in what we had, put her hands and feet into plastic bags and heated her up with body heat from two sides. After ten minutes she recovered and we decided to continue and get her in the sun. Never go into the mountains unprepared! 🙈

Another sketchy part laid ahead of us – the gully. You can see the trail coming from right to left in the rock face and then continuing over the snow field almost on the top in the middle of the picture. Something you don’t want to slide down!

 

Traversing the gully in the almost vertical wall…

This went all fine as well. I again shuttled people and equipment over through the sketchy part to support.

I really enjoy helping and sharing the knowledge. But with this size of the group now it becomes quite a lot of work and I am lacking time to enjoy myself. Don’t even have time for pictures… Let’s see where this goes.

Views from the top – epic!!!

 

And then the stretch down. Views, steep slopes, more glacading, slush and what we have seen before. The big group makes travel slow – not an ideal setup. We also did not stick together as close as agreed and had people being out of sight for a while. Too dangerous out here and something which has to change. It’s good that we get to town tomorrow and have some time to reshuffle and reset!

 

Bangerang and I decided to go swimming in the creek next to our campsite – whooooooo freakin cold. But it felt good after the day in the sun up there on the snow fields…