What a beautiful day we had, life is good! I had the privilege of hiking with HOL, and what an awesome person indeed.
Our plans were to hike this via the Calkins Brook trail, go over to Seward, then back track to Donaldson, Emmons, and back to the Calkins Brook.
We met at the trail head at 530 Friday morning, signed in and were off. The trail to Calkins Brook is a very nice walk in and especially nice on the way back out. We arrived at the cairn for CB around 630, took a quick break and were off. At around 23-2800 feet I started to get fatigued, I definitely wasn't in my mojo like I typically get into after getting warmed up. We discussed our options to either continue or turn around, we opted to play it by ear, push the fluids a bit more and take in some extra carbs, this improved a bit as we continued up, but was short lived. Around 2800 feet we started to run into snow and the further up we went the more accumulation, albeit maybe 3" at most. There is a fair amount of mud on the CB, and the trail over to Emmons. We got up on the ridge around 10:30, this is where we started to run into icy conditions, crampons would have been over kill, and for the most part we were able to chip the ice away from the rocks with our hiking poles. The only time we took out HOL micro spikes, was to compare them with my stable-icers, big difference and I will switch over, they are allot lighter, more aggressive, and I wont be walking around with loose screws :twisted: .
When we got to the ridge we went to Donaldson for a break, ate, drank, and review our options, I admitted to HOL there is no way I can do the 3 today, HOL stated "we'll do what we can, we're just out for a walk in the woods", so I suggested D and E, then if things change maybe we could go over Seward and out the blueberry. Things did not change for me, I was having difficulty in the col going over to Emmons, it was a weird feeling that I had not experienced before, and I felt confident I wasn't bonking, but that's where the final decision was made, HOL agreed, we would bail out after going back to Donaldson. We ran into the most amount of icing in the area between D and E, again nothing that required crampons, but some strategically placed feet. We took a break on Emmons, took pics, chatted, and then went back to Donaldson. Again we had a snack, and water on Donaldson, soaking in the sun and the views, when a group of four from Buffalo came up from Seward, these were the only hikers we had seen all day. We left the summit of Donaldson at 1:30ish? We enjoyed our hike down the CB, nice trail for going down, easy on the knees. We got back to the cars at 5pm, said our goodbyes and were off. I stopped at the emergency room to get checked out, and after a sleepless night and many test from heart to thoracic, nothing wrong was found, which is great news, but leaves me wondering, maybe I was bonking with different symptoms....
I'll post pics later, Nancy it was a blast, correct me if anything is wrong, I purposely left out the "I hear voices comment..."
Our plans were to hike this via the Calkins Brook trail, go over to Seward, then back track to Donaldson, Emmons, and back to the Calkins Brook.
We met at the trail head at 530 Friday morning, signed in and were off. The trail to Calkins Brook is a very nice walk in and especially nice on the way back out. We arrived at the cairn for CB around 630, took a quick break and were off. At around 23-2800 feet I started to get fatigued, I definitely wasn't in my mojo like I typically get into after getting warmed up. We discussed our options to either continue or turn around, we opted to play it by ear, push the fluids a bit more and take in some extra carbs, this improved a bit as we continued up, but was short lived. Around 2800 feet we started to run into snow and the further up we went the more accumulation, albeit maybe 3" at most. There is a fair amount of mud on the CB, and the trail over to Emmons. We got up on the ridge around 10:30, this is where we started to run into icy conditions, crampons would have been over kill, and for the most part we were able to chip the ice away from the rocks with our hiking poles. The only time we took out HOL micro spikes, was to compare them with my stable-icers, big difference and I will switch over, they are allot lighter, more aggressive, and I wont be walking around with loose screws :twisted: .
When we got to the ridge we went to Donaldson for a break, ate, drank, and review our options, I admitted to HOL there is no way I can do the 3 today, HOL stated "we'll do what we can, we're just out for a walk in the woods", so I suggested D and E, then if things change maybe we could go over Seward and out the blueberry. Things did not change for me, I was having difficulty in the col going over to Emmons, it was a weird feeling that I had not experienced before, and I felt confident I wasn't bonking, but that's where the final decision was made, HOL agreed, we would bail out after going back to Donaldson. We ran into the most amount of icing in the area between D and E, again nothing that required crampons, but some strategically placed feet. We took a break on Emmons, took pics, chatted, and then went back to Donaldson. Again we had a snack, and water on Donaldson, soaking in the sun and the views, when a group of four from Buffalo came up from Seward, these were the only hikers we had seen all day. We left the summit of Donaldson at 1:30ish? We enjoyed our hike down the CB, nice trail for going down, easy on the knees. We got back to the cars at 5pm, said our goodbyes and were off. I stopped at the emergency room to get checked out, and after a sleepless night and many test from heart to thoracic, nothing wrong was found, which is great news, but leaves me wondering, maybe I was bonking with different symptoms....
I'll post pics later, Nancy it was a blast, correct me if anything is wrong, I purposely left out the "I hear voices comment..."
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