El Nino go away. This is the latest I remember snow coming this low this late in the year. I scheduled the second of my three trips to Evergreen for today. The forecast was for light snow in the morning with a break mid-day. I moved the hike to Thursday from a normal Friday because we are expected to get another winter storm Friday through Sunday. Ah, well, I guess flexibility is important.
I tackled Evergreen Mountain a while ago, so the plan was to make a loop around the perimeter of Alderfer, Three Sisters Open Space. This would take me again toward Evergreen Mountain. Depending on conditions, I thought I might still tackle the mountain trail.
 |
| Trailhead |
I jumped off a little after 9 with a light snow falling and a little bit of snow on the ground.
 |
| Trail conditions |
The trail was not difficult and the ponderosa pine forest was quite a bit different than the areas up north. The forest floor was not cluttered with a lot of deadfall. It also had large sections of low ground cover-like vegetation.
 |
| Ponderosa Pine forest with ground cover |
This area had a couple of older structures that, I'm sure, have some history, but I'm wasn't sure which structure went with which ranch. You can find out more about the history of the area
here.
 |
| Ranch House |
Buffalo Creek angles through the northern part of the area. Snowmelt has definitely made the creek busy. The creek crosses the trail and there is a concrete ford.
 |
| Buffalo creek at the ford. |
But there was no fording this without getting wetter than I wanted.
 |
| Was deeper than it looks, probably about a foot or so |
I did a little off-trail exploring in order to cross the creek. It didn't take long before I found something and crossed.
 |
| Lots a logs make a crossing |
I continued on around the perimeter and made the climb to Evergreen Mountain. Once I was on Evergreen Mountain, the forest changed to Lodgepole Pine and there was a lot of deadfall. There was a lot more deadfall later in the hike.
 |
| Lodgepole |
Normally the view from the Evergreen Mountain summit loop is nice, but not today.
 |
| View! What view? |
The rest of the hike was downhill to the truck. I made my 10 mile minimum, but just barely. All in all, yet another good day, albeit cold and snowy. No animals today.
Overall Track Statistics for Evergreen - Ald3SisLoop, 1237 data points
Length 10.216 miles : Garmin Length 10.714 miles
Start Elevation - 7492.55 feet
Maximum Elevation - 8508.56 feet
Minimum Elevation - 7321.85 feet
Date of Hike - Apr 28, 2016
Start Time - 09:22 AM
End Time - 01:21 PM
Total Duration - 3:59 hours:min
Total Ascent - 1974.25 feet
Total Descent - 2127.95 feet
Net Ascent - -153.71 feet
Maximum Grade - 16.64%
Average Speed - 2.56 mph : Garmin Average Speed 2.68 mph
Maximum Ascent over Mile - 412.37 feet
Maximum Speed over Mile - 3.09 mph
Maximum Gain over Mile (%) - 7.35%
No comments:
Post a Comment