Winter Desires

ByMatt

I was in town today getting snow tires for Erin’s Jeep, and when I’m in town, I often head over to Hyperspud to look at maps, books and gear that I can’t afford. Today I was looking through the book Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills put out by the aptly named Mountaineers Press. They put out some nice hiking guides and how-to books for outdoor recreation. Turns out, this book is the “Bible” for mountaineers, and I want it. I also desperately want to get into mountaineering so that I may continue to hike and explore all year round. While researching a potential winter hike to Stevens Lake, I stumbled upon the idea of making for the summit of Stevens Peak just behind. At just over 7000 feet, it’s not a particularly hard peak to summit, especially in the summer. But it looks like it would be a good peak to try out winter mountaineering. Turns out, Stevens peak is used by several nearby mountaineering clubs as a novice peak. For now, I just want to get into basic mountaineering. I want to be able to summit mountains by basically walking up them. There are tons of options for the summer, but ice and avalanches are deterring me for just getting up and going. I got a pair of nice snow shoes for the holidays, so a hike to some of the lakes basins isn’t out of the picture. But the exposed slopes above treeline are where the extra skill come into play. I will eventually work up to climbs that require winter camping, ropes and other technical expertise. I’d also like to own an ice axe and a pair of real crampons at some point. For now, I can rent everything I need from the university’s rec center. Of course, before I can make any of this a reality, I need to find some people to go with.

Right now it’s snowing pretty heavily. Last night we got an inch or two of wet snow that promptly turned to slush. It started snowing again this afternoon and we’ve already got another couple of inches or so. In all, we’re predicted to have up to 6 inches which means more for the mountains. Time to find a good trail to use those snowshoes.

Similar Posts

  • Fall Foliage

    I’ve been spending a lot of time finishing up my dissertation proposal, which is due in a little over a week, and that has kept me from taking time to enjoy the outdoors. We got some considerable rain over the past weekend which lead to some dramatic skies and really clear views on Monday and Tuesday, but I just wasn’t able to take advantage of the nice conditions. I did get out for a little bit yesterday afternoon to check out the fall foliage in the arboretum on campus. In Idaho, we don’t see very much fall color. There are…

  • Backpacking: Granite Lake

    When I first moved to Idaho, I would study Google Earth to look for places to explore. The Cabinet Mountains across the border in Montana stood out with its high peaks and alpine lakes. The largest of these is Granite Lake and it sits beneath one of the highest peaks in the range. I never did make it during my grad school tenure. So when we decided to go out for one last trek this year, I pitched this, and the next thing I know, we were on the road headed toward Libby to get to the trailhead. On paper,…

  • Adventures in fast, reliable ineternet

    For the past seven years, I have been living with slow, unreliable internet. In 2004-2005, the Weis Ecology Center was on dial-up service. Camp McDowell in Alabama was also on dial-up service, shared on a wireless network. If you can remember far enough back when dial-up was the forefront of home internet technology, you might also remember how long it took for webpages to load and how it would randomly lose connection, and then the busy signals trying to reconnect. In 2006, those problems had not improved. Ferry Beach had a more reliable connection, though it was still slow. I’m…

  • Happy March

    Wow, it’s March already. Yesterday, it began to snow. Let’s back up, all of last week, it snowed. We may have gotten a good combined foot of fresh, fluffy powder. We got a bit of a break over the weekend. Sunday it snowed a bit, but the accumulation wasn’t siginificant. But yesterday, it began to snow. In the course of the day, I probably blew 8 inches off the driveway, and the snow wouldn’t let up. This morning, I woke up to find that all my hard work of keeping the driveway clear was erased with potentially another 6-8 +…

  • |

    Daffodils in the Snow

    Daffodils in the Snow, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. I’ve heard of April showers bringing May flowers, but what do April snows bring? On Friday, I awoke to a white world with about an inch of snow covering everything. It was kind of a shock considering only a week before, there were promising signs of Spring. Of course, after the snow, the temperatures are back up and the weekend’s forecast is quite pleasant.

  • Small World

    Harvest Moon, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. Beth, one of the photo club members and employee at the Prichard Art Gallery downtown, mentioned at our last meeting that a student was in town with the current exhibit at the gallery. He didn’t know anyone and was desperate to hang out with people his own age. So we got a group together last night and hung out around the town. I thought the visiting student was an art student, but it turns out he’s actually studying conservation biology and had spent some time working environmental education. And, he’s from Maine. Well…