Mt. Roberts, Cold Spring and Settlement Trails
Submitted by Pat
Stats
Mountain: Mt. Roberts (2,582)
Date: April 2, 2017
Time: 7 hours
Weather: Sunny, bluebird day
Miles: 8
Trails: Mt. Robert Trail — Cold Spring Trail — Settlement Trail
It’s a beautiful sunny day as we start up the Mt. Roberts Trail. Those who start up the trail before us, breaking trail, are wearing snowshoes, a couple of bare booters and a dog. The trail isn’t neat and pretty or easy to walk on. It’s distressed, uneven, and wanting a lot more packing down. I start leading us up.
The first part of the trail has some uphill sections but overall the ascent is moderate. Despite that, I start breathing hard and sweating almost immediately. I strip down to two light layers and that’s what I wear for the rest of the day. The snow depth allows our snowshoes to sink in up to 8” or so, sometimes deeper. It’s soft, packable snow, not the least bit unconsolidated but still requires more than two sets of snowshoes to create a good packed out path.
Both of us are angry and frustrated with the bare booters. What are they thinking, hiking without snowshoes after a foot of new spring snow has fallen? It’s hard to let that anger grow and be present in the sunny day as the trail is overshadowed by bare branches and the unbroken blanket of snow spreads around us.
I feel pretty good, though am working hard and that work takes its toll on my stamina. I stop early on to take a couple of puffs from my rescue inhaler and that lasts for the rest of the day. The last few tenths of a mile through a fit forest is crazy hard. We meet the two bare booters on their descent. Nice people who were sure the trail was going to be packed out. Not… Nancy, bless her heart, very gently tells them that bare booting on soft snow is not nice for other hikers who come after them. After she makes her point, she makes friends with them.
Further along the trail we meet the lanky tall man who has broken trail for us. He intends to do the same loop we are but feels like he has done enough work and the drifts on the ridge look intimidating. I have been talking with myself as we climb — do I really want to do the whole loop either? Do I have the physical and mental strength? That’s a difficult conversation with Nancy because on the one hand I feel like I can complete the loop and on the other I’m anxious about how difficult it will be to break trail for the rest of the day.
We arrive at the top of Mt. Roberts and decide to continue the loop, and will turn back if, after a half mile, we realize that pushing it is going to hurt us. With that in mind, we start out. I remember the High Ridge Trail starting out as a real trail, not a woods road, but that trail never materializes. We feel like the map has given us bad information. The sign at the beginning of the High Ridge Trail says two miles to the junction of the Faraway Mt. Trail and 1.1 miles to the viewpoint. Off we go.
The snowshoe is a veritable slog. It doesn’t matter who’s leading – we’re both breaking trail since the person behind is stepping where the leader hasn’t stepped in order to pack the trail as best we can for the next hiker. The sun is warm and bright, glinting off the white surface of the snow. The trail is one long drift that ebbs and flows, changing shape and depth and direction every few feet. This is definitely a Nancy and Pat adventure!
We reach a point on the trail that I recall from my hike up here last April. To the left of us a partly frozen swampy area. I keep waiting for the trail to become a narrow foot path, but it doesn’t materialize. Once we pass the point of no return Nancy says, “Hey, where are our trail breaking peeps? I thought we would have run into them by now.” Ten seconds later, two young men come up behind us and we celebrate their willingness to break trail for a while. I even urge them to descend via the Faraway Mt. Trail and they say they might.
At first, I’m wicked excited about having two sets of snowshoes breaking trail for us, but as we walk on, we find they aren’t using any kind of steady pattern. The rear snowshoer steps wherever he wants, occasionally in the steps of his companion, and sometimes breaking his own trail. We end up praising and cursing them in equal measure as we follow their tracks. We arrive at the Faraway Mt. Trail and the sign says 4.8 miles to the Castle in the Clouds parking lot. That’s a swift punch in the gut. Jesus – that long? The boys head down the Faraway Mt. Trail and Nancy and I are back to thanking them.
Down we go. I keep wondering why the lead trail breaker chooses some of his lines through the drifts. Some end up deep and uneven and some lines are spot on. We’re startled when we see their tracks veer off the trail and start bushwhacking. What the…? Looking at the map I realize they are cutting off some of the trail by cutting through the switchbacks. Since we already have bagged this trail, we cut off a half a mile by following their lead.
When we reach the junction of the Cold Spring Trail, we see them heading in that direction, following the tracks of someone who had snowshoed during the actual snow storm. We follow but it’s not far before the broken trail heads off on a spur trail to the right, leaving us to break clean, virgin trail again. Cold Spring Trail is only a mile or so but feels endless. I take the lead, which is rare for me at the end of hikes, and continue to move as smoothly and evenly as I can through the drifts – no extraneous movement, straight lines to the inner curve of the next corner.
We finally cross Cold Spring Rd and settle into our last mile on the Settlement Trail. Unbroken and untouched, I just keep pushing onward. We have finished all our water and I am very thirsty. There’s a short loop that juts off the trail which we need to hike but we’re simply too wasted to take it on. We’ll come back and do that loop and the Whitten Trail another day. We finally reach the Mt. Roberts Trail and start the last leg of the walk back to the car.
The trail has been trashed by barebooters. Grrr… Eventually we can take off our snowshoes and walk the last couple of tenths back to the cars. Another incredible adventure!