Sunday, January 18, 2009

BALD MOUNTAIN WINTER SUMMIT






Hikers: Amy & Isa the Dog
Start Time: 10:00 am
Summit: 12:35 pm (2 hr 35 min)
RT Time: 4 hours 40 min
Base Elevation: 5900'
Summit Elevation: 8464'
Way Points: Screen 32 min
RT Distance: 9.2 miles
Weather: 15 F at start, clear & sunny

AMY'S NOTES: A great day to be alive in Sanpete. While the rest of the world was sitting in church pews, I got the mountain to myself. A beautiful, exquisitely quiet, blue-bird winter Sunday. I had no intention of reaching the summit when I first started out this morning. After a weekend spent in Park City with scensters, hipsters, and art farts at Sundance it simply felt good to be alone in wide open space under a Utah desert sky. The plan was to make the huff to the screen and head back, but I couldn't help myself. I'd been thinking about that summit for the last couple of weeks and it just felt too close and too hard to pass up on such a beautiful day. (Sorry Kim, we'll have to do it again next weekend.) The first third of bald mountain (to the screen) is a fairly steep climb. The second third is a relatively moderate series of switchbacks. And the last section is once again a steeper climb. I was able to walk in snow mobile tracks for the first two thirds but after that was goose stepping through knee high snow (without gaitors) and following the deer tracks. It didn't look like anyone had been up there since the last snow fall. The summit time from our last bald mountain excursion in early fall was 1 hr 53 min. It took me 40 minutes longer. Returned soaked, hungry, thirsty, and happy.

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