A weird thing happened on the way to Mt. Ross. It did not rain!
Today I was joined by Jeff R., Martin S., Dave C., Mike C., Randy B., Ian M., and Brad. We left at 8:00a.m. just to the left of a Newhalem rock pile and near some barrels with a thrown down sign that said "hazardous". I thought there was going to be pouring rain at this point becuase we had been driving in rain since our meeting point. To my amazement, rain was not prevalent and it was barely spitting, even the brush was semi-dry.
We went up through the almost non existent brush hitting deer trail after deer trail making our way up and slightly to the right to connect with the ridge avoiding rock outcroppings here and there. At 2500 feet we made it to the ridge and just barely went on to the east side of the ridge before heading west through a narrow and small gully. A couple of narrow chutes later through the rocks and wala we hit snow at 3200 and the footsteps of those who previously made the summit the day before us. Note: Don Goodman and company made the ascent of Ross peak the day prior to us and we were all greatly appreciative for their efforts in cutting a trail for us. In fact the trail was solid due to the night's freezing!
At about this point we came across something I was not expecting--microwave relay towers. I never knew they were here...and so now I know. We followed the Goodman party tracks up past the relay towers and then the snow trail cut directly across a steep hillside above 4200 feet to the right of a buttress. That must have been some work to cut across that slope with wet snow, and I was thankful we did not have to spend the energy for that effort.
Around 4600 feet we came to the open basin below the summit and trudged on toward the summit. We had no views the entire day. Just clouds. Most of us arrived just past 12:45.
Now the party dwindled to two people--Jeff and myself. The rest opting to return the way they came. Jeff and I headed for the Roost. We headed down off the north side of Ross finding a gully that easily lead down to the basin, traversed the basin at about 5300 feet and then went back up to the ridge, traversed below the Roost and eventually reached the 6040+ spur at the SW corner of Roost. This John Scurlock picture shows the route from the 6040+ spur: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/57356273
In fact I was really surprised we timed this spur perfectly becuase clouds became even thicker and it was TOTALLY WHITE whereever you looked. So we took the snowshoes off and went up. I knew that from John Scurlock's recent photos of The Roost that there was a cornice, (see this picture: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/57356276 ) but I had no idea how far away I was from this cornice from each step I took--I had absolutely no idea. As we neared the unknown top the weather improved slightly so you could make out how far the ridgeline was and we finally summitted. We didn't stand on the very last 10 feet of cornice which marked the apex of the snow dome, but our heads were higher than the snow, and we called that good enough!
We came down and traversed over to the ridgeline where the trail people take to West Mac Spire comes up. This was difficult becuase once again, everything was TOTALLY WHITE. You had no idea if you were going to fall down some embankment or not. Everything turned out fine. And then we hit the wet snow at 5000 feet. Wet unconsolidated snow. Ugh. The ridgeline went fine, we hit the trail at 2700 feet about where the snowline was and walked the 3.75 miles of Goodell creek out to the campground. Out at 7:45. Just over 7000 feet of gain for the day.
Stefan 4/9/2006
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