My weekend (the shorter version)

For those of you who want a paraphrased ver. of my solo snow backpacking experience this past weekend:

Started Sat morn, arrived to camp approx. 6 hours later. Hike hard. Snowshoeing harder. Ran around like idiot sat night till lungs burst from lack of oxygen and exhaustion. Ramen yummy. Tortellini and pesto also yummy. *burp*

Slept at sunset, woke up to pee in the middle of the night and moon was shiny prettiness. Headachy - drugs taken, went back to sleep. No attacks from chipmunks or bears. Lonely. Oh so lonely.

Woke up at sunrise. Snow gave melting a miss and went straight to solid ice. Had to melt ice for water water chipping my tent out of ice with ice axe. Ran around like idiot again - this time with ice axe and crampons on, looking for viable slops to practice self arrest. Did not die, nor cause injury to occur. Hooray!

Packed up camp and left early. Accidentally left a 1/4 cup of tomato pesto in a container, in a baggie, in another baggie under a log, under 2" of snow/ice in the firepit at camp. Oops. At least the critters/birds/climbers will be well fed come late spring when snow melts away. It's practically refrigerated anyways.

Hike down was easier than hike up. no snowshoeing - walked on ice instead of sinking. Boo to sinking. Hooray for glissading. Self arresting came in handy when cutting switchback in snow - nearly hit a tree three times, almost a bush once and nearly poked my eyes out from pokey branch of tree once. My ice axe loves me. I love it. To show it how much I love it, I swung it over my head and into the snow for fun. Didn't realize snow was only 3" deep at that spot and hit a rock. Ooops. Now ice axe has a dent in the beak from hitting a rock. It was a love tap, really.

Hiked back to car with ice axe in hand after about 2 hours or so. tired. Realized I lost my oldest nalgene with home made webbing strap for climbing. Sad. Drove to San Diego where I immediately went to work at UCSD for a couple of hours in stinky capilene and glowing smile.

Obi = not dead.

Morals:

• Snowshoeing hard work - never solo snowshoeing ever again.
  
• Trekking poles are cool - must buy a pair.
  
• Ice axe is cooler - must remember to carry it around on all trips and disturb the local Gap campers.
  
• Altitude kills me - always bring pain killers and assume first day can only ascend to approximately 7k or 8k feet.
  
• Hiking uphill kills me - with 50 lbs pack, can only travel about 1 mile an hour uphill on 10% grade.
  
• Ice axe is cool - so are crampons on ice (but not on snow)
  
• My blogs are too long.