This morning at 5am when I woke up my outside thermometer read -5 degrees. shortly after 7am at the trailhead… my car was reading 0 degree’s.
I have never snow shoe/hike at these temperatures before, however I had plenty of thermal layering and was wearing weather appropriate gear. I figured, Ill warm up after a bit and feel fine. Well about 30 min into my hike going at full speed… I felt “Ok” but not warm by any means. I got to a trail intersection where it broke off into the summit trail which was 2.5ish miles further from that point… The trail was not broken and the log book showed very scarce traffic from the recent weeks.
I decided to turn around and not go up the mountain today. My body felt ok, but I had this thought in the back of my head, that if i twisted an ankle and couldn’t maintain speed to stay at a “ok” temp… I would freeze in hours and no one might come up the same path today.
A short snow shoe back to the car, and the temp had risen in that hour to 1 degree…
Could I have done the hike? yes I have no doubt my body could handle it.
Why did I turn around then?. Honestly it was just a… if something goes wrong today… it could go very very wrong… its just a mountain, its not going anywhere right?
Well heres looking to spring… These cold days in NY are bumming me out.
Andrew - K2FR