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Even though the forecast was calling for 1-4 inches of snow, I decided to give Quandary a shot. The forecast also mentioned that the snow would most likely come after 11am. I drove to the trailhead the night before and started from the parking lot a little after 5:30am. I wanted to get up and down before the snow hit. When I stepped out of the car it was a lot warmer than I expected it to be given how cold it was in my car when I got up.
The trail was hard packed all the way up making it easy to follow even in the dark. The moon was out before the sun came up and actually illuminated the trail well enough (even in the trees) that I turned my head lamp off. It really was cool seeing the light reflect off of the snow.
I stopped a couple times for 10min+ to try and get some shots of the moon and the mountains but it was cold and I got tired of waiting on the 10-30 sec shutter speed to work so I didn't get any winners.
The ridge going up.
First look at the sun.
Light hitting the peaks
Getting closer I think.
I summitted at 8:15am and spent about 30min on the summit.
The wind was off and on at times blowing between 20-30mph and at times stopping completely. I was getting a little cold because I had sweat more than I thought I did when I was in the trees. I ate a snack, took some pictures, and started to leave.
Then these guys showed up.
So I decided to get a picture with them.
They were very curious and walked right up to me.
Got a headbutt shot.
Parting shot.
The forecast was spot on as it began to cloud up as I was heading down.
I passed 4 parties going up 2 of which were going to attempt to ski/board down. There was not a whole lot of snow so I am interested how that turned out. I got back to the car at 10:15am. Round trip was less than 5 hours. As I left the parking lot I started seeing flurries and noticed clouds on the summit of Quandary and many of the nearby peaks. I was glad I got up when I did. I stopped at Backcountry Brewery in Frisco on the way back to Denver and hit the approaching storm on I-70. It was a great hike and a great day. Looking forward to the next one.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Hey Will, it's John from Quandary. Nice entry. This will be my template whenever I get around to writing up my own trip reports. As for us and our attempts at snowboarding... it was pretty much non-existent. We weren't able to find any stretch of snow long enough at the top and through the trees it was way too powdery as we would become submerged up to our belly buttons. We had one good segment from the ridge down into treeline and that was it. Hope to run into you again on another adventure. God Bless!
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