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So Little Snow!!
If it wasn't so cold you would think it was July not the end of November.
My son Ben and I spent the night in a decent and reasonably priced hotel in Fairplay. We were able to drive to the 12,000' parking lot without an issue. The road was devoid of any snow. A 2-wheel drive vehicle could make it easily.
The gate was frozen open but was surrounded by a big, ice pool.
Very slick. Unwisely, I tried going through the gate only to slip a little down slope. I gingerly backed up and parked. I got a little adrenaline kick early.
Frozen Gate
We hit the trail at 6:30 just as the glow was breaking through in the east. We hiked the standard route. After second breakfast with a thermos of hot coffee we started the ascent to the ridge at about 8:30.
Ascending the ridge
The skies were mostly blue and sunny but it was cold. I spilt a little coffee on my parka and it froze as it hit and cracked off clean.
What Sherman lacked in snow it made up for in wind.
As we climbed over the saddle to get a view of Leadville the wind hit us. It was out of the West and must have been 50 - 60 mph at times. When we got to the Sheridan - Sherman ridge the wind was horrendous on the West side but calm and sunny just below the ridge on the East side. We stayed on that side of the ridge as much as possible.
We saw only two other souls, a man and his lab mix. We had only a brief encounter, he being much faster than me.
We were on the summit about 10:30. The view was gorgeous all around. Nice being the only people on the summit of Mt Sherman. On the summit
We were back at the car about 12:30. It was a nice hike but disturbing to see so little snow this time of year and at that altitude.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
I was up there last wendesday. I didn't put traction on and skirted that ice on the down hill side. Almost slipped and fell in the first 5 minutes of hiking. Would have been embarrassing as hell to get hurt hiking on a road
I did hit some hard snow descending peerless and had to deploy the spikes / axe
We were up there on Tuesday and there was no snow to be found apart from the Sheridan-Sherman saddle, but that could have been avoided easily enough.
Its always a nice day to have a peak like Sherman to yourself. Nice.
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