7 miles of hiking • 1500' elevation gain •
Both Mountain forecast and NOAA had high wind predictions, mostly clear skies turning into partly cloudy. We decided to stretch our legs anyway, with the idea we would turn around when conditions were no longer fun.
We stayed at nearby Elk Lake Campground, my friend Tom had booked because we weren't sure if the parking lot at Devil's Lake Trailhead was melted out. We arrived in the evening after making a quick stop at a Bend food cart pod. Was surreal to see people so much more relaxed/maskless than Portland, interactions looked pre-pandemic and it felt nice to feel a little bit of a sense of normalcy returning. We relaxed into the evening with a campfire to beat the cold, then retreated to our sleeping bags to try to get some good rest. Shortly after crawling into my tent, a camp nearby seemed to come alive with drunken abandon, kids screeching and adults bellowing into the night. I stopped looking at my alarm after midnight. Surely they wouldn't go all night.... I think I was finally able to sleep around 2 am, and had an alarm set for 5:15 am.
So, we started a little later than we wanted, and were on the trail around 6:30 am. We didn't see many others heading up, just a few skiers.
Trail through the forest was frozen and slick, I started out with just boots but eventually switched to my crampons so I could walk faster. One in our party of 3 wore micros. (Totally doable in either, I just didn't bring both.) Lots of route finding, as the bootpack didn't exactly match the trail, and would melt out and disappear completely. The way up through the forest always feels like hard work to me, immediate up when you aren't quite awake and warmed up. Steeper with the addition of snow obstacles as well.
Eventually we emerged from the forest and we were greeted with views of our objective. We were probably slightly too optimistic. As we trudged through the snow and up to the base of of the mountain, we watched the clouds change before our eyes and engulf the mountain in what looked like a whiteout. It happened in seconds and then we were in a shifted atmosphere ourselves. It was a pretty snowfall, but at 7000ft and in snow/increasingly low visibility, we made the decision to call it and turn around.
Our footprints were quickly covered in fresh snow, and we got a little off track and had to bushwhack through the forest to get back to the trail. I suppose it was good practice as we descended a steep slope, working our way to the ski trail. We ended up following next to the ski trail for the remainder of the way, as it was more defined than the bootpack trail. Once back on track, Tom found some interesting fungi sticking out of a log in the snow. In all, not a wasted day by any means, always fun to get out and see what nature has in store for us mere humans. The mountains will make their own weather, forecast be damned.
