On February 4th, 2014, in Yellowstone National Park, the latest storm had just dumped another three feet of snow. Within hours of this photo, a -40 F temperature would arrive.
Is it time to say goodbye to the El Niño forecast and alter my travel plans accordingly? As of November 20, 2014, the three-month extended outlook along Montana’s portion of the Continental Divide predicts from 33% up to a 40% chance for above normal temperatures. In addition, the NOAA (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/) is now predicting an equal chance for a normal winter to 33% chance below normal moisture.
This interprets into an increased chance I will encounter powder snow until near the end of February 2015. The winter of 2014 also had the label of “equal chance” for a normal winter. The snowpack was huge and the powder nearly untenable for extended snowshoe travel throughout the month of February.
It has been and continues to be, albeit with less hope, my plan to begin the trip near the end of the first week of January. This close, 44 days until beginning the 90-day trip, however means the likelihood is growing that I will not begin the trip until the first part of February 2015.
Last autumn I placed my resupplies at locations where I could take on traveling in deep powder snow. While I have a tremendous amount of food and fuel to get me to Monida Pass on Interstate 15, there may still not be enough. In deep powder snow, I average between three and four miles of forward progress per day. There is also the possibility that I will have to use technical climbing gear at six separate locations, where my daily progress measurements will be in feet rather than miles. Additionally, there will be down days due to storms and bad avalanche conditions.
I have 39 days of supplies for the first 140 miles of the route. If I only average three miles per day I will run out of supplies eight days before arriving at Monida Pass. Should that happen, I will lose three and four pounds of body weight per day. To encounter a weight loss like that after already being on the route for one month would be devastating.
Throughout the 462-mile route I have alternate routes to be used to get around avalanche areas and if needed, to shorten the route. One such route is located at Red Rock Pass. However, that would only shorten my route by two or three days. After that alteration, my options would be limited, and my supplies would still fall five days short of Monida Pass.
With that said, I have always known the trip carries risks. As much as I have prepared, it may not be enough. Only traveling the route will clear the air. Nor is there anyone in front of me who has experience with this route to advise me. My most experienced advisor too often has also been my greatest enemy—my head.
Inside the elbow on the eastern approach to Hole in the Wall, Glacier National Park.
During a recent presentation and book signing, one of the audience observed that wherever I have been the trappers and mountain men were there before me. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable statement. On further inspection though, why indeed would they have been in the higher elevations during the winter?
The mountain men of the early 19th century on the most part did not come west just to see what was out here. Before the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Expedition left St. Louis in 1804, the British and French were already divulging information about the bountiful fur harvest ready for the taking. In 1806, the Expedition was coming down the Missouri River after having been gone for over two years when they encountered two trappers headed upstream in what is now North Dakota.
A short time later, a member of the Corps of Discovery John Colter, given an early honorable discharge, headed back upstream and briefly joined these men. In 1807, he went to work for an American fur trading company as an explorer, or scout. After visiting one area, he came back with a report of seeing bubbling mud pots, boiling pools of water, and steaming geysers. Met with derision, his discovery was dubbed “Colter’s Hell”. Some 65 years later the area would become the world’s first national park and named Yellowstone National Park.
Most mountain men were “company men”, that is, they worked for a fur trading company. Their job was to trap not explore. From 1810 to the late 1830s, approximately 3000 men trapped furs in an area 200 miles south of the present day Montana and Canadian border down to present-day New Mexico. The explorers for these fur-trapping companies, for the most part, did their scouting during the summer.
In short, most mountain men were motivated not to summit peaks or bust through an impenetrable area during the winter, just to say they did it, but to make money off the fur trade. If an explorer did summit a peak, it was generally to survey the surrounding area.
My winter routes typically take me into the high alpine regions where I stay as much as possible. There are few animals and birds up there. Deer, elk, and the American bison, more popularly known as the buffalo, are in the lower elevation winter ranges where they can forage through the winter. For similar reasons, beaver and muskrat need streams and forests, none of which exists in the alpine regions. The carnivores follow their food supply into the lower elevations. For that same reason, the mountain men stayed in the lower elevations, following their fur supply.
There are also noteworthy differences in the equipment they used compared to the gear in my inventory that made travel into the high country more difficult, if not outright impossible. With their equipment, they could do things that I could never do with my gear. There is no way I could build a cabin, kill an animal for meat and/or for its hide. On the other hand, the mountain men’s equipment was useless in aiding them to climb or traverse 60° to 80° snow and ice slopes. None of them carried crampons, since the first crampon design was in 1908. While the ice ax existed, it was still in Europe.
What the mountain men sought required them to use numerous horses and mules to carry their supplies and equipment. Like a human being, stock are unable to move in deep powder and snowpack, much less forage for their food. Just to preserve their essential stock required the mountain men to stay where their animals could forage through the winter.
Like the mountain men, most of my travel is with snowshoes. That’s where the similarities pretty much come to a halt though. Their high maintenance and heavier flotation devices were made of wood and leather thong manufacture, while mine are aluminum and polypropylene construction. Additionally, my snowshoes have steel alloy teeth to grip in a snow crust, making them far superior in the steep ascents and descents of the Rocky Mountains. Even with the teeth of the snowshoes I possess however, the flotation devices cease functioning in the steeper angled peaks of the Rockies. That is where the mountaineering gear is essential. Without the technical gear I possess, that did not exist during the days of the mountain men, any attempt to access an area like Hole in the Wall in Glacier National Park would have been a suicidal failure.
For the 462-mile winter trek in 2015, I have 599 pounds of food and fuel. Of that, 135 pounds is fuel while the remainder is dehydrated food and olive oil. I have 34 resupplies along a one-way route and carry a 4-pound tent. In a similar manner, the mountain men had trap lines and log shelters containing supplies scattered up and down those lines. Their food was similar in some respects such as pemmican, dried meat, and flour. Unlike me though, they ate huge quantities of fresh meat, while most of my food is vegetarian. Without that fresh meat, in September 1805 the Corps of Discovery almost starved to death getting across the spine of the Bitterroot Range and ended up dining on horsemeat.
Something else that has happened are the monumental changes that have taken place with the equipment in the last 200 years. While my crampons and the teeth on the snowshoes are steel, everything else is lightweight aluminum. With the exception of the wool socks and some goose down, everything I wear is synthetic material. In short, the load I carry today is probably more than 50% lighter than 100 years ago. That means I can carry more supplies for longer winter trips, and into areas that would have been untouchable a century earlier, much less 200 years ago.
My winter bedroom weighs 10.25 pounds, which includes the accessory chair and a three-quarter length self-inflating pad to go with the chair. My bedroom might weigh one third of what it would have weighed 100 or more years ago. At the same time, my sleeping gear will keep me warm in a tent when the temperature is 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
The Scott expedition 100 years ago in Antarctica had eider down sleeping bags available. Eider, the warmest down on the face of the planet, like goose down, begins to fail at the first hint of body moisture. The Scott expedition was unable to preserve the fill power from the body’s moisture. Therefore, when Scott made his successful attempt to arrive at the South Pole, he was compelled to use the much heavier fur and wool blankets for sleeping gear. While their blankets and furs held up far better than a down sleeping bag, eventually their sleeping system failed due to the moisture buildup from their bodies. During their return, the men, along with Scott, froze to death before getting back to safety. They died in their sleeping gear. The short of this is that the weight of the gear of 100 years ago slowed the Scott expedition down and made the trip far more dangerous, and as it turned out impossible. Today, we have the means to protect the extremely lightweight down. If that were not the case, then I would likely freeze to death sometime after the 7th day of the 90-day trip.
The conclusion of this is that there is nothing exceptional about us today. For that matter, physically the mountain men were undeniably far superior to us. However, with the equipment we possess today, it is possible for us to access locations where the mountain men were incapable of getting to, or even had any interest in “being the first”.
After a November snowstorm in Helena Montana, from the Prairie Trail a wintry scene of the cliffs of Mount Helena City Park.
November 1, 2014 marked the beginning of my third and final phase of training for the Continental Divide winter trip. This was also the start of the winter training. In a growing snowpack, I will undertake at least three multi-night backcountry trips. Here in Helena Montana, I have increased my daily training regimen. I am now exercising at least twice a day in the basement for approximately one half hour per segment (the physical therapist says where my back is concerned, it is critical to do the exercises three times a day). The daily minimum exercise on Mount Helena includes carrying a 53-pound load 3.5 miles with an ascent/descent of 800 feet.
Although the announced plan is to begin the Continental Divide winter trip on February 1, 2015, I have to be ready to go by January 1. If there is enough snowpack coupled with a crust on the surface after the New Year begins, that is when the trip will begin. In short, 46 days might be all that remains before the trip begins.
On Monday, November 17, I will begin my first winter training trip 75 miles north of Helena with three nights in the Scapegoat Wilderness’s Dearborn River Canyon. Although there will be snow on the ground, I am unsure whether snowshoes will be necessary. Make no mistake; I will have the flotation gear with me. Skimping during past winter trips has afforded me plenty of opportunity for some costly lessons, one nearly fatal. Weather wise, as of the morning of November 13 the extended forecast calls for moderating temperatures with a low of approximately 14°F on Monday and a high of 32°F by Tuesday, excellent traveling temperatures. The load weight will be approximately 75 pounds, not counting the nearly 6-pound snowshoes. Unfortunately, less than one week ago I began training with a 53-pound load. That Dearborn trip load is probably going to feel like a wheelbarrow load of batteries. Uggh.
This trip will also mark the first time I have been in the beautiful Dearborn Canyon since January 2002. If the next two winters go according to plan, I will travel through this canyon again in 2016, during the second leg of the Continental Divide winter trips.
I will be using the satellite connected personal messenger device. All Facebook and Twitter users will be able to follow my daily progress. That is, you will be able to locate my camp at the end of each day on a provided map.
After the Dearborn trip, I will attempt to do two more training trips, likely in December before beginning the main trip. Although unsure of these other trip locations, I suspect one will be to Lionhead Mountain in Henrys Lake Mountains near West Yellowstone, Montana.
Finally, yesterday the physical therapist made clear that where my back is concerned, the pain free days of travel with a load are behind me. All the training I am doing, particularly the strength and endurance training concerning the small of my back will only lessen the pain, not eliminate it. That interprets into a slower pace. Simultaneously it shortens each day’s travel time. The challenge continues to grow.
With that said, the morning exercises are front and center. Although I am unsure what the results will be, I will continue to prepare for the Continental Divide trip. In other words, where the trip and its preparations are concerned, all is normal.
Two days after a snowstorm, the snowshoes were dropping through the powder snow 1.5 feet. Another storm would arrive later this day and drop another three feet of snow. The location was the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, on Madison Plateau and near the Continental Divide.
In another indication of the rapidly closing date for beginning the 93-day winter expedition, Montana and Idaho’s mountain snowpack has begun to accumulate. Being early winter however, it comes as no surprise that the NOAA SNOTEL site near Darkhorse Lake (8700 feet), located in the southern Bitterroot Range, shows that in the last five days the snowpack has dropped from nine to six inches. More is on the way though. Beginning tomorrow evening, November 1, another 12 inches could fall. Moreover, with our going into November, the average daily temperature is continuing to drop. Most of that snow is going to remain on the ground until next June.
Of far greater interest to me than the increasing snowpack is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. I am hoping it plays a strong role in next winter’s snowshoe trip. As of this date though, there is some uncertainty of how strong it will be, or for that matter, when the event will begin. The latest extended forecast, released on October 16, 2014 called for a 67% chance of a mild El Niño beginning by mid-November. From Yellowstone National Park to Butte Montana, the area I will be traveling through next winter, the impact of this weather pattern normally means less snowpack and more importantly, warmer temperatures. Those higher than average temperatures could create a crust I can walk on sooner than the latter days of February.
The reason I don’t begin extended winter trips until at least the beginning of February, is due to the condition of the snow. Although I relish the idea of having enough snowpack to cover brush, timber fall, and rock fields, the real reason I wait until later concerns whether a crust has formed on the snowpack. Traveling in deep powder is a nightmare. It can cut my daily average of 6 and 8 miles down to 3 and 4 miles.
The La Niña winter of 2008 brought the opposite effect of El Niño. With the storms lining up behind each other, I traveled through three feet of powder during the latter days of March. That occurred during the double crossing of the Bitterroot Range west of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The average day was eight hours of travel with my forward progress between three and four miles. Because I was compelled to build trail without the backpack, I actually traveled between 9 and 12 miles each day. I needed nine days to travel the first 25 miles, which included going over Blodgett Pass. By the last day, even my three-day emergency food supply was at the crumbs level. Fortunately, the resupply bucket was where it was supposed to be.
A crust would have changed the character of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness trip (although I wonder what I would have written about if the trip had gone smoothly). As it were, the snowshoe portion of the trip was only 115 miles, but still took one month to complete.
Using primarily snowshoes, the distance I will travel on the Continental Divide during the winter of 2015 will be 462 miles. I have to be able to average approximately 5 miles per day for 93 days. That is not possible in deep powder. Granted, I will have 107 days of supplies out there, but I will have to make up the days of downtime from the inevitable storms. More than that, for as much as 12 days I will be traveling on rope and crampons, where the measurement of forward progress is in feet rather than miles.
Another troubling consideration is the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, which I will enter 375 miles into the trip. During the winter of 2007, I undertook five trips in this wilderness, where the final trip included crossing it and the Continental Divide. As the result of that experience, I consider it vital to get through the wilderness near the end of the winter rather than begin the following winter’s trip with the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness still in front of me.
So yes, I am watching with a keen interest in what the future holds with the El Niño weather pattern.
Glacier National Park personnel repeatedly stated that during the winter the high mountain cirque, Hole in the Wall was inaccessible. They were almost right.
This is the story and photos of four trips that almost took the author’s life twice.
