Monument 83 Snowshoe & Backpack, April 1 - 3, 2011
The usual 5 VOA winter campers decided to head up to Monument 83 on a 2 night
snowshoe trip. The plan was to camp at the old forestry cabin site and then
day hike to Chuwantan Peak. Starting out on April Fool's Day should have been a sign!
Before we hit the trail, Alexis noticed a few missing bolts, which held her traverse blades in place, so Dave managed to fix them with his repair kit. The snow conditions were terrible for the slog in and the weather gradually deteriorated. Half way in on the 16 km trail, Alexis broke a binding . A shoe lace was used to hold it together loosely, but made the walking quite difficult for her. As we gradually made our way toward the summit, Dave's traverse blade on each snowshoe broke in half !Luckily, he managed to hold the blades together by a few old nails he rounded up in the cabin. It snowed all night! Add the snowshoe malfunctions to the poor overall snow conditions and we had no choice but to call it quits after the first night. The long walk out in deep powder did not help matters, but we all got out in one piece.
Note: although we always carry a repair kit, we did not have enough supplies on hand to deal with all the repairs. We will be revising our kit.
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