Advanced Winter Mountain... Shoveling?

What exactly is the essence of Winter Mountaineering?

Mountains, of course; snow and rock; hiking and climbing; weather.

Sound pretty standard? It is! But the one big difference between winter and summer mountaineering expeditions is the weather. Winter Mountaineering could be compared easily to Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.

And I assure you, it's equally as tasty. Leonard will attest to that.

***

I met Leonard, Emma and Nazli in Bridgeport on Thursday, February 25th. They all had some background in mountaineering, and were looking to expand their repertoire of skills in our Advanced Mountaineering Course. The venue: Matterhorn Peak. The Objective: the west couloir.

Thursday was a sparkling clear day, the sun begging for flip-flops. But one foot out the door and my capillaries demanded otherwise. A deceptively bitter cold sinks into the valley around Bridgeport, and is sluggishly slow to leave.

We checked gear, divvied up group equipment, packed it all up again, took it all apart when the guide found more gear to take, and packed up again. Off to Twin Lakes.

The hike in was in the worst conditions I have ever seen here. The snow was heavy and deep, punchy and loose. In a word, exhausting. We made it to camp just as our adjoining Ski Mountaineering group (which Dave was leading) was turning on their headlamps.

Then the work began: building a bomb-proof camp for the huge storm purported to roll in Friday night.

We would have all of Friday for skills and drills, and further camp bomb-proofing.

And a stellar camp did we make! Roofed kitchen, fortress tent spots. Cozy all-around.

And the storm trickled in a little early. Then it lingered a little longer. Our Saturday summit attempt was out due to avalanche concern and, quite simply, too much snow to make any reasonable progress. Skills trump wallowing, so we worked on snow anchoring, belayed (partner) travel techniques, crevasse rescue systems. Just as I set up a top-rope anchor to practice movement on rock in boots and crampons, a squall moved through again, and the rock quickly became too wet to climb. Back to skills.

In conclusion, it was a trip testing our flexibility and ingenuity. We managed to get quite a few instructional moments in-between retreats to the kitchen tent and hot chocolate. Leonard, Emma and Nazli maintained the best of attitudes through some of the gnarliest conditions I've seen here. And we all had a blast.

Nazli has climbed with us before, and I first met her in Yosemite when she came to climb with one of our other guides, Mark Grundon, who was working for YMS. She makes great Persian food, and is becoming quite the well-rounded climber.

Emma is a Captain in the Marines, and every bit as tough and even-keeled as you would imagine. I was particularly excited, therefore, when she busted out the baby blue Life is Good cap with a pink heart on it. It was a gift, she assured me.

Leonard's self-professed goals were, simply, to get out and push himself. His great attitude and flexibility proved unequivocally that he was, indeed, just happy to be there and learn as much as he could. He liked everything that came out of the kitchen, whether it be crevasse rescue or our backcountry version of Thanksgiving dinner.

And just as the trip started, we walked out in deep powder, under a bright blue sky.

Every chute in sight had at least a small loose-snow avalanche that had slid during the storm, so for good measure, we had our eyes on overdrive watching for any motion as we walked out, steering clear of old debris zones. Things had stabilized significantly overnight, and we saw no slides. Avalanche danger in the maritime snowpack climate of the Sierra Nevada is "fast to rise, fast to fall," very clearly demonstrated for us in this storm.

And we ended our trip plowing through several inches of fresh snow, ducking through the hushed understory of a true winter wonderland.