Humble Pie

The time had come: after thinking of it all winter, Eric and I were headed off to attempt to climb Flute, Organ, and Polar Bear Peaks in one traverse, with rock & ice climbing gear, ski gear, and food for 4 1/2 days. The pile of gear looked ominous in my basement:



We had a good forecast, so despite the heavy loads we were pretty upbeat when we started out the South Fork Eagle River valley via the high trail on Thursday evening after work:



We went up past Eagle Lake to the foot of the falls below the Flute Glacier when it started getting pretty dark, so we camped on a gravel bar. After the ptarmigan quieted down, we got some sleep but I awoke to the tell-tale sound of light rain hitting the megamid. NOT GOOD I thought, then went back to sleep, awaking a bit later to no rain. Then waking up again to rain, then realizing I'm too cold I awoke to put on another layer and realized it was sounding like thick rain. Oh well, I went back to sleep nice and warm and slept for awhile. Then Eric and I both got up and realized it was SNOWING. Ugghhhhhh, back to sleep for awhile, maybe it will burn off. Nope...after a little walk to stretch out I figured our trip was busted:



So a little quality tent time....NOT what we were expecting:





After debating, we decided to bail and humped back to the trailhead. My pack was killing me, and it was really hard to get it on with all the skis and boots and heavy load. When I got home I found out I had the pack adjusted WAY too long, so it's no wonder the pack felt horrible. Oh well, I needed a nice weekend in town (where it was bluebird) to start a big project at the house anyway....