We camped at Duck Lake and our group built three Quincys and several trenches, no snowcaves. We had 2-4 feet of packed snow and six inches of fresh snow when we arrived. It snowed about 2-3 feet each day. We broke down camp and left on our third day (Sunday) at 10:00 am. It took us three hours to climb up 1/2 mile to the sattle between Duck Lake and Alpine Lake. New snow on the trail out averaged from 2 to 6 feet. This was possibly the hardest trip any group in the section has ever taken. The previous benchmark was the infamous Lasson 1990 trip, which Chuck mentions at the orientation. This trip was significantly harder than that one.
We too (as Chuck puts it) "had a few very strong snowshoers" that broke trail to get us out. It was impossible for skiers to break trail. Our group came very close to setting up camp and staying a fourth day. Picture 7691 is Jeff Neal braking trail in chest deep snow. We reached the road (Highway 4) around 8:00 PM. Then it took us fews hours on Hiway 4 to get to the cars (one mile). Of course then we had 3 hours of digging to get our cars out of the snow. Most of our group stayed in Bear Valley that Sunday night.
O'well, all's well that ends well and there's no camping like
snowcamping. See you all at the leader training class next
month. Here's the pictures.
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