The Craigmeister, Cindy and I headed up prepared for a blizzard based on the NOAA site and other reports. The sunrise was gorgeous -- a blaze of red in the clouds. Ania and Greg passed us at the picnic tables. Before long, we were treated to a beautiful rainbow. I was dressed in shorts and t-shirt and donned a long sleeve shirt at 4 K when it started to drizzle. The weather looked very forboding but then sun came out. I got too warm and took the shirt off at the base of the 5 K ridge.
We had a nice breeze on the Never Ending Ridge. Amazingly, we could still see the rainbow. We joked about finding the pot of gold at Flatrock. I thought I heard voices on the ridge. Sure enough, when we reached Flatrock we saw Tina, St. Patrick (Lilbitmo), Steve and Fern heading out. Caesar and Patti were up ahead as well. After a quick fuel break, we started up. It was awesome to be cool on the arduous climb and the rain had washed away most of the ice on the trail before the 7.4 K mark. There was a bit of new snow on the traverse and I donned microspikes at Coffman's.
We could hear the wind picking up as we approached Grubbs Notch. By the time we were a few switchbacks below Grubbs, the wind was absolutely howling -- it sounded like a locomotive. We immediately headed up through the rocks to the tram to escape the artic gusts. For safety concerns, no trams were coming up but we were able to ride down.
Said farewell to everyone at the museum and started the most treacherous part of the day -- driving home. The air was full of flying objects and the ground was littered as well. On top of that, it was sometimes impossible to see due to the blowing sand. I was very happy to reach the freeway (at least there the wind was blowing head on, not from the side).
All of us were very happy that the weather turned out better than expected. Another great day with friends.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
