3.5.03

home

It was slow going on the ice but we finally reached the end of the slick-rock and climbed down. Because we had taken so long traversing the ice we were beginning to run out of light so we pitched the tent in one of the Lost Canyon campsites. Of course there was no water in the creek so we had to melt some snow. That night we were beat and slept like babies. That is until Matt woke me up at midnight saying that it was snowing and that we had to break camp now and head out if we were going to make it over the last of the slick rock before it became impassable. I told him that I wasn’t getting out of my sleeping bag till the sun was up and that it was far more dangerous to cross the slick rock at night than during the day regardless of the snow conditions. Plus we had plenty of food to last another two days so we could easily follow the canyon out to the road if it came to that. That morning we awoke to 4 inches of fresh snow. The tent was covered and sagged in the middle. Next time there will be a substantial tent upgrade to a real three-season tent. Not just some mosquito netting covered with a tarp. We broke camp and hiked back to the road over the slick rock. The going was pretty easy as most of the snow had melted by the time we got there. Once back at the car I realized that the battery was dead so Matt went to get the ranger to give us a jump (another two miles). We were on the road and in Durango by that evening. We stayed at a friend of Matt’s named Bob who had just moved down from Chicago. He hooked us up with cheap lift tickets for the next two days. Although I was tired and sick Matt dragged me out to the mountain and we proceeded to ski every black diamond in the place. I bitched the whole time but in the end had a great time. After two days of skiing we drove back to Albuquerque and caught our flights home.