I climbed Mt. Wire today with Matt Van Horn and Twinkies. We started a little after 7:00 AM. The forecast called for snow this morning, but it looked like we would have a nice window that would allow us to get up and back down without any precipitation. Based on the forecast the night before I was fully expecting to be driving to the trailhead in snow, and I was excited when I drove over the Point of the Mountain and I could see that the storm wasn't as big as I was expecting. There were still some threatening clouds, but I knew we would be fine.
Twinkies and I started off running, with Matt hiking. It was cold and windy, but I heated up fast. Once on the ridge, Twinkies took the lead, and Matt was still a good distance behind. The ridge was very windy, and I was very thankful for my windstopper fleece hat and jacket. It took about 30 minutes to negotiate the main ridge and we were pounded by the wind the entire time. It was COLD.
I stopped a few times to shoot some video and pictures, and my hands would be numb within a minute. That ridge is really exposed, and I was feeling bad for Matt because he didn't have a hat on.
Twinkies had a pretty good lead on me, while Matt lagged behind me. When I finally made it to the top I could see that Twinkies had continued on and I don't blame him at all. That was one of the coldest summits I have ever been on in my life. I waited on top for Matt for about 15 minutes until he finally arrived, and I was pretty much numb by then. After a few photos we headed back down the way we came. I knew we would never catch Twinkies, and both of us just wanted to get down as quickly as possible.
We ran/hiked back down and actually made pretty good time, and when we got back to the cars I noticed that Twinkies was already gone. It was a fun morning even though we had to battle the weather. I actually loved almost every minute of it. | 