timmus
03-13-2006, 02:18 PM
I sign in at the trail register at 7:00am, after a 3 hour drive from Montreal. Jean-Sébastien (Motabobo) was suppose to sleep at the trailhead, but his car wasn't there. I was OK with doing the Santanoni's solo, but I was also worried.
The snow was packed, and my snowshoes stayed on my back until the turn off from the road, at 1,8 mi. No difficulties to find the herd path, many people came lately. The first views came up while going up Panther bk : MacIntyre's, Colden, Marcy, from a totally new point of view. I had a huge smile on my face, thinking how great it's going to be from the summits. I was still thinking about Jean-Sébastien, he is so not the type of hiker who doesn't show up.
10:15am, the famous Times Square. Smaller than what I thought, without views...Wait ! That's Herald Square, of course. Got to Times Sq, took photos, had a sandwich, and some people showed up. A couple, and right behind them was Jean-Sébastien ! Yé ! Let's go to Couchie, he said. He still had the frustration from two weeks ago, when the bad conditions kept everybody away from all summits.
There was a lot of people that day, but what else to expect when the weather hits the 40°F and the sun is shinning. All the falses summits were annoying, but the trail was easy to follow. We stayed 30 minutes on the summit, chatting and enjoying. It was a long way back to Times Sq, Jean was fast and I had to stop all the time to fix gear, boots and other things, like catch up my breath.
At 2:00pm, back on the central point, we realized that we didn't have enough water. We dropped our packs there and did Santanoni by eating popsicles from the trees. Very refreshing. Because there's a lot of snow up there, the second half of the climb offers constant views. It was delightful and Jean took a lot of photos. We took our time and I felt more like a tourist than a peakbagger. I enjoyed the drop-off near the summit, the trail is so close to the edge that a false step can bring you 600 feet lower. I didn't know that Santanoni has such great views, it was clear all around so we identified peaks for 15 minutes and were back (again) at Times Sq at 4:00pm. On our way, we saw a guy wearing jeans and sneakers in his snowshoes. That pretty unusual on such a remote mountain. Maybe a snowmobiler ?
Only Panther left and that's it. It was quick and easy (and dirty, most of the snow had melted up there). We went down Panther Brook and shared 200 mL of Gatorade, laughing about who would get the leaf that was floating in the Nalgene. The ice was too thick to break it, and we couldn't waste too much time because the sun was coming down. At 5:45pm, we burrowed a water filter from a guy at the beaver dam near the trail.
We walked apart for a while, and I was very glad to see that Jean was waiting for me after the bridge, I was having crazy paranoïd thoughts, like I always do after a long day. We signed out at 8:00pm, we were both very satisfied and, surprisingly not too tired. That was a good thing, because I still had a 3 hour drive to do before I could lay down on my bed.
The snow was packed, and my snowshoes stayed on my back until the turn off from the road, at 1,8 mi. No difficulties to find the herd path, many people came lately. The first views came up while going up Panther bk : MacIntyre's, Colden, Marcy, from a totally new point of view. I had a huge smile on my face, thinking how great it's going to be from the summits. I was still thinking about Jean-Sébastien, he is so not the type of hiker who doesn't show up.
10:15am, the famous Times Square. Smaller than what I thought, without views...Wait ! That's Herald Square, of course. Got to Times Sq, took photos, had a sandwich, and some people showed up. A couple, and right behind them was Jean-Sébastien ! Yé ! Let's go to Couchie, he said. He still had the frustration from two weeks ago, when the bad conditions kept everybody away from all summits.
There was a lot of people that day, but what else to expect when the weather hits the 40°F and the sun is shinning. All the falses summits were annoying, but the trail was easy to follow. We stayed 30 minutes on the summit, chatting and enjoying. It was a long way back to Times Sq, Jean was fast and I had to stop all the time to fix gear, boots and other things, like catch up my breath.
At 2:00pm, back on the central point, we realized that we didn't have enough water. We dropped our packs there and did Santanoni by eating popsicles from the trees. Very refreshing. Because there's a lot of snow up there, the second half of the climb offers constant views. It was delightful and Jean took a lot of photos. We took our time and I felt more like a tourist than a peakbagger. I enjoyed the drop-off near the summit, the trail is so close to the edge that a false step can bring you 600 feet lower. I didn't know that Santanoni has such great views, it was clear all around so we identified peaks for 15 minutes and were back (again) at Times Sq at 4:00pm. On our way, we saw a guy wearing jeans and sneakers in his snowshoes. That pretty unusual on such a remote mountain. Maybe a snowmobiler ?
Only Panther left and that's it. It was quick and easy (and dirty, most of the snow had melted up there). We went down Panther Brook and shared 200 mL of Gatorade, laughing about who would get the leaf that was floating in the Nalgene. The ice was too thick to break it, and we couldn't waste too much time because the sun was coming down. At 5:45pm, we burrowed a water filter from a guy at the beaver dam near the trail.
We walked apart for a while, and I was very glad to see that Jean was waiting for me after the bridge, I was having crazy paranoïd thoughts, like I always do after a long day. We signed out at 8:00pm, we were both very satisfied and, surprisingly not too tired. That was a good thing, because I still had a 3 hour drive to do before I could lay down on my bed.