Timpooneke Trail: Part III

Well, we hiked through a rocky abyss to reach the top, so we had to begin our descent with more of the same.

Pretty soon after departing, we rounded a corner and came upon a mountain goat up close and personal. Either used to seeing people or just generally uninterested in them, he couldn't be bothered by us. He just kept doing his thing, effortlessly making his way down a vertical cliff.

So we kept doing our thing, making our way down to the giant snowfield, much less gracefully than our mountain goat friend.

The fact that the next part of our hike isn't documented is a testament of its difficulty (and at times, its fear factor). Drew was a rockstar here. He knew quickly that the snow conditions made sliding down the snowfield from the top (which is what people usually do) too dangerous, and he problem-solved our way down with another route. To avoid going off the top ledge, we half-climbed, half-slid down a rockfield first to get lower down on the slope. Even then, with a lack of fresh snow, the snowfield was practically ice - it was hard, cold, and slippery - so once you started sliding, you had very little control over how fast you went and in which direction (other than down, down, down). By using our legs kind of like a boat rudder, with one out straight for steering and the other bent for drag, all four of us made it down the slope without any major mishaps. (Aaron and Jaimie did stop this older lady that came down behind us when she was sliding out of control; no exaggeration, they probably saved her life.) Drew and I went solo, since I was more afraid of our combined momentum than I was of going it alone; Jaimie and Aaron stuck together. The pictures below absolutely do not do justice to the steepness of this snowfield or the adrenaline that got us safely out of it.

Wet, cold, and incredibly happy to be standing on rocks instead of ice.

After landing firmly on solid ground, we stopped for a little while to catch our breath and grab a snack. Food always calms the jitters, and I think we all had a few after our snowfield experience. I also changed into Drew's extra clothes since mine were so wet. They were perfectly oversized and warm, and it was a good thing, because we trailed the sunshine the whole way out, never catching up to it.

After our break, we had our third and final mountain goat encounter. This one was extra white and fluffy; tired and cold, I think we all would have liked to curl up with him and take a nap at this point.

We had to cross just a little bit more snow and rock before making it back to the Great Basin where the trail levels out a little, wildflowers grow, and the color green resumes its dominance.

Although it was a really busy day on the trail as we were going up, we must have been some of the last people coming down, because there wasn't a soul in sight for most of the rest of our descent. The hike down does really weird things with your mind: in some moments you catch yourself dawdling down the trail, taking in some last deep breaths of cool mountain air and touching everything, while in others you catch yourself practically running down the trail thinking only about the warmth of the car and the bath that await you. We had enough of both experiences to adequately relish the end of the hike, while making good time getting the heck off of that mountain.

Darkness caught up with us pretty quickly, but thinking that we'd be done and home in the late afternoon, none of us packed flashlights. Luckily, we ran into a family that was better prepared (although at the time, they were, like us, off the trail and lost in Middle Basin). We stuck with them until we finally made it out around 9pm. Talk about a long day; that's twelve hours of solid walking. It was, however, also twelve hours of great fun with great people, spent learning more about ourselves and each other in a beautiful setting. So, at the end of it all, it was a long, truly wonderful day.