Visit to the Respectful Snow

Gaius Derf has completely subverted me. I've gone in just two short weeks from hater of winter and detester of ice and snow to passionate snow pack hiker! Go figure. We had another of our famous "respectful" snow early in the week, so I was figuring that it would be pretty interesting hiking.

Derf was under the weather so I was on my own. In the event I decided to go to one of my favorite trails, the South Crest Trail. It is on the east side of the mountain - the east side always getting much more snow than the western/city side. It was a great. 38 degrees when I left the trail head with a totally clear sky. I only passed three people the whole time I hiked.

I'm still getting into shape and it definitely takes more effort going through the snow so the hike I took was about a third shorter than I would normally do on this trail. As it turned out from another hiker's report, it was pretty much fresh snow from where I stopped so I wouldn't have gone there anyway.

The start of the hike
The snow depth is minimal with lots of clear spots

As I got a through the first climb the snow depth started to increase

Then you get to a series of switchbacks that are the meat of the climb.
The snow is starting to get a lot deeper.

The trail was pretty well trod until you got to this point.
A lot fewer footsteps marking the way.

And the snow got deeper

I decided to do a little measuring.
Here are my hiking polls in the path.

And here is one right next to the where I took the previous picture.
I measured it when I got home - 21 inches deep.

Almost to our destination

This is the trail marker for the intersection with the Upper Faulty Loop Trail.
On the upper right of the picture is a little white bump.
That is actually a large pile of rocks that marks the trail intersection.

A shot on the way down looking northeast toward Santa Fe.