Saturday, December 31, 2022
Miles: 17.63
Start: Round Pond TH
End: South Fork Boquet River TH
Elevation gain/loss: 6358’/6355′
Peaks: Dix, Beck Horn, Hough, S Dix, Macomb, Grace/E Dix
We started from the Round Pond TH around 6:30am, after spotting a car a few miles south at the South Fork TH. We barebooted for a while on the well-packed snow. The well-packed trail soon deteriorated into wet slush and standing water that soaked our feet. There were numerous water crossings on the ascent of Dix trail, and we put on snowshoes to better navigate the rapidly thinning ice bridges. We had to scout around for safe crossing points for many of the water crossings, taking up time and energy. We made it to the foot of the steep slide around 10:15 and then climbed up the 30%+ grade towards the summit. We arrived at the top of Dix at 11:30, and then headed over to Beck Horn.
We ran into a snafu on the descent of Beck Horn; me and another person descended down a 2-3 step boulder problem and the others decided to find a way around. We didn’t realize that they’d continued down on the main bushwhack and that we were off to the side on another trail. We waited for a while until we saw them a few tenths below us in the col between us and Hough. We quickly headed back up over the boulder and then down the way they’d gone. From Beck Horn onward, we were both breaking trail and wayfinding; it was surprisingly hard to find the herdpath in the winter woods. The snow was very wet and heavy, and on the ascents, it was often thigh or waist deep. Once we made it to the summit of South Dix, one of our party headed towards Grace and the herdpath descent towards South Fork Boquet River.
The rest of us headed over to Macomb; the rock scramble was mostly open rock and the wind was howling as we descended. Breaking trail for 0.5mi to the summit seemed to take an eternity. Then we turned around and headed back the way we’d come; thankfully, the wind had died down on our return rock scramble. Then we followed our friend’s tracks over to Grace, broke trail to Grace’s summit, and then went downhill as quickly as we could on the bushwhack in the fading light. My hamstrings started cramping on the descent, angry from a long day pulling my heavy snowshoes out of deep holes; they settled down once we made it to the more flat terrain. I was very glad for our friend’s footsteps because we had to cross streams, brooks, and the river more than a dozen times as we exited in the dark. By the end, we were all completely soaked and had started to just walk through calf-deep water because it made no difference. As we got closer to the road, we followed our friend’s footsteps staying to the right of the river – the crossings weren’t safe and so we did more bushwhacking to finally pop out onto an official trail just by the road. We were all very glad it was a very warm day – temperatures varied between 38-50 degrees, so being soaked from river crossings wasn’t a dangerous scenario. We were so very glad to have made it out of the woods that night.
Transcending Mountains 