Saturday, Oct 28
Start/Finish: Greeley Pond XC Ski TH
Miles: 7.13
Elevation gain/loss: 3136
The typical Greeley Pond TH was completely full, with many people parking on the side of the Kanc too. So I parked around the corner at the XC ski trail start, where I’ve had to park in winter when they didn’t plow the typically TH – only one other car was there. I headed out at 10:50am and made good time; the XC ski trail was a little soggy in some sections but not bad overall, and it had the same mileage/elevation gain as the typical start. I passed at least 10 people as I ascended, and by the first summit, I was delighted to run into Nic, another LGBTQ hiker I know from IG! We took a photo together and talked about our plans for the day for a moment, and then I headed onward.
Most people were climbing the chimney, but I went around, like I generally do. I passed more people and made the 2nd summit by 12:30pm. The view of dark clouds incoming from the top told me that I needed to get moving quickly if I didn’t want to get hit by a storm on the descent. I pushed my pace as I headed back up and over the 1st summit, and started descending. I made it back to the XC ski trail turn-off before the spitting rain started. It was fairly mild and it only spit rain for ~15 minutes and had stopped by the time I arrived back at my car.
When I got back to my car, I noticed something under one of my windshield wipers – turns out, I’d dropped my car key and headphone case (in a zip bag) while hiking and the other hiker had picked it up and thoughtfully put it on my windshield! Whew, crisis averted!
