Bill, Gary and I carpooled out to East Portal, a popular backcountry skiing and snowshoeing trailhead for the James Peak Wilderness. Overnight we’d gotten 6+ inches of new snow around town and the temperature had plummeted. At the trailhead the wind was blowing and we quickly geared up and dashed for the safety of the trees.
Numerous skiers jockeyed for position as relative paces were sorted out then disrupted as people adjusted layers or gear. We enjoyed watching one dog steal someone’s glove and then play keep away while the owners tried to keep the offended skier from killing their pet.
We debated where to go at each trail junction until we finally decided to head up to Forest Lakes, a place Bill had been several times but would be new to Gary and I. Gary started out leading the way up the initial climbs.
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About half way to the lakes he let me go first, not that we really had to break trail, since another group had already proceeded us.
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We took a short lunch break in the middle of switchbacking up a steep slope. It was about here that my fingers started to go numb and when we continued to the lake I was pushing a bit to try and warm up. At the lake the terrain was less sheltered and windier and I put on another layer and threw some handwarmers into my mittens.
Gary took off down the gentle path that should have been our ascent route. Bill and I left our skins on for the rolling terrain then finally removed them about half way down. While taking off the skins I experienced the “screaming barfies” (the painful feeling of having numb fingers come back to life) and knew the handwarmers had started working.
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We zipped quickly down all the hard-fought elevation and then hit the low angled trail leading back to the parking lot. We sidestepped, skated and duckwalked the hills we couldn’t carry enough momentum to glide over and avoided several groups of nordic skiers or snowshoers before reaching the car again.
