Box Elder Peak

Nutmeg and I left the trailhead at about 8:20am on trail 043. The weather was very pleasant for the first leg, 3.6 miles to the saddle which we reached about 10:30am. Over the next hour the sky became overcast and dark clouds could be seen in the distance. I had seen a single set of footprints from a hiker in front of me all morning. There were only a few small snow patches on the trail as it approached the saddle. I saw the foot prints again after we left he junction with the Dry Creek trail so I knew they was also headed up to the Peak since the only other trail in that direction was blocked by steep snow fields on the north face of Box Elder.
After another 35 min of hiking along the ridge which is more or less level, we reached the start of the climb to the summit. There were several large snow banks that were easy to cross since they were mostly flat. The initial section of the climb was covered with snow because it was shaded from sun by tall conifer trees that grew along the west side of the ridge. The going was very slow on the steep snowy ridge. There were a few sections that were bare but a lot of the climb was in deep snow of varying softness. Neither YakTrax nor snowshoes helped much. We eventually caught up with the other hiker. He had left the trailhead 2 hours before me and was moving pretty slowly. We had to leave him behind if we had any chance of making the peak. This 0.6 miles section took me over an hour and a half to climb.
The ridge merged with another at about 10,300 ft for the final section. At point where they merged there was a tall snow bank that was the final obstacle. There weren’t any more conifers to shade the ridge so it was bare to the summit. The only problem was the weather. A storm started to move in over the peak. We kept going for another 25 min but then the storm hit us. Between the snow pelting us and distant thunder, we were forced to retreat just a quarter mile from the top. We were very exposed on the ridge and I didn’t want to become a lightning strike statistic.
The decent went much faster of course, what had taken over two hours to climb to only 40 min to undo with the help of a few short glissades. The other hiker had turned back before me but was making progress down nearly as slow as up.
I ate my lunch on the saddle and then waited for the other hiker to catch up. I wanted to make sure he was OK before we began the final decent to the trailhead. Joe said he was fine and had food, water and gear.
Of course to spite me, the weather teased me all the way down mocking my failure with glimpses of blue sky between the snow flurries. The drop to the trailhead took me an hour and three quarters. In the words of MacArthur, “I will return!” I’m not so sure about Nutmeg, this was her longest hike ever and she is getting kinda old.



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