Mt Gordon Lyon Climb

 Today we met with the Valley Wanderers and a couple of Happy Hikers up at Arctic Valley Ski Area to climb Mt Gordon Lyon. The ski resort had groomed the trail up to the saddle between Gordon Lyon and Rendezvous Peaks, where we had intended to snowshoe. But we were advised to avoid that area because they were currently doing avalanche control and setting off charges that could cause slides in that area. We didn't want to wait for them to finish so we chose an alternate route, straight up towards the military installation on the opposite side of the peak. It was mostly untracked and we broke trail up the steep slope to the untracked military road that runs along the high ridge. It was a lot of work on snowshoes through the deep snow. My dog, Bella did really well considering that at times the snow was deeper than her body. I let her off the leash in areas that weren't too dangerous. But once on the ridge, there was potential for her to go bouncing too close to the cornices up there. I put her back on the leash. It was a beautiful sunny day for a nice change. The avalanche bombs going off scared Bella and sent her running back to my side. The views up top and really, all along the route, were just amazing. You could see forever, just range after range of mountaintops. Our whole distance was about 4 miles. Fortunately we were able to walk down our original planned route on the nice groomed slope. I stayed for a couple of hours and skied a run at the ski area on the deep ungroomed snow. Then attended a brief memorial for Dave Hendrickson, our Pioneer Ski Patrol member, and original founder. The Arctic Valley Ski Patrol took some of his ashes up to the top of the chairlift and bombed them to scatter them in the area. I wasn't allowed to bring Bella into the lodge, so we left soon after that event.

Bella on the summit

Bella and me on the summit