Last weekend my friend, Pam and I had planned to try a winter climb of Lazy Mountain. The weather was so bad and foggy that we abandoned that idea and skied at Eklutna Lake instead. But we both really still wanted to give it a try. So today we decided to take our chances, even though it certainly wasn't a crystal clear bluebird day, but at least it wasn't snowing and the mountains were visible. I checked the trail conditions yesterday and found that the steep Lazy Mountain Trail appeared to be quite hard packed, and looked fine for Kahtoola micro spikes. But the easier, more gentle and longer Lazy Moose Trail looked like more of a candidate for snowshoes. I have good hiking snowshoes but Pam doesn't. So we planned to take the steep trail and return the same way. We had hoped to reach the summit, but figured we would go as far as we could, then turn around. It went pretty well for about half a mile. But then as the slope increased, the conditions got more slippery. My dog, Baby did great, but Pam's dog Dahla was wearing doggie booties, which protected her feet and kept her from collecting gigantic snowballs on her long hair, but unfortunately didn't give her very good traction. Baby's leash tends to get in the way so we remained behind Pam and Dahla. When Dahla started slipping, I gave her little boosts up over icy spots, and even lifted her over a few of them. The higher we climbed, the more slippery it became until one spot where the trail split around a couple of trees. I took the left fork and Pam took the right. Both were pretty slippery, but the right one turned out to be the WRONG one for sure. Poor Pam lost her footing on the icy slope beneath the powdery snow and slid about 15 or 20 feet back down nearly to where the two branches had split. She was miserably stuck and unable to move without chancing a quick descent into a little pile of brush about the same distance below. I worked my way down below her and discovered that descending on my route wasn't much better. I got below her and the two of us managed to dig some questionable footholds and get her back in the standing position. From there we were able to carefully climb up to the picnic bench at the halfway point, just below where the Lazy Moose Trail joins the Lazy Mountain Trail.
At this point, we took a short chilly rest, and jointly decided there was no way we were going back down that steep treacherous trail again! We knew it would be a miserable slog of post holing through deep snow and a couple miles longer to take Lazy Moose down. But down that trail we went, quickly deciding that the summit would be great to do in summer. Within seconds of heading down that route, the snow was suddenly deeper than my chihuahua. My poor little dog started shivering and crying and trying to climb up my leg, her signal that she'd had enough and "Please carry me!" I did have my special dog carrying backpack and began the always challenging process of stuffing 9 pounds of wiggling wet shivering dog into the 3 layer fleece bag I'd made for her, to keep her warm on such occasions. Suddenly it was as if she had about 15 little legs, I'd get the 2 front ones in then they would spring out as I stuffed in the back ones. Tiny toenails managed to hook the sides of that bag making the process even more interesting. Once finally inside the bag, I stuffed it with the wiggling passenger into the backpack. But then she insisted on standing up on her hind legs, complicating the process of zipping the flap down that holds her into the pack. Meanwhile, I knew Pam was getting a little cold waiting for me to complete this activity. I hefted the now heavy pack onto my back and immediately sank up to my knees in the deep snow.
Pam and I took turns falling and burying ourselves in the deep snow, but we were making slow but steady progress along the trail that had been created by smarter people wearing snowshoes. Pam had removed Dahla's booties and she started collecting balls of snow the size of ping pong balls on her feet. I think I saw her glancing enviously at Baby who was riding comfortably on my back. Pam occasionally reminded Dahla, that she was on her own and being twice the weight of Baby, was not going to be a rider. This trail is a 3 mile series of switchbacks that crisscross a fairly steep slope. Sometimes we managed to find spots that held our weight, but each step was a guess, frequently dumping us into a pile of snow as we lost our respective balances. About halfway down we encountered a small group of hikers, only one of which was wearing snowshoes, heading up the trail. They had 2 dogs with them. Dahla and Baby had to say hello with a series of barks and growls. As I tried to move aside to let them pass, I buried my entire left leg in deep snow and fell over. As I struggled to get up, their huge furry white dog, decided to sit down on top of me. Wiggling Baby was having a barking fit on my back and I figured I would be dying right there in that spot because there was no way I'd ever get back up. At this point, there is only one thing to do, draw on my sense of humor and laugh. The dog owner was yelling at Bruno to get off me, I'm struggling with my trekking poles, cracking up, trying to get back standing. I'm not sure how I did it, but I did finally get back up. They warned us of a moose they had just encountered a short distance below us. We looked forward to that!
We continued down, stumbling, falling and slogging for a while until suddenly the trail seemed to just stop. Pam had diverged and found her trail had also come to a stop. I checked the AllTrails app on my phone and happily, it did show that I was on the trail, but there were no tracks that we could follow to confirm that. Pam reversed her course and now we were together again, but no sign of where to go. Down the hill through completely untracked snow, I spotted one of the trail markers in the distance. I plunged into the deep snow and half walked, half swam down to that marker. Once again we were on the trail. From there it was fairly obvious where the human tracks were, but they were frequently crossed by moose tracks. This probably contributed to our wrong turn that left us feeling lost. I heard a low growl from my backpack and there in the bushes ahead was the moose, casually browsing on the alders. Pam put Dahla on her leash and we tried to quietly make our way past the moose. The trail made another switchback and I was suddenly much closer to the moose and she was looking right at me. I smiled and kept moving. She decided to ignore us and we were able to move on without getting trampled.
I have a surgical metal plate in my right collarbone from the time years ago when I was trampled by a moose. The backpack was really starting to hurt because it presses right on that plate. In addition, I had put toe warmers in my shoes because my feet are always cold. For some reason, the toe warmers were causing a horrible burning sensation to both feet. There were times that I was nearly in tears from the pain, trying to let my collarbone pain distract me from my foot pain and vice versa. I wasn't about to take my shoes off and remove the toe warmers, but I did wonder how bad it would be to just complete the trip in my bare feet. Soon the snow started to be more hard packed. With only 1 mile left, I made the command decision to let Baby walk that last mile. Fortunately she did great. She not only walked, she ran, pulling me almost off my feet, since she needs to remain on her leash. Otherwise, she would run back to the car and maybe chase a moose, squirrel, or other dog, in the process. I've had the experience of chasing her for 45 minutes after taking the chance of letting her run free. She has a mind of her own.
We finally reached the trailhead 5 hours, 37 minutes and 46 seconds after we started, with an average pace of about 1 mile per hour. We both decided that our next trip up Lazy Mountain will likely be in summer.
