John came up to Los Alamos and picked me up at about 7pm. The drive from Los Alamos to Alamosa took two hours, and we picked up some double whoppers to go. Driving through Slumgullion Pass (11,538') demonstrated that there wasn't a terrible amount of snow at this altitude, so we decided to try to make it to the trailhead for Handies Peak which is at 11,600'. We had originally planned on trying to do Sunshine and Redcloud together, but neither of us were feeling in good enough shape to get that done. So the lack of snow up so high was a relief.

Shortly after the pavement ends on San Cristobal road, just west of Lake City, we ran across a female moose in the road! She looked young and very confused. We were probably within 10' of her at one point; I've never been so close to a moose before. Its shoulders and hips were well above the top of the pickup. And it ran in a most ungainly way.

The road up as far as the Grizzly Gulch trailhead was dry, clear, and appeared to have been recently graded. Above Grizzly Gulch the road was often muddy and more rough, but nothing a little 4WD couldn't handle. There was no snow until just a ways before the American Basin trailhead, where we would camp. The amount of snow picked up sharply, though, and at the trailhead the plow walls were 2-3 meters tall. There was a monster bulldozer equipped with a plow parked about half-way to the trailhead. At several points along the road, the plow had clearly turned to push snow off the road, leaving a little spur of plowed area about 10' long. There was nowhere to camp at the trailhead other than in the road, so we backed down about 100' and camped in the first of these pull-outs. The weather was clear and calm, so we just put sleeping bags down on a tarp.

We woke up at 5:30 and made breakfast. The temperature was probably in the high 20s. We packed everything back into the truck and were underway by 6:50. The trail starts by following a 4WD road into American Basin and initially this road was plowed. The plow walls here reached 4m or more and it was like being in a trench. However, after a hundred meters or so the plowing stopped abruptly and we had to climb over the snow/debris pile at the end and start walking on the basin snowpack.

It was hard snow that could be walked on without snowshoes and we barely left footprints. This continued for a couple kilometers until we were at the the end of the basin. At this point, the valley curves left (east) and we had to ascend over a large bench. The bench included some steeper snow so I put on my crampons. John had decided to not bring crampons so he instead put on his snowshoes which had reasonable cleats. However, the buckle on one of his snowshoes was broken. He took one of my snowshoes and used it instead. I didn't see much point in carrying around one snowshoe, so I left it and my trekking poles behind along with his broken snowshoe. We proceeded with me on crampons and John on mismatched snowshoes.

The gear stash also marked the point where we were now in direct sunlight, so we stopped to put on sunscreen but it turned out that we had both forgotten to put any in our packs. This was bad because it was a very clear day and there was a lot of glare off the icy snow which was lighting up the bottom of our noses, below our chins, etc. We pressed on.

Having arrived in the bowl just below Sloan Lake, we were faced with the prospect of reaching the saddle between Handies and unnamed point 13,588'. There was no non-steep way to achieve this, and it was unclear how well John's snowshoes would handle the extreme grade. In an attempt to shorten the amount of high-grade we would have to travel, we decided to head up the northern slope of the bowl to the ridge which leads directly to Handies. This was particuarly steep but reasonably short.

Having climbed about half way up the slope, and approaching a convexity, John became uncomfortable with the grade and we glissaded back down to the bottom to try a different approach. The glissade was a lot of fun on the icy snowpack and speed control with my ice axe was easy. We had, however, lost quite a bit of time trying the northern approach.

We opted instead for a much longer approach which would minimize grade at all points. This involved climbing the ease-southeast side of the bowl to the base of some rocky cliffs, then contouring around to the saddle to the north. During this ascent we started noticing that the temperature was getting well above freezing and the snow was starting to soften. This was troubling because I no longer had snowshoes with me.

We made it to the saddle and stopped for some pictures and food. At this point, we could see the summit of Handies only a short way off and ~500' up. However, the now melting snow meant that glissading would be more difficult and soon I would be post-holing. The prospect of post-holing all the way back to the gear stash was not one I was looking forward to, so we bailed on a summit attempt and instead opted for a quick retreat back to the other snowshoes.

Had the snow still been hard the glissades would have been fast and efficient. Unfortuantely, they were only possible on the steepest of slopes which was a bit unnerving. I ended up walking most of the distance and frequently post-holing. This rapidly wore me out. Once we got back to the snowshoes and my trekking poles, I switched from the now-useless crampons to my snowshoes. We got John's broken showshoe to the point where it would usually stay on (it only fell off once during the remainder of the trip).

By now, the snow was very soft and heavy. The walk back from this point was not particuarly steep or long but took a long time because I was getting exhausted. When we arrived at the truck at 2:00pm, we were both thoroughly worked and heavily sunburned on our faces. We drove down to the Grizzly Gulch trailhead which has a bathroom and changed out of our gear there.

Insult to Injury:
John drove as far as Lake City, then I tried to drive to Alamosa but couldn't keep my eyes open so he took over again and I slept until we got to Alamosa. We ate steaks at the True Grits Steak House, which I love. Afterwards the plan was for John to sleep and I would drive to my house in Los Alamos. Unfortunately, when we left the resturaunt, John's truck wouldn't start. We tried getting a jump with no luck. We tried wiring the battery directly to the starter solenoid, nothing. We tried wiring the battery directly to the starter motor... nothing. Apparently his battery was dead. The starter was brand new (he had put a new one in the previous week because of a similar problem with not starting). So we called AAA and the guy that came agreed to give us a tow-start.

All we had to tow with was some static rope, and because we were in a parking spot with an incline we couldn't push the truck out from, it ended up being a tow-start in reverse. But it worked like a charm. However, it meant that if we turned off the car (or stalled it), we would be stuck again. So we had to go from Alamosa to Los Alamos to Santa Fe without letting the motor stop. This included getting gas while the car was running and leaving it running while we unloaded all my stuff at my house. But we pulled it off without incident. Because of the fear of stalling a truck I was unfamiliar with, John drove the whole way back. I arrived back at my house at 10:00pm.

Why we failed to summit:
I think the largest contributing factor was John's lack of crampons. On the steep slope that we gave up on, I was perfectly comfortable with ice axe and crampons. Had John been similarly equipped, we would have summited in short order.

In leiu of John having crampons, we should not have stowed the snowshoes. It was possible to rig the broken showshoe to work. With a bit a string (which we both had), we probably could have made it pretty secure. However, leaving one set of snowshoes behind meant that we had a time constraint on summiting that was much earlier than when any weather or nightfall might have precluded further progress. I failed to consider the possibility that the temperature might rise to the point where I would need snowshoes that high up.

In truth, we could easily have summited on this trip with the gear we had. But doing so would have put us back at the gear stash an hour or more later - and by then the snow was really getting bad. Given how exhausted I was when I got back to the truck, having to work through even more slushy snow would not have been a good thing.