Kedron, Bill, and I were planning an ascent of the legal route on Snow Creek for May 1, but one of our alarms didn't go off and someone showed up an hour late to the rendezvous. Since we all had stuff to do on Sunday and weren't sure how long the bushwack on the new route would take--Zach later confirmed that it was the crux of the route--we decided to do something comparable but closer to home so we wouldn't risk missing a crucial tram. A little sandy, yes, but in hindsight a good choice. We chose a traverse of the San Antonio Ridge!
We dropped a car at Manker and rolled over to Heaton Flats. I hadn't been to that parking lot for ages, and I was surprised to find so many people there at six in the morning. It was chilly and windy at Manker when we dropped the car, so we were pleased that it was cool and pleasant at the trailhead. Bill struck up a conversation with another hiker to ask the location of the trailhead, and he ended up walking with us all the way to Big Iron. The trail was verdant, fragrant, and awesome in its rapid rise above the East Fork canyon; it was my first time to Iron Mountain from Heaton Flats.
Our new acquaintance initially planned only to dayhike to Heaton Saddle, since he had mentally relegated Iron Mountain to a list of long-term, difficult goals. Since we were setting a brisk pace and he was keeping up without trouble, we encouraged him to accompany us to the peak. Four hours and some 6500 ft from the trailhead, we topped out and he was ecstatic! His story convinces me that oftentimes, we are individually capable of much more than books, the Internet, or other people tell us. Not to undermine the importance of preparation, but for those of us with big goals, we should remind ourselves that if others have already been there, we can also go there. This also reminded me of the significance of "firsts": when I witness someone to whom Iron Mountain is a towering impossibility of a death-march scamper to the summit in good time, I realize how huge a barrier our own doubts and the unknown are to progress, and how audacious, insane, or inspired are pioneers. Paccard and Balmat ascended Mont Blanc and initiated the sport of mountaineering among contemporaries who believed it was suicide to sleep atop a glacier.
After Big Iron, Bill felt uncharacteristically tired--I'm not sure it's kosher to date one's partners, but despite being almost three times older than Kedron and me, Bill is usually much stronger than us--so he returned to his car at Heaton and Kedron and I continued along the San Antonio Ridge. There were occasional snow patches, but the going was much easier than it was the last time we were on the ridge in January, since the use trail is pretty good. Someone cuts branches and roots out there! That kind of bummed me out because it detracts from the remoteness of the experience, but it probably sped us up by a factor of two, so I'm not sure where I stand on this.
For the n-th time, where n is very large, I neglected to take enough food and quite literally felt my energy run out and my body switch to metabolizing mostly fat. I thought I'd picked out a full bag of pita bread from the fridge (2500 calories), but it turned out to be only a half bag. We rested around 9000 ft on West Baldy, where I closed my eyes and started dreaming instantly, since I only managed to catch an hour of sleep Friday night thanks to last-minute work. I heard Kedron's voice talking to me as I dreamt, and I may have responded. It was pretty trippy. When I opened my eyes fifteen minutes later, the south side of the ridge had metamorphosed from clear with sparse puffy clouds to a dense carpet of white stretching to the horizon. Its closest edge lapped against the ridge crest and was kept from spilling over us by a strong breeze from the north. We continued, I experienced a second wind, and we made great time to Baldy. The snow was perfect for glissading to the hut; Kedron seated himself, but I was too vain to get my butt wet so I did a standing glissade the whole way. The snow really does have to be ideal for standing glissades to work: if you try it and it doesn't work out, it's not because you suck! The snow just has to be accommodating, in which case it is quite easy but slower than a sitting glissade.
We arrived at the hut, people asked us what we did, and we said we walked here from Heaton Flats. They asked if we meant "Bear Flats." One of the most amusing--or frustrating, depending on your personality--aspects of hard hikes, climbs, engineering feats, or what-have-you is that no one seems to understand what you just did! But it's OK, because the experience itself is usually good enough, and the San Antonio Ridge certainly was.
We arrived at Manker with sore legs, although by "we" I really mean "I" because The Kedrone v. 4.25 is not programmed to feel sore. It was just before 6 pm, so we were pleased with our time (11.5 hrs), despite it being a long ways from those of the likes of Rick Kent. At 9500 - 10000 ft vertical, I think it was a solid substitute for its more esteemed cousin, Snow Creek, and a wholly different experience since it is mostly along a ridge rather than in a long couloir. We all enjoy different aspects of our mountains: some like rappelling waterfalls in the canyons, some like wrestling with brush, and some like exploring abandoned mines, but for the mountaineers among us who take special joy in airy places, I can't imagine a more splendid hike in the entire range.
