A friend and myself headed out to do the Skinner Ridge trail starting at Bottchers Gap in the Ventana Wilderness. I called ahead and spoke to the resident ranger which gave us tons of helpful information and there was a slight thought of trying to make it to Double Cone Peak, although we didn't really have time on our side for that venture.
We arrived at Bottchers campground and met up with the ranger to go over all the mistakes on the Ventana Wilderness map published by "Wilderness Press". Always reassuring :-) It was a great day and we set out to hit "Pat Springs" that night which is basically the only guaranteed water source along the trail. It was pretty overcast as we set out and rain was definitely on the agenda. Good thing we packed for rain!
The trail steadily climbed for quite some time as we only passed two hikers coming out ... little did we know that's the only human life we'd see along the trail. Most of the campgrounds listed on the map either didn't exist due to a forest fire, were flooded, or didn't have a water source nearby so we decided Pat Springs we be our goal for the day which was a nice 8 miles. Prior to hiking this trail we did the Sykes Hot Springs which was nicknamed "The elevator trail" due to all the ups and downs or PUDS (pointless-ups-and-downs). I'd say this was "The elevator trail reborn"... well, maybe I'm exaggerating but it was somewhat PUD-like. We arrived at Pat Springs and it was everything we hopped for... nice, water nearby, and no-one around!
At camp I busted out a new setup which was a GoLite poncho tarp and a Z-Packs bivy (links below). Got out the paracord and started rigging up an elevated A-frame since there wasn't any wind to speak of. I figured it'd give nice coverage for rain coming straight down.
We setup camp, cooked some dinner, and called it an early night due to it getting cold very quickly. Shortly after falling asleep I was awoke by sleet which then turned into snow and would continue throughout the night. This was my the first time in a tarp/bivy and I'll say it was quite cool to so easily look out and see the changing weather. We woke to about 4 or maybe 5 inches of snow.... very unexpected but as Cody Lundin says "Party On!". Along the Skinner Ridge trail there are a lot of magnificent views simply due to it being on a ridge. This would become quite funny to us on the hike out as the only mountain to get snow was "Ours"! Everything else was green!
Although we planned on camping two nights we didn't expect snow. With that said we figured staying out another night without snow gear probably wasn't the smartest decision. We broke down camp and headed out. The trek out was a bit more difficult since 4-5 inches of snow is, apparently, just enough to cover up the path and a good amount rocks which would give our ankles a good workout. The trail out was just covered, I mean covered, in urine from all the wildlife roaming around at night. We couldn't call out that many tracks but I can say there were a decent amount of large paw prints... more than I expected.
On the hike out the snow started melting, everything turned to slush, and it started raining which made for a pretty large mess. We arrived at the parking lot without issues and headed out. As we arrived at Hwy 1 it was a nice bright sunny day which made it seem like we just came from an alternate world. It was really shocking to see the change in climate over a spread of 10 miles or so.
Party On!
