Morning came, and I popped out of my bivy to this view:
For breakfast, our crew enjoyed some "killer sausage." So named as the previous night, we had gone to great lengths to remove all smell-able products from our packs and cache them in bear canisters, and much to my chagrin, I discovered a delicious summer sausage next to my bivy, not in the bear canister. D'oh.
Our spirits were greatly buoyed by the sunlight. We broke camp and melted snow for drinking water:
Mark and Julie headed back down. Owen, Anna, and I continued upward along the High Divide. The fog and clouds rolled back in and the footprints in the snow stopped. We found our way via a combination of GPS and dead reckoning:
Remarkably, we found a trail marker in the midst of the deep snow and trees at 5000':
We pushed forward, traversing steep, snow covered pitches (highest reading on the inclinometer was 47 degrees, though I suspect we covered some steeper terrain that I didn't feel comfortable measuring). After Owen took a fall and a slide and conditions continued to worsen, we decided to head back.
Here's a comparison of our conditions versus a photo from a fellow Flickr user:
After rendezvousing with Mark and Julie, we decided to detour to Forks for some nourishment before heading over to hike Third Beach.
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