Miles: 13.2 

Total Trail Miles: 386.1 

Ascent/Descent: 3780/3039 ft 

Start Time: 04:30 

End Time: 14:55 

Temperature: 3°C (37°F)

One month on trail! We marked the day with a 3.20am alarm, it was cold and dark and our tents were covered in frost. We packed up and we're on the trail with headtorches for light by 4:30am. It was straight into the steep ascent up mount Baden Powell. As soon as we gained a little elevation the boot track disappeared, buried in the fresh dump of snow from the storm, looks like no-one had made it up since, we part followed some ski tracks and Pat had to create the boot track, it was steep and tiring work especially at elevation. It was beautiful hiking in the snow at night though with the snow sparkling in the torch light and getting to watch the sunrise as we ascended, it casting a red glow on the snow. We summited at 7:30 (9383ft, 2860m), it was freezing and windy up there so we didn't stop for long and headed down a bit for breakfast. We hiked up with Ronan, Impala and Sasquatch too. We had to create all the boot track going forward as we were the first group up, we followed the ridge line and had to submit some extra pals that weren't actually too on the pct as it would have been too dangerous to traverse around them. We patrolled a lot as the fresh snow was not compact and it was very exhausting. We decided that once we summited Throop peak and had an early lunch at 11:30am we would bail out along the ridge and down to the highway add the next section was meant to be super sketchy and that was before the new dump of snow that was already slushy and soft. Wee once again had too create the boot track, it was a steep descent and we quickly realised the easiest and probably safest way down was to glissade, they were soo long glissades, fun but we had soaking, cold butts by the end. We were happy to see the Road at the bottom. The road walk (6.3 miles) ended up being a right slog as soo much was converted in snow and slush, the clouds also rolled in and we were soon walking in a thick mist, dreams of drying out or went tents, clothes and shoes and camp quickly vanished. We arrived at the car park we intended on camping at in the fog at 3pm , I hung my train fly out to try and dry it a bit and sat in the tent without the rain fly in my sleeping bag to try and warm up. We ate dinner at 4:30 as we were soo hungry and i put the rest of my tent up. The parking lot has pit toilets with loo roll and there were bins too - what we would call a luxury campsite! Shortcut, Conor, Cristina and Val rocked up at 7pm, it was nice to catch them before we headed to bed.