Last weekend I went out on a day hike to Sasse Mountain to focus on elevation-related fitness as well as to test out some gear. At the trailhead I discovered that the snow was particularly crusty so I left my snowshoes behind in favor of just using trail runners and traction spikes. This got me to just below the summit where the road petered out and I would have needed to ascend a steep ridge to continue. Since the snow was pretty slushy I opted to avoid postholing for the next hour and turned around.

Goals

Gear

No LighterPack since this was a day trip.

What Worked

The Chainsen Lights were great, never lost my footing once. This only makes me more curious about their City Spikes which are less than a third of the weight. Might be a good way to shave some grams in the shoulder season.

On the northern ends of the switchbacks the snow was often slushy and I was punching through more and more. My toes started to get wet and cold so I slipped into my DexShell waterproof socks and they saved the day, again. I’m now considering these as required footwear for snowy excursions.

What Didn’t

Snowshoes, but only because I left them in the car. It’s a good lesson on my part, just because it appears that there’s a road which goes all the way through doesn’t mean that rode is wide or passable.

What’s Next

I want to try pairing the DexShells with a liner sock to see if it improves comfort and reduces clamminess over the long run. I don’t recall actually having an issue on this particular trip but wanted to see if it just felt better overall.

I also need to figure out the right way to attach a pair of snowshoes to my pack.

Route

Gaia folder:

https://www.gaiagps.com/public/WyRt5QLqg2uaRQLbxtG4AeQh

Along the way I spotted a couple interesting things. The first was what I believe to be the Sasse Ridge SNOTEL site:

The structure on the right has an arm with a downward-facing camera-like thing, my guess is this is the sensor which records the snow depth.

The other thing I spotted was this partially-exposed gate:

Hang in there gate! Winter’s almost over!

Photography

SmugMug gallery:

https://turigrinos.smugmug.com/Adventures/2020/Sasse-Mountain/

I only kept three pictures and they’re all on this page, so not a whole lot to say. I am realizing, however, that while a wide angle is good for some things it’s pretty crap for capturing detail in far-off mountains. I think I might look into a lightweight wide angle zoom to see if I can cut weight and also increase the range (literally) of pictures I can take.

As far as technique, this was my first opportunity to try out the auto ISO mode that I was recently reminded about in The Landscape Photography Book. Result: pictures have never been easier! With the shutter speed fixed at 1/2000th of a second and the ISO automatically adjusted to compensate I only have to worry about the focus and aperture.

I also decided to stop switching my camera on and off all the time and to instead just let it sleep. After having figured out that the camera can easily take a few thousand exposures on a single charge there’s just no reason to increase mechanical wear and tear to avoid a negligible hit in power consumption.

History

  • 2020-03-28: Original version
  • 2020-03-29: Added some technique notes to the photography section