Barr Trail    May 20-21 2009

I got a late start on the Barr Trail due to car problems.   It was fairly warm as I started up at 3:30 pm.  It was overcast  but the stars came out later.  I passed Barr camp at 8pm and was pretty tired but carried on to the A frame.   I started encountering snow patches right above Barr Camp.  I picked up a couple of geocaches along the way.    With the stars out and the barometer rising I was hoping for a good summit day.  I got to the A frame about 11 PM and cooked supper.   I was up at 5:30 and realized that although the A Frame was empty there was a tent pitched 100 yds below it.   I got started for the summit at 7AM after caching sleeping and eating gear.  By then it was spitting snow.   As I climbed higher I was crossing more and more snow.   I saw a couple climbing below me and wondered if they were the the ones with the tent.  By the time I reached the long left facing switch back leading to the crater overlook I was entirely on snow and lamenting leaving my ice axe behind.  I had trekking poles but they were a poor substitute.  At the crater overlook the snow started really coming down.  I put on hat and gloves and drove on.  Fortunately there were good snow steps left by those who had gone before me and the temperatures were cold enough to keep them very solid.  I summited about 10 am and the weather had deteriotated to about 150 ft visibility in blowing snow.  The normal summit marker was buried in snow so I took a picture at the America the Beautiful monument and started down.  The Golden Stairs were interesting without an ice axe and I took it slow till I was past them.  It snowed on me to the A Frame shelter and I picked up my cached gear.  At about Barr Camp it changed to rain and the rain about ended about 4 miles above the trail head and I came out of goretex.  I arrived back at the trail head at 6 pm.  If I had it to do over again I would have spent a second night at the A Frame but time constraints would not allow that this time.   I would also take an Ice axe.  Over all it was a great trip.   Tom