Over the Nose of Brockway

Okay, I lied.  When I woke up on Saturday, it was no longer snowing.  I was too late to get to Mount Bohemia for first chair, so I decided to skip it.  I figured it would get skied up pretty quick; there were lots of tourists around.

Instead Mr. Butters and I snowshoed up the Nose of Brockway Mountain.  We crossed Hwy. 41 at the Garden Brook Trail then headed straight up the ridge.  I have never done it from the south side before.

The thing that surprised me the most about this ascent was the number of valleys I crossed on the way up.  Valleys!  It was nice to have a break during the climb, but it was even more awesome to discover the unique terrain.  Here is a picture of rocks at the top of one of these valleys.  Yes, I climbed up it.

Large boulders on the south side of Brockway.

Finally, with the help of tree trunks and juniper bushes, we made it to the top.  One section close to the top was really steep.  Duce even whined as he looked around for a possibility up.  I let him climb over me for traction.

At the top, we had this view.

Overlooking the Harbor and Lake Fanny Hooe.

Lots of snowmobilers were up there too.  I could hear them coming around the corner of the Nose and in the distance on the opposite ridge by Clark Mine Road.

Cautiously, we crossed the snowmobile trail and began our descent.  It was pretty flat and open at first.  A little too flat and open.  But that all made sense when we got to the cliff.  Yup, the cliff.

It was pretty much straight down.  Luckily, there were lots of trees for me to grab onto as gravity took over.  I literally had to hang on to a tree trunk or two, then let myself slide down to where I could either grab another tree with my hand or stop myself with my snowshoe.  I desperately wanted to take a video of this for you, but I realized I would probably hurt myself really bad if I tried to do it one-handed.

At only one point did I think I was in really deep doodoo.  I slid too far and ended up sliding headfirst out of control.  Hoo!  Was I glad when I stopped and regained control!  I looked up and Duce was whining again, “Mom!  I’m too scared to go down like that too!”  So I braced myself, and held out my arms to him.  “Come on down, Bud!  I’ll catch you!”  And I did.  

We made it down safely, but I had to pick some branches out of my snowshoes, and one of my boots came untied.  Could have been worse, I suppose.  When we hit the snowmobile trail at the bottom of the Nose, I looked up to see what we just came down.

Did we really just come down that?

Ah, yes.  Another somewhat dangerous adventure under our belts.

As for today, I shoveled four inches of the heaviest, wettest snow I've seen all winter.  Nice.