Steve Hamilton and I at "High Lookout" on the South Loop trail to the summit of Mount Charleston. This year, like last year, we decided to do an overnight on the South Loop trail in "the Meadows". We would make our ascent to high camp on the last day of 2006 and summit on the morning of the first day of 2007.
Steve took this picture of me with one of the impressive Bristlecone pines behind me near the South Loop ridge.
The snow conditions were very diverse with a lot of variation between windblown hard pack, bare ground, and crusted drifts that you had to "post-hole" through. We were not sure whether to take crampons or snowshoes or neither which is what we ended up doing. In the end it was probably a draw as to whether we should have taken snowshoes or not, but then we would have constantly be taking them on and off so we just plugged away post-holing through crusted snow that wouldn't support us and went on. Overall, the snow conditions made this a rather long 18 mile trip.
A end-of-year view of Mummy Mountain to the north.
A cold, windy, sunset at about 9,500 feet in-route to Mount Charleston.
Steve manning the chilly job of brewing water (melting snow for drinking and cooking water).
"Home Sweet Home" for Old Year's Night 2006.
New Year's morning view of Las Vegas and Lake Mead to the east.
The final ridge (Heartbreak Ridge) to the summit of Charleston. Usually this is the most
difficult part of the climb but, because the ridges were blown free of snow, it was one of the easier sections.
One of the many limestone fossils to be found on Heartbreak Ridge.
The wind was really "nuking" on the summit. We estimated it was blowing around 70 mph making the windchill temperature somewhere around 0oF.
Steve getting a little "air" time in the summit breeze.
One of the steep couloir's that drops from Heartbreak Ridge to Big Falls.
Steve making his way down on hard packed drifts on a beautiful, perfect, New Year's Day 2007.