South Baldface nov 28th
We hiked up to baldface shelter friday afternoon in the rain, Snow at the shelter at sunset, accumulated to about 4' overnight. Not enough snow for snow shoes and the ice was to thin for crampons so we did not continue saturday morning.
Instead we just camped and in the early afternoon I was watching a series of snow devils rise on the slab above the shelter when one all of a sudden formed into a tornado. I had time to tell my friend to look and he saw it also, about 50 high and 15 wide on the ground. The sound was very loud like ripping the atmosphere open for about 3 seconds and then it blew itself out.
Saturday night the 28th was sleepless the howling winds were extremely unnerving. We thought for sure trees would be down all around us.
Sunday morning we travel up a few hundred feet and realized what we thought, no way to the summit, to slippery.
Our trip down from the shelter revealed 8 large down trees across the trail. We removed alot of small stuff and had to go around several. Overall a great trip and great expierence. We will return and do this ridge another day.
Ray Heyse
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