Beware the Ides of March.  I threw caution to the winds and hiked Santanoni instead to finish off that range for winter credit.

I had hiked the marked trail to the Santa Express last weekend, and it was a nice hard packed trail with only 1 wet spot then.  This time, we started off and it was pretty crunchy with my car saying it was 30 degrees at the trailhead.  By the time we started the small climb after the bridge, it was obviously starting to get soft, and we were both starting to feel warm.  On the way to the express that one wet spot we had last weekend now was 3 or 4 different wet spots.

We hit the express and much to my surprise, the water crossing was solid.  We saw the river running strong down stream and I was expecting this to be somewhat open, but we got lucky and it was solid to cross.  Grab a quick bit of food and then we started up the herd path.  Overall the mile of climb was what we expected.  Steep, lots of trees, and the snow was softening.  When we got to the "Hillary Step" as it's called in the guide book, the prints we were following went straight up it.  In the summer, this is a big rock face and you normally go around it through a highly eroded stretch.  So, mark that 500 feet of trail off my red lining goal.

When we reached the shoulder of the peak and had a small reprieve from climbing, we could see what was before us.  We were walking over the trees, and the whole final push was above the trees.  My memories of this peak is that you have a few nice views on the way up, and you're mostly in the trees until you hit the false summit.  Well, this time, we had so many views on the way up, and now the trees that blocked the views in the summer were below us.

We pushed to the top, nearly got blown over by a wind gust, and a few minutes later we were on the peak.  Well, we think it was the peak.  The GPS said it was the peak, our eyes said it was the high point of the mountain.  The sign though was nowhere to be found, and we didn't feel like digging.  The neat thing to me though was that last weekend all the trees on Panther had rime ice all over them.  This weekend, the trees were all clear of ice and snow.  Amazing what a couple warm days can do.

Coming down was actually as difficult as going up.  The snow by now has turned to mashed potatoes an we started to slip a bit more.  Then came the spruce traps.  Each of us lost a foot to traps that we had to extricate ourselves from.  We both also punched a few holes in where traps were but got out before getting trapped.  We were happy when we got back to the trail and hiked out.  This wasn't totally hazard free though. We're at the transition point between trenches and monorails.  If you stepped off to the side just a little bit, your shoe went in, and very easy to twist an ankle.

We were excited when we saw the gate.  We started with a parking lot that was frozen solid.  We got back to a lot that was mud, and of course, my snowshoes and boots both got covered in mud.  My boots were also rather wet, and that's all because they were caked in snow/ice for most of the day.  I guess it's time to clean and re-grease the boots.

In the end, 10.8 miles and 3160 feet of elevation in 8ish hours making me 24/46 for winter 46.  Year to date 123 miles and 6.07 miles of elevation over nearly 90 hours.