"Summer" Snow in Montana

Technically, this morning still constitutes "summer", since the Fall Equinox doesn't occur until 2:18 PM tomorrow. Here's a shot of this morning's camp at 9k, below Fridley Peak, with Hyalite Peak in the distance - 3 hours from my front door, including the 6 mile walk.

The shelter is a Mountain Laurel Designs pyramid. Like most pyramids, it suffered badly from snow loading during the night, and I didn't get a lot of sleep (owing to the routine of: listen to snow fall on silnylon, fall asleep, wake up and all is quiet so you think it quit snowing, fall asleep again, wake up to silnylon on face and knees and feet, bang snow of sides of shelter, repeat; with interludes of shoveling snow from the exterior edge of shelter).

So with summer waning and winter imminent, I reckon it's time to bid adieu to the the "ultralight" tarps for high country camping pretty soon.

Stay tuned for the video from this trip, which focuses on keeping a "ready" pack for trips of 24 hours and less.

Comments

[Don Meredith]

I'll be in Montana at the end of the week. Its my first time out (from South Carolina) so I can't wait!

[Dave]

What shelter will you be switching to?

[Chris Kayler]

Hi Ryan,

The snow doesn't look very deep. The pyramid had trouble dealing with just this small amount?