I finally made it up to Mount Catherine yesterday. I've wanted to try for the past month or so, but never arrived early enough. There's been too much fresh snow as well. I figured yesterday might be the last time in the foreseeable future where the freezing levels are still somewhat low.
This trip revealed to me that I have a lot to learn about proper route choices in the snow. My route up was far from ideal. Once I got past the cliff bands the steepness relented a bit and I tried to favor the semi-frozen treewells rather than the deeper powder between the big mountain hemlocks.
It was a fantastic feeling to get on the ridge and see the summit above. I was totally soaked at this point and the sun was setting, so I didn't linger up top. I kept trying to get off of the ridgeline to the north but found it to be much too steep everywhere. So instead of going towards Windy Pass and taking the nordic trails beneath Ollallie back as I had intended, I ran down to NF-9070 and had a long, dark road walk back. I stopped by the Jim Brooks Warming Hut which looked really cozy. Short-cutting the huge switchback on 9070 worked really well. I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got on the P2C Trail.
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