20140118 Santanoni

A Bluebird day for Barb, Ishmael and me. As we left the car about 6:50 am temp about 6 degrees we thought we would play it by ear asto whether we woult take the Santa Express or the Panther/Santanoni Brook herd path. We were passed on the road by a couple of gazelles who mentioned they were going to try to get all three. The brook crossings were over thick ice and facile even though both bridges are gone. At the Santa Express Junction we noticed that the trail had not been broken out, so we decided to head for Panther Brook. A few hundred yards past the junction we met up with a half dozen guys with sleds that stated that they had been out for seven days. They mentioned that they had been up Panther Mtn the previous day. The herd path up the brooks was well broken out and the traction was excellent. Between the three of us we were wearing MSR Lightening Ascents, MSR Evo Ascents, and Tubbs Flex Alps. None of us had any complaints about their snowshoes. We went from Panther Pond to Harold Square in about 90 minutes. At Harold Square we met up with two pairs of hikers who had started about 1.5 hours before us and were headed to Panther. After about a minute the gazelles came into Harold Square at a lope having already bagged Panther and stated that they were headed off to Couchie.

We were following MrBill's GPS track, so with that we headed of to Santa. We did flounder around a bit in the early going, but never did get too far off the track and made it to Santanoni in less than 1.5 hours, even though none of it was broken out. We spent awhile near the summit because the views were some of the best I have seen in the Daks. On the way down we stopped to take some photos of some folks at the Express junction. As we headed down they mentioned that we were headed down the Express path. After a few seconds discussion we thought "Okay, what the hey" and proceeded on down via their nicely broken out path. I will admit that this path is the most unrelentingly steep trail I have been on in all my recollection. After the junction the rest of the hike was unremarkable.