On Sunday, my buddy Mike and I decided to give the Cog a shot. After hearing about a spacious, wide trail, and nearly direct route to the summit, this adventure was high on my list.
We hit the parking lot around 8:30am. I have no idea why they plow the road and parking lot, but am really glad they do. It allows for a really good starting point. It was about 10 degrees to start, and despite some seriously high temps last week, even the snow at the parking lot was light and powdery. We instantly knew that we were in for something good.
We headed up, me skinning and Mike on foot in ski boots. He sometimes would sink knee or hip deep in the snow, but he was generally good if he stayed on the boot pack. As we started to ascend, I could not believe how wide the trail was next to the rail. In the lower part of it, the trail was even on both sides. I'm guessing the trail serves as an access road in the warmer months. Most of the time it's right beside the rail, sometimes there is a line of trees separating the two. In any case, it's about 20' wide most of the time. It was however, truly disappointing to see the pipes for snow making along the lower portions of the trail. I had no idea that this existed. It kind of took away from the BC feeling but whatever. I assume they don't use them until the Cog opens.
We made really good time for the first half of the climb. Mike struggled a bit on one portion where the boot pack overlapped on the rails. The snow kept giving away underfoot, and his leg would plunge down between the railroad tides. We realized that snow shoes really would have made a big improvement for him. Mike threw in his crampons, cut over to the trail and we were off again.
As the sun got high enough to hit us, we were down to t-shirts. It was amazing weather. However, as we left tree line, we were cooling down quickly. Eventually, it gets too steep for skinning, and we were both using crampons. You could do it without, but they were really nice to have. Now, moving more slowly, and feeling the wind, I was fully layered up.
Although the appeal of skiing was diminishing with elevation, we decided to summit because the weather was acceptable. The temp at the top was about 0 degrees and I the winds were forecasted to be in the 30's with higher gusts. It was pretty intense for the final 1/10th mile to the summit as expected but it was well worth it. We moved slowly and carefully without issue. We snapped a few photos and headed down immediately.
On the way down, we put on our skis less than a quarter mile from the top. The skiing wasn't amazing at first but we could make much faster progress than on foot and it was nice being on our edges. I could easily see the potential up there after a big snow storm, but most of it was blown off (blowing in the direction on Tuck's!). The Cog itself always retained a snow drift along side it which was great. There were a few short sections that we had to take off skis for, but as we descended, the conditions quickly turned from packed powder to powder with plenty of room for turns. We enjoyed the long ski down the to the lot and loved the fact that we could ski right to the car. The trail wasn't all bumped up and had tons of snow. Epic day. Sorry no pictures this time.
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