This is my third attempt at activating Coffin Mountain. The second time during the winter. This year we did not even make it as far as the trip in 2012. We geared up big time for this trip. Bruce, my trip partner, and I both built pulks to carry all the extra gear needed during winter. I purchased a nice 10 amp/hour LiFEPo4 battery.
We knew by late Friday afternoon that it was not looking good. A winter storm had moved into the area. We erroneously assumed this would us help us snowshoe the route. All told, it can be up to 8.5 miles of travel from OR22. The snow was falling pretty heavily by early Friday afternoon. It was rather dry snow and we figured that the previous two days had brought about 24 inches of new snow. Our snowshoes were sinking 12 to 16 inches in the snow. This limited us to about a maximum speed of half a mile an hour. We snowshoed about two miles on Friday. Friday night brought at least 24 inches of new snow. A local resident measured it at 27 inches.
We did not make it Coffin Mountain, or it’s close sibling: Buck Mountain.