Alpen Casual: The Mayflower-Quandary Traverse
I choked on the glob of bile mixed with snot that had coagulated in the back of my throat. I hacked it up a little, and then spit it out into the open space beneath me. I was in the middle of what would become the “crux” section of the route that we had chosen to explore that day, a half boulderfield-ridgeline jaunt across a section of the Tenmile Range that was oft looked upon, but rarely contended with in this area, let alone this time of year. It was November 1st. I had gotten off work that morning from a less than expected pretty boring night shift. I met Matt Clark, my partner for the day, in the McCullough Gulch trailhead parking lot, the spot that hopefully, we would return to some hours later after a successful day plotting a new course across the Tenmile. We dropped Matt’s car at the trailhead and drove together in my 4Runner to the Mayflower Gulch trailhead, on nearly the exact other side of the range. Our route for the day was simple. Matt suggested roughly where we woul