Whiteface Castle

Whiteface Castle, originally uploaded by vskiran.

The whiteface castle is about 4600Ft above sea level. I shot this picture when we were about 1.5 miles below the summit. As we got to the top, the wind was literally blowing us away. The final turn completely changed the circumstances. It was icy and we were struggling to hold our grip because of the gushing winds. At times the sound of the wind was deafening. Our heads were cold and we were holding it tight to keep it warm. We never hiked at these temperatures and our inexperience really showed up. We had lots of water, but it was of no use because it was completely frozen. We did keep the bottles close to our chest to keep them warm, but that didnt help. Supposedlly salty drinks like Gatorade would freeze slower, but even this drink was frozen at this temp. I just wanted sip but couldnt get it. Fortunately my friend brought a few choclate cookies, they really helped bring our energies back up. By this time my hands were frozen too. My fifty dollar ski gloves with two layers caught ice at the finger tips and started tearing apart. This is the reason why I got sore finger tips. I wonder if this is because of the sun. Even though the sun is nice it can hurt you at times. The little ice it melts at times can get into your shoes and gloves and eventually it gets frozen. At times I didnt know weather to feel happy about the bright sun or sad. Fortunately I had a second pair of gloves (normal fleece ones) that helped me while getting down the hill.
I would say that it was purely our mental energies that helped us scale this mountain on this day. I definitely wished it was warmer than -30/-40 degrees Celcius.

Getting to the castle was where the hike would end for many but there were some more steps to climb to get to the upper dome, which is like 300 feet above the castle. Next we pushed to walk up these steps.