The weather here in Colorado has been downright uncooperative. We keep getting rain (which is great for the drought) which means the mountains keep getting snow, which means hiking is a challenge.
In an attempt to get "warmed up" for the hiking season, Lonny and I tried to climb a peak called Mt. Sniktau, which is at about 13,234 ft, and located off the ridgeline that defines the summit of Loveland Pass (which is the trailhead).
Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. I've been in terrible thunderstorms on peaks before, and thankfully this was not one of those...however I've never been in 80+ mph winds in snow before. We got within half a mile of the summit, but saw a storm moving through the valley, so thought better of summiting and headed back to a small shelter we'd passed earlier. As we turned back, the storm hit. Driving winds (our best guess was about 80mph, although we have no way of knowing) with small gropel-like snow pelting our exposed face forced us to cover all exposed skin and make our way through the near-whiteout.
We finally reached the wind-break shelter around 12:30pm, and waited there for nearly 40 minutes before heading back out during a slight break in the storm...by this time completely covered in snow.
In the end, it was truly an interesting experience, but given a choice, I'd personally avoid extremely windy snowstorms in the future!
These shots were taken by both Lonny and myself.
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