Our plans were to hike this via the Calkins Brook trail, go over to Seward, then backtrack to Donaldson, Emmons, and back to the Calkins Brook.
We met at the trailhead at 530 Friday morning, signed in, and were soon on our way. The trail to Calkins Brook is a very nice walk-in and especially nice on the way back out. We arrived at the cairn for Calkins Brook at around 630 am, took a quick break, and we're off. At around 2300-2800 feet I started to get fatigued, I definitely wasn't in my mojo like I typically get into after getting warmed up. We discussed our options to either continue or turn around, we opted to play it by ear, push the fluids a bit more and take in some extra carbs, this improved a bit as we continued up, but was short-lived. Around 2800 feet we started to run into snow and the further up we went the more accumulation, albeit maybe 3" at most. There is a fair amount of mud along the Calkins Brook and the trail over to Emmons. We got up on the ridge around 10:30, this is where we started to run into icy conditions, crampons would have been overkill, and for the most part, we were able to chip the ice away from the rocks with our hiking poles. The only time we took out High On Lifes microspikes, was to compare them with my stable-icers, a big difference and I will switch over, they are a lot lighter, more aggressive, and I won't be walking around with loose screws.
When we got to the ridge we went to Donaldson for a break, ate, drank, and review our options, I admitted to High On Life there is no way I can do the 3 today, she stated "we'll do what we can, we're just out for a walk in the woods", so I suggested Donaldson and Emmons, then if things change maybe we could go over to Seward and out the blueberry.
Things did not change for me, I was having difficulty in the col going over to Emmons, it was a weird feeling that I had not experienced before, and I felt confident I wasn't bonking, but that's where the final decision was made, High On Life agreed, we would bail out after going back to Donaldson. We ran into the most amount of icing in the area between Donaldson and Emmons, again nothing that required crampons, but some strategically placed feet. We took a break on Emmons, took pics, chatted, and then went back to Donaldson. Again we had a snack, and water on Donaldson, soaking in the sun and the views, when a group of four from Buffalo came up from Seward, these were the only hikers we had seen all day.
We had left the summit of Donaldson at around 1:30ish? We enjoyed our hike down the Calkins Brook, a nice trail for going down, easy on the knees. We got back to the cars at 5 pm, said our goodbyes, and were off.
I stopped at the emergency room to get checked out, and after a sleepless night and many tests from the heart to thoracic, nothing wrong was found, which is great news, but leaves me wondering, maybe I was bonking with different symptoms.
