Weekend Adventure Part 1

 July 16, 2022

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and we were looking for somewhere to hike with a good deal of elevation gain.  I remembered a trail that we hadn’t been on in many years with some switchbacks starting pretty much out of the car and suggested it four our family outing.  “Great” my wife Kriss said, and we had a plan.  My pack held a menagerie of blankets, cast iron pots and lids, rope, water and some useful things like a jacket, snacks and small first aid kit for a total weight of about 50#.  Heading uphill with such a load and starting at an elevation of over 10,000’ is a rude way to begin a weekend hike for most normal people but if you’re reading this, you already know that I’m not normal.  

We quickly gained a thousand feet in elevation within the first hour and could tell that the slope was easing off a bit thankfully.  Our goal was at least 1,500 feet in gain pretty much as fast as we could get it because other weekend tasks were on the list for the afternoon.  Doing so at a thousand feet per mile per hour however is a good push and difficult to sustain.  Continuing along the trail and through the thinning trees, we could see glimpses of a mountain looming in the distance ahead of us.  


Finally, almost two miles in, we’re standing at the base of a beautiful ridge at treeline, our mouths gaping open as the realization of where we are sets in.  

This is a mountain that we look at from our house pretty much every day and looked at from our previous house equally often.  It’s almost 13,000’ high at the summit and has a characteristically sharp ridge rising to the west.  Questions flood my thoughts.  How is it that we never came back this way?  The only time we were on this trail previously was at least ten years ago and traveling in the opposite direction.  We probably never looked over our shoulders.  Why didn’t we realize this trail puts us in the middle of our current weekend playground?  How long would it take us to hike up the ridge?  Could we get our dog up it too since part was quite jagged and rocky?  And of course, the ones I said out loud, “do you think we should come back tomorrow and climb it?”  and “What route should we take after gaining the upper ridge?”  The answer to the first question was definitely yes and to the second one was, let's pick the shorter of our two options since many unknowns existed.



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