You would think that four months would be long enough, but it wasn't. There were still lots of interesting mountains I hadn't climbed, and now the end of my long trip to Peru was rapidly approaching. I had one week left before I would have to be in Lima to catch my flight home.

Time flies when you're having fun. And I sure had been having a whole lot of that. Now there was just enough time for one more short expedition. Without a partner, I was ready to hire a guide, and so I walked into the offices of Galaxia. While I was talking to Marco, who ran the place, something came up that suddenly required his attention. I don't know what it was, but I didn't see him again that night.

Earlier, I had been in contact with Mark, a climber from Scotland. While I climbed Huascarán Sur, he went to Alpamayo and Quitaraju with Skyline Adventures. We had agreed to keep in touch, but I hadn't heard from him yet since I got back in Huaraz earlier today. However, Lady Fortune was with us and he showed up right on time. He had successfully climbed both peaks, and was back longer than I was and ready for something interesting. Sorry Marco, nothing personal, but I won't be hiring a guide after all.
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For many years, it had become my yearly tradition to visit my favorite national park- Kings Canyon- on its opening weekend in the spring. Beginning around mid-April, I used to start making calls to the park's recorded message system once or twice a week until a date was announced for the seasonal reopening of Cedar Grove Road.

That particular year, the opening was quite a bit later than usual due to an extremely heavy winter snowpack. But, like an on-call firefighter, my gear was already assembled and my plans were already made. This year would be the first in a series of trips designed to explore the western slopes and approaches to Comb Spur- a roughly 2.5 mile long ridge of several peaks that rise to well above 11,000 feet just north of Cedar Grove. Finally, one day I made the call and heard a faint scratchy recording that announced the date of May 10th for the opening. Awesome! I was stoked!

It had been during some of my earlier trips to the Monarch Divide (also on opening weekends) that I first noticed the western aspect of this miniature mountain range. These early season trips revealed Comb Spur at its best with gleaming mantles of spring snow adorning dark rocky cliffs and even a few sharp summits. The peaks looked surprisingly impressive and well worth a visit or two. I knew that it was likely easier to approach from Granite Basin via the Copper Creek Trail, but I was intrigued by the long steep ridges dropping westward from the summits to the various branches of Comb Creek far below. The topography looked confusing and there could be a significant amount of bushwhacking. In other words, this could be a lot of fun!
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Finally it was time for me to climb the Ellingwood Arete! I had flown in from Seattle for a short 4 day trip and Stephan picked me up from DIA and we made the long drive down to the South Colony Lakes Trailhead. Along the way we saw numerous thunderstorms but the forecast called for improved weather on Saturday the 8th. We made it up just fine in Stephan's truck and since I had just come from sea level and we were carrying pretty heavy packs we made slow progress up the old road to the old closure gate. The rest of the trail along the base of Marble Mountain was of and on snow to the lower lake where we decided to continue up the trail to camp at the upper lake to get as close to the arete as possible. The afternoon lighting was beautiful and perfect for taking photos. Once we arrived at the upper lake we found a nice flat spot near the outlet stream and pitched the tent. Out my tent door I stared at the arete which looked dubious but awesome. We had a quick dinner and after sunset went to sleep.
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