
| Nice run away from record valley temperatures with Grizz the mtn_runr & MOCKBA. Grizz thought that he approached the summit from the South before, and that's the direction we tried. An awesome 100-footer grey cliff blocked our way at 12,000 ft. Just as we let out a sigh of relief that it's over, the true summit block came into view. Awwh! What friggin' towers! Passed the dark chimney of the left, 'tain't as bad as it looks.
No Joe's summit note anywhere, but we found a slip of paper with 1980-1982 logs, and a lightning-melted stub of a pencil. Down by the North Ridge, left the ridge a tad too soon, dropping right after the Big Finger gendarme. A gentler way down would require at least a couple hundred yards more traversing over two minor humps of this ridge.
Nice wild strawberries and grouseberries in the valley, a surprise encounter with a scared white goat on the ridge, and a cool skinnydipping hole just at the base of Joe's gulch, but no mushrooms. |