home page
December 31, 2015
The wind was blowing steadily but it wasn't really cold as we awoke at dawn and started packing our things. Our packs were now feeling considerably lighter than the first day, containing two days less water. We began stumbling south along the ridge, still trying to wake up. 10 minutes after leaving camp, we arrived at the summit of Poll Peak right around sunrise, finding a large ~7 ft tall cairn.
morning views from Poll Peak
Continuing along the ridge, we found the terrain to be increasingly tedious and rocky, combined with a series of 40-100 ft bumps. Daria soon dropped a few hundred feet down the west side of the ridge, preferring to sidehill rather than face the bumps. She said that her knees were really starting to bother her at this point, and preferred to do as little ridge rock hopping as possible. I remained on the ridge because I personally hated sidehilling.
The next two peaks, Dock Peak and Cannon Peak, were pretty straightforward along the ridge. From Cannon, we descended southeast, hitting a large plateau which consisted of weaving in between a multitude of rock piles and shallow washes. We gradually worked our way to the west side of the ridge, knowing that we would soon hit Fetlock Peak.
looking southeast from Dock Peak
east
southwest
register on Dock
looking southeast from Cannon Peak
plateau slogging before Fetlock
Fetlock turned out to be fairly uneventful, as did the remaining three peaks on the Traverse. From Fetlock, we meandered our way to Eye Peak, dropped down 300 ft, and rock hopped our way up easy terrain to Stifle Peak and Toe Peak. From Toe Peak, we descended SSW down one of several gullies to the car just west of Clarks Pass, arriving at ~2:20pm. We dusted ourselves off, retrieved the other car, and headed into town for some much craved Mexican food.
good views from Fetlock
summit of Eye Peak
summit of Stifle Peak
good sized cairn on Toe Peak
Coxcomb Mountains
heading off the ridge
back to Sheep Hole Traverse
No comments:
Post a Comment