The weather was lousy. No doubt about it. The snow at the pass was lousy and the rain was everywhere else. Nobody wanted to come out to play. Even Amy was off working so I had two choices: Stay at home and watch the kids go crazy or drag them into the woods.
Or where the woods once were. I didn't want to spend a ton of time in such lousy weather so I picked a bunch of mini peaks that should be almost drivable in the Hancock tree farm.
We passed the first one, but the road was clearly too overgrown to drive. It wasn't raining, but it was wet. I didn't want to get the kids soaked on the first peak figuring we wouldn't be able to tag any others.
We drove past Black Lake and turned to head up the hill behind it. We wound up at the lake, but this was good. I didn't think you could drive right to it. Cool. U-turn and then up the dirt roads until we could go no further. As we got out of the truck it began to rain. Hard. Really hard. Oh well.
The girls got their rain pants on (with minimal fussing!) and we headed up. I had left Henry's pack at home so he was on his own to get to the top. We climbed the road for a bit and then turned up through the slash with the summit in sight. Clara led the way and picked a route that was as good as I could have.
On top it was still raining and we didn't stick around long. We had a few treats and beat a quick retreat. The rain pants had worked great, but both girls were wearing trailrunners that didn't really cut it. Worse was Henry who was in jeans, though he was somehow dry underneath. I was soaked as well. Tokul was thrilled to be on a trip that didn't beat her into the ground.
We tried driving to another peak, but a minor landslide had blocked the road. I could have moved enough of the rocks, but instead we turned for home. It seemed more reasonable to not push it and save the next peak for a new day.
Total distance was about .7 miles with 200 feet of gain. Impressive, huh?
