In what now seems like the beforetime (that's a lowercase beforetime as in "before the heat and smoke" rather than an uppercase Beforetime as in COVID), I spent the morning where there are no people, lots of pikas and marmots, and snow. It was the middle of July and this was a perfect way to spend a Saturday morning.
As usual, I took no pictures on the brutal initial climb through the trees up a (mostly) dry creek bed. We split off the trail and dropped into the valley between two mountains. It was full of snow (expected) and full of avalanche debris (unexpected). The avalanches must have been particularly harsh this season to have deposited all the broken trees at the base.
We had to leave the snow for an exposed ridge that became hot as the morning wore on. Not as hot as a heat dome, but still warmer than I prefer for hiking. (For the record: Low 60s is great for hiking.) We hopped rocks to the first summit and then into the snow-filled basin below the second.
There was a huge bloom of watermelon snow so we did SCIENCE! before climbing up to the ridge and starting our long descent. The best part of this trip is before we rejoin the main trail, but the views from the established (if not maintained) trail were still lovely.
This trip was the first I'd managed with more than 3,000 feet of gain. Only 1,000 feet more to hit my "fully recovered" goal. I'm on my way!
