Another weekend, another random trip into the alpine. Nobody was available for stupid adventures so I figured I'd play it safe and continue my explorations close to home. Remember that spot where it kind of looked like there was a cairn in the middle of the rock field? Let's go see if it leads us anywhere or if a couple of rocks just happen to have landed atop each other.
Darkness on the approach trail. No worries. Head down, huffing to get the first miles out of the way. Climbing familiar switchbacks and the dawn comes shining its light through the clouds. We found pika (a lot of pika) and stopped to snap pics for SCIENCE!. That pile of rocks? Definitely a cairn. Now the fun begins.
We hopped rocks to the basin below Chair Peak. Maybe someday, but not today. There was some serious red snow so we had another pause for more SCIENCE!. (Yeah. We like SCIENCE!) Sure, we could have stopped here and been perfectly happy, but didn't that gully look like it would gain the ridge? It did.
What could have been a good day in the mountains became euphoric as we cleared the ridge to find gorgeous fractured slabs and views north to some of our favorite places. WAY down below was Snow Lake where thousands of hikers visit every day in the summer, but up here there was no one.
The only downsides were having to leave (it is public land and they would kind of frown on building a house there) and the realization that this has been here all this time and I'd never visited before. I can't do anything about the first, but you can bet I'll be back. I'll also continue taking a chance on possible new places because you never know what you'll find until you take a look.
