Back in the times of the virus, I had the great idea of hiking through the local ski resort's backcountry. Skiers do it all the time. Why not a hiker? Oh, right. There's no snow in late September. Or at least not enough to make it easy. On that trip, we short circuited and dropped down a double black diamond to the trailhead.
But that was then and this is... another late September adventure. Instead of going up to the summit and consuming a bunch of time we probably didn't have, we went up the double black diamond and moved into new terrain.
Brush, yes. Of course. There's always brush. This was a little extra brushy, though. Not a ton of fun to fight through. Grade I, BW3.
Talus came next. It's an older field so the rocks were stable. And since we were making decent time, we took the opportunity to relax in the sun.
The highlight of the day was the slabs. Big, continuous slabs of rock and the perfect angle for climbing. The boy and the dog charged up to the top. I was a little behind them. We could see more slabs and more talus stretching out ahead of us. It was going to be good.
Tink and HOS explored. We found good routes, found some snow, and only a couple of spots that were tricky to get through. We split at one point. HOS definitely had the better line, but I'm stubborn enough to go my way if there's no danger to either of us. Tink went back and forth between us with no difficulty.
Our hike out wasn't exciting. We saw more and more and MORE people heading up the very popular trail. After a few hours of isolated off-trail travel it was a bit of a shock, but returning on the well-maintained trail was worth it.
Now that I've checked this route off my list, where to next? Never fear. There are plenty of other spots this close to home for us to experience.
📍On the lands of the Wenatchi people.
