Day 4:  Mount Valhalla (13,180), Grand Traverse Peak (13,041), and the hike out

I came out of sleep without opening my eyes and I heard a sound that I had heard before.  It sounded like horses walking around.  I knew what it was but I fell back asleep and dozed for a while.  I woke up again shortly and without moving opened my eyes and saw several goats around us.  I whispered at Pat not to move, but to open his eyes and look at all the goats around us.  It was pretty neat.  Ruth Ann woke up right away and we all three lay there looking at the goats who were grazing around us.  There were four adults and three kids.  As we stirred, the goats got spooked and headed out.  We watched them for a while…they appeared to be heading up to Snow Pass.

Before attempting to climb Mount Valhalla, which appeared to be a long way along it’s northwest ridge, we decided to go back to the bluff behind the cabin and see if we saw any wildlife.  The cabin was probably a good quarter mile from where we camped.  We waited by the bluff for a few minutes looking then spotted a deer who was still bedded down in the forest.  We watched if for a while then it got up and was joined by at least two more deer.  We headed back to camp to get ready for the climb when we spotted a male goat inspecting things around our campsite.  Our approaching scared him off and we got ready, carrying the usual lightweight load, and headed up.

The beginning of the climb followed the lake to it’s northwestern edge then began a steep climb up a grassy slope to the Mount Valhalla/Grand Traverse saddle.  Unfortunately, about 3/4ths the way up, Pat broke his walking stick which he had humorously christened “Little Betty”.  He’d even carved his name and some more stuff into it.  Well, we convinced him to hold on to the part that remained.  Anyway,  Grand Traverse was much closer to us but we had planned on heading to Mount Valhalla so we began following the ridge.  Below us, we had earlier spotted the mountain goat.  He’d was moving all around Deluge Lake and as soon as we left the campsite, he returned to to complete his investigation.

The first part of the ridge wasn’t very hard at all.  The left-hand side of the ridge was very steep and pure rock and talus.  At the saddle there was a gigantic permanent snowfield.  We stayed mostly on the right-hand side which was mostly grassy ledges.
 
As the ridge turned more northward, it became much more difficult.  We had to stay on the right-hand side and work pretty hard at some good route-finding to find the easiest and safest route.  This part of the ridge was very slow going but the difficulty never exceeded 3rd class.  We did have to cross a few steep and loose gullies.  At one point, we squeezed through a notch that was bordered with a large rock that must have had a ton of quartz in it.  Below this rock was a very smooth wall with bright yellow lichen on it.  This landmark became one of the key landmarks for us.  Beyond this notch, we crossed another gully, took a break at another small notch on a grassy rock rib, then headed up to meet the ridge which now looked a lot easier again.  Once we got up on the ridge we were able to traverse at or near the top, past another major gendarme to the base of the final pitch to the summit.
 
The final pitch to the summit is a short 3rd class ridge then another short talus scramble to the top.  The summit of the mountain is actually a long ridge with the eastern part appearing to be the true summit.  As usual, there was no summit register up here.  We set up the cameras and took our summit shot again.  We rested on the summit.  I was facing west and Ruth Ann and Pat were facing east.  Suddenly I noticed a mountain goat appear on the western end of the summit.  Ruth Ann and Pat turned around slowly and we grabbed our cameras.  As we were getting our cameras ready, another goat appeared, then another.  It appeared to be the same family of goats that we’d seen earlier in the morning.  They were very skittish; they started to run off as we stood up.  But upon sitting down, they came back up on the summit but never came any closer.

We needed to get back down because we had decided to attempt a climb of Grand Traverse too since it was so close.  As we moved towards the goats, they scampered down the mountain and put a lot of distance between us very quickly.

On the way down, we decided to follow the top of the ridge as long as we could.  The top of the ridge is pretty tough.  It’s solid but fairly exposed 3rd class climbing.  Before we encountered any sustained 4th class climbing, we dropped back down to the safe side of the ridge and immediately found our quartz landmark and followed our original route back the rest of the way.

Back at the saddle, we looked up at Grand Traverse, not far away, and decided to try to climb it before the weather got any nastier than it already was.  Grand Traverse was nothing more than a 2nd class ridge climb from this side.
 
We started climbing quickly.  There were some nasty looking clouds south of Grand Traverse Peak and it was clear behind us.  As we climbed higher though, we heard distant thunder.  We continued on but unfortunately the clouds thickened and darkened.  It started to hail and rain lightly.  A mere 200 feet below the top we heard a closer clap of thunder.  My best judgment told me that we’d better descend.  So, I gave the word and we headed down rapidly.  This was definitely the smart choice.  Back near the saddle, a very loud clap of thunder hit and we zoomed down the rest of the way.  The rain had picked up and was coming down very hard now.  Unfortunately, because of the frost from the previous night, our stuff was out drying in the sun.  Well, not anymore, it was in the process of being doused.  Pat went down first since he was in front and ran back to the camp to throw all of our stuff into the tent while I stayed back with Ruth Ann.  When Ruth Ann and I got back, Pat had moved everything inside the tent and we stripped off our wet clothing and jumped inside.  While we waited, we made some hummus (by adding water to the mix) and had it with some crackers.  

The only thing that could prevent us from having to hike out with heavy wet gear was for the rain to stop and the sun to come out which it did about fifteen minutes later.  We spread everything out to dry.  While we were about our task, we heard a loud “CRACK!”.  I though someone had fired a shot near the lake or some sort of explosive had gone off.  We whirled around to see a huge chunk of snow that had broken off and fallen into the lake.  I’d never seen anything like that before; it was pretty neat.

After maybe an hour and a half, most of the stuff had dried pretty well.  We started to organize it again for the hike down.
 
We knew the hike down the Deluge Lake trail was going to be steep but I don’t think we expected it to be as steep as it was.  It was a very pleasant trail to begin with passing through thick green evergreen forests and deep green meadows.  There weren’t nearly as many flowers up here though as on the opposite side of Snow Pass.  A little further below, the trail broke away from the trail.  It started ascending and ascended for a long time before finally leveling off.  We were certainly building up for a steep descent.  Then it began.  More than two miles and two thousand feet.  This would be an extremely difficult trail to ascend with a pack on.  I’m glad that we had picked this direction.  

To add insult to injury, the trail really goes farther down it needs to and we found ourselves taking a sharp left-hand turn back to the trailhead that involved a good bit of uphill.  By this time we were really tired but we paused to take an “after” picture at the same spot that we took the “before” picture four days earlier.
 
We were back at the car safe and sound after four great days in the wilderness.  It had rained on us a lot but, in my opinion, that really enhanced the trip.  We saw all sorts of natural wonders.  This was undoubtedly my favorite trip of all time and I’d highly recommend it to anyone.  Now, I’m looking forward to trying many similar trips to this one.

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Day 3:  Hail Peak (12,904), Zodiac View (12,505), Snow Peak (13,024), and Deluge Lake

We all woke up early around 5:30 am and started getting ready for the long day ahead of us.  We moved a lot faster this morning than we did yesterday for obvious reasons.  We were all feeling good though.  The rest day had been well worth it.  The plan was to follow the route that we had scouted the day before.  Actually, we only scouted the very beginning.  At the top of a small knoll, we spotted some trees that we would head for then on to the ridge and down which led to Snow Lake.  We started off by following the Gore Lake trail.  As soon as the trail turned to the right and began descending, we left the trail and started climbing alongside the northeastern edge of the lake.  We were able to follow our route without any problems.  Soon, we were at the knoll and started heading across the thickly vegetated meadow to the grove of trees beyond.

At the grove, we made a clothing adjustment then headed out again.  The remainder of the route consisted of crossing a short talus field interspersed with loads of bushy blue bells, then up a steep grassy gully to Snow Peak’s east ridge.  Hiking up the gully proved to be challenging.  Like a lot of the previous meadows, the vegetation was so thick that you couldn’t see where you were placing your feet, so we had to use our hiking poles to probe the ground for loose rocks.  At the top of the gully, we encountered flat ground with large boulders and we could see the crest of the ridge up ahead with Hail Peak looming above it on the opposite side of the Snow Creek valley.  Pat and I decided to zip on up ahead to get to the crest to pose for a picture (left – I’m the tiny white dot on the ridge in the center of the picture, Pat’s blending in!).  At the top of the ridge, we couldn’t see Snow Lake but we knew were it was from the formation of the rocks – it looked like a small dam.  After Ruth Ann caught up with us, we dropped down into high alpine valley.

We stopped at a large boulder that ran along Snow Creek.  We took off our packs, had some water and some food, and then packed up our small day packs and headed down the valley where we would climb up a gully and hit the southeast ridge on Hail Peak, then retrace our steps to above the gully and follow grassy alpine slopes to Zodiac View.

The flowers yesterday along the way to Gore Lake were absolutely amazing, but they couldn’t compare the wildflowers (right) that were in Snow Valley.  The flowers were so thick in some areas that I could actually feel the different colors stimulating my eyes as I moved from bunch to bunch.  There was a very faint trail running through the valley and most of it was overgrown with the wildflowers.  At the point where the valley turned to the south was a large tarn.  We crossed here and then made our way for the west-facing gully.

The beginning of the gully was easy to climb.  It consisted of large talus boulders again made stable by the large amounts of flowered bushes, in this case blue bells again.  We stepped up the talus like a staircase and then exited to the left and followed steep grassy ledges to near the talus saddle on Hail Peak.  Hail Peak from this side is almost a complete talus climb.  Only near the top do you need to do any real rock scrambling.  Fortunately, the talus was stable and we were able to make decent time up the slopes.  Most of the face consisted of very large talus blocks.  Closer to the edge of the ridge was smaller talus that appeared to be a good bit looser so we stayed more on the face and continued up.  This part of the Gores contains a good bit more talus than the northern and central peaks.

About 100 feet below the summit, we had to climb some class 3 rock.  It was a fun relief to the talus.  Beyond the class 3 pitch, we crossed a rock rib or two then began climbing up the solid right-hand side of a small gully to the east ridge.  From the ridge, we casually strolled to the top.

There is a very precipitous drop over the north face of Hail Peak.  I approached it very tenuously.  Unfortunately, due to the slope, I couldn’t get right to the edge and look over so I couldn’t tell quite how high it was.  I got within 5 feet or so and all I could still see was just air and the valley floor about 800 feet below.  From the top of Hail, we took our summit shots (right) and identified the other peaks that we’d be climbing on this trip.

From the top of Hail, it looked like we could stay high on the Hail-Willow ridge and then drop into the huge alpine meadow that lead to Zodiac View.   That was our plan.  We headed off and made our way back down the talus.

Hiking up Willow’s west ridge was easy.  But when we looked down into the meadow that lay underneath Zodiac View, we saw that we had a lot more talus to descend.  We spent another thirty minutes minimum just getting down to the grass.  Once on the grass, we had no problem at all – this was the classic alpine tundra:  very short grass and small alpine flowers.  Once up on the ridge, we had a mere 100 vertical feet of easy scrambling to get up on Zodiac View.  This small point (left) is unofficially called “Zodiac View” because of the straight-on views it affords of the “Zodiac Spires”, a rugged ridge running between Red Peak and Willow.

We were up there very quickly.  We rested and had some food up here.  We saw that the clouds were moving in again so we decided to head back the quickest way possible to the large boulder where we left our packs.  The quickest was was back down the steep gully which we had partially climbed at the beginning before exiting to the left.  The top part looked really steep.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much to the descent.  We were able to skid down the dirt and scree to the steps that took us down to the very bottom.  We then began the climb back up into the high part of the valley where our stuff was waiting.

Up at the boulder, I decided to cool my feet in Snow Lake.  Where Gore Lake was a balmy 60 degrees, Snow Creek was absolutely frigid at 44 degrees.  I didn’t stay in very long, but it was relieving.  As we got everything ready for the dreaded hike over Snow Pass, the weather worsened.  The dark clouds moved in and the wind picked up.  We put on our shells and headed out.  It started to rain almost as soon as we started.  A few steps beyond the boulder, we were able to see Snow Lake.  The lake was bordered by talus on every side and Snow Peak loomed over it on the southwestern side.  Ahead of us, the pass looked very high and difficult.  At the top, however, we spotted several goats.

The pass looked very grassy which was good news but the prospect of traversing over talus to get to the beginning of the pass did not excite us.  However, I spotted a trail that was very solid and easy to follow.  It led us directly through the talus, over a couple of snowfields, and on up the pass.  The trail ascended the steep grassy slopes for a while then faded out.  We put our heads down and headed up to the pass.  Sooner, rather than later, we were at the top.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as we were expecting, even with our full packs.  From the top of the pass, Snow Peak looked really accessible.  We also were able to look down onto Deluge Lake, which was really pretty.  The rain had stopped for the time being so we took off packs, rested a bit, then headed up Snow Peak (left).

Although Snow Peak looks like a hard climb, the north ridge was actually pretty easy.  Most of it consisted of climbing up talus.  About 100 feet below the summit, it became more of a scramble.  We had to hook to the east then back west to finish to the summit.  The top of the peak had a fairly small summit with precipitous drops all around.  We took our usual summit shot and enjoyed the views for a little longer.  The other side of the pass looked much steeper and looser than the side we’d just ascended.  Fortunately, we spied a trail heading down.  We headed down the peak, grabbed our packs, and picked up the trail.

There were all sorts of neat rocks along the way to Deluge Lake.  Pat, being the geologist, stopped frequently and picked up rocks and identified them.  He found all sorts of green and blue rocks, bright green and blue!  I can’t remember the name of the mineral that caused this but we grabbed a few of them for souvenirs.  Below, the trail crossed grass then as usual in the remote part of the Gores, just disappeared.  We still had a lot of talus to cross (not again!) so we headed down and began the tedious rock hopping.  We came out on a long snowfield.  I skied down it on my boots and Pat and Ruth Ann glissaded down.

The terrain around Deluge Lake is, of course, beautiful.  It’s emerald green tundra just above treeline with lots of rolling hills.  We dropped our packs where the Deluge Creek left Deluge Lake and went to explore a cabin that Pat had spotted high up on the pass.

The cabin was a fairly new construction.  There was a hole chewed in the door by mountain rodents.  We went inside and found a some camouflage parkas and a giant combination safe.  I have no idea who this cabin could have belonged to; I thought this was National Forest land.  Anyway, we didn’t stay long.  We went outside and around the back, where we discovered that the cabin is sitting on a bluff perfectly overlooking meadows and forest below.  It must be used for hunting, I suppose.

Anyway, we went back to our packs and moved to the west of the lake where we found some smooth terrain for setting up the tent.  We got another fire going and started dinner.  Pat and I threw the frisbee a little more.

We had another outstanding dinner tonight:  tortellini with a creamy tomato sauce.   As we were cooking it, we noticed that the sky was clearing.  Maybe we’d have a decent sunset for once instead of dark clouds.  Well, we didn’t get much of a sunset but there was some spectacular alpenglow on Snow Peak.  We interrupted our dinner more than once to set up shots of the alpenglow as the clouds continually thickened and cleared.

We decided to sleep out this night since the weather did seem to be improving.  As we lay on the tarp looking up at the sky, the clouds cleared completely, and we had a perfect view of the stars.

After we stopped talking, I drifted off to sleep within minutes.  I woke up sometime in the night and opened my eyes to look at the stars which were just as brilliant as ever.  I also felt the outside of my sleeping bag and felt that it was wet.  It couldn’t have rained because I certainly would have woken up.  It must have been the dew…so I went back to sleep not worrying about it.

On to day 4.

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