A trip to Upper Slate Lake was something I was looking forward to for a couple of years.  Finally, I got the opportunity to go.  I could have easily made the trip solo but I didn’t want to attempt these difficult peaks solo.  So, Ken came along for this trip.  We originally planned this trip for four days but, because of an Ultimate tournament I was involved in, I was really tired and postponed the trip one day.  I figured we could still get in the peaks that I wanted to do, there just wouldn’t be enough time for rest.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us at all this trip.  It was still awesome though.

All the close access points to the Slate Lake area are closed by private property.  So, the shortest way into Upper Slate Lake is about 11 miles…one way.  The trail also undulates quite a bit, and after we’d gained over a thousand feet, we ended up loosing all of it (and more) by the time we turned off from the Gore Range trail onto the Slate Lake trail.  The Slate Lake trail is unmarked but is a western branch at an old cabin along the Gore Range trail.
 
After branching off, the trail heads west through grassy aspen fields.  At this point you can see the two drainages, one for the south branch and one for the main branch of Slate Creek.  Slate Lake sits on the edge of the southern branch and Upper Slate Lake is a little over a mile past Slate Lake in the northern branch.  It’s almost directly under Peak “L”.  Along the way, we had views of an impressive lettered peak, Peak “T”, which rose up like a spearhead along the ridge separating the two branches of the creek.  As the trail moves along the base of the mountains, it winds way around to provide the most gentle ascent to Slate Lake.  The trail is all but gentle though.  It gets pretty rough and steep but is, at least, easy to follow the entire time.  Right after a waterfall is the lake.  We stopped at Slate Lake for a few minutes then headed up to Upper Slate Lake. 

The trail to the upper lake is very rough too.  It took us a little over an hour to arrive.  We got our first view of the rows of peaks around the valley which were often cloud covered.  These were some really impressive looking mountains.
 
I thought about climbing a close peak this afternoon but the weather wasn’t cooperating at all.  It kept raining off and on.  Actually, this was to be a pattern that repeated throughout the entire trip.  We only got one window of opportunity to climb but that too was cut short.   Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves around campsite, occasionally retreating to the tent when the rain would come.  We went to bed with it raining and woke up occasionally to rain.  I woke up around six or so and still heard rain and realized that climbing might not work out for us.  Sure enough, the peaks were completely socked in when we got up around seven.  We waited around and there seemed to be some clearing around 10 am.  So, we packed up and headed to “South America Lake”, so-called because of it’s near perfect resemblance of the continent.  It took us well over an hour, maybe over an hour and a half to arrive at the lake.  The bushwacking was difficult and we came to realize that the best policy is, in short, to stay as low as you can for as long as you can.  The higher ground is so cliffy that you’ll spend lots of time trying to get around them.  The easiest ground is definitely the low ground along the tarns and marshes.

As we started up Peak “Q”, the clouds had moved in again.  Rain was definitely threatening but we decided to go on until we had a definite sign to turn around.  The first part of Peak “Q” involved climbing up a small gully into the upper basin on the peak.  There was still a good amount of snow up in here.  Our plan was to head almost to the ridge and then turn right along a long ramp system that would lead us to just under the summit.  The lower part of the basin consists mostly of large blocks of talus.  The slopes of the peak are pretty solid and are mixed with steep grass and large blocks.

We heard jets from time to time thinking it was initially thunder.  The clouds did not improve and all and were darkening.  We suspected that it was indeed going to rain on us and had a decision to make if we were going to start climbing anything that was 4th class or harder.  Fortunately, everything so far was only 2nd and 3rd class.  When we were still about 800 feet below the summit, however, it happened:  the rain started.  Then it increased.  It soaked all the rocks and everything became slick.  Fortunately, the descent wasn’t hard; but it was frustrating to know that we wouldn’t be able to climb today.
 
The rain lasted for quite a while.  We got back down to “South America Lake” as the rain was beginning to abate.  The sun came out a little bit too and the steep rocky faces on the peaks were all glistening.  We didn’t turn around though and head back, and that was a good thing because the rain came again, this time with hail and a lot harder.  It was a bit of an ordeal to get back to the tent because we ended up going down the opposite side of the drainage and having more troubles with cliffs.  This part wasn’t too fun in the hail!  Finally we made it back.  It continued to rain off and on throughout the day although we were granted a reprieve during the evening.  We both were awakened that night by the biggest rainstorm yet.  Oh well, maybe next time.  The bad thing was that the following morning was absolutely beautiful!  But, we had to head back down.  The good news was that as we were heading down, the clouds moved in again and as we were looking back up the Slate drainage from the Gore Range trail, we saw that the peaks were getting hammered yet again by the monsoon.  It was not meant to be this time.

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