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| Hiking | 8.10 Miles |
4,060 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.10 Miles | 10 Hrs 30 Mns | | 0.77 mph |
| 4,060 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Great day for a hike! ..if you don't mind Sahara-like heat.
We started off around 6:30, after a nice "smooth" drive on Four Peaks Road under the stars. When we got to the saddle I cached a bottle of Gatorade and noticed a couple backpacks hidden behind a bush. Upon reaching the chute, we met the owners of said packs: Joel and Jon! We made brief conversation after Joe told them he'd never heard of HAZ (haha). Headed up the chute from there. Not so bad going up, but I still am not a huge fan of coming down. Little did I know at that point that we wouldn't be doing that this trip.. 
At the top of Brown's, Joe was very unwilling to give me any hints or anything pertaining to where the route down may be. I picked what seemed like an appropriate spot, a little bit over to the east once you get up there, but not too far. Climbed straight down on a good route and went straight over to 2. We were standing on top of 2 at two hours into the trip. I figured, okay I've got this now; I know where to go from here on out so it'll be easy. Hahahaha. From past experience I know that you're supposed to go straight down on the east side of 2, then hit the trail and continue south to the 2-3 saddle. My problem is that I don't put a whole lot of trust into things that I can't see, so I kept going south instead, trying to find a nice way down. Went through a ton of brush that I hadn't been through before on this peak. Before I knew it, we had gone as far south as was possible, and were faced with finding a way down from the seeming cliff in front of us. Luckily, Joe was able to find the cave route, so we took that down with the backwards Z (not so bad when your shoes are of 5.10 rubber.. yesss!). Good route, but as Joe said, it is faster to just go down the east side of 2 anyway. Ended up going up and over another divot just before the 2-3 saddle (Janelle's campspot with the tree). I kept trying to climb up this one and get over it, but eventually ran out of holds as the quartzite quickly changed from ledges to smooth columns. Unfair! So I wasted a bunch of time on that one. Came back down and went around the bottom of the thing and it didn't take more than a few minutes to get to the saddle. Good note for future reference!
We took a short break there, and then took a look at 3. My route from 4 to 3 to the 2-3 saddle is spotless, but looking at it backwards is completely a different story, especially when you're headed up and not down. Much easier to see the path when you're going down. Joe went up the scree chute as I was already heading up the climb just to the right of it. It's probably quicker to go up the chute because at the top of the climb route there's a big brushy tree that you have to come through. Made our ways to the west from here. There seems to be something of a trail, but it's easy to lose track of since there's a lot of loose dirt up there that looks like trail. We ended up coming just a little too far west while going up, and came up a dangerous dirt chute. It sounds like nothing when I type it out here, but the dirt was super slick and the only way to come up the chute was to stem the rock walls. Lots of bushes to grab onto there, but I wouldn't put my life on one of them holding my weight if I slipped. The dirt is just too iffy there. After making it up this, the peak is just slightly to the southeast.
After bagging 3, I knew we had to go straight down the ridge. I don't know where my head was today. I headed off to the east from here a little too early and we ended up having to come across that steep section of 3 that makes everyone  . I actually got a picture of Joe coming across it this time though! After we got through all that, I tried to remember the sequence of the route when it snakes around the divots between 3-4. Again, it's hard to remember something when you usually do it backwards. We went east around the first divot when we should have gone west. Then west around the second divot when we should have gone east. Then we stayed too low west when coming around the third divot, instead of finding the ridgeline after it and following that. Following the ridgeline will bring the true summit of 4 into view, but since we were too low we came up and over the false summit instead and had to make our ways over from there. Since it was ridiculously hot, we quickly bagged 4 (I stayed just a couple minutes longer to sign/check out the register) and then headed into the shade for some lunch. Enjoyed some really nice views of Roosevelt Lake from here. I think Joe's going to build a cabin in that spot one of these days.
After lunch we headed back up and over the false summit and quickly found the brushy path down into the 3-4 chute. We'd been planning a MLDV route but because it was way too hot outside and we were making bad time, we settled for a MLUV. The path coming down to the mine isn't that bad when you are above it. Really easy to make out where the "trail" goes. It's basically just a big long wash of rocks and boulders until you get to the shack at the bottom. Basically, the path just stays left (if you're going down.. right if you're going up) save for one short portion that snakes over to the opposite wall once you near the shack. Everything's loose, though, so lots of care has to be taken especially when going down because the extra force of the footsteps can jar rocks loose far too easily. (Joe, I'm looking in your direction here.) Let's just say that a rock the size of a flatbed scanner somehow came loose and pelted me with its weight as I was coming down. Luckily I had fair warning and had grabbed onto a couple strong bushes in case it knocked me over. I lifted my right leg but it slammed down into the back of my left leg. Barely even felt it!  I think Joe was more shaken by it than I was, because it had left red marks on my pants which looked like blood. After convincing him everything was okay, we continued down to the mining area, where I slipped through the gate and Joe swung around it. The trip back to the trailhead was a real pumpkin at this point, as we were both tired and out of water. There were a few Fraleys in the sky, but they were dancing so tauntingly around the sun, refusing to donate any shade to our cause. Luckily I still had my cache up at the saddle (Joe's is still somewhere up on the peaks, waiting for his next trip). We shared the hot Gatorade and then slowly made it back to the car. Had a great ride back, arguing about stars and stuff like that. Good trip, can't wait to get up there again and do it the right way (finally)! |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Isolated
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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