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| Hiking | 7.00 Miles |
2,670 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.00 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 1.40 mph |
| 2,670 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | A slight variation from the description listed by ssk44, but a fun and spicy day for sure. Having done Big Horn Peak and more recently Burnt Mountain, I've seen the middle ridgeline before and knew one day I would venture out there. Well when I was on Burnt I couldn't stop looking over at the ridge and the smaller rugged looking peaks and knew it was time to get out there. Getting home and looking over the topo I set a goal of 3 peaks but knew it would more than likely be 2 wanting to be on the southern portion of the ridge. I threw the idea out to my buddy Rob(which was I want to try and do a few rugged, isolated peaks that look pretty spicy and cannot even say we will get up them)and he was in, and then invited Scott to come along. Well a few last minute things prevented Scott from making it out with us but Rob and I set the goal of getting out there and making it up Peaks 2112' and 2710' while traversing the ridge between the two of them.
We started to the south of the ridge at the intersection of the CAP and Burnt Mt. and did a nice desert floor traverse crossing under a few barbwire fences and avoiding the small cholla fields the desert had to offer. We picked our route up 2112' which was pretty direct, getting on the southern ridge and topping out. She offered a nice section to scramble and a nice rock opening in which Big Horns make for a nice sheltered home at times. We went through the hole and out the other side and topped out on this smaller peak. From there we kept looking over at 2710' and laughing because we both knew it was going to be a pretty fun time getting up her. As we set forward along our ridge traverse, the down climb from 2112' provided a bit of excitement when Rob who was above me jarred a rock loose that he almost pulled right on top of him but he was able to side step away from it which sent it my way. It was probably as big as my torso and pretty scary coming right at me, I moved left and it seemed to move left along with me, luckily I was still three feet in the clear of it and it went down to its new resting place aside a barrel cactus. Rob and I both took a deep breath and continued on hoping that was our mishap for the day. (It would be) We made good time on the ridge and bypassed a section of it so we didn't have to go up to come back down. Once we reached the main saddle my eyes lit up and I whispered to Rob "Sheep, Sheep" there was a nice plump half horned big horn sheep standing right on the saddle. Once I spoke though he turned around and was gone before I could get my camera out. Rob saw the tail end of him and we heard him making his way down the gully. We both thought that was our good luck sign of the day and looked back up to the top of the peak and again laughed at what we were getting into. From the saddle the fun part begins, sharp loose rock which soon becomes exposed of heights around 50'. I picked a route with what I thought were the best holds and Rob followed, we were seemingly right below the peak where we had to make a move on a foot wide ledge exposed pretty bad but with solid holds. We got up this section and I could see we were golden to get to the top. We made our way up and on the jagged knife ridge summit and were both stoked as much as we could be. WOW! What a summit. The views right in the middle of the Big Horn range do not get any better than this. We took a good 20 minute break on top, ate some food and enjoyed the clear skies all around. We picked our route for getting back as we didn't want to go the same way we came and off we went with some slow down climbing and a safe trek back to the Jeep. I knew this area would be good, but how good she actually was cannot be described. Scott I wish you were with me buddy, I know you would have loved it. |
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