Sunday was a day of no expectations. I ditched the Type A personality and just packed up a backpack with some extra layers, some food and headed out into the alpine. Was thinking the past week about how I'm always on the go; I never just enjoy myself in these areas as much as I should. It's usually about getting to Point B from Point A and then maybe ticking off Point C while I'm there.
So leaving the guidebook in the truck on the eastern shore of Brainard Lake, I started hiking down the road to the Long Lake Trailhead. To call this the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area is a misnomer. There wasn't enough parking space at the trailhead, hence the need for an extra 1 1/2 miles in each direction.
Things I learned:
* The trail is much easier than when Rak and I attempted Little Pawnee in not-quite-fall anymore but not-quite-winter yet conditions. It's much quicker to walk when the trail isn't coated with a sheet of ice.
* Listening to an iPod while passing the hoards of tourists helps numb out the chatter of the same people I try to escape when I visit such places.
* Brainard Lake is a fee area. Since this was my first visit to the area when the road wasn't gated, I had no idea or completely forgot. Thousand Trails, the private entity contracted out by USFS, charges $8. Say what?! I pulled up to the gate, told the lady to write me a ticket cuz I had no cash, other than the quarters I was saving up to give my truck a desperately-needed wash. I got away with handing her the $3 in change and was on my way with just a brief shrug of the shoulders.
At the west end of Long Lake I headed straight up through the downfall-festered forested slopes.
Only a few hundred hundred feet of this wasn't too bad:
Looking back where I started after bashing through the forest and onto the tundra slopes of the East Ridge of Little Pawnee. I'm parked at the far end of the lake in the distance.
Looking towards where I'm going. The point on the left is where Rak and I made it last November in icy, blustery conditions due to some nasty blisters on his heels. The point in the middle is Little Pawnee Peak. Peak on the right is Mt Toll.
Flora & fauna. A butterfly clings to some nectar as the winds begin blowing incessantly.
A quick note: once I got onto the steepening, narrowing ridge of Little Pawnee, the wind began whipping pretty bad. I went from T-shirt to adding my long-sleeve Patagonia layer, fleece vest and my liner gloves. Suffered through some ice cream-head moments too.
The trip was fun. I stayed on the ridge crest and had some great exposure, some fun climbing, some thoughtful climbing where you didn't want to knock a block off and send you the quick way down into the basin and some surprisingly-good sections of rock.
The highlight was going au chevel on one of the points with legs dangling into nothing on each side of the gendarme's edge.
Some shots of the ridge connecting to Pawnee Peak
I figured I climbed up to the summit of six different points. Truth is I had no idea which was the summit of Little Pawnee. It was when I felt I was doing some downclimbing for a while and came to the infamous notch on the East Ridge of Pawnee did it dawn on my that I already climbed to the top and was pleasantly completing the connection to Pawnee.
Did the 4th-class downclimb and climbed back up the other side. I'm not going to give away the beta since it was really fun doing the route finding. Sometimes you go to the south at some notches, other times to the north. And for the main notch, go to the north side and scramble down.
Summit pitch one one of the points. The funnest 5th-class I did all day.
Finally after a little more knife-edge traversing, I came to a point the fun ended. There was about 500 feet of talus slogging to the top of Pawnee. Hmmm... talus... yum. I still have a bad taste in my mouth and bruised toenails from my talus slog on Jasper Peak a couple of weeks ago.
So I did the ridge again in reverse. Much better to climb than slog. The wind was terrible on the ridge. Several times I had to huddle or climb to blocks on the leeward side to avoid getting pushed into the void. The worst was at the notch.
To show the effects of the wind and not how ugly I am. My hair is being whipped, my backpack has one strap hooked around my leg to avoid getting blown off and it was hard to breath as the wind actually pushed close my right nostril.
Traversed down the south side of the ridge from one of the points down steep talus. Almost went face first a couple of times and played Tip Cup with a giant block that levered against my right calf. To avoid a bad situation, I endured the cramping pain this block the size of me was inflicting on my leg until I could move out of its path before letting it go free. I was hopping for a dramatic accidental trundle. All I got was a 2-flip thud as it came to a stop.
Through some meadows and back to the Pawnee Pass highway. Headphones back in, I blurred past the masses on the way out. Ran into Rak and Ian coming up the trail by Long Lake. Talked for a bit and we agreed to meet at Southern Sun in Boulder for some well-deserved pints and dinner.
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