Alpine Extravaganza

Harry, Travis and I tried to do a traverse of the summits between McGill Pass and Balu Pass this past Sunday. It turned out to be a much bigger day (more like days) than expected, plus we backed off before the third summit due to lightning. Oh well, that's how it goes. It was just so great to be in the mountains. 15 hours, 18km and a hair over 2000m climbed.

Looking back on the ridge we climbed up McGill, starting from Valley bottom it was about 4 hours to here. You can see my helmet in the lower left.

More ridge. More exposure. 500' to the left 1200' to the right.

Hello Exposure

We rapped down the nicest rock on the ridge...

...And climbed up sections of rock held together by mud

...And downclimbed dirt chimneys

Big Bad Bagheera. This is a big mountain. The ridge is a couple of km's long and the north face is 1500' of vertical rock

Boot skiing down to the valley. Glad to be close to the ground.

Looking down the Cougar Valley that we hiked down. So beautiful! Beautiful grizzly habitat and untouched. We hiked down here then back up to Balu Pass and down to the highway.

Pork chop anyone?

Tobin bustin' his moves