Hiking up the valley in the overcast.
Fred and Michael coming up the lower Wirtz basin.
I had been hoping for a more macho outing, but no one could do a multi-day climb, so we all went out and did this. It was fun, and I finally got to tag the top of Sperry Peak.
We left Fred's around 7:15 AM, and after a stop for snacks, got to the trailhead and hit the trail about 9:00 AM. It was overcast with a remarkably solid ceiling; you couldn't see any of the peaks in the area, and I was kind of worried that this would be a repeat of my solo 2004 outing, where I got lost and summitted Vesper three separate times, trying to find my way down.
Fred and Michael coming up the lower Wirtz basin.
By the time we got to Wirtz basin, the clouds were clearing nicely. We missed the trail up to Headlee Pass, once again, this time missing the switchback and going 100 yards or so past it. It's kind of strange; I've been up here six or eight times, and it's only when I've been with Fred that I've had any problems with routefinding -- the first time, with Ai, the Japanese exchange student, we took the wrong branch on the trail and headed up to the ice caves, and had to bushwhack through brambles and shit for an hour or more to get home. The second time, last time with him and Mark, when I took us up to the right of Headlee Pass, and we had to scramble around to get to it. That was snowy, though, so perhaps not so surprising.
Anyhow, we found the trail up to Headlee Pass, snowfree, and made it the rest of the way to the lake with no problems. And, headed up to Vesper Peak.
We were to the summit by about noon, three hours from the trailhead, despite not pushing particularly hard. There were several others there: two couples, one with a pair of whippets. I went and looked down the North Face a bit longingly, and gazed down with trepidation at the nearly vertical variation of the north face, its cracks all mossy.
By now it was a beautiful day, sunny and pleasant. I have wanted to go over and tag the summit of Sperry Peak, ever since the first time I came here with Max, and this time I convinced Michael to go with me. So we headed on down to the saddle, the navigation of which proved to be a little more complicated than I'd led him to believe, and up the other side.
Looking over from Vesper, you can see an obvious trail visible through a patch of heather about halfway up, suggesting that routefinding is a simple matter. It isn't though; there are a lot of different trails that seem to start and stop. We ran into a guy on the descent, who said that it doesn't get any worse than what we'd found so far, which was accurate.
But, it does involve scrabbling up dirt gullys and pulling on roots and branches, unless, I guess, if you know the easy way around. When we got to the summit, I was quite surprised to find even more people here than on Vesper, including both the couples and the pair of whippets. Since those whippets couldn't have gotten up those gullies, I don't think, there must have been a more clean route, more along the west ridge, I assume.
Looking over at Vesper Peak. The regular route goes up the left side below the dark rock ridge.
Back down, to the lake. Where I rashly decided to go for a bit of a swim. After all, if Alex can take a dip in a snowmelt bathtub, I can swim at the end of August in a lake basking in the sun. Basking, of course, with a good-sized slab of ice still floating in it.
I waded, and it was pretty cold. Then, feeling the rash need to just do it, I stripped and jumped in, swam a few strokes, and got right back out. Not so terribly cold, but not pleasant, either.
I sat in the sun a few minutes, and decided to go in again, figuring that it would be less uncomfortable the second time. But it wasn't -- this time it was so cold that my skin was burning! Again, I took half a dozen strokes, then turned around and clambered out.
Michael opted to avoid the insanity; he just sat and had a cigarette. He did wade, but that was the extent of it.
It should be noted that Michael was the youngest of us, at 19, and by far the least experienced, and does little to stay in shape, and he aquited himself very well.
So, we headed out, and got to the car a bit before 5:00. And, hit the high point of the climb. Fred and Mark were there, of course; they had been for about 45 minutes, they said, but then a guy from a couple cars back came up with half a watermelon and offered it to us. It'd been in the creek, so it was good and cold, and tasted fabulous!
On the drive out, we stopped for dinner at The Timberline, the restaurant in Granite Falls formerly famous for Hamburger Tuesdays, and for the waitress who looked distractingly like Julia Roberts. She wasn't there, but we had a good dinner, and headed home.
The biggest trauma, which I neglected to mention above, is that the Dairy Queen near Frontier Village is gone! It's perfectly bizarre: the sign is there, looking perfectly normal, but the building is completely gone, as though it were picked up by a helicopter and hauled away.