This hike was done Saturday May 14, 2016. Present company was Sandy, Curtis, and I.

The day started out cold (-3) with frost on the ground. Our original plan was to do The Turret but when we arrived at the trailhead, there was too much snow at the top (and in the trees) to make the hike worthwhile. I looked through my topographical maps and we settled on making our own trail by following Rocky Creek.

We moved sites to the bridge by Rocky Creek and began our trip up the creek. No sooner did we start and we had to cross the creek. It was a challenge since everything was wet and slippery. We found a log to walk across, using the poles for stability. Once across we continued on… For 5 minutes. Then we had to cross again. It was a lot more difficult to find a way across since the creek was faster moving and it was deeper. It took us a few minutes of back and forth to find a suitable place to cross and we finally did.

Once across, we hiked onwards only to find our path barred by a cliff. By this time we were tired of crossing the creek so we took off up a drainage channel. It was a good ascent for the first 30 minutes but soon became steep once it turned towards The Wedge. It soon became clear we were in an old Avalanche chute (luckily there was no snow to come down). But that didn’t stop us from continuing on.

We followed it up until it split. We decided to try and make it back to the creek so we went right. Soon after, we were confronted with a very steep hill such turned into slab rock. At first thought, we didn’t think we could hike up it. Luckily the Rock was very rough and provided great traction. Up we went!

We continued for about an hour or so then decided to start to turn back but not before having a little surprise for Sandy. Her birthday is on Tuesday so Curtis and I packed up a bottle of prosecco and cupcakes.

After our break, we attempted to find a route down. Only issue was we didn’t want to hike down the slabs. Our alternate was to hop over to the next channel and see how that terrain was. It was worse.

Our only option was to follow the ridge down on the right and hop for the best. It turned out it wasn’t bad at all but a decent descent. We bushwhacked the entire time down through the trees.

After about 1.5 hours, we managed to make it back to the creek. The only issue was we needed to cross it… 4 times this time.

We ended up building a rock bridge to get across one time since it was easier than finding a more natural way.

In Summary:

it was a great hike that was all exploratory. The trip was around 6 hours from start to finish. It is not for beginners at all.