Mount Baal

Our original plan was to finish a loop that Art and John had started the year before. By traversing Mt. Baal, we hoped to climb the Tower of Babel, the beautiful peak overlooking Mirror Lake.

The little bit of snow made the fisherman's trail interesting, but not especially difficult.

What the snow really did was dress up the peaks; they looked like giant cakes dusted with confectionary sugar.

We had a bite to eat at Sheep Lake and consulted the topo.

The 1000' gully between Mt. Baal and She Devil is a nasty thing, and we had sort of forgotten what it was like to come down it last year. Reminded by the view, Art was trying to find an alternative.

The snow turned out to be an aid to climbing: the super-steep scree was frozen in place. As a trade-off, we were bombarded by ice chunks screaming off the cliffs lining the gully What helmets?

We forged ahead up the gully at warp speed. Once on top we agreed that we didn't want to go back into the shooting gallery. But hey, Mt. Baal is right over there- let's go climb it.

The Tower of Babel was close from Mt. Baal's summit, right behind Art and Carol.

Our new route back to the car, avoiding the shooting gallery, was much longer so we did not have time to try Babel.

However, we did see lots of new pretty country, including a few lakes without trails.