Plan B gets me in the heat on Maki Peak.
- July 2, 2015
- Team: solo
- Peaks:
- Maki Peak, 8151'
- RT: Class 2, 6.4 miles, 2818' gain, 4:45 hours car-to-car
Note: click images to see a larger version in a new window
I'm not sure what it was, but as I left the truck this morning, I wasn't feeling 100%. Oh well. Beautiful morning. Mid-50s. Lots of water on board, so let's go. It's a fairly steep and quite rocky climb to Snowslide Lake, but the rewards are obvious. That's Snowslide Peak in the sun. |
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And the lake. From here, the trail gets steeper and heads for the pass out of scene to the left. |
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When I got to Snowslide Pass, I was feeling out of sorts. A little rubber-legged. Winded. Sweating hard. For one, it was already in the upper 70s. For another, it's about 1900' gain on rough terrain. I had originally planned on heading out Fitsum Ridge, to the peaks on the left half. Instead, I'd do Maki Peak in the center. See how I felt after that. |
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From just below the pass, there is an old trail to Maki Lake, very thin but with cairns. I followed that up onto the ridge, then followed the ridge toward the peak. Fun terrain. Once I got to the peak itself, I started working my way up rocks and extremely steep hillsides with grassy-type vegetation. Slippery. Not photogenic. I made some Class 4 moves to gain the ridge, then started traversing. |
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This is looking up at the ridge. I was moving right to left. Every twenty or thirty feet I would have to move to the other side of the ridge, or climb over some blocky stuff. All through old snags and low pine bushes. |
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The map showed the other end of the ridge was higher, so I wasn't surprised. But this gap was too much- zoom in to see the cliffs. So I had to drop off and climb up again. Again on scary-steep dirt, veg, and loose rocks. |
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Finally I was on the high end of the ridge. But wait- is that higher over there? This photo gives a better idea of what it means to traverse this ridge. |
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This photo gives an idea of the exposure. That's Maki Lake. As the map shows, the far end of the ridge is much less steep, and only Class 2. So I descended the far end, traversed back around, and called it a day. There were other options, but I wasn't feeling any better and the climb back up to Snowslide Pass was already sounding unpleasant. |
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Here's Snowslide Lake on the way back down. Fitsum Ridge will wait for another day. |
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| Map |  |
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