On a cool November day, we climb a peak above the South Fork.
- November 3, 2018
- Team: me
- Indian Point Point, 5997'
- Lists of John
- 6.1 miles, 2720' gain, 3:26 hours car-to-car. Class 1+ (deer trails almost the entire way)
Note: click images to see a larger version in a new window
I parked on the downstream side of the bridge across the Secesh. NOAA said 20% POP, but so far just cloudy and low fog here and there. The hike starts by crossing the Secesh. That's the South Fork on the left. |
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Immediately on the other side of the bridge, we climbed a steep road cut on game trail. |
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The ridge is really steep right off the road, but soon the views open up. Our summit is somewhere on the ridge to the left. |
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I opted to scramble the other (easier) side of this rock, only to find that downclimbing this side was Class 4. I recommend dropping below it and sidehilling. |
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| Perhaps 1000' up the ridge? You can see the East Fork, with the canyon of the South Fork just to the right. |  |
This is again looking toward the summit, now about 1500' up the ridge. There are a few false summits, and most can be bypassed. |
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It's pretty easy to follow the ridgetop, and that means views. Also, there are game trails pretty much the whole way. |
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The last little bit has a lot of brush and downfall. Note that what you see here is not what LOJ shows as the summit. However, my GPS says this point is 2' higher than the LOJ point. Naturally, I tagged both. |
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This is looking west toward McCabe Peak (in the clouds) and Fitsum Benchmark. |
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| Summit (the one shown on LOJ). Background is upper Fitsum Creek. |  |
| I had originally planned on doing a loop, then balked at the possibility of getting into some bad terrain or brush. But the climb had gone so fast that I had to extend the hike to prevent breaking the Windshield Rule. So off we went trying to avoid getting onto the wrong ridge or into the wrong drainage. |  |
| This ridge was more open, but steeper and with some sandy sections. I'm not sure I'd want to come up this way. |  |
| A ponderosa hallway. |  |
| More ridge. That's Fitsum Creek down there, with the trail from the Cow Creek mountain bike loop. |  |
This is the confluence of Fitsum Creek and the South Fork. Note that the road is on the 'wrong' side of the river. |
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So finally, walking down the South Fork on a trail, because the road is 'over there'. The bridge across the South Fork is at the confluence with the East Fork, and this bridge allows the road to switch to our side. The area around the bridge is shown on the map as Indian Point. Thus my tongue-in-cheek peak name. Then it's about a mile of road to return to the truck. |
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| Map
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