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Published: January 15th 2009
Hi All,
Sean and I spent the last two days back country hiking up a ridge behind the farm here, following it through to an alpine pond where we camped for the evening. The following day we followed the creek coming from the pond back to the farm. It took us 6 1/2 hrs up and 7 hours down, following our compass to creat a path. Sean, the goat, had a blast running straight up and around the ridges, where I was a little more nervous with the continuous thought of "How am I going to get down from here!?" There is a makeshift trail that lead up through the brush to the ridge, but we kept losing it, so Sean and I eventually resorted to climbing straight up the brush, using ferns and trees to pull ourselves up. We were suppose to go a further alpine lake, but between me being so tired going straight up continually, the fact that it was getting later in the day, and for the rocky ridges we had to keep going up and down, we decided to scale our way into a valley to stay at the closer lake. Scaling our way down
Elliot's Toe
The farm from the ridge. slowly was no exaggeration, it even included sliding down a rock slide! Once at the lake, we set up camp where I promptly crawled into my sleeping bag. Sean on the other hand climbed another rige (for fun!) and then dove into the ice cold glacier pond. ACK! When we awoke in the morning we could see the fog rolling in pretty thickly, so I dragged Sean out of bed and packed everything up, and we were out by 8am. We decided to follow the creek down knowing that it ran right past the farm, we didn't have to try to scale up what we came down and to avoid the clouds covering the ridgetop. I enjoyed our second day of travel much more, although it wasn't any easier. Following a creek is great and all, but this particular one happened to have many waterfalls. Sean and I walked through the creek, as well as through the extremely thick brush surrounding it. We have the scrapes, bruises and wet boots to prove it. I know our moms won't like to hear it, but there were points on the track down where we were both a little nervous on how exactly
we were supposed to get down the huge waterfalls. We slid down some rocks, hung like monkeys from trees over the river, used six inch ledges over 15 ft drops holding onto trees and plants to scale our way down the ridge. After enough of that we finally decided to move inland aways so at least we weren't worrying about falling into the creek. Moving in land didn't necessarily take care of the drops, though. Sean was great at navagating and showing me my every step as I slid down steep slopes on my butt (I ripped my pants up pretty good!). There were some 8-10ft drops that we litterally had nothing to hold onto and just slid. Ha. I was pretty nervous the whole time, but still enjoying myself on a deeper level. Retrospectively, it was a blast. It took me awhile to fall asleep last night because every time I closed my eyes I saw a ledge. Oi ve. In the end, it was a great first back country trip for Sean and I. I hope you enjoy the photos!
Best,
Emily
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Mom and Dad
non-member comment
Wonderful Pics!
Wow, what great pics...but please remember you are human not mountain goats. Climb safely, climb? hey I thought you were Hiking not mountain climbing! Em I want to see what your pants look like after that outing. Please take care, I really didn't want you USING the first aid kit. Love, Mom