Sunday, July 7th, 2024, 0530-2030
Scarpe Pass to Barnaby Lake, mm 12.5 of the alt, off mm 61.5 of main
16.5 miles, Gain: 7,000′, Loss: 7500′, elevation 6300′
I usually have a day during every hike that I say was my hardest day of hiking yet. It’s often some combination of bushwhacking, route finding, distance, elevation, and weather conditions that prompt me to make such a statement. Later I tend to backtrack, conceding a hard day but only one among many. Once the pain and fatigue subsides, things don’t seem as hard. Having a few days to rest and look back on this day, I still think it was my hardest day of hiking but also the most fun and rewarding. Perhaps the hardest part was just in trying to describe this incredible route. I was inclined to barely write anything just because there was so much going on. Hopefully the pictures do a lot of the talking.
Several of us had agreed to be ready to go by 5:30 am. I flashed my headlamp right in Strider’s face as I went to retrieve my ursack. I thought he was Vince at first. He was also getting his, and I grabbed a few extra sacks to take back to our camp. Vince was so grateful I brought theirs, but I had my own selfish reasons. Since he and Georgie were skipping the alt, I was able to pawn my trash off on them (not that it was much from just 2 days). They would pass by a ski resort later in the day while we (Alex, Strider and I) would be on the ridge up high the whole time. There were also promises of burgers if we could make it all the way over the ridge to meet them on the other side. The Castle ski resort had a small restaurant open on the weekends. I wasn’t all that motivated by the promise of a burger, not at all sure we could make it, so I was happy just to get rid of my trash. But with our Zoleo sat messengers, we could communicate throughout the day. I told them we’d send burger requests later, if we were crushing it.
The 3 of us ridge walkers hit the trail eagerly, heading straight up to the first ridge leading to La Coulotte peak. There were 2 smaller peaks before coming to the actual peak, each with some steep sections. Vince and Georgie caught up to us by the first and kept pace to La Coulotte. They were both in great shape and at only 17, Georgie had more miles under her belt than all the other hikers in our group. The final push to the main peak caused us to fan out, each finding their own pace up the ridiculously steep slope.
I was surprised to see Alex take off, leaving everyone in the dust. He proved to be the mountain goat all day, going up and down rock bands and sliding scree with ease. He’d taken it so chill the first couple of days, I had no idea he could turn on the jets. I teased that he’d put some sort of special Aussie sauce in his porridge that morning. Strider was also killing it, making me nervous that I was going to be the one slowing things down on the alternate. I still carried some anxiety over being the weakest link among a group on the Hayduke, and consequently being left behind on several occasions. While I was generally ok with being by myself, the route description indicated that it would be good to have some company. There were some tricky spots where one could get into trouble.
The last 100 meters to the top were so slow and frustrating. The thick shale gave little purchase…2 steps forward, slide one back. We took a short break on top the peak, enjoying the morning light. What we’d just done was said to be one of the hardest days on the GDT, yet we ate it for breakfast. It was only 8 am and we were entirely focused on the extensive ridge stretching out for miles before us. It looked so massive and intimidating.
La Coulotte was already an afterthought and the easiest part of the day. We bid farewell to the Strawbridges (trash and burger mules:) and started down the alt. There were immediately several downclimbs, 2 so steep and exposed that they even had fixed chains for help. I glommed onto those chains but Alex seemed to just fly over the rocks. I didn’t even see what line he took. Strider went slower but as soon as the rock bands subsided, he too took off (there’s a reason for his name).
I tried to jog whenever I could to keep up, realizing it was going to be a very long day indeed. Fortunately their paces slowed slightly on the uphills and there were so many of these that my uphill prowess was able to balance out our different paces. We went up and down riding the ridge, getting a taste of the crazy topography. I saved the alt as a planned route on Far Out, so at least I was able to see the elevation profile. But there were many 200-300 ft climbs that barely registered on the profile…I started calling them blips.
We topped out near the Lys Ridge split and began descending precipitously to Grizzly Lake. This was where a lot of hikers decided to call it a day, splitting the ridge walk into 2 days. We made it to the trail to the lake by 11:20 am. The guys had opted to go 300′ down to the lake to get water, so that we’d only have to carry 2 liters from Scarpe pass. They generously offered to fetch 2 additional liters for me, which I accepted because hey, I was the senior hiker, why not embrace it. I sat down for lunch while they labored to get the water…but at least they also got to go for a swim.
I felt good after the break and texted Vince to say we were on track. But as the afternoons often go, one little thing led to another, building momentum in order to slow us down. Namely it was now noticeably hot and we had a 1500′ climb again. But first, we went down even more from the lake junction, coming to a 30′ cliff along the ridge…I love the term for such a feature, a gendarme. Luckily there was a marked bypass to the right, which I found pretty easy and straightforward. It even had confidence chains installed. Then we went through a mile or more of light bushwhacking through a forested area. There was at least a pretty good trail most of the way, which is more than I could say for the Lionshead Ridge bushwhack I did on the PNT. The Far Out track line was also quite accurate, helping to point the way.
The upper part of the ridge was like a dragon back, with jagged spines, so the favored route traversed on a ledge beneath a rock band. There were some steep dropoffs along this traverse but nothing too scary…similar to the Nankoweap trail I did into the Grand Canyon. There were orange dots marking the way, so it was easy to follow. Strider went first and after about 400 meters stopped for a short break. We sort of had cell service, so we messed with our phones for a bit.
This was where things really took a turn. As we stood to resume, Alex’s pack tipped over and started tumbling down the slope. It quickly bounced over a cliff and disappeared entirely. We all sat in shock, horrified by how quickly things had gone wrong. At least Alex had the presence of mind to run to the edge to get a view of the pack continuing down the slope. It went down over 100 meters and was bouncing 5 ft in the air. I really freaked out when I thought he was going to dive after it. A guy had once told me a similar story about his friend trying to save a pack and sliding to his death into an icy lake.
We were all left dumbfounded but quickly assessed the situation. There was indeed a way down the slope, so the guys took off to start searching for the pack, which had disappeared into a thicket of trees. Alex thought he’d seen specifically which ones but then wasn’t quite sure. I opted to stay behind, not confident I could even make it down without becoming yet another problem. Besides, someone needed to babysit our remaining unruly packs. But after watching the guys search unsuccessfully for almost an hour, I decided to go down too. I’d watched their search pattern intently, noting that they hadn’t checked the highest line of trees to the left. Alex seemed to have a clear take on things, being the only witness, but witness recall is often shown to be quiet off.
The slope was so much steeper and treacherous than it looked from above. I went slowly, working past some rock bands and over to the trees. The very second clump I checked, I found the pack sitting perfectly upright, none the worse for wear. I called out with glee ‘found it!’ It took the guys a bit to work back to where I was and then for all of us to climb the slope, retrieving a few more items that had fallen out. We got everything back and miraculously nothing was broken. Alex’s pack was granted personhood and became the root of all jokes going forward. But the misadventure had cost us a lot of time and we were already running low on water.
Strike 2, Strider had unknowingly stopped right where the route went straight up a gully to regain the ridge. There were obvious orange arrows marking this juncture but we’d all missed them, focusing instead on where Strider had stopped. Confusingly, there were more orange dots beyond the arrows, leading around a corner, where the ledge abruptly ended. I immediately recognized that something wasn’t right and called for a stop. We spent more time figuring out this conundrum, but finally I backtracked to find the arrows.
Then we went pretty slow up the gully because we were so shaken by the images of the pack tumbling…that could easily have been one of us if we weren’t careful. The climbing was hand over hand class 3 scrambling but thankfully nothing outside of my wheelhouse. I may have been the least confident scrambler of my group on the Hayduke but I could still get the job done. Thankfully my new and impromptu companions were all keeping tight to one another and I’d proved to be a valuable team asset with the pack rescue…at the very least I’d made up for the water favor earlier. The pack fiasco was an odd bonding experience in a way.
We gained the ridge but there was still some more scrambling, mostly rock hopping along the spine. I couldn’t believe how many hours it had taken for this one climb and we still had 2 more significant ups of over 500′. Finally we came to some open wide ridge walking that was mindless and glorious. We stopped to grab some snow to melt…an easy thing given the heat. Alex and Strider had CNOC bags that were also easy to fill. As usual, I had enough water to get by but I relished in rolling around in the snow to cool off…like a dip in a lake but not quite.
At least the route was free of any hindering snow. We avoided a few fractured cornices, but that was about it. We rolled along for several more hours, getting back into a groove. We all stuck together close, entertaining each other with trail stories. We left our mark in some trail registers and a final climb brought us to a giant cairn, good for photos. The peak was unnamed but reminded me so much of Parkview Peak in Colorado along the CDT. The north side was especially reminiscent, with a broad but steep meadow of a shoulder. I wanted to just throw myself down it, tumbling through the spongy grass and moss, but there were rocks mixed in.
The mellow ridge showed its last teeth at the very end. We traversed a stupid steep shale slope, which would have seemed sketchy if it hadn’t been for all the other crazy stuff we’d already done this day, especially the pack rescue. Then on the last peak descent, we had to work through a rock band mixed with extremely chossy shale (approximately km 17 of the Alt). Maybe I just took a bad line but the footing was treacherous, there were few solid handholds, and the potential for sliding with some consequences was high. My legs were so tired and my mind mush, I just did what I had to do to get through it. But I started shaking pretty hard at one point, almost getting stuck.
What an incredible route though. For me, this combined all the elements of the PNT (Lionshead Ridge bushwhack), CDT (Grays Peak ridge walk) and scrambles up some of the harder 14ers in Colorado. Even some skills learned during the Hayduke came into play. The route-finding wasn’t too difficult, it was just the elevation gain, exposure, and distance that made it so hard. Strider’s watch logged almost 10,000′ in gain. I didn’t log the whole day but I did surpass 7k’… certainly more than what Far Out calculated (6500′). The distance was also greater by about a mile… pretty typical. I’d definitely recommend breaking the route into 2 days. Doing it all in one was obviously possible, but this was one of the most punishing days I’d ever done. It also all depends on the weather of course. We had a perfect day, luckily.
We still had over a mile of descent to the lakes. Strider spotted a giant brown animal in a meadow, presumably a grizzly but could have also been an elk, it was that big. We yelled and could see it lifting its head, aware of our presence, but it went right back to eating. We skirted past and I still don’t know if I saw a grizzly for the first time. The trail faded in and out and I did a bad job following it. I led us off course a ways and we had to traverse some very steep snow to get back. Again Alex went over it with ease (he went through the entire Sierra in the high snow year of 2023 on the PCT), but Strider and I had to kick steps. The runout was really bad, straight into some big trees. Finally we made it to a defined trail to and past the first set of lakes. There was a nice campground at Barnaby lake and I’d long decided that would be my end point. Alex too. Strider was low on food so opted to carry on for a few more miles to meet the Strawbridges, who had fulfilled his late day burger request.
I was so happy to be done. All I wanted was a dip in the lake, rinsing the immensity of the day off my skin. It was so pleasant there, us being the only ones despite the close proximity to a highway. We ate a late dinner and lounged on the ground, thankfully still free of mosquitoes. It was one of the best nights ever. I slept very well of course, awash with fatigue and relief. Whew, what a day