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2 Peaks Another Successful Peak Hunt
My roommate Jesse and I decided to do an overnighter. It was pretty much his first overnighter and first hike of the year and I just enjoy going! So we packed up and headed out to Snow hawk Valley to go for Ship Creek Hill and Possibly Temptation Peak. When we arrived at the parking lot there were signs up that I had not noticed before about there being "No Foot Traffic" and to be honest I didn’t like the way that sounded. Just one week before I had heard their live fire while I was on the Dome. This freaked my roommate out a bit so we just said forget it and I would double check for next time!
We drove back into town and headed back up to Glen Alps trailhead. We had decided to do The Ramp and The Wedge instead. The first few miles are along Powerline Pass trail which is a really mellow trail and nice hiking. I let Jesse use one of my backup backpacks that was falling apart on every strap! It was ridiculous he would pull on a strap and it would explode in plastic. After rigging it we finally made it along the trail and to the Hidden Lake trail split. There was not much snow just short crossings which we were able to keep our feet generally dry. The river however is still going pretty good and we could not find any way to cross it easily so we took our shoes and socks off and forded the river that way. Not to bad, although a little cold. Once on the other side we took the gentle rolling hills for a few miles up and into the valley. We could see clouds around but for the most part we had good weather. We found a good spot about 1/4 mile from Ship Creek Pass and put the tent up. The Wedge was the first peak that we decided to go up and it was a nice easy hike the steepness was not to bad most of the time and was mellow at others. The top of the peak is a nice ridge with good views down the other side. While hiking up I thought I saw something down on the pass that looked like a towel with a bivy sack on it. When we came back down from The Wedge I went to check it out and found out that it was a tent! It was a Kelty Vortex 2 that had two broken tent poles and it was upside down. We flipped it over and found that it had one gaiter in it and a sleeping bad. Looking around there was another gaiter and we found garbage all around. The gaiters were rusty and the tent poles were warped which led me to believe that it had been there a while. After talking about it we decided just to haul everything out. We packed up the tent and grabbed all the garbage and put it all into the pack that we could and Jesse carried the tent. We went up The Ramp and headed back to the tent. There was a nice long glissade of about 1200 feet that we took making good time back. After dinner it was sleepy time.
The wind and rain hit hard at night giving my tent a good test and making sleeping with all the noise difficult. Had breakfast at 5am and headed back home. Found some bear tracks that were actually in our tracks from the day before so it was interesting to follow the bear footprints for about a mile until he headed his own way. Went to Denny's chowed down and went home for a nap. Success.
Great weather
Climbing on the Ramp
Strolling around camp
The Wedge
Avalance Mountain
Camps nice
Crossing the river - ANd yes this water was COOOOLLLDDD
We drove back into town and headed back up to Glen Alps trailhead. We had decided to do The Ramp and The Wedge instead. The first few miles are along Powerline Pass trail which is a really mellow trail and nice hiking. I let Jesse use one of my backup backpacks that was falling apart on every strap! It was ridiculous he would pull on a strap and it would explode in plastic. After rigging it we finally made it along the trail and to the Hidden Lake trail split. There was not much snow just short crossings which we were able to keep our feet generally dry. The river however is still going pretty good and we could not find any way to cross it easily so we took our shoes and socks off and forded the river that way. Not to bad, although a little cold. Once on the other side we took the gentle rolling hills for a few miles up and into the valley. We could see clouds around but for the most part we had good weather. We found a good spot about 1/4 mile from Ship Creek Pass and put the tent up. The Wedge was the first peak that we decided to go up and it was a nice easy hike the steepness was not to bad most of the time and was mellow at others. The top of the peak is a nice ridge with good views down the other side. While hiking up I thought I saw something down on the pass that looked like a towel with a bivy sack on it. When we came back down from The Wedge I went to check it out and found out that it was a tent! It was a Kelty Vortex 2 that had two broken tent poles and it was upside down. We flipped it over and found that it had one gaiter in it and a sleeping bad. Looking around there was another gaiter and we found garbage all around. The gaiters were rusty and the tent poles were warped which led me to believe that it had been there a while. After talking about it we decided just to haul everything out. We packed up the tent and grabbed all the garbage and put it all into the pack that we could and Jesse carried the tent. We went up The Ramp and headed back to the tent. There was a nice long glissade of about 1200 feet that we took making good time back. After dinner it was sleepy time.
The wind and rain hit hard at night giving my tent a good test and making sleeping with all the noise difficult. Had breakfast at 5am and headed back home. Found some bear tracks that were actually in our tracks from the day before so it was interesting to follow the bear footprints for about a mile until he headed his own way. Went to Denny's chowed down and went home for a nap. Success.
Great weather
Climbing on the Ramp
Strolling around camp
The Wedge
Avalance Mountain
Camps nice
Crossing the river - ANd yes this water was COOOOLLLDDD
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I Live at http://www.alaskamountainforum.com
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Comments
Hey Kelsey it is James. John told me to get on here with you two. Those are some pretty nice pics of the wedge and the ramp. I need to get up there sometime I guess there is some decent climbing back there. Maybe we should plan on it sometime and shoot some photos too.
Ian
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