Indian Head - Part 2 (Sawteeth)
Although this posting is several months delayed -- here it is.
The next day we rose early to start our planned trek (which of course was another death march) on a partial Great Range loop. The plan was to head to the Fish Hawk Cliffs, hike over Sawteeth, then continue over Pyramid on the way to Gothics (which we were still waiting to summit on a clear day). From here, we would continue on the loop over Saddleback and Basin finishing with a summit of Haystack before heading back to camp. Once again, we bit of more than we could chew.
We took the scenic trail up Sawteeth. Anyone who has hiked this trail may already see how this story unwinds. This trail winds up Sawteeth with various overlooks along the way. It may be scenic, but it is also one tough trail. It starts out steep, gets steeper, and doesn't stop all the way to the top. Additionally, blow-down has made portions of the trail difficult to follow, although some short double backs generally got us back on track. The overlooks are a pretty sight (although they still don't top the Fish Hawk Cliffs), but the strenuousness of this climb didn't leave us with much enthusiasm. We had a long way to go yet, and we weren't even up the first peak. We eventually reached the summit, which is mostly covered and doesn't offer the best view of the range. Nonetheless, it gave us a good spot to rest for awhile as we took a break to remove the boots and hope for them to dry off a bit.
We at least had a good view of Gothics -- the next high peak on the way. Here, we were temporarily deceived by what may be called an optical illusion: Pyramid. From our point of view (and the color-blindness probably didn't help), Pyramid looked like part of Gothics. Once we got up to the summit of Pyramid, it looked like we would lose almost no elevation on the way to Gothics. After staring at these peaks for a bit, we realized we were wrong. What looks like two humps on Gothics was in fact two mountains -- Pyramid and Gothics -- and you lost most of the elevation in between. This 'illusion' is difficult to describe in words, but if I ever get some pictures of this posted up here I can point out exactly how we saw it.
The next day we rose early to start our planned trek (which of course was another death march) on a partial Great Range loop. The plan was to head to the Fish Hawk Cliffs, hike over Sawteeth, then continue over Pyramid on the way to Gothics (which we were still waiting to summit on a clear day). From here, we would continue on the loop over Saddleback and Basin finishing with a summit of Haystack before heading back to camp. Once again, we bit of more than we could chew.
We took the scenic trail up Sawteeth. Anyone who has hiked this trail may already see how this story unwinds. This trail winds up Sawteeth with various overlooks along the way. It may be scenic, but it is also one tough trail. It starts out steep, gets steeper, and doesn't stop all the way to the top. Additionally, blow-down has made portions of the trail difficult to follow, although some short double backs generally got us back on track. The overlooks are a pretty sight (although they still don't top the Fish Hawk Cliffs), but the strenuousness of this climb didn't leave us with much enthusiasm. We had a long way to go yet, and we weren't even up the first peak. We eventually reached the summit, which is mostly covered and doesn't offer the best view of the range. Nonetheless, it gave us a good spot to rest for awhile as we took a break to remove the boots and hope for them to dry off a bit.
We at least had a good view of Gothics -- the next high peak on the way. Here, we were temporarily deceived by what may be called an optical illusion: Pyramid. From our point of view (and the color-blindness probably didn't help), Pyramid looked like part of Gothics. Once we got up to the summit of Pyramid, it looked like we would lose almost no elevation on the way to Gothics. After staring at these peaks for a bit, we realized we were wrong. What looks like two humps on Gothics was in fact two mountains -- Pyramid and Gothics -- and you lost most of the elevation in between. This 'illusion' is difficult to describe in words, but if I ever get some pictures of this posted up here I can point out exactly how we saw it.
posted by mjr at
9:48 PM
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