Up at 5am, packed up my tent. When I waked up O.K. at 5:25am, she wasn't pleased. I had to get some food from her car. We were supposed to meet 2 other climbers at the parking lot at 6am. It turns out, both Ashley and David came last night, and slept in their cars. Ashley is from Portland, in her 30s. David is from Seattle, maybe 70 -- surprising that he's the fastest and most experienced of all of us. Needless to say, I'm the slowest and least capable of the 4.
The trail to Virgin Lake is straightforward and boring. This lake is ugly and stagnant: with a thin layer of slim on the surface and many bugs around. I was already lagging behind!
Follow the trail to the north end of Virgin Lake, and you'd see a faint trail heading into the woods, going up.
This boot track is mostly clear to follow, more or less on the ridge.
However, it gets very steep at time.
I fell on my way down here, and had bad scratches on my back. So bad, that I couldn't sleep on my back for a couple of nights.
Very dusty, almost powdery.
At 8:15, had peekaboo view of Blanca Lake through trees.
At 8:45, on a nice grassy ridge. Good view of the clouds to the east.
More occasional views of Blanca Lake below to the west.
In this photo to the right, my group followed a track forward on the right (east) side of the ridge.
They met 2 people heading back, telling them this is not the right way.
Look for a pink ribbon, near where I took the photo (or see the darker map to the left, the lower white X).
Go over to the left (west) side of the ridge.
First, in the bushes. Then, hop over this boulder field.
Once getting into the trees on the north side, the tracks became faint, or rather multiple tracks, none look very good.
Some bushwacking. Not very pleasant. Until you get back on the ridge proper.
By now, you are above the north end of Blanca Lake.
Now the track gets very steep again, for the next 30-40 minutes. Until, finally we were above the tree line.
Now, it's rocky alpine scenery. Very pretty. Running snow melt, mossy green.
Snow is soft. Able to cross without any traction device.
I stopped to fill my water bottle.
Now, we could see where we were heading to. Behind that peak where I drew a line.
As we went higher, Blanca Lake again, came into view.
Even though we were on the east flank of Columbia Glacier and Columbia Peak, we couldn't really see either.
On this rocky slope, I was pleasantly surprised to see quite some small flowers.
The next tricky place is this sandy slope. (Marked by the upper white X on the dark map above.)
Keep to the right edge, gain the ridge before turn north: see the red line on the photo.
The sand is slippery. I tried to gain the ridge a bit more north of the red line, it wasn't good.
From now on, the view is splendid. Too bad, very cloudy today.
Finally, we could see Kyes Peak, behind this unnamed peak, which we could see much earlier.
Only from there, we could see the Columbia Glacier below.
The rest is more or less straightforward. Need to round over this bump from the east.
Need to negotiate a moat at one point.
Views in all directions, even though foggy.
Found some interesting flowers along this ridge with shard-like rock flakes: Anemone Lithophilia, Alpine Collomia.
We stayed on rocks on the way up. However, on the way back, I put spikes on, and stayed in the snow.
The last bit is a rock scramble.
Fairly straight forward. But going down here feels scary.
By the time I reached the summit, my fellow climbers have been waiting for awhile.
The clouds moved around, at least they didn't have to be baked.
Suprising to see this bush in full bloom on the summit.
Going down this final peak. Below, I put on spikes, and cut the snow. The 2 other ladies followed me. Dave took to the rocks. Back on the rocks, retraced our steps to the bottom of the steep treed slope.
There, Dave suggested that we take to the ridge, instead of going down to the "trail", which had some unpleasant bushwhacking.
Well, it was ok going for a bit, until we cliffed out.
Down climb, and up again. David lead the charge.
Very steep slopes.
At one point, I slipped, and was hanging on heathers.
Ashley bailed after her slip, and went down to look for trail.
The rest of us, the stupid ones, continued this ridge route. May have actually summited "East Blanca Lake Peak".
Finally, after a few very sketchy sections, we came out to the trail proper.
By the time we reached the parking lot, Ashley was long gone.
It was 11pm, when we got back home! Learned one lesson: shouldn't follow someone who's too confident in an unknown terrain.
Note, I used Plantnet to ID flowers. But it couldn't identify Collomia, which I had to ask Yoko.
