The serene scenic stillness we woke up to in the morning. |
Distorted
Clark
A small area of Middle Rae Lake that was protected by the nearby rock
outcroppings froze
overnight. |
Distorted Chris
We all had to get a picture with this 1/16" thick proof of the cold.
Don't forget this is September, not January! |
Distorted Doug
We carefully balanced this thin delicate sheet of ice on top of last
night's rock art. We were surprised it was stable! No wind sure
helped. How long would it last? About 1/2 hour later we heard
the crashing of glass. All gone! |
The beginning of a magic day! |
9:30 AM as we leave Rae Lakes. |
45 minutes later and we are quite a ways up from the Rae Lakes. |
Higher and higher we go. |
Almost out of sight. |
We took a 20 minute break and made more yummy snow cones and
also chatted with John and Dawn Cicanese who were 1800 miles into the
Pacific Crest Trail - only 800 more to go! |
OK guys - woo hoo - we are half way to the top. It's easy if you
take it easy! Lots of little rests and watch the pulse rates.
|
Clark and Chris work their way up the many switchbacks. |
At the top looking down on the numerous small lakes we passed on the way
up!
It took us 2 hours total to do the 1,440 feet of vertical climbing to get
to the top of Glen Pass at 11,978' elevation. |
The pass is NOT the summit. Plenty of higher mountains on all sides
of us. We were so close to 12,000' elevation that we scrambled up a
few nearby rocks to get this picture. |
Yahoo! We did it! |
Well that was easy.... |
And we did it without Sherpas or supplemental oxygen bottles. Sir
Edmund Hillary - watch out! |
