Spring Mountain

Saturday was my only free day this weekend and I was determined to go climbing, rain or shine. As you all know, it ended up being an ugly day weather-wise. Fortunately, I was accompanied by a fine group of companions who kept life interesting when all else was dreary. Mark Owen and Paul Cho I had not seen for 18 months so it was good to reconnect with them. Ian was his usual mix of nonstop mirth and mayhem. Come to think of it, he does get quiet when the travel is "uphill". He went at my pace all day, something I would have not thought possible when I last saw him at Lamont Lk on the July 4 weekend. Jerry brought along an attractive young woman, Beth, who provided freshness and softness to an otherwise coarse crowd. We left the N Fk Sauk road at 8:45 and followed trail to Bingley Gap. Somehow I'd gotten the idea that the next section required contouring around to the left, so we wasted a half hour finding that this was dangerously steep sidehill. Be backtracked to the pass and then followed the ridge proper. This soon came to an improbable looking tower, but it was so well treed that we were able to use "Tarzan" tactics to surmount it. From there on the going was not hard. We later left the ridge to contour over to the bouldery basin below the summit. Here we encountered the only significant snow on the route, about 1' in depth. It rained in varying degrees all day. Occasionally we were treated to minor views. The one from the summit down Pender Canyon to the river was memorable. For the return we contemplated another route but upon up-close inspection it didn't look as promising as it had on the map so we retraced our steps, arriving back at the vehicles at 5:20. We were all thoroughly soaked, but everyone had stayed enthusiastic about our enterprise, and that made it fun. Patches