Southern Madison Range

I spent an enjoyable fall weekend chasing Brian and Jeffrey around the Lee Metcalf Wilderness.  Brian had devised the routes and did most of the routefinding so Jeffrey and I were mainly just along for the ride.  I’m accustomed to studying topos and occasionally google earth ahead of time so it felt a little weird to be out with such little knowledge of the day’s routes but I grew to enjoy the surprises that my naivety allowed.     

a look back at the monument ridge line

Saturday was spent doing a big loop of the skyline ridge from sage creek, off highway 191.  The initial runnable miles up and through monument meadows served a nice warmup as we continued S to monument mt, snowslide mt. and beyond.  We dropped down to an unnamed lake for water before heading up the N ridge of redstreak peak.  On top and feeling good, we decided to stash packs and do a quick out-and-back to white peak before trending W out the skyline ridge.

redstreak peak

skyline ridge

you can see where redstreak gets its name

nearing sage peak

There was some enjoyable 3^rd class scrambling on the ridge but it was predominately boulder hopping and technical running.  The ridge went quickly and upon reaching sage peak, we sat and refueled for a few minutes before beginning our descent to sage creek.  My IT band flared up on the sustained downhill and forced me to walk a lot of it but we eventually found ourselves below treeline, and after some minimal bushwhacking, on the trail.  Jeffrey and I were expecting a few miles of trail for the exit so it was a bit to our surprise that we still had 10ish miles back to the car.  We lost the trail a few times at creek crossings but otherwise just slowly pounded out the miles.  We were all tired and happy to see the trailhead at the end of the day.  

Stats: approx. 30mi/7k vert/class 3 in 10.5 hrs car-car

Sunday was spent doing a loop through the hilgard basin.  We ran up sentinel creek trail (actually Brian & Jeffrey ran while I walked a lot due to my IT band) until we found ourselves overlooking the hilgard basin shortly before expedition pass.  The plan was to climb echo peak and traverse S to dutchman and hilgard peaks but cold/windy weather, threatening clouds and snow up high on echo peak prompted us just to do a low traverse through the basins instead. 

dutchman(R) and hilgard peaks

It was beautiful running past the numerous lakes in each basin as we worked our way south, before boulder hopping around the E side of hilgard peak.  We then trended SW up to the head of the basin and climbed what would-be an aesthetic couloir under snow (but was instead a loose pile of rocks) before dropping S down towards avalanche lake.  

headin' up the couloir, all wishing we were skiing instead..

descending to avalanche lake

The 5ish mile egress out the beaver creek trail felt long, with my IT band upset from a 50 mile weekend.  It was well worth it though for the great scenery and company in a new-to-me mountain range. 

Stats: approx. 20mi/5k vert in 9 hrs car-car

Rose: beautiful views from along the skyline ridge

Thorn: continued IT band issues..

Bud: its mid-october so hopefully soon I can stop boulder hopping up & down aesthetic ski routes and start getting out on skis