PALMER CREEK RIDGE TRAVERSE 9/4/23

Описание: On Labor Day I rolled with Derik and the girls, getting an 0430hrs start time on the road (ugh...) for a trip down to to the town of Hope for another attempt at a ridge traverse that would stretch from the Hirshey Mine trail (which starts from the same main trailhead as the Palmer Lakes and Swettman Mine trails. We had attempted it last year, but got blasted by high winds and torrential rain upon cresting the ridge.

The route would see us traversing over Peak 4350 over to Peak 4851, then dropping down the south slope some 800' to gain the north spiny ridge that connects with the 5079ft summit of Frenchy Peak, which was the ultimate goal. Frenchy is the only peak around the Resurrection Pass area that hits 5K, so its a summit worth attaining. Anyway, from there we backtrack back to Peak 4851, go over Peak 4850 (yes....1ft difference...😂), then a quick jaunt up a second Peak 4350 on this ridge, and ultimately dropping down onto a lower shoulder that eventually ties up with a rather prominent social trail that leads right back to where we parked. A true, perfect loop in other words.

As you'll see in the video, I bailed on Frenchy for various reasons. Then there's a whole chunk of descent I didn't film, as I took a wrong turn and had myself a real spicy cliffband experience. And by spicy I mean going from shelf to shelf until I got to steady ground again. Had I made the right path choice, I would have walked down a grass ramp and right onto the afforementioned social trail. Go figure!

It ended up being a great day weather wise, and a long day time wise (10+ hrs counting breaks). Mileage wasn't horrible, 10 miles. And some 6K+ AEG for the entire day.

Music selection includes the following artists:

VOID ALCHEMY - Fantastic one man (very) atmospheric black metal, incorporating other metal elements, hailing from Colorado:

https://voidalchemy.bandcamp.com/albu...

WAPENTAKE - Sometimes neo-folk, sometimes black metal, sometimes something in between. Always engaging material from the UK.

https://wapentake.bandcamp.com/album/...

IMMORTAL - Do I really need to say anything about this band? Selected a cut from the newest album.

https://immortal.bandcamp.com/album/w...