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Pettingell Peak is a 13er unlike any other I've climbed. Why is that? The bottom portion of the hike is a heavily trafficked hike on a (mostly) smooth, wide trail. The top portion? There is no trail.
And when I mean heavily trafficked, I mean we passed 166 people and 19 dogs on the way down. (we were keeping track). After we left the trail we saw no one until we were halfway down the standard route.
After a brief climb, it opens up into this meadow.
Anyway, I included a couple route photos. We came up the East Ridge (but we joined it late), and came down the "standard Route". The East Ridge is possible to stay at class 2+ with a bunch of moving around, but we ended up doing a little class 3 climbing along the way. It's a good opportunity to test your route-finding skills.
I enjoyed this mountain quite a bit. It's not a 14er or in the highest 100, but its' East Ridge is fun climbing without a ton of exposure.
My GPS Tracks on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
Great pics of the route. I'm planning on giving this one a shot in the next couple weeks and have only found a few TR's that showcase this ridge. I hiked up to the lake earlier this year and got a good look at the area.
From guidebooks and TR's, it seems like most people gain the ridge further east by going up the wide, south-facing slope directly north of that last trail junction. I seem to remember some cool rock formations on that slope. I'll have to check out your path as well. Looks like there are a few different ways to gain that ridge.
i've only ever snowshoed HG in the wintertime twice, so seeing summer pics is kind of crazy! will have to go back in warm weather to tackle pettingell. thanks for the TR!!
Yes, most people gain the ridge earlier than we did. I'm not sure why we waited so long, but it worked out OK. We kinda made things up as we went along. Ours might be a bit faster or shorter, I'm not sure.
We bypassed some of the spiny points of the ridge, generally to the south. It depends if you want to make it easier or harder. Sometimes you stick to ridge proper and still have to downclimb into one of several small notches anyway. We climbed around the crux again to the left (south) and that was pretty much the end of the excitement.
Coming down the "Standard Route" was pretty simple.
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