Storm King, Silex and The Guardian

• Total mileage: 20
• Total Elevation gain: 9,112'
• Trailhead: Beartown (HC 4WD)
• Partners: Ryan, Tony, Taylor, Nicole
• Class: 3

Way back at the start of summer, Taylor started pressing us on organizing this trip into Beartown. Back before the smoke, monsoons deluge induced mud slides and when summer held actual promise. Thankfully this trip wasn't sacrificed to the weather gods and we had absolutely perfect weather for the entire trip!

Day 1: Pack into Camp + Storm King Peak

• Mileage: 9.12
• Elevation gain: 3,770'
• Class: 3

After an uneventful drive into the camp I used before (minus one 10' rocky section) the night before, we jumped into Ryan's Jeep and Tony's new Toyota to drive the remainder up to the trailhead after finishing packing our overnight packs. Let's just say the road has deteriorated significantly since I was last here in 2018, and neither driver was amused. Neither driver wanted to drive back up here for the day hike on Day 4. I personally loved the unamused look Tony gave me when I slyly suggested it.The Texas wheelchairs are tearing up the road and quickly ruining it. 3 years ago, there were a handful of people in the area. Now, there's a steady stream of flag waving out-of-staters all day long creating a dust plume.

After setting up marmot guards on both vehicles, we started up the trail with Taylor providing all the stoke for the heavy backpack in. It was nice to see the trail in daylight, and we made quick work up to Hunchback pass for our first break of the day.

Taylor kept the descent down to Trinity Creek entertaining with a riddle. It kept us engineers and literals entertained in the wrong direction for hours. Meanwhile I had an LL Cool J song in my head in response. Don't ask. We also enjoyed the view of our peaks as we descended, which proved to be very important for the next days route choices. Why one should always take photos of peaks from various angles. It proved to be good beta.

We descended the trail to just above the Valecito - Trinity creek juncture and crossed by the waterfall. Tony and I went above it, the others below. From there it was following the game trail turned climber trail (with cairns) all the way to our campsite. Well, almost. Taylor and Ryan descended closer to the creek, while Nicole, Tony and I were on the trail. We yelled down multiple times that we were on the trail. The "trail" is faint in spots, and can get lost when there's deadfall, but one just needs to keep the eyes open to find it again. It made for a fairly easy stroll.

We had debated where to put camp. One was at Lake Silex, another was below the steep slope up to the lake. But when we saw a nice open meadow that was obviously a frequently occupied camp site, most of us were sold. After going up to Lake Silex, our campsite was definitely The Spot.

Our plan was to set up camp, and then go summit something, anything. My bivy was up and ready in about 20minutes. Then we dealt with filtering water. Both Taylor and my Steripen failed. Failed. New batteries didn't work, still fail. So now all of us were waiting on Tony's Sawyer Squeeze. This took a lot of time. So our summit start was delayed by an hour an a half.

We had toyed with doing Peak 2&3 or Peak 7 or Storm King. We started up the steep grassy slope enroute to Lake Silex with Peak 7 on our minds. When we got to the saddle with Storm King after tedious and slow steep talus, we ran the numbers, and decided that going for a high value target like Storm King was the best decision.

The first part of the ascent up the south ridge was fun blocky scrambling and class 2+ terrain. Quite enjoyable.

But the nice terrain would soon end. The last bit of the route up to the summit ridge is loose and nasty. We mostly hugged the far right all the way around, to keep one side on the solid rock, then curved back to the west, staying below the rock above. You want to aim for the notch that's visible above Nicole and Ryan's head in the below photo. That's where you access the summit ridge.

Once we accessed the summit ridge, it was a short stroll to the summit. Yay! First new Wemi summit in a year!

We enjoyed the summit for as long as we could, but we knew that it was late in the afternoon, and we had to get back down to camp before it got too dark.

Going back down the summit ridge, I view the sucky class 2 gully. Sooo slow to move on that crap. We all did our best to spread out and not let loose any rocks.

After we all got back down to the solid rock, we could all breathe a little easier. The worst of the high nasty was over.

Another short break by the saddle, where we discussed the shitty gully up to Mt Silex from the west. NO ONE wanted to do this route. It looked horrid, loose and steep.

From this point forward, all of us were thinking of other options to get the next 2 peaks.

We made it back to our camp before dark, but the water filtering went well into the dark hours. At least my dinner didn't require water. So I squeezed water after I had eaten, so the group could eat. We all took our turn filtering for the group. So much squeezing.

From there, we all settled into an eventful night of sleep, me in my new bivy for the first night ever.

Day 2: Mt Silex and The Guardian

• Mileage: 6.03
• Elevation gain: 3,447'
• Route: East Bowl to saddle NEW ???
• Class: 3

After seeing that nasty steep scree gully up to Mt Silex, we spent some time looking for beta on ascending the peaks from the east. We knew a group had descended that way, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's an easier way, or that it doesn't involve some class 5ish terrain. So we all agreed to make the attempt, with the possibility that we would get stumped and have a zero summit day. We did decide that we wanted to start just after sunrise, so that we would have good eyes on the approach route finding.

We had the perfect campsite for this route, as all we had to do was cross the stream at our water filtering spot on a fallen log. From there it was easy travel on and off game trails below the rocky mound that we had spotted from the descent from Hunchback pass on our approach to camp. We contoured around this rocky mound till we got into the east bowl.

Once we end around the rocky bulge, we get a closer view of our route which will zig zag up the bowl on grassy ledges and over talus to go up rocky ledges and more talus to the saddle between Silex and The Guardian.

From the rocky rib, we followed the grassy valley up to the far right corner below the east ridge of Silex. From there we followed the obvious game trail as it zig zagged up the grassy ledges up to the next level. The ledges are just to the left of the first talus field that looks a bit like a bowtie on the above photo on the right.

Above the grassy ledges, is a large talus field that Ryan went straight across. The rest of us went further to the left/south and saved our ankles. We hit the next set of grassy ledges as it met the talus on the left side of the below photo.

We zagged back to the right/north along the grassy ledge to get to an area with some minor scrambling up to the left on rocky ledges. There was another route up some mossy ledges, but it looked more involved with bushes and wetness.

Above the rocky ledges, was another talus field that ended with some solid rock up to the saddle between Silex and the Guardian.

We took a nice break on the saddle, enjoying the views.

From the saddle, the ledge trail system over to Silex, is just a wee bit below the saddle. The route has a few cairns, but the route to Silex was on fairly wide ledges and we were quickly below the summit area.

When we got below the summit area, we saw a loose class 2 gully to the left, but most of us stuck to the more solid scramble on the right.

We celebrated the first summit of the day, but couldn't stay too long, since the traverse to The Guardian was much longer and more involved.

From the summit, we dropped back to the solid scramble area.

We went back up to the saddle to scout the route a bit, but Taylor couldn't see much from above. Tony and I had spotted a cairn at the saddle, so we went down to that spot. From there it was hop scotching from one cairn to another. This route is VERY well cairned. There are options in spots, but right at the saddle, the route gets very narrow and exposed, so we took our time with the route finding.

After the ascending traverse, we found the rocky gully/ridge before the loose gully below the summit. Blocky and rather solid up the the class 2 summit ridge

Sad to leave the summit with the amazing views all around, but we had to get back down to camp, before dark - again.

Once back down to the ledges. We made much faster time back to the saddle, as we knew all we had to do was spot the next cairn and go!

After another nice break at the saddle, we reversed our zig zag route down through the ledges and talus quickly. We turned the corner around the rocky mound as the sun was getting low, and the long shadows made everything interesting.

After zombie walking the last section back into camp, we got to eat dinner and filter water before we lost the light. Enough light to watch as 4 deer approached our camp - their usual nap spot, and entertain us. Scare us too. Since I was in a bivy and not a tent, a deer stepping on me or cuddling with me during the night, was a higher probability or problem. So when a deer got within a foot of me in the pitch black, I let out a series of octave screams that amused the group. Well the aversion therapy worked, I was able to fall asleep without a deer close by. I figure they eventually walked past me, but they didn't step on me.

Day 3: Pack out of Camp

• Mileage: 4.85
• Elevation gain: 1,895'

I was the first out of my bivy in the morning, since the aspen glow was on point! We slowly ate breakfast and broke camp. We had a long trek uphill to the pass today with a heavy pack, so we delayed that as long as we could, knowing it would get hot soon enough.

The deer surrounding us in the high grasses also woke up and wandered around us.

Once on the trail with the heavy packs, we made quick work of the game/climbers trail back to the main trail and the waterfall intersection.

On the hike back out, we took time to look back on the route up the East Bowl and snap some zoom shots of the route

It was a hot slow ascent up to the pass, at least the riddle today from Taylor was much easier. We dropped back down to the vehicles and drove back to camp to relax for the afternoon, playing cards and having cold beverages and eating ALL the food.

• Day 0: Canby Mtn
• Day 1-3: Storm King, Mt Silex, The Guardian
• Day 4: Nebo group (Boyz did Hunchback, White Dome, Peak 1)
• Day 5: Stoney Pass Peak or Yoga (I let the young people run up a repeat for me)