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We slept at the trailhead Friday night with about 6 or 8 other 4wd's and a Dodge Stratus. I don't know if it was a rental or what, but I wouldn't take my car up there. Started hiking at 4:10am. There has been a lot of rain around the area recently so there are a number of little side streams that you have to cross at the beginning of the hike before you get to the one large stream crossing. The large crossing was easy for us with trekking poles . There were a bunch of nice stable logs that acted as a reasonable bridge. I would use a waterproof boot for this hike if you do it any time soon. The trail was, at times, difficult to follow as it climbed steeply through the trees near the boulder field. This may have had something to do with the fact that we were using headlamps at that point since it was so early in the morning. The trail continued up to tree line as we paralleled the gully, which had a profusion of wildflowers blooming along its length . The trail became much easier to follow once we hit tree line at the top of the gully and descended into a nice open alpine meadow. From the saddle between Iron Nipple and Lindsey there was a good trail up to the gully on the north face. It was loose and scree filled. I enjoyed glissading down it a lot more than climbing up it. With all the loose rock people have to be very careful of dislodging large rocks down onto climbers below them during this section of the climb . From the top of the gully we turned right and ascended back to the West ridge. This section of the hike was good class 3 stuff. We put the trekking poles away at that point and used our hands a lot until we gained the ridge. Once we made the ridge we followed a good trail to the false summit, and then on to the real summit. On the false summit we met 2 guys with their dog who had tackled the west ridge. If the dog, a chocolate lab, could climb the ridge then I'm sure I could have done it too. Maybe next time. Either way, we reached the summit about 9am. The descent via the gully was a lot of fun, but I did have to communicate with the other climbers below to determine who would go first. We descended quite slowly, stopping to rest and take pictures frequently. The weather held pretty well, but there were reports from climbers we saw on the way down that they got some hail up top after we left. We got back to the truck around 2:30. All in all this was a very enjoyable hike. The upper section, no matter which route you choose, is not for the faint of heart though. While there is virtually no exposure in the gully, it is still some good class 3 climbing and scrambling.
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