I was a little early for our meeting time at The Fort near Morrison. So occupied myself with taking photos of the full moon I hardly saw on last night’s Full Moon Ski Tour while waiting for Dwight.
From the trailhead we started south through the woods with a light snow cover.
As we got further from the car and gained some elevation we were rewarded with numerous rock formations.
Some had possible climbing routes, others just looked really wild.
We scrambled up one of the shorter and easier formations for a view of North Little Scraggy Peak, a soft-ranked peak we wanted to collect on our way to Little Scraggy itself.
On top we signed in at the register while Dwight verified that the neighboring formation wasn’t any higher.
We then scrambled back down and continued south to Little Scraggy Peak. Along the way we found ourselves having to downclimb a short cliff that was probably rated about 5.0.
We worked out way over a lot of blown-down trees, small brush and slick snow on smooth rocks before coming out on the south side of Little Scraggy on sun-warmed rock.
We took a longer break on Little Scraggy while we took in the 360 view of peaks we’ve climbed and others that we will. We also debated what our next objective should be and finally settled on the unnamed peak that was 7,774 feet high.
We backtracked from the summit to the saddle between North and Little Scraggy Peaks then headed down to the east. The slick snow over rock slabs was our most treacherous obstacle. Dwight experimented with his new 6 point crampons in negotiating these hazards. I relied on a series of tree-belays and a full pack to cushion the falls. Once we descended to about 8,000 feet we started heading north, crossing numerous small drainages getting some extra hills in this way.
Dwight stopped to investigate why his boots had been bothering him all day and eventually fished out a inch long twig from under his boot insert. In the meantime I occupied myself taking photos of the snow’s melting patterns.
Once back at the trailhead we drove about a short distance north and started walking on a closed dirt road. After a couple miles we turned off and bushwacked toward Peak 7,774. As we started to near the peak we noticed the clouds beginning to build up into the expected storm.
To the east the skies were still mostly clear and sunny and we took several pictures of the jagged ridge forming Long Scraggy Peak.
We were both surprised when the final summit tower of 7,774 came into view, it looked a little like a miniature Devils Tower.
We suspected there was an easier way to the summit around the other side, but the rock looked easy enough to climb on its left side. My route turned out to be a short section of 4th class scrambling followed by easier 3rd and 2nd class. Neither of us had expected such a great finish to this peak and were glad we’d decided on this one. Dwight and I scrambled back down our ascent route, then retraced our steps back to the car while a couple snow flakes fell around us.
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