Grizzly Peak North Ridge

Not until late July did we make our first overnight trip to Hermit Meadows this year. On the way up we met a group coming down from Tupper. Turned out that one of them was Dan, a fellow we met at Bon Echo last fall. Small world.



We camped next to a babbling brook, had a fine evening, and got a civilized start the next morning.



First task was to skirt around the southeast ridge of Sifton and find our way to the Little Sifton Col. We've often skied this way in the winter but always in the opposite direction. The slope from the col seems really steep on skis. Not so bad in summer.



From Little Sifton we followed the shattered ridge up and down and all over the place. It was mostly just scrambling with the occasional rocky step thrown which (as always) left us wondering exactly what 3rd class is supposed to mean.





We wound our way up and found ourselves at the top for lunch about 4.5 hours after leaving Hermit Meadows.



On the return journey we took advantage of the summer snow to bypass much of the ridge before regaining it again just before the Little Sifton col. Here Brenda was gripped by summit fever and insisted that we summit Little Sifton rather than skirting around directly to the col. I don't know what's got into that girl. 11,000er training I guess. Aided by all the snow it was a quick 2.5 hours back to Hermit Meadows where we packed up for the knee jarring return to the highway.

A fine easy day in the mountains.