Today our destination was not just Mt Audubon. For the first time in over twenty times up the mountain, I continued on to the next ridge and Paiute. Road construction at Brainard Lake forced us to park a mile away from the trailhead, but we still made it up to Mt Audubon at 13,233 feet fairly quickly. The carpet of flowers on the tundra certainly helped. From the top of Mt Audubon, we could see our next challenge - the narrow, rocky ridge to Paiute.
From the ridge between Audubon and Paiute we could look down on the valley that holds Blue and Upper Blue lakes. Upper Blue was still frozen solid, while the ice was breaking up around the edges of Blue. Lots of snow remained in the cirque below Mt Toll, where we planned our descent.
The panorama of the southern Indian Peaks was spectacular from the top of Paiute. Clouds were building despite the forecast of a 0% chance of rain.
Our group on Paiute - Brittany, Morgan, Donovan, Annie, Malia, Tom, Molly (with Muneca) and me.
We had already climbed our two 13'ers, but the fun was really just beginning. The route down from Paiute can be challenging. We headed over to Mt Toll, trying to find a gully that might be good for sliding - good snow, not too steep, no rocks in the way, and a flat runout. Well, we got, three out of four.
Looking back up the mountain, we slid down the snowfield from the center right. It was a little steeper than we had planned. This second, lower slope was much more fun, and did not induce terror and tumbles like the upper one had.
Blue Lake was magnificent with its ring of broken ice. Only one more snowfield to cross and we were back on trail. Sliding on this one would have meant an icy plunge, but we all made it across safely.
Back on the trail, we could look back at our descent from the saddle on the right side of Mt Toll. An epic hike. It was OK that the rain and hail started at this point, as we splashed our way through the puddles and mud the last 3 miles.
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