We ate lunch at treeline and checked the sky for storms. It still looked good. So we climbed up Parkview mountain but fifteen hundred feet of elevation gain in one mile is steep! What made it even more challenging was there was no track and a lot of loose rock and talus. Needless to say it took awhile. I had just reached the summit and sat down to rest when Pounce said "Look, we have to go down now!" A thunderstorm had popped up and was coming our way. We ran down the mountain to a saddle and then down off the side to some trees. We got there just as it started raining, put on rain gear and huddled til it passed. The sun came out along with blue sky, so we climbed back to the trail. Five minutes later we were running down the other side of the saddle to tree cover to wait out another storm cell. Sun and blue sky again, back to the saddle and more storms. There was no way we could continue on trail above treeline, nor could we stay where we were as there was no place to pitch a tent. So we did a cross country route that followed a drainage off of the saddle. A cross country in the Rockies is crazy! It was steep, slippery and wet. When the blow downs and brush were too much we walked in the creek or crossed to the other side. When that didn't work we climbed above it. We crossed a ravine and another creek as we worked our way around the mountain and then up towards haystack mountain on the other side. Thunderstorms kept rolling through all the while and raining on us but we were protected in the trees. It was such a relief when we regained the trail. I could have knelt down and kissed it. Looking back we could see there was still weather on the ridge. We would've been stuck if we'd stayed. Our destination was Troublesome pass and it sure lived up to its name. We made it though.
Wow. So awesome and rugged. Sounds so intense. Amazing.
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