[Tom]

Headed up to Rainy Lake today with Dayhike Mike. Hit snow at around 3200', which unfortunately covered up the trail at a critical junction where we should have crossed an unmapped creek. Headed too far west before realizing our mistake necessitating a steep traverse to get back on trail. Rainy Lake is about 10% thawed. Overall a good workout. This trail is much longer and steeper than it gets credit for. 5 hours up, 3 hours down.

[hikerjo]

What mountain is that sticking up in your middle picture?

[Dayhike Mike]

Preacher Mtn. Next time we're gunna climb it too. ---- Man, I am *beat*. I honestly thought this was going to be a cakewalk. Boy was I wrong wrong wrong. Part of it had to do with the snow and misplaced trail, but most of it had to do with my early season condition and lack of recent exercise. My legs were a couple notches past exhausted by the time I got home tonight (gotta get me some of those trekking poles). The trail's relentless, quirky, with an enjoyable state of disarray. BTW - We found a new use for a GPS unit. One of my water bottles ended up falling out of a side pocket...on the route down, we used it to retrace our steps and earlier route -- a couple minutes into the effort, the missing nalgene bottle was found and bound for home.

[hikerjo]

Cool. Preacher will be a cake cakewalk, Beckey says "no difficulties."

[Backpacker Joe]

Great report guys. Man it took YOU guys five hours. Wow. I havent been all the way to the lake, sos Im not going to dog you for that one...... It'll be good to hear from you about it tinight. TB

[Backpacker Joe]

Well, considering that it is May 1st, I'd say we are in for a good snow melt early this year. Bad for the water table, good for us. Rainy should be totally snow covered on May 1st I'd say. TB

[Randy]

Actually, I believe Preacher is further to the right in that picture. If I remember correctly, you can't see the summit from Rainy. We did Preacher from Rainy Lake a few years ago. Not bad, the worst part is getting around and over Rainy. After that it's pretty open and easy. We descended into the Pratt River valley; don't do that.

[Dayhike Mike]

That makes a little sense...we were trying to get a bearing on that haystack on our topo...looks like that may have been point 5675 on the north end of the mass that is Preacher. How were the views from up there? Looks like it'd be pretty impressive. Regarding downclimbing, I'd be inclined to drop east, past Horseshoe, Shamrock, and Elbow, and head down the snaking ridgeline just west of the drainage west of Cripple Creek. Or if my climbing partner didn't want to navigate labyrinthine ridge systems, I'd take the overgrown boot path down from Derrick along Cripple Creek. BTW - How'd you go about Nine Hour? We saw a big log crossing Rainy Creek about a third of the way up to the lake that looked like it might be a good place to cross and begin the ascent. Dropping to Nine Hour from above also looked doable...nice open ridge above it, although it might be a bit hairy in places.

[Randy]

[Kat]

[Backpacker Joe]

Well now, that there is a MAN sized file. 56K people do NOT attempt that down load. Maybe I'll have to do Rainy in the next few weeks. Never did make it to the lake. Back when I did it you had to wade accress the river and then find the trail. It wasnt much of one either. TB

[Tom]

As far as our time up, we were going fairly slow. We probably could have cut an hour off if we were in better shape.

[Kat]