[neek]

Merchant has been on my list for a while, but I've shied away from it because it sounded a bit sketchy. Turns out this is not the case at all. The loose gully makes for a slow descent, but it's not scary. There's a little bushwhacking coming up from Eagle Lake, but it's not bad. The southeast route is described in detail in this excellent report, so I won't describe it further. From Merchant, the ridge to Townsend looks really nice, so I decided to make it a two-peak day. It seems like a lot of people go this way, because there was a bit of a bootpath, and someone had even snipped a bunch of branches going up from the pass . Rather than heading back to Eagle Lake from Townsend, I went a little past the summit and then straight down, connecting back to the fisherman's trail about a mile before the trailhead. This was steep heather and blueberries at first, then a short 'schwack, then mostly stable talus. Wish I could have stayed at the top for what looked like a great sunset. I've been to Eagle Lake from Barclay several times, and I'm not sure the backdoor route gives much advantage. If you're a fast hiker, it's either an hour of extra hiking or an hour of extra driving on a bad road that all but requires high clearance. As a plus, however, I didn't see a single person, and I'm sure Barclay was mobbed as always. Fall colors are really intense right now. The camera gets a little confused, and I'm finding I need to turn down the exposure a bit to avoid blowing the reds. But rest assured, I haven't messed with the saturation on any of these pictures.

Eagle Lake

Heading up from the lake to the Merchant-Townsend pass

Shortly after cresting the pass

Up the gully

Townsend

Along Merchant's SE ridge

Baring

Gunn

Index and Persis

Barclay Lake

Townsend and Merchant-SE peak

Sloan and Monte Cristo peaks

Some color in the valley

Gunn

Heading back to the pass after descending the awful gully

Eagle Lake

Townsend's excellent ridge stroll

Looking back at Merchant

Summit Chief, Chimney, Overcoat...

photobomb

Glacier

Heading down Townsend

Looking back up at Townsend

On a talus finger that leads all the way to Eagle Creek

Daniel and Hinman

Townsend

[kitya]

looks like you met the ravens too. when Cookie and I went to Townsend, the summit had more than a dozen ravens perching on the rocks around it.

[Gimpilator]

Stunning photos. Thank you.

[Zloi]

Wonderful documentation of an ambitious trip. The road getting there for a start. It was gated earlier this summer, presumably because there's an unstable washout. But you must've been on your feet for quite a long day. You covered a lot of not easy ground.

[awilsondc]

How was the road up there? I tried that route last year but there was a washout section and it was pretty gnarly. It looked recent, but it looked like traffic had ben through there. My outback bottomed out on the first obstacle, but I was able to back it out and ended up doing Gunn instead. I assume it's become more passable by now. Nice trip!

[neek]

[Redwic]

Nice! I still need to visit both of those peaks.