[User-Name]

As a safer alternative to battling hordes of bargain hunters at the mall, I did a great ridge walk with EJohson yesterday. The weather was perfect, and we wanted something close to town but not too crowded. Starting from the Ira Spring trailhead, we took the Connector over to that spot with the weird name...what's it called? "Dirty Harry's Putrid Kitchen" or something? Whatever. It's an old logging road that offers a fairly quick but scruffy way to the ridge crest for those who want a longer ridge experience than you get from the more civilized climber's path to the Webb Mountain summit (I'm probably getting the name of that peak wrong, too, but it's the one with the geocache--actually, I don't know the proper names of any of the features on the ridge, so feel free to set me straight in the comments. Thanks). From the "Kitchen" we booted to the crest, then follwed the obvious, narrow ridge across Webb, then over to Defiance, then out via Mason Lake. It was a perfect day hike on a weather-perfect day! ...a few crappy snaps:

One of my favorite "secret trails" isn't secret anymore...pity!

There isn't an obvious point at which to leave the road, but I think if you see this old rusty ghost, you've gone too far--not really sure, though--we just sorta poked around. Hard to go wrong if you just keep climbing up.

The jungle section...annoying but brief.

Erick emerges from the tangle of trees. From here, dues paid, the ridge opens up...

Light, solid snow, views for days, and hours of easy ridge walking ahead--this is the place to be!

Looking ahead to the next high point...

Picking our way to Webb was work, owing to steep side-hilling on icy patches, but things dried out as we launched from the geocache to Defiance, basically a jog.

Making up time on the easy snowpack...

Summit of Defiance, with the full approach ridge behind. To save time, we descended directly from the the top, dropping in the direction of Mason Lake, rather than using the standard summit trail. This option is a little steeper and icier, which was no problem for me and my aluma-pons, but how EJay managed to keep pace, having lost one of his microspike slip-ons a mile back is still a mystery. The dude is Superman on ice!

Mason Lake, start of a pretty jog-out to the car.

Glancing back at the ridge from the Mason Lake deproach.

A last look at the ridge from the long, low-angled switches. I think we started the trek at just after 9:00 am, and were back at the car around 3:30 pm to finish a fantastic day in the hills!

[coldrain108]

Putrid Pete's Peak, or P3 for short is the one just before Defiance.

[User-Name]

Thanks!

[Now I Fly]