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We had planned on doing the loop described in "Buffalo Peaks - East to West" - but we misread the beginning and followed a trail from the camping area.
"There is a trailmarker on the left side and an old logging road on the left side, with a marker "431-something." I didn't go down this road because someone was camping 30 yards in." We took this to mean - "go to the right." So when we got to the photo of the 3 logs over the creek - we followed the advice and didn't cross - not knowing we were actually on the wrong side of it.
Following that old logging road - when we came to a split - we followed it left, thinking we needed to be more left to get to the ridge leading to the East peak. This lead to ever decreasing and disappearing trails. We don't have a GPS (old school, map & compass) - and we figured we'd made wrong turns so we pointed ourselves west and got to some higher ground where we could eyeball the peaks. We were closer to the West peak - so we cross country navigated through some fantastic terrain and did the ascent up the north west side. Felt a little like newbs not knowing where we were at - but enjoyed the adventure of navigation and being in seldom trod spaces.
Interesting terrain found while cross country navigating
Unusual rock formations
On top we met Scott and Laura (Scott: darrell_judd@yahoo.com, let's snow shoe up by St. Elmo this winter!), had some lunch and good conversation.
It was later than we wanted it to be so we decided to descend the West peak and make for the parking area. We navigated very close to JQDivide's description. Coming down - we had nice views of East Peak.
Looking towards East peak from the n/w side of West peak
We saw a lot of this grey slate like rock (below photo) - does anyone who knows the geology of the area better than I know what this is? Looked to be a metamorphic type of rock. Volcanic tuft in origin maybe?
Non-granitic rocks.
We used the clump of yellow aspen (to the right on the photo below) as a navigation aid - then continued along the clear area - taking a bearing on the camp before we descended into the trees.
Descending n/w side of West Peak
When we hit the Lynch Creek drainage we knew the old logging road we'd originally followed would be up hill and to the right - so we climbed the steep bank and hit an old road very quickly. This was more overgrown than we remember the original road we were on - but was going in the general direction we wanted - it soon curved to the right and intersected our original path.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Thanks MountainHiker - that make us feel a little less like newbs!
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