East Spanish Peak

In March of 1998, Bobbie persuaded me to go on a trip to East Spanish Peak with Quest Adventures. It's 13,000 plus feet, but a good climb anyway. We spent the first day wallowing through four feet of fresh powder on snow shoes to reach our high camp around 10,000 feet.
High Camp
Lunch

Our lunch break just above treeline the second day. This is where we dumped our snow shoes and put on the crampons for the final push to the summit.

After lunch, we hiked a wind swept ridge toward the summit. We had to cross this small avalanche chute to follow a better ridge.

Crossing an Avalanche Gully
Summit Because we spent so much time in the snow we didn't have enough daylight to reach the summit and return safely. We turned back about 500 ft from the summit. It's always better to turn back and have another shot at it another day. Reaching the summit is only half of the trip.

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