Thanks Pete. Yeah, my Garmin recorded 5700 feet of vertical. Even on a bike, that's a pretty good day.
I have a shot of the scree field from my lunch spot at Ahern Pass, but it doesn't show the boulders or give a sense of how far
up it is to the notch. (Left top center.) There's a goat trail on the bottom left but I don't know if that hooks up with famous (infamous) goat trail from Ptarmigan Tunnel.
Looks pretty easy from here doesn't it? In terms of "climbing," it's not a climb. Just work.
On the previous trip, I got back to the Ahern Drift and thought, "This looks more dangerous than a thought." (Imagine snow covering this scene and a tread across the snow.)
I grabbed two rocks and started shimming across the snow sideways. Then a gust of wind came up and blew my hat up the snow and over the lip between the snow and rock wall. That pissed me off, so then I climbed up a 100 feet or so (outside the left corner in the photo), grabbed my hat and then across (above the trail along the wall of rock) and found I couldn't get down to the dirt trail. It was too steep. So then it was more climbing (with the rocks) to retrace my steps. My point here is that I blew probably a solid hour farting around getting back across Ahern Drift....and still made it back to camp soon enough that Julie didn't give me crap for being late. I have a feeling I did some running. I used to run back then.
Pete, I'm sure we'll meet up again. Julie likes beaches, and I haven't spent much time in Florida. I'd like to see the Key's someday. Some winter day.
Jay