Taking advantage of the 3-day weekend, I met my friend Philip Wegge up in the Sierra, getting together at about midnight Friday on the east side of Yosemite. We started off with the east ridge of Conness (12590′) the next morning. It began as a relatively clear day, but soon turned dark with smoke from the nearby Rim Fire. The smoke, high elevation on our first day, and lack of sleep slowed us a bit, but the awesome summit and good company made it quite enjoyable.

Day 2, we hiked up Mt. Goode (13085′), further south and clear of smoke. It was a fun boulder-hopping summit with good views and a quick sandy descent. We felt much better this day, and made the summit in a respectable 6.5 hours roundtrip from South Lake.

Day 3, with sights set on Mt. Muriel (12937′), we were stoked to bag our 3rd peak in 3 days, making fast tracks up Piute Pass. It seemed we were going to have another short day with time for a few brews afterwards, but our route choice turned out to be poor – we traversed a steep field of car-sized boulders below Muriel’s north ridge, our pace slowing from 3+ miles per hour to about 2 hours per mile. The route ended up being much worse than if we had just dropped down and skirted Goethe Lake –which we did on the return – something we’d originally wanted to avoid after reading the horror stories of boulder hopping there. We turned back after doing the math and realizing how late we’d get home – our supposed 6+ hour day was going to be 10+ hours. So we bailed down the pass with our tails between our legs. But 2 out of 3 ain’t bad! Overall a very fun weekend…