Chief Joseph El 9616

Late Sunday night Kristen and I decided that we were going to tackle Chief Joseph peak before she headed back to Brooklyn for the year. It was quite the adventure. I was told that the trail was hard to find and it was recommended to me to go with someone who had been there before. Well, we did not heed this advice. We opted to go anyway. Seriously how hard could it be?

This happens to be midway up a climb through scree, and an avalanche chute with a potential fall/tumble/slide (all of the above) of 1000-2000 ft. Now being scared of heights, this wasn't a route I would have taken had I known what I was getting myself into. However, I refused to go down so the only way to go was up. I told Kristen we would find another way down later. I just wanted to get up to the ridge line alive. As I explained to Kristen. I was the little kid who would climb up into the tree house but wouldn't get back down. My aunt Maxine probably recalls this problem.

Because of the danger of dislodging boulders we had to take turns climbing until we got to a safe spot and then the next one would go. This is Kristen making her way to the top. By the way that isn't the top you see in the picture either. After about 2.5 miles from the trail head and a 4500 ft elevation gain we made it to the ridge. After making it to the ridge we saw this guy.......

He was amazing. I have seen lots of sheep but I don't recall if I have ever seen goats especially not this close. Beautiful eh?

We reached the summit at 3.48 miles. It apparently takes the average joe 6-7 miles to reach the summit but since we "accidentally" took the rock climbing route we reached the summit a much slower and more difficult way. Then we saw 7 goats and 2 kidds. I even retrieved some of their hair and told the kids I had to chase one down and wrestle to to get the goat fur for them. Gosh, the things I do for my kids......

I think they followed us around as we headed back trying to find a way down because they came around the peak and ran down the mountain side. If it was only that easy for us. We chose another avalanche chute to go down on our way back but it wasn't much better then the first. I watched the goats down below grazing and then they finished an headed back up the mountain before we were even 3/4 of the way down. The worst part of the whole trip was I left my favorite sunglasses at the summit.
It even gets better. I plan on returning tomorrow morning ( with a friend who knows the route ) to retrieve them. Yikes. I am not sure how I got talked into this. Call me crazy and wish me luck!