Alpine Scramble - Red Pass & Mountain (Commonwealth Basin)

We started from he PCT North trailhead at 7:30 am.  The entire route was snow free, except for a very small patch in a creek bed on the trail which will be gone in days, reflecting an unusually warm and dry late spring.

This was a first rock scramble for much of the crew, and everyone managed well with the loose rock.  We primarily traveled close together to mitigate that hazard.  We were also lucky to more or less avoid other parties on the scramble portion.  On the way up the scramble route we deviated from the climber’s  path at 5320 feet where the established path traverses sharply to climber’s right.  The lichen-covered rock was a quick indication that we were off the beaten path.  The terrain on this digression was manageable, with more solid but slabby rock, but our party preferred to follow the boot path on the way back down.

It took us 3 h 10 min to get from the trailhead to the summit, and 2 h 20 minutes to return to the trailhead.

Thanks Fritz for mentoring my first scramble lead with the club and all of our crew on the trip for being such easy participants!