Bills Peak

This scramble took place on July 20, 2014.

A beautiful day in Teanaway! Weather was perfect. No rain, not too hot and a light breeze all day. A few high clouds. Creek was low and easily rock-hopped. Trail and route to summit were clear of snow. We opted to start on the NE end of the ridge and traverse to the summit. This turned out to be a short but really fun rock scramble. We started at 8 and reached the summit at 11:45.

We descended the steep gully just below the summit which worked well, keeping the group together to reduce the risk of rockfall. This took us to a broad open boulder field. We traversed towards the pass and into the trees which were thin enough to avoid any serious bushwhacking (with careful route selection). We came out just above the pass on a fairly steep but manageable field or scree which was visible from the pass on our way up. With some traversing and careful management of the group we were able to descend safely but I probably wouldn't do this again as there are likely other routes that are more fun (like almost any route).

One of the scramblers slipped on some wet rock and scratched their wrist on the initial traverse during the ascent. The group was just moving too fast for everyone so we slowed down and the rest of the day went well.

We were back at the cars by 3.

We came across a small dachshund wandering in the road hanging out with a bunch of cows. It was very, VERY old (and super smelly) dog that had something really wrong with it's left eye. Hard to describe what was wrong with it but it was clearly in awful condition. It also had a pretty good limp with it's rear left leg. There were no people near by but the campground was pretty close so I figured it must have come from there. A gentleman walking his dogs appeared and verified that campers had many dogs and he seemed to remember a class B RV with a dachshund being there the previous night. The dog let me approach it but struggled when I went to pick it up. We drove the dog to the camp site asking campers if it was their dog. One camper said that a camper had lost "Rocket" last night and he was sure this was that dog. The dog had a nametag that read "Jake" but by the looks of him I can see the irony of "Rocket". Anyway, the camper lead us to a camp site with a class B RV and sure enough it was Jake's owner. He said Jake was 17 years old and had wandered off around midnight when he was put out to use the bathroom.

All that and we still got to the trail head 30 minutes early!