Ingalls Peak/South Ridge

Sat, Aug 22, 2015 trip with 6 people (3 basic students). 5:45am start at the trailhead. Smoke in the air from forest fires but it had mostly cleared out. Made good time to the climb and only had 2 people ahead of us (who were also mountaineers who knew we would be there). Got all 6 up to the summit within 4 hours. Started our rappels about 2:30 and got half the team down to start of pitch 2 by the time another group of 5 was coming up pitch 2. Got our rap setup and ropes down and out of there way and let them setup an extended anchor so everyone could work that pitch together without much impact. Got back to the cars by 8. A 14 hour day.

Sitting at a restaurant in Cle Elum an hour later overheard someone complaining about Mountaineers taking large groups up on climbs on a popular weekend. I had to turn around and tell her it was us. And that our party of 6 wasn't big and was just 6 of 20 people on that peak that day. And we didn't cause them any extra delays on the route. This was also a party that showed up last at the base of the climb, was ill prepared (no extra layers on a cold windy climb), no food, a couple inexperienced followers and they wound up having a driver waiting to pick them up at the parking lot and they were 4 hours overdue.....