Lundin Peak/West Ridge

Beautiful day out. We climbed Lundin in a party of 5, leaving the Alpental Parking Lot/Cave Ridge trailhead sometime after 7. It took us three hours to get to the base of the route, even though we climbed a bit too high (perhaps 200 ft) before beginning the traverse. There were no negative ramifications of having done so. We walked and eventually scrambled the West Ridge to get to the base of the route. We had five participants after a last minute Basic cancelled, so climbed as one party of two and one of three. Vineeth took a Basic student and led up, and I then led the second rope, trailing two ropes to use to belay up first a second Basic student and then John. This arrangement no doubt slowed us down, between rope drag and the need to transition two followers. We briefly switched to simul-climbing before arriving at the last (mini) pitch of actual rock climbing. Once we gained the summit we lingered for a long time, soaking up early October fall sunshine -not sure how long. At 1:45 pm we packed up to descend and rapped the first (mini) pitch, scrambled, then rapped a last short pitch (we considered down-climbing it) to arrive back on the West Ridge. 10 hours 30 minutes car-to-car, and a great group of people on a beautiful day.