Hard Recon ... August

  Forest fires burning at will caused a very unique red sun at sunrise as Greg and I headed south to the Devils for a hard recon.
     
  We were on the `Climbers trail' by about 9 am.  We spotted a billy above Mirror on the west shoulder of Babel.   

After a quick swim at `The Pond' (at Sheep Lake) we went around the south side of Sheep and started angling for the pass between She Devil and He Devil. 

Here we're about half way. 

     
  Here's looking up.  The `boulders' in the previous pic are order of size of houses.  Many of the boulders in this pic would singly fill a room in a house. 

As we got higher on the pass the weather looked like it might decompose, making me a bit anxious to get up.
     
  The climb to the saddle was basically 1000 vertical feet of rock hopping - some of the rocks being very large.

Here we're about 2/3 of the way, looking down.  To the right appears to be the route the goats take from the pass onto She Devil.

Of all the creatures ... I jumped a red fox high on the boulder field.

 
     
  Greg making his way up the boulder field.

After a while I/we became unable to distinguish the gravitational orientation of the rocks we were hopping.  Is that rock facing up, or sideways? … If I put my foot there, am I placing it on the side of the rock, or the top? … Will my foot slide off, or may I keep going?  Wild.

Rock hopping and slides ... here

Some of the snow is from previous years as this year's has been melted.
     
  Greg at the pass ... HCL (High Camp Lake) is center.  Mount Belial is behind HCL, and Devils Throne above and beyond Belial. 
     
 
     
Hanson Lakes ... Upper (above left) and Lower (above right).    
     
  `The Finger' south of Hanson drainage.

Goat on face ... pic
     
  We reconned the unnamed basins south of Hanson, and made our way to the gap above Upper Hanson where we saw three goats cross the evening before.

At the gap I came across this billy - probably one of the three from before.
     
  The cutthroat were hitting a Mepps `0', with our without bait, ... like a ton of bricks.  It was fantastic.
     
  Here's the `Hanson Pond' on the way out.

We hiked hard, and came out early, dropping from Hanson to the loop trail ... and on out.

We saw at least six nice billy goats, and one juvenile.

Endnotes