Greg's prim-and-proper perch
courtesy GGnaedinger
courtesy JEllwood
After lots of rest and innumerable pictures (as you can see here - and these are only a subset!), we set up my monopod in a crack and positioned ourselves for a group photo. The lighting conditions for our group shot worked out perfectly - a well-lit foreground and a nicely darkened background.
We'd dallied on the summit long enough (45 minutes, in fact!), and it was time to go. Our return hike was down the eastern side of Noonmark, allowing us to avoid having to downclimb all of the really steep stuff we just climbed up on the Stimson trail. The trail we took down, called the Adler trail, leads down the east side of Dix to a junction with another trail, which we then follow back over relatively gentle terrain to our starting point at the AMR golf course.
courtesy GGnaedinger
The hike back through the pass between Noonmark and nearby Round mountain was simultaneously very pleasant and very annoying. On the plus side, the trail has a nice peaceful solitude-like quality to it, with an un-eroded path and pleasant mostly level hiking through forest. On the negative side, the trail is often stony, and coupled with the carpet of fall leaves (which hid many of the stones), made footing somewhat tiring and difficult. Beili even suffered a slight sprain from the uneven footing.
courtesy BZ_and_SG
