To the Central High Peaks
With a final steep step, we arrived at the trail junction to Rocky Peak. The trail junction is just a few feet below the summit of Giant, and we quickly made our way up the final bit to the summit ledge of Giant. Too bad Giant's summit wasn't more open than it is (not to say that it is a bad peak, just that a fully open summit would be a crowning glory to the awesome trail we just climbed up).
After having soaked in the views from Giant (and after having taking many pictures), we headed back to the junction with the trail to Rocky, where we again met up with Rik, who had just finished coming back from Rocky himself. Trail conditions were good, he reported.
Ewart didn't fancy the big down-and-up-and-down-and-up required to head over to Rocky from this point. The trail drops over 700 feet to a col, then climbs back up 600 feet to Rocky's summit - and then you have to do it in reverse to get back to this point, before heading back down to the car. We decided to drop our packs here to make the hike over and back a little easier, and Ewart agreed to lay around for a while in the beautiful warm sun, then head down slowly, allowing us to catch up with him.
Off we went...
We skittered down the very steep trail to the Giant-Rocky col, then back up the more gentle slopes on Rocky. Thirty-five minutes after leaving Ewart, we were on top of Rocky and it's big stone cairn. Jenn counted out the only ten peaks she now had left to do to complete her winter 46. Getting close!
Not wanting to keep Ewart waiting too long, we stayed only for a few minutes, then whirled around to retrace our steps back down to the col and back up almost to the summit of Giant. We had an intense and solid workout motoring our way back up Giant. Total time for the way back: thirty-nine minutes - Pretty decent. Ewart had gone ahead and started down already.
