Kidz Won't Hike and I got up to Sperry Peak and Wolf Peak out by Vesper on a very smoky day. I've always wanted to do these, but for some reason never formed the plan. Been to Vesper 7-8 times. These are fun scramble and boulder field climbing problems if you're into that sort of thing. Both are approached by climbing to the ridge above Lake Elan, with Wolf on the left and Sperry on the right. Sperry is a lot of class 2 interspersed with class 3 sections throughout. Getting up to Wolf is pretty straightforward, but the final moves to get on the summit are class 4 and super exposed with 1000' straight down on both sides.
Arrived at the Sunrise Mine TH around 8am, lots of cars but still some spots open. The road has a lot more large potholes than when I was here in August. Didn't check the toilet but last time I was there, it was pretty full if you know what I mean! With the recent rain, the trail up until the boulder fields was wet in a lot of places both going up and down. But not super muddy and because the trail is trimmed nicely, wet vegetation wasn't a problem. We went up the standard way for Vesper until we got to Lake Elan and went to the right of the lake, instead of going up on the ridge for Vesper. There's mostly a trail and some boulder hopping. Once past the lake, we followed our GPX tracks and some cairns to make our way up to the ridge between Wolf and Sperry. We had to sidehill some boulder slabs and make the occasional class 3 move.
Once on the ridge, there's a nicely defined trail in both directions. We went for Sperry first. Despite a trail in most places and cairns throughout, there are seemingly multiple branches of the trail and it's easy to get on super steep terrain, as we found out on the way down. The trail alternates between steep wooded sections and meadows, and has class 3 sections in many spots. Eventually we popped out to a large rocky section that was the final climb to the summit. Plenty of room to spread out and relax and refuel for the way back. The surrounding area was very smoky which makes for interesting pictures but not good health. On the way down, we got duped a couple times and took different branches of trail than we did on the way up and once ended on a super steep slippery dirt slope and had to make our way back to main trail. Don't be lulled into a false sense of security as the cliffs drop off on much of the terrain below Sperry.
Once back on the lower ridge we started up towards Wolf. We dropped our packs after grabbing our various devices and headed up much lighter. The terrain to get up to the summit block is steep meadows and lots of large and very large white rock slabs. There's trail in places but it's not always obvious where it is. In any event, there's many ways to get up. Once at the top, we approached the final summit block from the east side (the west side would be virtually impossible since it drops off to nowhere). This is the crux. You have to hike over 10' of off camber 4' wide ledge with 1000' drop off on both sides, then make a few steps up with some hand holds to get into this big crack between two blocks. Once in the crack, walk a few feet then mantle yourself up and your on the summit, which has plenty of room.
We took the same path on the way out and grabbed some additional water from Lake Elan runoff since we had run out (I had brought 2.7L). We ran into plenty of people on the way down who were going up or coming down from Vesper. We saw a couple people rock climbing the backside of Vesper, probably Ragged Edge. A couple observations. Why is everyone hiking all black head to toe on a sunny super hot day? Is this a fashion statement? PSA: Please don't try to climb Vesper in sandals. Do your research.
Stats; 7.6 miles, 4,570' gain, 7:27 total time, 1:48 stopped time
Gear: Bushido III shoes, poles for descent, gardening gloves for rock and veggie grabbing. Brought helmet and microspikes but never used.
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