French Peak, Boulder River #734 — Saturday, May. 28, 2005

We attempted to reach French Peak, got 1.5 miles from it, and had to turn back due to insufficient time. We entered from the Boulder River Trailhead and reached the top of the ridge from there. The spine of the ridge was alternately easy and difficult as we made our way almost due east, navigating with a topo and GPS. At one point we were swimming through head-high firs. There were places we found an old trail, with survey tape and blazes, but lost it about halfway to the far peak, right at a large murky pond. There were three trees stripped of their bark by bear claws along the way, but we would never see any wildlife whatsoever. I think we were making enough noise to frighten away everything for miles anyway. With only one and a half miles to go we had to call it off. We were well past our turnaround time and with the cloud cover we figured it’d be getting dark a bit earlier than yesterday. We thought we could make better time by heading straight down off the ridge and intercepting the Boulder River Trail. Words cannot express the stupidity of that decision (it was mine too!). We encountered cliff faces that meant climbing back up the way we had come to try to find a way around. Finally making the Boulder River trail, we walked back to the cars. 13 hours from TH to TH. It was incredibly fun, and I will likely try again sometime late in the summer. Today, I hurt.