Tag: Peak 5800

12:47 PM, 37ºF, junction of Hwy 385 & USFS Road No. 710 – A little late in the day to be starting out on a Black Hills expedition, but that was by design.  Lupe was excited, though, and SPHP was too!  As soon as SPHP was ready, the American Dingo headed SW into the forest.  A skiff of snow was on the ground, somewhat surprising since the weather had been extremely dry and unseasonably warm for 2 months.

The slope quickly increased into a steady, relatively steep climb.  Lupe was already most of the way up Peak 5800 when she began coming to minor rock outcroppings and shelves.  Pausing briefly at a particularly open spot, she could see the rolling grasslands of the Bald Hills.

The climb got easier near the end.  Lupe reached Peak 5800’s big summit ridge near the SE high point.  Heading SE, she lost a bit of elevation on the way to a few big rocks for a look at the views in this direction.

Part of Sheridan Lake, which looked frozen over, was in sight.  Beyond the lake was Calumet Ridge (5,601 ft.).  Boulder Hill (5,331 ft.) and Silver Mountain (5,405 ft.) were easily recognizable, too.

Five Points (6,221 ft.) and False North Point (6,130 ft.) stood out to the SW.

Turning back, Lupe headed NW for Peak 5800’s true summit, stopping at both the SE high point, and for a look at Black Elk Peak (7,231 ft.) along the way.

Traversing the summit ridge was easy.  Lupe quickly reached the big gray rock formation near the NW end that constituted the true summit.  Light green and charcoal gray lichens decorated the stone.  Peak 5800 wasn’t as high as New Year’s Eve Peak (6,046 ft.), Loopster’s ultimate destination today, but the views here were actually better, since they were much more open.

Among other sights, New Year’s Eve Peak itself was visible nearly 2 miles NW as the crow flies.  Today’s late start had been driven by the intention of letting Loopster say good-bye to the Year of Perfect Vision over there.  A glorious sunset was hoped for, but the completely overcast sky was not encouraging.

However, all was not lost.  The cloud cover appeared to be rather thin.  Would take a while to get over to New Year’s Eve Peak, so maybe there was still a chance a decent sunset would materialize?  10 minutes at the true summit of Peak 5800, and the American Dingo continued on.

The NW face of Peak 5800 was quite steep and very rocky.  A little better more toward the W.  This was Lupe’s 3rd time on Peak 5800.  She’d come down this way each time, but the descent seemed trickier than SPHP remembered it.  Might have gotten a little off course somewhere along the line this time around.

Fortunately, Lupe didn’t have to lose an awful lot of elevation here.  Even so, the descent took longer than expected.  By the time Looper reached much easier terrain, she had some good news!  Patches of blue sky were appearing and seemed to be spreading.  Weak sunlight illuminated golden fields ahead.

The journey through the sunlit fields was as gorgeous and fun as it was easy.  This region was a longtime favorite.  Ever since Lupe first climbed New Year’s Eve Peak on the last day of 2012, she had been coming here near the end of every year.  Poor weather often prevented Loop from returning right on December 31st, but she had usually been able to get here within a day or two.

The American Dingo roamed freely, having a blast as SPHP pondered this tradition and the sad imminent demise of the Year of Perfect Vision.  Two years since Lupe had come this way!  In 2019, SPHP had been far too sick to make the journey.  Great to be back!  Lupe hated fireworks, and this annual trek to New Year’s Eve Peak was her much preferred method of celebrating New Year’s Eve.  Beauty, solitude, and freedom!

By the time Loop made it to Pistol Point, hopes for a glorious sunset were fading fast.  Obliterating all blue sky in its path, a thicker bank of clouds was sweeping in from the NW.  Still not darkly overcast, but the sun was already reduced to a mere bright spot in the clouds.

Only 0.5 mile to go!  Leaving Pistol Point, Lupe headed W across open ground, but was soon turning N along New Year’s Eve Peak’s S ridge.  The ridge was narrow, rocky, and thickly forested.  Some up and down along the way, but nothing major.  Before long, Loop was coming up the S slope.

3:56 PM – For the 8th time in her life, and 3rd time right on New Year’s Eve, Lupe stood atop the true summit boulder on New Year’s Eve Peak.  Perfect timing!

All to no avail.  Somewhere the sun was still up, but not for long.  Clearly, no sunset, whether grand and glorious or otherwise, was in the cards.  The sky was a uniform light gray, the mood merely a chilly, blah nothing.  Not a ray of sunshine anywhere.  Entirely out of character,  New Year’s Eve Peak (6,046 ft.) felt neither like the end, nor the beginning, of anything.

A disappointing end to 2020, the Year of Perfect Vision.

A few years ago, loggers had come and thinned out some of the pines to the S, both creating a mess and opening up the views, which used to be very limited.  Young pines were already growing all around the summit boulder.  A few more years, and the views would be vanishing again.

Before doing anything else, Lupe and SPHP performed a ritual task in keeping with tradition.  Sitting together, a short break was taken facing W.  Taste of the Wild, a couple of shared chocolate coconut bars, and an apple disappeared.  Quite a bit of territory was in sight, looking snowier and more wintery than seemed justified at the end of a December so warm and dry.

In the past, Lupe had always arrived here earlier in the day.  In fact, she’d always completed her New Year’s Eve Peak tour well before the sun went down.  By sunset she was on her way back to the G6, out in open country where the final gleaming rays and dazzling colors of the dying year could be better appreciated.

Knowing that the sun was already on the horizon, but unable to glimpse it, simply felt wrong.  No moment of anticipation.  Nothing was going to happen.  What was the point?

None really, except to maintain the tradition, to be here together as whatever remaining light of the old year faded, to remember the year that had been.

Grandma finally moved this year.  Then months spent working on her house getting it ready to sell.  The sale itself, which went so fast.  The last of more than 1,000 trips to the cul-de-sac.  Then summer.  A late start to it, but Lupe had climbed some fabulous peaks, among them some of the highest she had ever been to.  An early end to those happy times, as the smoke of countless wildfires blanketed and obscured the W.  Through it all, the trials of Covid-19 which had prevented the Most High Exalted Dingo of the Arctic Sisterhood from returning to Canada and Alaska.

Each day is precious, unique, never to return.  Lupe and SPHP stirred.  A quick New Year’s Eve Peak summit tour was in order, even if other plans had been denied.

Done.  Mission complete.  Onward!  Puppy, ho!

Ironic.  By the time the flashlight had to come out, stars were twinkling above.  So where did all those infernal clouds go?  The Dingo didn’t care.  No brilliant sunset before 2020 vanished forever?  So what?  Peak 5800 and New Year’s Eve Peak!  She’d had a great time.  (End, 6:00 PM, 32ºF)

At home, dinner then early to bed, very early.  For hours, Lupe laid close to SPHP for protection while sporadic fireworks boomed in the night.  With each thud, the Carolina Dog glanced up in fear and wonder.  Near exhaustion and final collapse, the Year of Perfect Vision was still hanging on, still fending off the dread uncertainties of 2021.

Oh, don’t worry about it, Loopster!  Gonna be OK!  You’ll still be climbing mountains in 2021.  You might as well enjoy that Busy Rib Hide!

Stroking her soft fur, SPHP gave Lupe another kiss.  Reassured yet again, the American Dingo went back to chomping away.

Links:

Next Black Hills Expedition                   Prior Black Hills Expedition

Black Hills, SD Expedition No. 242: New Year’s Eve Peak, Peak 6070 & Peak 6043 (12-17-18)

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Start – Intersection of Hwy 385 & USFS Road No. 710, 10:26 AM, 40°F

Lupe was late, a whole week late, but it wasn’t her fault.  She’d spent the last several days of 2017 in the Denver area visiting babies Felix and Owen, and having adventures with cousin Dusty.  The weather had been frigid, anyway, in the Black Hills.  It was still 5 below zero when Lupe returned home on New Year’s Eve 2017, and that was the high on New Year’s Day 2018.

Loop had climbed Peak 6046 for the first time on New Year’s Eve 2012 way back when she was barely 2 years old.  Since then, returning near the end of each year or the beginning of the next, had evolved into a tradition.  As far as the American Dingo and SPHP were concerned, Peak 6046 had become New Year’s Eve Peak (6,046 ft.).  Now, even though Lupe was a week late, returning to New Year’s Eve Peak seemed like a must for her first Black Hills, SD Expedition of 2018.

It’s odd that it would matter, but this year felt a bit different due to the later date.  SPHP decided to shake things up a bit.  Lupe would take a slightly different route from her favorite one in recent years.  Instead of following USFS Road No. 710 W up a valley N of Peak 5800, Lupe would start by climbing Peak 5800 instead.  She’d only been on Peak 5800 once before.  She’d climbed the mountain from the W after visiting New Year’s Eve Peak first on New Year’s Day 2016.

Lupe didn’t care what route SPHP wanted to try.  The Carolina Dog was just glad that it was finally warm enough to go out on an expedition in the hills!  So instead of taking USFS Road No. 710, SPHP had her skip the road entirely and head SW straight for Peak 5800.

Despite the recent bitter cold temperatures, this part of the Black Hills hadn’t received much snow so far this winter.  Several inches blanketed the NE slopes of Peak 5800, but that was only half as much as Lupe was used to seeing in this area in recent years.

Without any definite route in mind, Lupe and SPHP wandered up the mountain.  Peak 5800 has two NE ridges.  Looper soon chanced upon on the one farthest S, which ultimately leads to the lower SE part of the big main summit ridge.  The Carolina Dog was in snowy forest most of the way up.  As she got higher, she started coming to rock formations, some of which provided decent viewpoints.

Lupe reached the top of Peak 5800’s long, broad summit ridge near a high point close to its SE end.  This high point wasn’t the true summit, which was still some distance to the NW.  Since the broad ridge isn’t heavily forested, Loop already enjoyed some rather nice panoramas.

After a look around from the SE end of the summit ridge, Looper sniffed her way NW to the true summit.  An easy 10 minute stroll and she was there.

The sweeping views from Peak 5800 were actually grander than what Lupe would see from New Year’s Eve Peak, but Loop was still going on.  A chilly W breeze encouraged her not to linger too long at Peak 5800’s summit.  She left it heading W, and was soon picking her way down through boulders on the mountain’s W face.

Once below the boulder field, Lupe and SPHP headed NW across rolling fields and hills.  This is a favorite area.  A fire had burned the forest here years ago.  Young pines now dot the landscape in some places, but most of the terrain is grassy.  Sharp rock formations exist scattered along the edge of high ground overlooking territory that slopes S down toward the Horse Creek valley.

Approaching High Point 5917 from the SE, Lupe rejoined her usual route to New Year’s Eve Peak.  She turned W staying S of High Point 5917, and crossed a saddle leading to the SE end of New Year’s Eve Peak’s S ridge.  On the W side of the saddle she faced two steep snowy climbs in succession.  Neither was particularly long, but the first one was both longest and steepest.

Looper reached Pistol Point, a traditional stopping point on the way to New Year’s Eve Peak.  SPHP had named it Pistol Point after a large rock that looks like the handle of a big pistol jutting up out of the ground.  The Carolina Dog could see the top of New Year’s Eve Peak (6,046 ft.) from here.

After climbing around on the rocks checking out the views from Pistol Point, Lupe headed W.  She was already on New Year’s Eve Peak’s S ridge, which soon swept around to the N.  The ridge became narrower, rockier, and more heavily forested as Lupe continued on, before finally widening out again upon reaching New Year’s Eve Peak’s upper S slope.

A few more minutes and Lupe was there, standing atop the boulder at the summit of New Year’s Eve Peak (6,046 ft.).

The first two times Lupe had climbed New Year’s Eve Peak, the summit area had all been heavily forested.  It had been hard to get much more than a glimpse of a view in any direction.  New Year’s Eve Peak used to have a shady, dark, gloomy feel to it, an atmosphere which fit in with being here alone at the end of a dying year.

Sometime during 2015, loggers had come.  When Lupe had arrived on New Year’s Day 2016, the S end of the summit area and part of the S slope below it had been cleared.  Lots of slash and dead logs had been left to stumble around upon.  The affected area was relatively small, but the logging created good, open views to the S and SE.  Ever since then, the summit has been brighter and cheerier.

Somehow Lupe and SPHP preferred it the old way, yet that didn’t mean there was any reason not to take a look around.

A chilly 20 mph W wind was blowing.  It had been 40°F when Lupe and SPHP left the G6 this morning.  It didn’t feel like the day had warmed up a bit since then.  Lupe and SPHP sat huddled together at the W edge of the summit facing the cold wind, pondering the beautiful winter scene, the passage of 2017, and start of 2018.

Lupe munched on Taste of the Wild.  She had been eating snow, and didn’t want any water.  SPHP hadn’t brought anything else.

It’s funny what the mind is capable of.  Every other time Loop had been here, the mood had been melancholy, especially when she’d been here right on New Year’s Eve.  There was something psychologically depressing about watching the sun sink toward the horizon, and the light of day disappear for the last time on a year that had been part of the unknown future not so long ago.  A year now rapidly passing away never to be seen or experienced again.

The years when Loop had been here on New Year’s Day instead of right on New Year’s Eve, some of that sadness still lingered.  However, it was already being counterbalanced to a degree by the hope, brilliance and excitement of the new year just beginning.

Perhaps it was partially because Lupe was here earlier in the day today than on previous years, while the sun was still relatively high in the sky.  As the Carolina Dog and SPHP sat facing the cold wind, it no longer felt possible to truly mourn the passing of 2017.  Surprisingly, with only 2% of 2018 now history, the new year no longer seemed quite as completely bright and shiny as it had been a week ago, either.  The mind had already made the adjustment and moved on.

It only felt cold.  And like Lupe really had arrived late.  Not terribly late, but late.  It was good to be here, though, together again, on top of New Year’s Eve Peak peering out at the quiet, familiar wintry scene last gazed upon a little more than a year ago.  Loopster’s 2018 adventures were now underway.  That was a good thing.  2017 had been a fabulous year, and 2018 was still a 98% clean slate with many adventures to come.  Her annual pilgrimage to New Year’s Eve Peak complete, Lupe was ready to press on.

Puppy ho!  She was right, no sense sitting in the cold wind too long.  Lupe returned briefly to the summit boulder.

Even though this year’s experience wasn’t quite the same, coming here today had been better late than never.  Lupe and SPHP bid farewell to New Year’s Eve Peak, promising to return again, hopefully right when New Year’s Eve finally rolled around again many adventures from now.  Then Lupe led the way down the mountain’s S slope to retrace her route along the S ridge back to Pistol Point.

It felt good to be moving again.  Lower down the W wind was demoted to a mere breeze.  The slanting afternoon sunlight highlighted details of the terrain.  Growing shadows added contrast.  All the way back to the G6, Lupe ran and played in a beautiful world.  2018 was finally off to a good start!  (3:42 PM, 33 °F)

Links:

Next Black Hills Expedition                      Prior Black Hills Expedition

Expedition No. 187 – New Year’s Eve Peak (12-30-16)

Expedition No. 242 – New Year’s Eve Peak, Peak 6070 & Peak 6043 (12-17-18)

Want more Lupe adventures?  Check out her Black Hills, SD & WY Expeditions Adventure Index, Master Adventure Index, or subscribe free to new Lupe adventures!