Peters Creek to Eagle River

Ryan and I met up with Hugh and Aimee bright and early Saturday morning (at least for us!). The whole drive out Ry and I were kicking ourselves for not going skiing instead, I can't believe how much snow had fallen in the mountains....all of a sudden my crappy,holey, summer running shoes felt inadequate for the day ahead...but I usually take the optimistic approach and assured myself it could not be more than 6 inches deep, and Ryan and Hugh could break trail for me too.

We parked at the Big Peters creek trail head and were cruising down the wide awesome trail. Which of course after about 7 miles turned into the narrow, muddy, bushy, slippery trail. About this point Ry's ankle started acting up and he opted to turn around. I always wonder when someone tells you to keep going and they can make it back on their own and you should go ahead, if they really mean it...I really wanted to keep going, way more than I wanted to come back the way I already had been. So I went, then felt intermittently guilty throughout the day about letting Ry walk back by himself....but the farther I got, the less I wanted to turn around.

Hugh approaching Mount Rumble

 

We walked a really long way back in the valley before we saw Peeking, and the valley we thought we wanted to go up.

Aimee starting to gain elevation above the valley

 

We ran into snow at about 3,500 feet, and it just got a little deeper the higher we went. The mountains back here are amazing. Huge steep lines, it looks like winter up there.

Aimee heading up the backside of Peeking toward Raina Peak

 

We were super lucky with the weather....if we had been a half hour later up there we wouldn't have been able to see the pass that we needed to cross. It was a lot higher than we had all thought, about 6,200 ft, pretty much right below the summit of Mt. Raina. The clouds and snow were thick as we made our way down into Ram Valley.

Hugh and Aimee heading down into Ram Valley

 

Hugh lives at the very end of Eagle River Road, so we climbed out of Ram Valley and took a super steep, slippery, trail that went straight down to the road. We dropped the remainder of our elevation in the steady rain, and fading light, it really was good timing! And ended up back at Hugh's front door.