Ingalls Peaks - East Peak

Adam and I went on an alpine adventure.

We hiked about 5 miles to Ingalls Peaks and intended to summit the East Peak by climbing. There are 3 (North, South, and East) Ingalls Peaks each with several climbing routes. Adam researched each route and picked the easiest - The South Face of East Peak - since I am still a beginner.

The hike in was great, the meadow where we camped was beautiful, the views of Mt Stewart were amazing,

the goats were cute as ever

Adam, the alpine guide, was focused, strong, and encouraging

Everything was perfect...except we couldn't find the route we were looking for :(

We went back and forth climbing up and down walls only to climb them again. In the end, we are pretty sure we found the route. It was different than we were imagining, so we didn't recognize it.

Adam ventured out on these exposed slabs (above) to see if the summit was near enough to reach before nightfall. It wasn't, so we had to leave without finishing the route. I was pretty nervous to climb out on these slabs. The rock was serpentine (smooth and slippery) with a large drop off below.
It was a full day and we learned a lot; the adventure was successful!

I was a happy - but timid - climbing partner. Alpine climbing was more extreme in real life than I had imagined. Now that I've lived through my first adventure, I'll do better next time.

We camped in the charming alpine meadow and watched the METEOR SHOWER! (serendipitous timing!) and hiked down to our car the next day after freshening up in the river.