Harp Mountain Traverse

It was forecast to be a nice day, but Mother Nature didn't look at the forecast apparently. It was very cloudy and drizzly with low clouds and fog banks obscuring most of the mountain peaks. Our Valley Wanderers had planned to do the Harp Traverse today, leaving some cars at the South Fork Eagle River Trailhead then carpooling to the Harp Trailhead. I had forgotten how steep Harp Mountain was. It was so straight up and unrelenting with no little flat spots to catch my breath. I had trouble keeping up with the speedy leader. Bella was usually up with Chris, the leader as usual. But she came back to check on me occasionally. It was kind of chilly and misty most of the way to the summit, with fog banks obscuring most of the normally amazing views along the way. We all took a snack break at the summit then started our trek along the extremely rocky ridge towards the spot where we intended to head down and join the South Fork Trail. The ridge was kind of treacherous, and I worried that Bella might either tumble off one of the rocks, or cause Chris, our leader to trip over her. She stayed right by his feet, and I followed close behind. In some places the rocks are nearly technical and can be a little intimidating to some of us. We came to one very nasty rock pile and even Chris decided to avoid it. He started down a bit through the tundra. I followed him and Bella, since he was the leader. We started getting a little too low and were now in very steep loose rocks and scree. Chris started to traverse straight back over to the ridge, across a huge boulder pile. Jane and another lady named Jane were still much higher on the ridge and decided to stay up there. They urged the 4 of us who had followed Chris to climb back up to them. We looked at each other and said NOPE! Not going back up through that scree field. In retrospect, I think we should have followed Chris through the boulder field, but instead, we just continued straight down over the tundra to the trail a couple thousand feet below that we could see in the distance. It wasn't a terrible route, but it did keep us from doing the official traverse. The closer we got to that trail and the fast-moving creek before it, the thicker the brush became. It was quite the struggle pushing through the brush. Bella had stayed with me, or I likely would have followed her and gone with Chris. Once we got the creek, we had a new dilemma, how to cross that creek. It was deep and moving very fast with steep banks on either side. We walked upstream then downstream a couple of times, then resigned ourselves to fording the creek. Elizabeth took off her pack and marched across the creek, totally submerging her feet. Then we tossed her pack to her. The others did the same. I only had my running vest on so didn't bother to remove it. My problem was how to get Bella across. There was no way she could have crossed it. I ended up handing her to Elizabeth then crossing like the others had done. We had to grab onto brush to pull ourselves up the steep embankment but then we were in smaller brush, and it was a fairly short walk to join the Hanging Valley Trail, which eventually joined the South Fork Trail. Now it was just the long trek down a nice wide and mostly flat trail through the valley back to my car at the trailhead. Chris and the 2 Janes had their cars at the trailhead, so we didn't need to wait for them when we finally got there. They would have been far behind since they did continue along the long ridge. I took Janice and Elizabeth back to their car at the Harp Trailhead and took Sarah back to Palmer where she had left her car to carpool with Jane. It was a fun and interesting adventure in route finding. Plus, even in the fog and mist, the fall colors were beautiful. Next time I go, I hope I can do the whole ridge. I did do it a year or so ago, but don't remember all of the details. Although, I do remember encountering lots of brush after descending the ridge. It started to rain as we walked out but my raincoat kept me dry. My boots, however, may be wet forever. I plan to buy a boot dryer tomorrow! Bella needs a bath.