Pepper Peak Climb

 This is one of my favorite hikes. We started out with 4 of us Valley Wanderers, Meg, Jane, Charlie and Me. Virginia, Chris and Dan had started earlier with plans to climb to the summit then descend via the ridge, through the brushy obscure trail and across the creek, finally connecting to the Twin Peaks Trail. We considered taking that route but no one in our group of 4 felt competent to find that trail down. I was concerned about the creek crossing, with my little dog, Bella along. We took the standard Twin Peaks Trail up past the second bench to the beautiful overlook on the ridge below Pepper Peak. Charlie decided that was a good enough destination for her, so she turned back at that point. It was a very warm day but there was enough breeze to keep us from roasting. There were a lot of clouds drifting around and we hoped the peak wouldn't be obscured. We followed the obvious trail until it more or less disappeared into the loose shale and scree. We followed a couple of young people ahead of us for a while. Looking at our path on my AllTrails iPhone app, I could see that we were slightly right of the actual trail. Meg and I diverted to the left and connected to the trail, while Jane managed to find her own way and rejoined us up on the ridge. It's very rocky in places along the ridge but can be climbed safely if one is careful. The first time I climbed this peak I would not have known when I reached the peak because there are several false summits and they all look like they are higher than the actual summit. But we all knew which peak was our destination from our past experiences on this mountain. There are some spectacular views of Eklutna Lake far below us, made more interesting by the multiple layers of clouds drifting around below us. I identified Salt and Shaker Peaks by using my Peak Viewer phone app. I'd love to continue on and climb those 2 peaks and go on to Yudikench and down to the Pioneer Ridge, a traverse that appears to be a very difficult task. But I still dream of making that Eklutna High Ridge Traverse one day. By the time we reached the top of Pepper Peak, we were all plenty tired and not unhappy to be descending and only logging 9 miles. We were able to connect with Virginia by phone and see how they were doing. Even 87-year-old Dan was doing well.  He is my hero! We wondered if we would run into them on our way down. I pushed faster on the downhill to keep up with Bella and was the first to reach the lower bench and overlook. I was delighted to find the 2 people sitting on the bench were none other than Virginia and Dan. Virginia filled us in on the brushy trail finding challenge they had making their way down, and we were happy we had chosen to simply return the same way we climbed. Our group of 3 continued on down to our cars, happy we had made the summit and had not lost the view to the accumulating clouds. Bella was really getting tired and I scooped her up in my arms for a short distance until she squirmed her way back to all 4s. She's a tough little yorkie, but I knew she would sleep well tonight. I'm so happy I got the chance to do this awesome hike again. I'll keep dreaming of one day hiking all the way across to Pioneer Ridge. I suspect it might be a 2-day trek for me though.