Martin's Ridge: A Success!

The day before yesterday, I headed out at about 8am with my friends Mattias and Daniel to go up the Tenmile Creek Trail, divert off right before the fresh rock slide, and climb along Martin's Ridge to get out to Holden Lake. Mattias had done most of that trail before, so he got us up the actual trail, past most of the loose rocks in the rock slide, up the near-sheer rock face that we had to climb, to the first part of the ridge line. He then headed back down to the village and Daniel and I struck out on our own. Although I dubbed him "city mouse" at first (being from Chicago as he is and having arrived at Holden for the first time only 5 days prior), he ended up being a wonderful hiking companion. Apparently his trips up to the boundary waters have paid off in wilderness skills. :)
As for myself, I was very glad that I learned so much about rock climbing and got over a bit of my fear of heights growing up. Although using a rope and climbing up bolted-in rocks at REI is a completely different experience than climbing rock slides or rock faces with scrubby little pokey plants, loose rocks that don't seem loose, and no ropes. Eek! Although the definition of "safe" changes rapidly as one's proximity to Holden decreases, I promise we were being as "safe" as possible. I even asked for help getting across a crevice once!
only to see another higher one that we'd have to go down to go over to go up. Spirits were high, though. The day was beautifully clear and sunny, but cool enough with a nice breeze that we weren't being baked alive above the tree line. We stopped for lunch in, what we described as, a miniature "Sound Of Music Meadow" complete with stunted trees, a small animal-hobbit hole, and it'sWe ended up having quite the adventure. We'd see a rock peak ahead of us, go down to go over to to go up it (thinking we'd sure shown that peak) own tiny rolling hills covered in a scrubby grass that was, itself, miniaturized. We ate the sandwiches packed, drank water, indulged in a little chocolate lovingly sent from home a while back (Thanks, Mom!) and then took an hour-long nap in the beautifully sheltered 10'x10' meadow and headed out again. Not having been up there before, neither of us were entirely sure when we'd reached the high point at which we were told to take the West side of the slope down a ways and then catch the Holden Lake trail. By the time we were really starting to wonder if all these wide loose-rock fields were something we were actually supposed to be crossing (for some reason, it didn't seem very safe to be skittering across very steep avalanche chutes), the clouds were rolling in and the light was rapidly decreasing. Instead of continuing along our expected path toward Holden, we took advantage of an area with a lot of grasses and more solid soil and headed back the way we'd come (except going diagonally down the mountain instead of going back up). We had to do a lot of bushwacking, as we'd been warned before we headed out, but compared to what it could have been, it was actually wasn't that bad. Mostly alder and other woody shrubs with waxy, sharp leaves. Daniel was slightly ahead paving the way, and I would slide under and through the plants he would be crashing through. All of the sudden he says, "I think I see the trail!". Of course, this had been said MANY times since our initial decent from the high point of the ridge, so it had to be taken with a grain of salt. Within two though,minutes, we were jumping and hugging happy that we had, INDEED, found the Holden Lake Trail before dark! We sat down to enjoy a little gorp and water knowing that we were somewhere between 3 and four miles from the village with a nice and easy trail home. We made it back into "town" by 8:30 (deciding not to take the time to go up to the lake after dark since it was the quick and frigid dip we'd been most looking forward to and such thing is less appealing after dark on a cool and windy night). The first thing we did upon arrival was chase the adolescent black bear that's been plaguing the garbo dock out of the back of the garbo truck. Then we had a quick bite to eat (I had Cheerios, honey toast, and a little of Daniel's three scoops of ice cream... he had Life cereal and, of course, the ice cream), after which, we hopped in the Jacuzzi to soothe muscles that had the potential to hurt in the morning and relax before bed. It was a beautiful day. I find it's always nicer to go to bed feeling like you've accomplished something.... say... conquered a mountain ridge... with your day.
That's all for now. Pictures to follow soon.










Much love to you all!

Lauren