Bald Peak or Not

I am terribly behind in my trail posts. And with a big weekend coming up (going for a circuit race even though I have not trained at all) I’m going to try and do a post a day to catch up. The furthest back goes to May 12, a Saturday. I woke up fairly early on a cold misty morning and headed out to Maple Springs Road. My original intention was to take all of Maple Springs Road, turn right at The Main Divide and eventually summit Modjeska Peak. But being that I did not get out as early as I wanted, I changed my goal to turn left instead on The Main Divide and summit Bald Peak

The skies were white with clouds. The weather was cold. I never removed my long sleeves, or my beanie. It was wonderful. And to top it off, I saw my friend Tom as he was coming back down on a bike ride.

Talk about socked in. It was definitely beach weather up in the mountains that Saturday morning. We call it June gloom in my parts, and in my parts (that is down at the coast), June gloom has already hit. Up there on Maple Springs Road I could not see the terrain very far out, and certainly not the peaks. There is where my trouble lay. I could not find Bald Peak. Finally, I found a spot that looked very familiar and as I made the climb, I became more certain that I was indeed climbing Bald Peak. It all looked very familiar to me from my previous trips. I had a couple of bars on my phone, so I was able to access my GPS. And it said that I was 1.6 miles from Bald Peak as I stood at the spot that I thought was Bald Peak. Huh? Well, the two previous times I climbed Bald Peak, I may have been wrong at the wrong location, and therefore I have never indeed been to Bald Peak before, or the GPS was wrong. With the poor visibility, I could not see any peaks in the distance to make any knowledgeable judgment.

With time fleeting, I decided that the peak I summited was good enough. I headed back, snapping a multitude of wonderfully eerie pictures on the way down (which I ran most of – all down hill!). You can be sure, I will be back to investigate to true location of Bald Peak.

11.4 miles, 2,250’ elevation gain