Today John, Art, Ruby and I headed out on a 3 hour drive to the Hells Canyon Wilderness Area to explore some new terrain.  See Johns report here  Our initial objective was to climb Emmett Mountain (also know as Mount Elliot within our climbing party) along with 2 other peaks, Mount White and another unnamed mountain just north of Mount White.  The road to access this areas is quite remote and in the high country.   About 9 miles from our trailhead, we were stopped by large amounts of snow over the road.

By the way, this episode of davefaitlemonde is sponsored by Toyata!  Notice Mount Smith behind my truck and see last years blog on our cyclocross climb!  here

We quickly kicked into plan b mode and plotted a new route and possible new objectives. We then ended up basically on our originally intended route here at Joe’s Gap.  Looking down on 6 lake basin and Emmet Mountain, the hump above the left of the lake.  Keep in mind that there are probably 10 peaks surrounding 6 Lakes Basin each of which is higher than Emmett Mountain and also closer.  When pressed on the selection of this peak as a destination, John mumbled something about wanting to explore the area or see new scenery or something like that, and quickly change the subject.

Defiantly good scenery!

Flower pictures!

Mount Emmett getting closer.

Mount White on the right, with Joe’s Gap which we came through on its left shoulder.  Also, way off in the distance off Mount White’s right shoulder is the snow covered peak where we parked.  In all, an all day 15 mile trek.

Art taking the Summit of Emmett!

Hells Canyon looking toward Oregon.

Summit Party!

A couple more photos on the return trip.

Looking over one of the six lakes with Joe’s Gap in the saddle above.

Finally, as a side note, today’s stage of the Tour De France finished in Colmar!  See my April blog post for Colmar. You can see images showing the top of tomorrow’s finish in the distance on La Planche des Belles Files at that time still covered in snow.  here and here