82. South Baldy

Distance: 11km return
Elevation gain: around 800m

Wednesday, September 4, a beautiful sunny day for a hike. South Baldy is close so we decided to go for it. Trail guides have various opinions about the difficulty but we could always turn back.
We started the hike around 10:00 on a beautiful trail.
Except for asters, the fall flowers were finished, so we enjoyed the various mushrooms.

We got to Baldy Pass, snacked and determined to try climbing the ridge in front of us.

It was a steep, rocky trail. After a few extra steep sections, we came to a crux, with no trail but lots of handholds. (not really scary)

The rocky steep humps continued.

From the top of this one we looked south to Midnight Peak which we had climbed some years before. It looked much higher but not as rocky.

To the west we saw Nakiska ski slope.

To the east, clear cuts in the foothills.

We got to the final hump before the final peak and decided we had gone far enough on this kind of trail. We admired the view for a while and went back down to the pass.
Behind us, are the south peak, the north peak sticking out to the right and the west peak to the left.

Coming up, I thought the return would be treacherous, but we chose our steps carefully without mishap.
 Red patches of Alpine Bearberry welcomed us back to the pass.