October 22, 2011: Bushwhack up Alum Cave Creek to climb the south slope of No Name Ridge and then follow the ridge to the Boulevard trail.

We met early on a chilly October morning at the Grassy Patch parking area, trailhead for the Alum Cave Bluffs trail to Mt. LeConte. Even thought we had no definite agenda for the day, we knew that we wanted to go somewhere new and we knew that with a future climb of Anakeesta Ridge out of Alum Cave Creek being in the works, that we'd end up somewhere on one of three ridges - Parton Peaks Ridge, No Name Ridge or Anakeesta itself. We decided to wade up Alum Cave Creek to one of the two forks in the stream and then make a decision as to where we'd go from there. Alum Cave Creek, unlike the streams in the Styx Branch drainage, runs mostly over bedrock, with deep pools and banks that are tightly choked with dense thickets of rhododendron. There are very few spots where you can get out of the streambed, and when the stream is running full with snowmelt, as it was on this chilly autumn day, rock-hopping is also difficult. So... you wade in, grit yer teeth and make your way upstream. Even with wading, there are some extremely tight choke points that you have to work through, where the pools are too deep to comfortably wade and where the rhodo monster makes it nearly impossible to get out of the creek. You get wet, cold and scratched up, but it's worth it to be able to gain access to one of the hardest to reach locations on this side of LeConte. I usually wear neoprene kayak booties when wading, but didn't think to bring them today, so by the time we had waded for 30 minutes or so, my feet were cold, freakin' frigid! We missed the first fork that runs between No Name and Parton Peaks - I had been up the creek a few weeks before and noticed a point where you circle around an island. We took the same route this time around, but what I didn't realize was that the fork comes in on the other side of the island, where I hadn't been before. (Incidentally, it's possible to rock hop in low water conditions up as far as the island.)
Not too much further along, but a lifetime in terms of cold toes and freezing fingers, we reached another fork, this one heavily infested with a dark tangled stand of rhodo on one side and an open sunny ridge on the other. I was done with the cold toes thing and the sunny ridge looked really inviting.

Above is the pool where we decided to leave the stream to start the climb up No Name Ridge. Back to our right is the beginning of the climb up the side of Anakeesta Ridge, our greatest goal for this extraordinary season of bushwhacking. To the left, sunshine, steep slopes and No Name Ridge. Look at that wall of green in the photo above - we've got our work cut out for us when we get around to tackling Anakeesta, but we're convinced that if we can push through the flats at the bottom of the ridge and gain access to the small stream that drains the slide areas higher on the Ridge, that we'll find a fairly open route up the mountainside.

Look at that ridge! Looks open, "Hey, that doesn't look too bad - let's go that-a-way!" It remained open with an understory of mostly dog hobble and short rhodo for maybe 200 feet. We enjoyed the warm sunshine and the heat we worked up by climbing the steep slope, but then the easy stuff came to an end as we plunged into a dense thicket of blackberry brambles and greenbriers that blanketed a hodge podge of downed trees. It was tough going, but fun and a heck of a lot better than wading in freezing water. It wasn't long before we stopped to take a map break and to shed some layers.

The trees down low were still too thick to get a good look at the side of Anakeesta, but what we could see looked really enticing. It felt great to kick back in the warm sunshine while I wrung out my soaked socks and massaged some circulation back into my toes. And then the break was over, and it was time to start earning our stripes for the day.

Hundreds of large fallen trees litter the steep slope and each stricken giant was wrapped in greenbrier. We would work from one side to the other, hoping to find an open, or at least a more open, route, usually with little success. We both love this stuff though and I've come to look forward to exploring the more tangled slopes on these amazing ridgelines below Mt. LeConte.

I've learned to love dog hobble - it's hell for dogs, but offers great handholds for humans that struggle up and down the rugged ridges in the Huggins Hell region. It seems to smother out the worst of the greenbrier too and we often seek out slopes that are covered in the hobble, hoping to make faster progress uphill.

The south side of No Name is really steep, but except for the open slide paths, there are few places with cliff bands like you find over in the Styx drainage. It's mostly nose to the slope, all-fours scrambling, with some incredible gauntlets of briers to overcome along the way.

If you look really closely beneath the upper end of the log in this photo, you'll spot Jenny's leg and arm amidst the briers. We got separated by the fallen giant and had to work our way through separate tangles of briers and fallen trees before hooking up again much higher up the mountainside. We could hear each other and occasionally I'd catch sight of a swaying shrub, but the stuff is really, really thick. And fun!