Dix Range - Day 2

October 12, 2008

I got up shortly before sunrise and watched the ball of light raise slowly above the mountains while I read my book. Rob got up and we had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. We packed the gear and set off towards South Dix. The intention was to skirt around a false peak of the mountain, but the trail went right up over it. We were rewarded with a few good scrambles and some stunning views. We descended off of this rise and then hit a trail junction. We decided we would go and summit Macomb first. The climb up Macomb was a fairly gentle slope most of the way. Muddy in parts, there was even a small trickle of water which allowed us to fill a water bottle during our descent later. We summitted Macomb and took in the view. Had a snack and then headed back towards South Dix. The climb up South Dix was a lot of fun. Lots of rock to scramble up. The view from the summit was so-so as it faced the lower lands of the South. The summit was simply marked with an X carved into a tree. Another descent and then climb brought us to East Dix where we had a stunning 360 degree view of the land around us. We had lunch here and also drank a bottle of beer that I have been hauling for the past couple of days. After chatting with a family with a young girl who had summited 20 peaks already, we headed off down the trail to the top of the slide area where we watched a father, two young kids, and a dog scramble up. We bush whacked a little to the East, intending to descend via Spotted Mountain. We decided that the vegetation was too dense so we climbed back up to the top of the slide and descended there. This was tricky and slow going as it was very steep, sometimes slippery, and somewhat scary in parts. After a couple hours we reached the creek at the bottom and found a campsite. We decided to keep going. It was a bush whack along the creek for the next hour until we picked up a very faint trail. We followed this for a while, checking position by taking bearings off of East Dix and Spotted mountain occasionally until we reached where the campsite on the map indicates. We searched for a little while and did not find anything but a flat area by the creek where we decided to set up. Darkness quickly fell as we cooked supper and then went to bed fairly early as it had been another long day of just over 8 hours of hiking.

Scrambling up the false peak of South Dix.