The goal for our final day in the Johns Brook Valley was hike up the Ore Bed Trail to the top of Gothics and then over the backside of that peak to Sawteeth. Interestingly, the weather picture was almost the opposite of the previous day; it started out promising, but steadily got worse as the day went on. We had no trouble navigating to the base of the cables that mark the final push towards the summit of Gothics, but we quickly saw that it was going to change fast. Clouds were moving in fast, and we were met near the peak by some fierce winds that were coming from the East.
Rather than spend much time sitting on the exposed ledges of Gothics, we quickly got into the tree cover of the trail over Pyramid Mountain towards Sawteeth. We had a very uneventful and enjoyable hike over the col to the summit of Sawteeth, and enjoyed watching the storm clouds swirl overhead. We didn't enjoy it for long, since we knew that we were going to have to hike back through those storm clouds to get back to JBL and our gear.
It wasn't as easy to get back down the Gothics cables as it was to get up, because now we had to do it in high winds and driving rain. Regardless, we made in back to the Ore Bed Trail without incident, and even made it to JBL in plenty of time to hike out to our car without danger of needing head lamps like the previous Summer. The total hike (including trip back to The Garden) was 13.5 miles in 10:30; the three (3) day total was 35.2 miles in about 26 hours. Twenty (20) High Peaks down; 26 to go.
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