My Trip Info: Ascent: 5278ft (1608m)
Distance: 13.6mi (22km)
Group Size: 2
Day Count: 1 (C2C)
More stats... Mountain Info: Black Peak:
Elevation: 8991ft (2740m)
Prom: 3498ft (1066m)

This one made me kinda mad. People, people everywhere; very tragic and scary. My trip report on Peakbagger up till now has just been "I've never seen this many people in my life." It'll stay that way, just with a link to this trip report on the side. I'm writing this almost a year after, and I still remember all the crazy stuff we saw. Not an awfully fun experience, but something I wont forget.

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We slept at the Jack Mountain trailhead and got up at about 7 to head to the trailhead. We got there at 7:30, well, in a way. We actually had to park half a mile away from the trailhead on the side of the street. So, we actually got to the trailhead at about 8. The street was lined in cars; the cars filled every space that wasn't the street — almost. Some goobers just parked half on the road — I guess if you're half off it's okay. I remind you, this was at 7:30, in the MORNING. I often don't even leave my house by this time. I've never anything this bad. At the trailhead, we realized it was just a conga line of people. Actual traffic on the trail. We regretfully joined the conga line headed up the mountain. A lovely few miles in the conga line of gumbies brought us to our turnoff at Heather Pass. We unfortunetly had to lose some elevation going down the boulder field from the pass. We had some fun jumping from rock to rock, speeding past all the people. It was quick to get to Lewis Lake after the boulder field. The higher Wing Lake was just a short hike above. Neither me nor my climbing partner got any photos of Tent City — but let me tell ya, it was beautiful. We headed up the boulder field to the ridge, where it seemed the sane gumbies actually stopped. Unfortunetly, I started getting sick going up (not a normal sickness, it's an awful condition I get sometimes). This slowed us a lot and made me even more miserable. We headed up the south ridge, taking the routes with better rock over the main route. It was concering seeing how many people had made it to just under the summit block with so little equipment. People without helmets in high rock fall areas and wearing less-than-ideal clothing with no backpacks. It seemed the scary-looking summit block was enough to keep the delusional gumbies off it. We had the summit mostly to our selfs. One solo guy did join us after a while. We at last had escaped the people. On the way down we saw one of the funniest things ever. We heard clanking coming from below — it sounded like someone was banging a shovel against the rock. We then saw two guys with ICE AXES waling up the scree. Clearly, there was no snow anywhere near by. Both were of course straight shafted (old-man style), and they even had them tethered (gooby style). Now those two were some true gumbies! When asked by the solo who joined us on the summit, they said they liked them more than poles — do they know what an ice axe is for? At least they came prepared, I guess. My sickness got worse on the way out and I had my first time actually throwing up from this stupid condition. It was great to see the development of Tent City when we rolled back through. It was probably already up to a population of 300! We didn't quite make it out by dark, and had to use our headlamps for the 2 billionth summit. Fortunetly, most the people and cars were gone. We still got to enjoy the half mile walk down the road to our car.