Grandeur Peak and Mt. Wire with Jun: I met Jun at the west ridge trailhead at 4:30 am. We planned on doing a double up (uhh uhh) and that's why we started so early. We put on the micro-spikes at the start of the ridge and we were climbing on snow the rest of the way. Jun pulled away from me a few times, but always stopped to wait. We had a casual pace and just chatted the whole way up. We both noticed that we were going pretty slow and the higher we got the more snow there was. By time we reached the final push on the summit ridge the tracks we were following died and the snow became a lot more difficult to manage. It was deep sugary powder and even with the spikes on we were sliding. This slowed us down a lot. Jun reached the summit a few minutes before me and I came in at 1:34, which was 23 minutes slower than last time. We didn't stay long. The run down was a lot more fun and we were able to pick up the pace. We chatted most of the way down and then Jun went ahead the last half mile. At the bottom we decided we didn't have time to do Grandeur again, so we cruised over to Mt. Wire to get in our second peak of the morning. It seemed to me that the temperature was cooler on Wire, but maybe it was because I was wet and just got out of a warm car. I followed Jun until we reached the 'shortcut' where I went straight up and Jun took the longer route.We met back up at the start of the ridge as Jun caught me and then it started snowing and didn't quit the rest of the way. Jun got ahead and I put on my ipod and just put it in grind mode and pushed it up to the top. My legs were actually feeling pretty good. Jun beat me and didn't want to wait in the cold snow, so he passed me just below the first tower and I made it up in 54 minutes. It was snowing and cold, so I didn't stay long at all. The run down was slow. There was a thin layer of snow on the trail, so I took it easy over the rocky steep section and then once I got down to the first saddle I picked up the pace back to the car. I was wet and cold, but it felt good to get in two peaks in the bag before work.
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