It was a little crowded on the summit with a four person "Bootleg" Rambler trip as well as six on our "Authorized" trip! And the bootleggers even beat us to the summit (by leaving earlier).
We (the "Authorized Edition" that is) set out up the well-defined trail up Gunnery Creek at 9:50. Once we got to the pass we followed the trail down the other side and in the end muddled about below the treeline on horse or game trails for a significant amount of time, generally following Spirko's GPS track. Once we got up and out of the trees and elected to climb up to the NE ridge we saw that there seemed to be a goat trail that led very nicely directly into the bowl east of Holy Cross on the other side of the valley! Once up on the ridge (around 11:45) we stopped for a second breakfast/early lunch break. We had already seen several people ahead of us on the ridge. As it turned out a couple were a little ahead of the other group of Ramblers. In any case we set out to follow them.

Starting up the NE ridge of Holy Cross Mtn

Some Scramble 6 on the NE ridge of Holy Cross

Several places along the ridge demanded full SC6 scrambling or would have required quite a bit of sidehilling to the left and a return back to the ridge. Or all SC6 can be avoided by following the "shaft" in the centre of the bowl. The summit ridge would be quite a challenge if the wind was strong, but today it made for a very fine final few steps to the summit.


Summit ridge of Holy Cross

Where we were greeted by our friends.


The dastardly "Bootleggers" (or Rejects?) on the summit

We were all at the summit by 1:50 making for a 4 hour ascent time.


Last steps to the summit (Mt Head in bkg)

It did cloud over just as we arrived (as forecast by several weather web sites).


Jack, John, Pat, Damian, Carl and Gary on the summit of Holy Cross Mountain

After a shortish lunch break we started down the "shaft" of the cross making some use of the snow aptches still remaining. Lower down we fairly easily gained the "goat trail" that we had identified earlier. This lead us directly to a excellent route out (or in) that was heavily blazed and flagged with yellow tape. The other group had found this route about half way along on the way up. In any case, for anyone else doing this look for yellow flagging to the left of the Gunnery Creek trail 1 or 2 hundred meters before the summit and a similar distance above the alder groves.
We pretty much cought up with the other group back at the cars at around 4:40 (for a 7 hour trip).

Many thanks to participants John,DamianG.,Jack, and Gary for joining me Carl (C/S).

And apologies to the many Ramblers who signed up or phoned me, but whom I couldn't take and still keep the group to a good size for a scramble. Sorry, Carl

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