Circle the Cirque Crest

Despite the bush and talus, occasionally the Blanco took on a most yosemite-like look, with towering vertical walls and a tree flanked meandering river. This picture is looking upstream. This was at the "doorway" we had seen days before from above.

...into the nasty bush

Circle The Cirque Crest - By D.W.Donehoo (All rights reserved)

While we had an early spring the previous winter, the snowpack was unusually dense, so while the river could be crossed in some places, most places it was too deep or swift to cross. This meant we had to endure whatever ground we were passing through until we could find a safe place to cross, change shoes, cross, change shoes yet again, and move on a few dozen yards more before encountering another obstacle. After a while we just kept on our wading shoes and forged ahead. But keeping on our fording shoes was foiled by the other great annoying obstacle in the canyon: talus. It seemed our way was always blocked by either bush, or talus, or bush AND talus!

Look up! Bush and talus climb up to the awesome walls of the Muro Blanco. Glacier polished walls reflect sunlight off the "Blanco" walls and ledges where nobody has set foot.

There are dozens of talus avalanche fans to cross in the Blanco. Big talus, small talus, stable talus, and unstable talus. One of my jobs in the Blanco was to take pictures, but I took few of those. You had to constantly watch your feet and where they were going, and I had little time to look at the scenery, much less take pictures. I was just too busy bush-slamming and talus teetering to do anything but concentrate on what I was doing. Any break in concentration could exact a stiff price. I knew I would be writing up this journey some day, and I just wanted to avoid the phrase, "...and then, disaster struck."