Mt. Temple 2012-08-06

What a beautiful day for an attempt on Mt. Temple! At 7:30 a.m., five of us started up Larch Valley and were on Sentinel Pass by 9:30. Ray, Liam and Orla decided to not go to the top, but Mary and Mark continued on and amazingly, navigated their way to the top. We missed the sheer-walled crux, but found another way up which may have been less difficult. The yellow cliff band was a fun scramble and posed no real problem. After a brief stop for elevensies, we began the trudge to the top, with a stop for some photos on the ridge before summiting. We took lots of photos at the top (there was only a bit of haze), ate our second lunch, and rested our legs. There were 12 people on the summit, includiing ourselves. Going down was fast and fun, especially on the bit of scree above the cliff bands. Downclimbing the cliff bands, we decided to go down the crux rather than the new route, and had no problelms. Mark turned out to be a strong scrambler with a good sense of caution as well as let's-go-for-it attitude. Rather than go back to Sentinel Pass, Mark and I took the scree below the first cliff band all the way back to the lake. What took us 3.5 hours ascending from Sentinel Pass, took us 2.5 hours descending to the lake. We met the others there and had a little birthday celebration for Orla before heading back down Larch Valley. Yahoo, what a day!