Eric and I took our gear for a hike up Guye Peak on a balmy autumn Sunday. I packed the night before, expecting a frosty climb: puffy jacket, light rack, harness, pile of webbing, ice axe, crampons. It was 38 degrees at 8.15am when we started walking up the Sahalie Ski Club road, so we'd already decided to leave ice axes and poons in the car. A solitary icicle hung on the west face, but the sun-warmed rock on the south side was totally dry.

We thrashed briefly through the brush up to the south rib and heard a shout up ahead. Aaron, whose truck we parked next to off Alpental Road, was here for "out of shape off-season training" with a guy named James. All four of us slogged up a bit of scree and checked out the route possibilities. After moving rightward around an overhanging cliff, we arrived at the base of a short corner/gully that spits you out left after fifty feet. Around the next steep, blocky buttress to the right is a nice, stairstepped rib to the left of what must be the South Gully route. We split up, Aaron and James going left up the corner and Eric and I heading up the easy rib, saying we'd meet up on the summit.

Our meandering route up the rib was contrived to give us the most fun moves on the rock (and trees and dirt). It was pretty easy going and the only things to come out of our packs were our helmets. There was not a spot of snow on the south side. Eventually, we merged left onto the precipice above the west face, where we added a bit of exposure to our wanderings. Near the summit, I found six feet of hand crack. Woohoo! Aaron and James were nowhere to be seen, but we saw their footprints.

Last time Eric and I climbed Guye, the descent involved some annoying tree thrashing and steep unpleasantness. This time, Eric suggested we traverse closer to the summits -- the better way for sure. A couple moves on slick snowy slab got us to a notch just below the north summit, where we climbed up and over to the west side. One steep move back up reaches the trail.

The descent turned out to be harder than the climb. Both of us slipped several times on the thin layer of powder over rock. Though it wasn't yet noon, we skipped out on hiking up to Snoqualmie Mountain and just headed down, passing many hikers. It felt like 50 degrees out back at the car and we laughed at our ice axes and crampons, sitting unused in the trunk. A mellow day like this was just what I needed.