Looking up at the next section of climb to get up to that ridge. Todd took a route farther to the left, which turns out to be a much better way up to the ridge.

My camera ran out of space at this point. Maybe some of Cat and/or Todd's photos will show the rest of the trip. But to summarize: we made it up past the hard part a gravelly-sandy and rocky slope between a couple of bands of steeper cliffs. Gvdl scouted it first, dropped his pack up on the ridge, and returned to take Cat's pack across this section. Then we dropped down to McGee Lake (don't descend too quickly -- there are a couple of hidden cliffy areas), down the fun granite slabs below it, and finally hit trail. After all that strenuous and trackless cross-country walking, we made very good time once we hit trail. Seemed like freeway. We continued that day all the way down past the Joe Crane Lake turnoff. So Tuesday was a pretty short hiking day, and we were out to the cars by 1:00pm.