This is a wider view of the Panaromic view we had as we reached the end of the Titcomb Basin. The trail stops at the other end of the lake, but there was no need to go any further. This was fantastic!

Here I zoomed in on the mountain side. Really thougth the different rock lines on the far side were neat with the sun and shade, when clouds rolled over, fluctuated the colors.

Obviously, I was impressed by this valled and surrounding peaks.

This is zoomed in on the ragged peaks on the right side of the valley we climbed.

This is what we thought was Cube Rock pass. This was going to be a challenge to climb, how wrong we were. Once we get to within a couple hundred feet of this pass, we hang a left. We found out why this was an unmaintained trail and why stock were not recommended. There was a boulder avalanche that left boulders the size of cars all over the trail. We had to find our way over those boulders and back to the trail. We probably spent an extra hour working our way through that field to continue climbing up this ravine.

Final we made it to the left hand turn, that we did not expect. It was time for lunch. We had plenty of rocks to hang on to while we were up here. A look at the map and I see that we had not reached the worse of the climb.

From our lunch spot this is looking out over the boulder ravine we just climbed through to the far peaks.

We will be going over these boulders on our way to the other side of the peak in the middle of this picture.

After lunch we go a couple hundred feet over some small ridges and we come to this lake. Just fabulous! 3 sides of the like are not passable with the steep cliffs rolling right into them. Making our only route to the right and then up more. And this is going to be a steep climb out of here.

During one of my many switchback breaks, I look back at the lake. There were lots of these stops along the climb to 11,0000 ft.

The top of Cube Rock pass, finally. This is looking back at the trail we just came up which goes just to the left of the boulder pile.

Now looking forward on the pass itself there are a bunch of small, shallow lakes that just add to the scenery. Where the tundra could grab a hold around the water adding some color variety to the boulder fields.

Another lake at the top of Cube Rock pass. I was ready for a break!

Our future for the day. We were told by some other hikers it was a nice down slope to our campsite for the night. Guess they forgot we have to drop 200ft and then back up to hit Shannon Pass.

Yep, I saw a perfect rock for a break and declared a 15 min break. I took advantage of this fully!

This is a look at the headwaters of Elbow Lake with Elbow Peak in the background. Really cool area with all the rock strewn throughout and the different channels of water leading to the lake.

From Shannon Pass, at 11,000 ft again, this is a look back towards Cube Rock Pass. Not quite as rocky as the last couple of hours have been on our way up to these passes.

I thought the contrast of the rock gray and the red tundra was a really neat contrast, not too mention the blue sky.

Another contrast with the tundra, rocky cliffs, sky and clouds. You can see the trail on the left side of the picture. The trails are ruts in the tundra, sometimes quite deep and narrow. The lama and pack horses really do some damage to the trails. We saw plenty of both pack stocks.

Looking down the path that we will be taking, we are still on break here. My favorite part of these trips is to climb to these levels, because the scenery is your reward.

Tom taking a break check out the map and relaxing. Can't beat this for a great site to lightening the load and relax!