I’m not sure if Lee Otatso Kennedy was a hiker, seeing that I just made him up, but if he was he would’ve liked this route.
There were a few questions about the line, namely if it’d be possible to drop down into the Otatso drainage and how bad the bushwacking would be once down there.
The route down was just good, with talus, scree, scralus, and two loose yet solidly glued rock bands. Barely class 3. The bushwacking almost didn’t exist. A natural path down some tundra led right to a game trail which, with a few crawls through krummholz excepted, led right around the waterfall to the “ruins” on the NatGeo map.
The bomber game trail continued through the willows and all the way to the foot of Slide Lake.
I call this one pinch me ridge.
Same spot, looking 90 degrees right into Canada.
Never having been buy in spring, I’d not seen Dawn Mist Falls living up to it’s name: everything within 100 yards was soaked with spray.
I had stuff to get back to, so rolled out of camp a little before 6 and did some miles pre-breakfast. I had burnt a few too many matches on the descents the day before and could tell that my dead legs wouldn’t be having it later on.
As usual, nothing to do but keep walking, go home, rest the feet, and get ready to do it again soon.
Bedrock & Paradox 
Thanks for the stunning pix. It looks like a transformative journey.
Poia Lake, up and over to Slide Lake, then to Elizabeth and out via Redgap Pass? An excellent route. I may have to try this in a month, when I get back into town.
Lee Ridge may be the best thing on trail that the Belly has going for it. That’s saying a lot given how spectacular the area is.
NM, just saw that you linked it.
I think that first 1.5 miles of Lee headed down towards the ranger station is as good as any 1.5 miles of trail in the park.
I was going to complain that you made up a person to name this after rather than name it after, say, me. Then I realized that I’d have to be dead to have a Memorial Loop. So I’m just going to be quiet now.
Rad.