For this hike I was joined by Rich and we started at the Longs Peak Trailhead and hiked up the East Longs Peak trail to the base of Mount Lady Washington and then scrambled up the east face of the Lady. In the trees there was some snow on the ground, but the trail was actually a bit icy since enough people had compacted the snow, and there was enough warming and cooling the it all turned to ice. However it wasn't too difficult to hike even with the ice. Above treeline, there was an occassional small snow drift crossing the trail, but it was easy enough to go over, around or through. Once on the east face of Lady Washington there were occassional bands of snow, but they were few and easily avoided. The east face is sort of steep, about 45 degrees or so, and filled with 2 to 3 foot in diameter rocks for most of the way, but there were times when larger boulders had to be negotiated. Most of the time I was able to just hike it, but every once in a while I'd have to use my hands as well as my feet. If I picked my route better I probably could have avoided using my hands. No trail goes up Lady Washington.

Once on the top of Lady Washington there is an excellent view of the Diamond of Longs Peak. There is also an nice view of Chasm Lake which is directly below. The wind was blowing and it wasn't all that warm, but the sun was out, so we didn't stick around too long atop Lady Washington. Long enough the huddle behind the summit boulder and grab a quick bit to eat before heading down the northeast ridge towards Granite Pass (12,000). The northeast ridge was much easier going down than the east face is going up, and if I was to do Lady Washington again I'd head up the ridge.

From Granite Pass Rich and I headed down the North Longs Peak trail for less than a half mile and then turned off the trail just before it started to descend into Boulder Brook basin which then leads into the Glacier Gorge valley. The summit of Battle Mountain was our goal. Battle Mountain's summit is only 44 feet higher than Granite Pass, and the terrain was flat, and basically just a tundra hike until we got to the actual summit, and that is just a pile of rocks in which a quick, easy scramble got us to the top. Battle Mountain has three small knobs on it, the third from the Pass is the highest, but probably not by much. The rest of Battle is a large relatively flat, broad plain. From the summit there is nice view of the Mummy Range to the north, Flattop, Hallett, and Bear Lake to the northwest, and Storm Peak, Lady Washington, Longs and Meeker to the west and south. The Eastern plains are visible to the east, but they were cloud covered so we didn't get to see the plains. Twin Sisters is also visible to the east. I don't remember if Estes Cone is visible, but we also could see Estes Park. From the summit, instead of heading back to Granite Pass and then taking the East Longs Peak trail back down, we just headed down the southeast slope of Battle, towards Jims Grove. The slope was nice and gentle, without any rocks to worry about, just a nice tundra walk. After awhile we came across the old Jims Grove trail that has sort of been abandoned, but easily traveled even though it hasn't seen much use for over a decade. This trail then took us back to the East Longs trail near treeline.

We hiked about 9 miles and from when we left the car, to when we got back it took about 6 hours. We saw a few others out hiking but none on either of the summits.