Hit the trail a few minutes after 5am getting some benefits from the smoke, a beautiful sunrise !
I had just crossed to the climbers right of the final chute(I was actually just on the East side of that ridge) when I heard what I thought was another military jet flying over, until it hit. If you've ever heard a base jumper come whizzing by on the side of El Capitan you know the sound. It had to come off a near vertical section because it was in freefall for a few seconds, then impacted, bounced once in the chute before breaking apart and avalanching all the way down.
As a rock climber I prefer the cleaner rock, be it more exposed, of the ridges as opposed to the scree in the chutes. The chutes are a bowling alley and lucky there was nobody in it when this happened. I saw two singles and a pair going up on my way down and warned them to stay to the sides.
I had a great hike, no smoke, no mosquitos and no blisters !
The marmots at Iceberg are pretty aggressive with one getting into my pack with it 10 feet away from me while I was filtering water.
