7/4/23: Independence Day Scramble celebrating the Freedom of the Hills! Upon coming off Golden Bear we met a group of three ladies who told us that they were just getting buzzed up on Hagar. We had been flirting with weather earlier than expected but nothing had gotten threatening yet. Nonetheless we (or at least I) became hyper sensitive to any sensations relating to possible static energy in the air! The last thing I wanted and the first thing on my mind was making sure that the day or anybody’s life was ended by a bolt of lightning. It immediately became apparent that a small but dense cell was heading straight for us and that there was going to be no avoiding it. I made the decision to retreat off the NE slopes of Golden Bear down a couple hundred feet to find a suitable spot to hunker down. We got pelted with hard graupel for about 10 minutes but lightning didn’t produce until the storm further built a few miles away. It felt like we now had a finite window to complete Hagar. After quickly passing over Triple County Point we made it to Peak 12850 and the front steps of Hagar. Meanwhile the entire sky south of Loveland was a dark mass of thunderstorms with the prevailing wind coming our direction. The race was on! Four hundred feet of steep Class 2+ climbing took longer than I wanted but we still made pretty good time up to the south summit. The final challenge before us, I scouted possible lines up the summit block scramble as we weaved through a couple gendarmes and then up a short cleft to the summit! After a well-deserved break, the consensus was to bail off the east face and through Dry Gulch and back to the truck, avoiding the likely hazards the ridge return would provide. A long and steep Class 3 down climb led to an exciting drop-in glissade and eventually to a point where we could contour at just above tree-line down Dry Gulch. The final 1.5 mile was a slog along I70 back to the truck. Total: (10.2/3260)