Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 16 of total 16 in this topic |
Nate Ricklin
climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 17, 2009 - 03:21pm PT
|
I've been eyeballing this line on the North face of Langley for about a year now, ever since I noticed "Rest and be Thankful", the North arete route put up by Alois Smrz and Miguel Carmona 10 years ago was the only route on the face.
Lots of other objectives always seemed to get in the way, but finally I realized that this year's summer Sierra season may be slowly coming to a close, so I got off my ass and found myself a willing partner.
My buddies Shay and Luke had been up there the previous weekend (see their TRs here and here) trying to scoop 'my' line, but luckily they failed (hahaha), by climbing a detached tower that led nowhere. With some new beta from them, I knew exactly where to go.
My buddy Ben had never been up in the high Sierra, never climbed an alpine route, never been to 14k feet, and never simul-climbed, but I knew he'd be solid. You can tell these kinds of things.
Some cool Trivia: we topped out exactly 10 years to the day after Alois and Miguel did on "Rest and be Thankful"
We named the route Horizontal Thought Movement, a mashup between a Franklin Merrell-Wolff book chapter and the big horizontal jog on the route.
Here's our TR (more photos here) in Ben's words:
-------------------------------
On Friday I emailed Nate asking if he wanted to climb at Tahquitz over the weekend and he replied with a “pass” as he was trying to put together a trip to the Sierra’s. A few hours later he emailed me again asking if I wanted to go attempt a new line up Mt. Langley. Shay had climbed on Langley the weekend before and attempted a ridge that dead-ended before reaching the summit – Nate thought he saw a ridge in the pictures Shay brought back that might connect to the top. He thought we’d try to do the route in a day but there was a good chance we’d face an unplanned bivy and a cold night on the rock at high altitude.
I immediately replied with a “yes”.
First I needed a few obvious things for the alpine environment — better backpack, some non-flip flop footwear, a helmet, gloves, a warm hat. In an awesome show of gumbiness I somehow made it to Nate’s house from REI sans helmet and warmth providing coverings, luckily I was able to borrow a helmet from Kostas and some decent mountain apparel from Nate.
We hopped in the car late Friday night. The plan was to crash by the car at the trailhead on Friday night, hike in Saturday, bivy, then rise early on Sunday and do the route. Somewhere on the drive we realized Monday was Labor day and decided to buy some junk food to supplement the healthy food we’d packed to sustain us another day in case we wanted to climb something else on Monday. However neither of us were particularly happy with the compromise and the seemingly omnipresent ‘outdoor farts’ which it had recently been discovered were almost certainly the result of eating crappy food.
I got the sense on the drive up that Nate was a little surprised to realize the extent of my Alpine gumbiness — to date I’d never been above 11000 feet or done any real alpine climbing at all (excluding an excursion into Frey in Argentina which I don’t think really counts as Alpine since the rock there isn’t very big) and had never attempted a first ascent of any kind. It could have developed into one of those situations where he began to doubt the appropriateness of the partner for the task — but that was not to be. ’Whatever, we’re awesome’ instead seemed to arise as the mutual tacit agreement to banish even the faintest trace of self or partner-doubt deep into the realm of words unspoken.
The trailhead into Tuttle creek is located just outside of Lone Pine on the 395. You turn at the light as if headed toward Whitney portal, take a left on a road with Meadows in its name, a right on a road with Granite in its name, and follow the dirt road as far as you can. The road ends at a trailhead that goes into Tuttle creek. About 30 minutes up the trail, there’s a stone house laboriously built in Tuttle creek by a famous cult leader named Franklin Merrill Wolf in the 1930s (followers of whom still live in the hills nearby). While pullharder does not require the reading of his works, a working knowledge is strongly encouraged.
We got a leisurely start on Saturday morning at about 7000 ft and began the five or six hour hike up the south fork of Tuttle creek, taking the most direct approach to the North face of Mt. Langley. The approach trail hugs the hills on the north side of the creek the majority of the time. We crossed the creek a little beyond the Keyhole wall and then hugged an edge formed where a talus field meets thick growth in what makes for a reasonably easy hike gaining about 4000 ft. We didn’t have to carry much water as cool refreshing snow melt flows readily down the creek and is easily accessible. We found a bivy on a rocky overlook near the highest available water, chowed down on some hot prepackaged food, made some coffee and chilled out for awhile before it got too cold.
We created a tower of avocado/salami bagels for decently high-calorie and high-tasty food on the route.
When 0430 came around the next morning it was still windy and really cold. I was glad when Nate proposed resetting the alarm for 0500 but half an hour later came too quickly and it was still pretty cold and windy. We ate breakfast, oatmeal with banana + coffee, scampered down to get some water, and headed off.
We had bivied about an hour from the base of the route and as we hiked up we scouted out our ridge from various angles which seemed sometimes to almost certainly connect to the top and other times to be totally disconnected. We roshambo’d for first lead, winner goes first. We tied scissors versus scissors and then I won with paper. The climb starts after a short scramble at a v-crack. The left leg looked lower angle while the right went straight up and looked a little more interesting. I opted for straight up and it was on. It was still really cold so I left my gloves on to start the climb. I’d never climbed with gloves before so I thought my finger’s limited tactile sensation came mostly from the gloves.
The climb began to get a little steeper and I tried to grab onto what appeared to be a huge crimp but I couldn’t really feel it. I pulled the gloves off with my teeth and tried again and realized my fingers had gone numb. This was a completely new sensation for me on a climb and I wasn’t particularly fond of the feeling. I opted to jam for awhile instead avoiding the huge crimps and when I got to a good stance I put the gloves in my pocket and warmed my fingers with my breathe.
Nate quickly came up the pitch and began to make his way up the next. The thin crack in the corner went nowhere so Nate ended up finding a convoluted path that involved some upclimbing, downclimbing, and traversing. The first two pitches took us almost 2 hours so we started to worry about our progress.
Nate ate a bagel while I climbed the third pitch. The third pitch was pretty cool, starting in a wide crack/chimney in a corner, and going up to a nice solid hand crack, with a small roof at the exit. From there, easy climbing goes to a sharp horizontal arete with cool exposure on either side. Nate arrived and continued on the arete around a corner and heading off out of view. After a little he called down to start simuling and then we were both climbing.
After what seemed like a lot of simuling, I got to Nate and ate my first bagel. The next pitch was mine and was a full ropelength of walking across a narrow horizontal walkway. Nate came over and I headed off again since I still had all the gear up an easy gully until I was stopped by rope drag.
Then Nate was off again and I started simuling again when the rope ran out. The pitch ended with a 20 ft downclimb into a little slot with a big block on the other side which we weren’t sure connected. We opted to unrope and traverse around it, climbing easy terrain a few dozen feet above a rocky gulley. When it got time to rope up again my feet were screaming in pain from my performance rock climbing shoes. I made some comment to that effect and Nate took the next lead. I pulled my shoes off as he lead out and the pitch ended up being another super long simul ending beneath a cool looking corner. Lucky me, it was my turn to lead the next one!
The climbing in the long corner pitch was made interesting by copious amounts of loose rock and crumbly holds. I worried about knocking something big loose and killing Nate — I thought I managed to pick my way through but I did knock one off that came pretty close to taking him out.
I belayed just above the corner on a nice rock. Nate came up and immediately fired away again. It seemed certain the route connected now to the summit and we we’re both a bit surprised to be so close already.
One last simul climb and then another pitch of unroped climbing on solid rock and we summited.
|
|
rhyang
climber
SJC
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 03:37pm PT
|
Very cool !
|
|
Roman
Trad climber
Boston
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 03:39pm PT
|
FUN FUN FUN!
|
|
TKingsbury
Trad climber
MT
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 04:28pm PT
|
NICE!!!
Really cool looking, thanks for postin up!
|
|
cultureshock
Trad climber
Wall Climber Wannabe
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 05:58pm PT
|
Scooping lines and providing motivation is what friends are for.
Glad you found a way to the top! I think it would be totally possible to link our two routes with a steep pitch or two. But then again there always is that third unclimbed ridge...
Cheers,
Luke
|
|
Zander
Trad climber
Berkeley
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 07:16pm PT
|
Good job! Looks like fun.
Zander
|
|
nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 07:20pm PT
|
Bump for quality. Good job guys!
|
|
dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2009 - 07:34pm PT
|
Moccasyms?
|
|
Nate Ricklin
climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2009 - 08:09pm PT
|
What's wrong with moccasyms? They're big and comfy.
|
|
travelin_light
Trad climber
Boulder, Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2009 - 10:46am PT
|
Sick route guys! Way to go!
|
|
cultureshock
Trad climber
Wall Climber Wannabe
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2009 - 03:40pm PT
|
Sierra FA BUMP!
|
|
Port
Trad climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2009 - 03:46pm PT
|
well done
|
|
Chugach Man
climber
Anchorage / San Diego
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2009 - 05:21pm PT
|
Nice work Nate and Ben, You guys rocked it!
|
|
Cpt0bvi0u5
Trad climber
Merced CA
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2009 - 06:04pm PT
|
Great TR I've hiked up Langley once but this is way more badass
|
|
le_bruce
climber
Oakland: what's not to love?
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2009 - 08:40pm PT
|
Nice! Great pic of the corner pitch - looks like some menacing blocks in that crack.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 16 of total 16 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!