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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Monarch, Throne, Queen from the plane last week. Lots of fresh up high.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 11:38am PT
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The mountains are cool indeed. Nice eye for a line Jim.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 11:41am PT
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Wadd on Saturday. Snow kinda sloppy most of the day, but the Chimney was pretty dry too. Here' sVance trying out a pose used by his mom & dad on separate trips 50+ years ago. We were, in fact, up there 50 years after his mom almost to the exact day.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 31, 2018 - 11:47am PT
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very cool
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:03pm PT
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Nothing much to see there, move along. Certainly no huge rock buttresses or 63 pitch ridges or nothin'
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:07pm PT
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Ritzy approved accommodations (not for us)
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:08pm PT
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Not quite Valhalla quality gneiss
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:25pm PT
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All these peaks with only one or two ascents ever, must be chosspiles. Far better to take a number for Diedre
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Hoser
climber
Vancouver,Rome
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:25pm PT
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^^^^^MORE!!!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 31, 2018 - 01:44pm PT
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Why would anyone leave California to climb on those junk piles? It is obviously far more rewarding and important to make the 9,343rd ascent of El Cap than to get on any of those heaps.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Jul 31, 2018 - 02:03pm PT
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Inspiring and beautiful photos, Oplopanax!
How about a TR? :-)
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 03:49pm PT
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Fern, Vance and I climbed the standard route (& official Beckey Favorite) over the July 24 to 29 interval. We drove up on July 24th and spent the night camped at the end of the Whitesaddle airstrip at Bluff Lake.
On July 25th we got an early morning flight with Jimmy, who flies for Mike, to Rainy Knob. Conditions were ideal. We built a basecamp, stashed unneeded gear, ate, and spent the afternoon reading and kibitzing. We got an early night, got up at 11 PM, and started the climb, carrying three-day packs.
Negotiating the Bravo Glacier at night required some intuition as well as info gleaned from a quick overflight while coming in to Rainy the day before. We got around most crevasses. One near the base of the east spur of Bravo Peak required some extensive overhead shovelling at its lowest point , on a mound of recent debris, by Vance to turn it from a slushy overhang to a more solid vertical wall. We hauled the packs on that one and got on top just at sunrise. Several hundred meters higher, we had to make a long horizontal traverse across a 65-70 degree shelf above another crevasse, where the lip had sheared off, to reach the upper snowfield. Easy scrambling and a snowslog got us to Bravo Col by about 9 AM. The snow had started to turn from firm to breakable crust by then, so after some crawling and knee-walking, we gave up, dug a snow hole, and spent a few hours napping and watching jet fighters do loop-de-loops up and down the Tiedemann and thru Combatant Col. Zoom, zoom. The sound of freedom! Around 4 PM we figured the crust was all gone, so we roped up once more and slogged through the slop to Spearman Saddle, where we set up ABC.
The next day the alarm went off at 1:30 and we left camp by 3:15, not wanting to start the rock climbing in the dark. We had firm snow up to the base of the Tooth and found a traverse across the lip of a randkluft to get onto the actual Tooth traverse ledges at a prominent brown slabby scar. There wasn't much snow on the ledges, just lots of loose rock, so we pitched it out to the notch, and to the base of the actual SE chimneys.
The actual chimneys had lots of loose rock and a little wet slush masquerading as ice pitches under the chockstones. We chose to take the Right Flank variation (169B in Don's guide) which provided mostly solid rock climbing with two avoidable rime gargoyle remnants to add spice. Two pitches of the Right Variation (which felt like 5.8 to me btw, or at least pretty hard for the advertised 5.7 but then again, we were climbing in boots and crampons, but mostly with bare hands) led to one more long easy pitch up the scree- and snow slope above the Chimneys and a 2 PM summit.
There was a Seattle/Colorado party on the NW summit at the same time, which was entertaining because they gave a sense of scale to our photos. We hung out on top for almost an hour (complete with a horsefly - where do these things come from?) before heading down. It was pretty smoky and we couldn't see the ocean, let alone Vancouver Island.
The first rap was 60 m to the top of the Chimney. We made another 60 to below the first chockstone but managed to get the knot stuck. Vance tiblocked up the stuck rope, unstuck it, and made two shorter raps - 30 m to above the second chockstone and then 30 m back to us. We elected to continue back down the Tooth ledges rather than the Harvard Notch line because it was so dry that there was substantial loose rock visible down that route and you rap in the fall line there whereas rapping and downclimbing the ledges traverses, giving one some protection. We made a couple 30 m raps here, then tried a 60, hoping it would reach the snow, but it didn't and the rope got stuck again, this time just due to slab friction near the anchor. Fern freed it up, and we made one more 60 m over the schrund and were down on the snow by sunset. We got back to ABC around 11 PM, for around a 20 hour day.
The next day we lazed until 3 pm and then set off down the Bravo. We rapped twice (from rock anchors) on the Cauldron headwall to avoid the serac-lip traverse, and once more at the overhanging serac, where we used a bollard plus picket to take a 30 m rap/cimb/rap shortcut through two overhanging crevasse walls and an intervening tottering ice fin. We got back to Rainy Knob basecamp at sunset, around 8:30.
There is a ferocious snafflehound at Rainy Knob. She tried to eat my socks but I'd worn them for three days straight in my boots and they stank so bad she not only gave up, but left our Mountain House and AlpineAire dinners alone too!
On Sunday, we hung out in the morning with two guys who had left Plummer the night before, made it to Rainy Knob by 6 AM, and after talking to us, decided to wait for cooler temps and more solid snow that evening before tackling the Bravo Cauldron. We got a morning pickup from Mike King and were back in Bluff Lake by 9 and back in the Lower Mainland by dinnertime.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 03:50pm PT
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A big traverse on pickets across the lip of a serac on the Cauldron headwall. We rapped this on the way down.
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Jul 31, 2018 - 03:52pm PT
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"Sure is smokey in here"
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jul 31, 2018 - 05:42pm PT
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Thanks for the TR and the rest.
When I was looking into a possible winter ascent of the East Lion I saw Fern played the let's do it role.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Jul 31, 2018 - 05:59pm PT
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Thanks very much for the well written report! You all know what you are doing :-)
Great "traverse on pickets" photo.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 31, 2018 - 07:24pm PT
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This thread makes me want to go down to the basement and fondle my piolet.
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Great job, guys. I don't think I'll ever get up that one, now. But I'm glad you made it and posted the photos. Smokey, though.
Could you see the rockslide on the Tiedeman, the one that came down a few years ago?
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Yup! The Whymper Dome 2015 slide deposit. It's a big pancake. See it down there?
And zoomed in a bit
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Thanks... I'll have to compare your photos with mine (2015) and see how they compare. I'm interested in the rate at which it is moving downstream.
I had the interesting experience about 10 years ago of walking down the Tiedemen from about Whymper Dome to the snout and beyond. Sure is broken up down there; doesn't look too bad here.
Glenn
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