East Ridge of Mt. Humphreys
Class III, 5.4

Still recovering from the previous night's bender and expecting a full day in the mountains, I hit the sack nice and early at my Bishop home. My good friend and Bishop born Chris Bradury was at my place at 5:30 for coffee and we met the rest of our crew at the Buttermilk Road at 6:00am. Mammoth's Bryan Robinette provided some solid rock climbing experience and longtime Sierra peak bagger Dan Shoshone was eager to summit Humphreys after getting turned shut down without a rope on his last attempt.

40 minutes of bumpy, rocky 4WD roads got us to the trailhead at 9,200 feet and we were trailbound at 7:00am. A well marked trail only lasted a 1/2 mile or so until we cut cross country through amazing wildflowers and thick sagebrush towards a obvious rise. From that rise, we cut right and up into some steep, pumice pinion forest that led us to a gradually rising bench that took us to the obvious saddle between Mt. Humphreys East Ridge and Peaklet (peak 12,241).


It took us 2 hours at a good pace to gain the East Ridge saddle at 11,700 feet. The ridge scrambling was phenomenal with good exposure on clean rock. It would have been easy to bypass most of the exposed sections but...what's the fun in that. Staying on the ridge offered up some thrilling moments in a spectacular setting.



One of the best sections on the lower ridge went up some steep 4th class cracks and onto a 2 foot wide sidewalk with a massive drop on each side. While this section could easily be done by walking below the ridge on the right side and holding on to the top with both hands, we heckled each other to walk the whole thing.




The scrambling stayed fun and exposed leading to the obvious 13,000 gendarme blocking forward progress on the ridge.



We bypassed the massive gendarme by skirting left across some dirty ledges and then traversing back right on clean cracks and down into a gully on the backside of the gendarme. While still 4th class, we set up a rappel to get down into the gully to avoid a sandy downclimb. From the gully, we scrambled up fun slabs 200 feet back up to the ridge.




The next flat section of ridge turned out to be the most airy with several vertical downclimbs and no fall zones as well as one 20 foot fixed rap line. One precaurious engine size block tettered right on the ridge with no way around but to walk on it. This final section of ridge line got us to the final headwall as well as our eventual descent route down the Southeast gully. This section ended up beeing a little too spicy for our non rock climber member Chris. He decided to start the descent route without toping out some 900 feet short of the summit. Ironically, he turned around at a spot named "Married Men Point" even though he was the only non married person in this party. No pressure on the spot of course, but I look forward to years of harrasment and teasing for his decision to turn around.





Next step was the impressive headwall jutting out from the Southeast gully. We managed to hug the arete on this headwall through steep 4th class blocks.


We roped up for a short vertical layback crack. There were several other options to get over this section, all involved steep rock and good cracks.


We simulclimbed the next 200 feet through dirty and loose ledges careful not to send some of the loose rocks down.


From the top of the headwall, it was just a little more scrambling going up and then down and then back up to the final summit pitch. And what a treat to finish this great climb. 5th class beautiful, clean rock, with big holds and positive stances right to a summit block big enough for our remaining 3.




What a day in the Sierra, not a breath of wind just a few feet short of 14,000'. We slapped high fives, noted the time 2:30pm (7.5 hours from car) snapped a few photos, signed the registry, rehydrated, had some snacks and started our long descent back to our car.





Getting off the headwall was pretty tricky. After some steep 4th class downclimbing we finally found a rap station near the section we had climbed. Glad to not have to downclimb those dirty loose ledges.




From the bottom of the rap station it was a forward but long descent through the rotten steep sun cupped snow of the Southeast gully. Never got steep enough to need a axe but we definately got moving while glissading.


We found our friend Chris happily sunbaking on the rock in the drainage and made our long way back to our truck for a most unenjoyable 8 mile, 40 minute bumpy ride to our waiting wives and lives..

This climb had everything a Sierra Mountaineer could want, clean rock, exposed ridges in a spectacular setting. This peak has been a goal of mine since my first drive through the Owens Valley and I couldn't have done it with a better group under any better conditions. I'll remember this climb everytime I look west from my home in Bishop, hopefully cold brew in hand...

Bryan shot a little video that came out pretty cool. Check out the delicate sidewalk at 1:00! check it here
http://www.vimeo.com/27747807