My obsession with Evolution Traverse began three years ago while leafing through Peter Croft’s The Good, The Great, and the Awesome. Listed by Peter as his favorite traverse, the eight mile line summits nine 13,000+ ft peaks with technical sections up to 5.9. To me it represented both the ultimate High Sierra prize and a seemingly unattainable goal. As an added incentive, as far as I could tell, no woman had finished it.

In September 2010, plagued with reaggravated hip adductor tendonitis from my recent move to Bishop, I made a half-assed solo recon attempt at the traverse with Jascha monitoring my progress via radio from Evolution Basin. That combined with the fact I had fallen while soloing Matthes the weekend before (fortunately only ~7 feet and onto a gently sloping slab) pretty much sealed my fate. I was forced to bail before the Mendel summit. It was an eye opener; I had spent 10+ years climbing alpine rock in the Sierra but something of this magnitude was a whole different beast. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to give this a real go.

Over the next year I focused on becoming a stronger and faster trad climber and made an attempt to keep my chronic tendonitis in check. I decided that I wanted to do the traverse on my own so I needed to be competent at soloing 5.9 while weighted down with bivy gear; a one day attempt was out of the question for me. With the endless sloggy snow conditions this year I resorted to things like soloing laps on Temple Crag. At the end of July Mike and I did Sun Ribbon (Temple Crag) /Galey/Sill car-to-car, roping up only for 25m on the crux section. Peter told me if I could do that link-up I could do Evolution; that was the vote of confidence I needed. Mike came with me to do a final recon, a preview of the chimney section between Darwin and 13,332, on which I stashed a bivy sack and pad on the ridge.


On 11 August I hiked in with enough time to spend a full day acclimatizing at Darwin Benches. I hung out with Jori and Robin, two Bay Area somatic psychology students, who provided stimulating conversation and attempted to feed me to lighten their load for the rest of their Lamark Col/Piute Pass circuit trip. Mike arrived the second evening, planning to day trip the traverse. The record snowpack guaranteed we would find snow on the ridge to melt for water. On Em’s advice I planned to use a black MSR Dromedary bag attached to the outside of my pack to melt snow.


In the pre-dawn moonlight Mike set out an hour before me. The first peak, 13,360, went quickly. I took a different line than last year which eliminated some unnecessary elevation change. The first real obstacle, the golden headwall below the Mendel summit, proved to be less difficult than some had reported. I hauled my pack after reading reports of the crack being more like 5.9; it was not. After Mendel the picket fence section to Darwin provided a few 5.8 moves but overall fairly straight forward route finding.


It was at this point I realized that I had no interest in food and it was going to be a struggle to keep up my energy stores. I located the route we had found through the chimney section, mostly secure/easy down-climbing minus the first chossy section after the summit. I hit my bivy cache with plenty of daylight left, but given I wasn’t eating and I was having a hard time regulating my body temperature I didn’t feel comfortable soloing the next 5.9 section until after a night’s sleep. I choked down a small handful of almonds and listened to This American Life until I fell asleep.


In the morning I put on my climbing shoes and set out to finish the remaining 5.9 section to reach peak 13,332. Just before the summit I hit a 5.9 hand crack down-climb, which I rapped. I was amazed at how long that section took, but I knew the ridge from 13,332 to Haeckel was cruiser. The only unknown was whether I should drop down to the glacial tarn below Haeckel to refill my water. After some deliberation I decided against it to save time; the snow melt system would have to suffice.


After Haeckel I sat on the ridge to Wallace and contemplated my long path ahead; I was just over half way done. I had my first wave of doubt. I heard a woman’s voice, which I figured was just the usually choppy editing on Radiolab. Then I heard it again. It was Emma from Bishop, who I had met previously in the Gorge. She had summited Haeckel from Hungry Packer Lake and was now on the wrong side of the ridge for the descent. She asked what I was doing and when I told her she offered me assorted things from her pack. I finally said OK to an apple. That apple saved my ass. Along with that I was able to eat four mini Snickers, which gave me enough energy to motor all the way past Wallace, Fiske, and Warlow.

I reached the final steep section on Huxley just before sunset. I was starting to get cold again so I decided to do a second bivy. The temperatures dropped below freezing that night and I didn’t get much sleep. In the morning, clouded by lack of sleep, I stupidly cached my bivy gear (thinking I would return that way) and finished the final summit at 7:30am. I saw in the register that Mike had finished on schedule. I took a chute directly off the summit, cursing the fact I would have to gain the ridge again to retrieve my bivy gear. No matter, I was done, well almost done, minus the 20 mile hike out over Lamark Col. At least I could eat again now that I had dropped in elevation.

In retrospect it was great timing to be able to hike through Evolution Basin during the day. The traverse rises over breathtaking alpine meadows and lakes. The ten mile hike to Darwin Benches went much quicker than I expected and I loaded up on Korean curry ramen, tuna, and iced coffee to psych myself up for the hike out. The Col was a slog, but once I reached the top I knew I was home free. I got back to my car just as darkness fell. I realized when I got home I was so out of it I had shifted the dates by 2 days in the summit registers. C'est la vie.

more photos

Special thanks to the following folks for beta and moral support: Alan C, Vic L, Peter C, Mike C, Ben H, Jason L, Ian C-B, Tricia L, Matt S, Tai D, Em H, Todd T, Joe L, Lisa R, Wills Y, Jascha L, Sandra S, Janel C, Jessie M, Yoshiko and Jim M, and especially Emma