Too Much Driving...: Sierras with Chris

For Labor Day my climbing partner Chris and I had big plans for a long ridge traverse in the North Cascades, but snow and crappy weather up there made the Sierras look like a lot better of an objective. As usual, we tried to squeeze a lot into a little time, with plans to climb for 3 days straight. Our first objective was a warmup scramble on Crystal Crag outside of Mammoth. That went well and we were soon heading down to Bishop to climb Mt. Humphries via the East Arete.

Our goal on day two was to get up and get off before thunderstorms rolled in that afternoon. The route was a few thousand feet of high quality ridge climbing that would then be downclimbed. We were hiking before first light, and on the ridge within a reasonable time. I found the climbing to be somewhat terrifying. Just easy enough to not justify a rope, but extremly exposed. As usual, neither the altitude or the exposure seemed to have an effect on Chris who plowed upward with me gasping to keep up. After a few hours of knife edge traversing we had completed the lower portion of the route, but were faced with a big decision: press on for the additional thousand feet (which would then have to be downclimbed and rappeled) or bail from the route before the thunderstorms hit. My choice was an easy one as every additional minute far from flat ground was taking a toll on my inspiration, and the thought of downclimbing in a snowy thunderstorm was seeming less and less appealing (was it ever?).

Anyway, within minutes of making our decision to bail we were dodging rain and hail as we carefully hiked out the loose exit gully. For once I really didn't regret our decision to turn back. Actually, it was nice to have an excuse to turn around... Much more of that ridge and I may have puked myself from either altitude or terror. :)

Our last day was also not very successful. Weather also looked questionable, and we were somewhat beat from our failed effort on Humphries (at least I was!). After tossing around a few rugged ideas, we settled for a scramble of Mt. Agazasis (sp?) near the Palisades region. Again we were foiled by weather, this time before we even started the actual route... High winds and cold temps at Bishop pass turned us around quickly, but the scenery up to that point was incredible... I'll be surely making another trip to that particular region. On the drive home that same wind had flipped over trailers, sandblasted cars, and even apparently blown out some car windows (never heard of that one!).

Chris, as usual, thanks again for a great trip. I'm sold on the Sierras and can't wait to get back down there. I'll take clean granite over mossy choss up north anytime! Just need to make those peaks a little lower. My head was spinning at 13K. :)