6/15&16/01
Met up with Scott here in PDX, then a rondevous with Jon from CO down at Redding Airport after an overnight in Grants Pass.
| I-5 approaching from the south. (Scott Adams photo) |
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Arrived at the TH at Brewer Creek at about 3pm . . .
| Jon adjusts his load after deciding that siphoning unleaded gas into his Camelback is probably not a good idea. |
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After permits, payment, etc. we were hiking by 3:30, I guess. MAN! Some back-breaking loads - we were bringing enough gear for 2 nights up high and there was a penalty to be paid. Not used to being in the "mule" role - I'm so used to doing those one-day climbs . . .
| "Don't tell Jon I'm back here pushing down on his skis!!" |
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PJ scored us some beers in Redding and we stashed them in the first little snow patch that we found, an unfortunate 800 vertical feet above the trailhead at least. Switchbacked up the dusty trail and broke through the trees shortly, then marched a direct line up to about 9000 feet where the continuous snow finally started.
| First good look at the mountain and our route . . . continuous snow still a ways away. |
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Looks like we missed the window of skiing all the way down to treeline by about 3 weeks or more. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
| Onward. (Scott Adams photo) |
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Cramponed our way on stiffening snow the final 1000 feet to our camp at about 10,200 or so. The East side of the hill was just falling into shadow.
| Getting up-close with the pits, runnels, and cups lower down. Fortunately conditions above about 10,000 feet were much better. |
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Found a nice spot for ourselves on a ribbon of rock up there just below the main Hotlum-Wintun face. There was another group camped about 300 feet below us, and more camped at the 9000 foot level, but otherwise there was a pleasant sense of isolation. The time was about 7pm and we spent the next couple of hours busily setting up, cooking up some dinner, and melting tons of water for the next day. By about 8pm the mountain was casting an enormous shadow to the East. It slowly dissolved in fading light at around 9pm. We hit the sack soon thereafter . . . Scott and Jon in a tent and myself in a bivvy bag.
| The shadow of the mountain cast onto the haze in the valley below. Jon's tent in the foreground. (Jon Carney photo) |
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Aside from a period of gusty wind at about 11pm, the night was comfortable. I poked my head out of my bag every body-turn or two . . . there was an awesome carpet of stars above and I did catch a couple of bright shooting stars. The temp never went below 35, I don't guess. Our water never refroze. Woke up at 4am to cook up some oatmeal, etc. There were already discernible "dots" moving above us on the route by this time. We started climbing shortly after 5.
| Jon punches in. The climbers/dots to the upper right have about an hour's jump on us. |
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The snow surface was firm, and aside from the occasional patch of blue meltwater ice, the climbing was good. By 5:30 this pitch was fully illuminated by the rising sun. At about 12,400 feet made the traverse to climber's left to the Wintun Glacier and proceeded onward.
| Scott (L) and Jon below the rockband at the traverse to the upper Wintun Glacier. |
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The pitch on the upper Wintun was stunning. A solid 35 degrees which slowly steepened to just below the summit pinnacle where it mellowed out just a bit.
| Scott feeling the burn at 13,000 feet. The skiing through this pitch was outstanding. Mt. Lassen is the bump way off in the distance. |
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We had been taking breaks about every 1000 vertical feet all morning. After the 2nd break the 3rd "effort" on this pitch was pretty crushing. We were one of the first parties through on the day so the steps that did exist were in poor shape at best. Steep climbing here at 13K+ would have probably had me sucking the O's even if the steps had been in good shape. For some reason this 3rd 1000 feet just seemed endless. Jon was first to reach a safe rest spot at what we thought was about 1000 vertical feet below the summit. Scott joined him soon thereafter and they joined together in documenting my suffering with photographs as I continued up the final part of the pitch to their spot. Nice.
| "His face was a mask of pain" (Jon Carney photo) |
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After doing our best to choke down some more water and a Clif bar, we continued. Seemed odd that we could already pick out some folks on what we thought was the summit ridge . . . seemed too soon to be able to see them. By this time the pitch had gotten a little less steep and we were rolling on a burst of "we're almost there" energy anyway. By 13,400 it looked as if the top could only be a couple of hundred feet away and it became obvious that all of our altimeters had been depressed by some sort of approaching high-pressure or something. We topped out soon thereafter - about 10:30am . . . altimeters reading about 5-600 feet too low. Explains why that 3rd thousand might have seemed a little endless . . . we probably had covered close to 1500 ft in that effort alone!
| Jon (lower left) climbing the last minor pitch to the summit rockpile. |
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| Jon and Scott admiring the view about 11,000 feet above the valleys below. |
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| Grinning at 14 Grand. . . |
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There were about 15 others on the summit at this time, with many more on their way up the Avalanche Gulch route. The foot-packed route across the summit plateau on the other side looked like a deeply-worn path in a cow pasture! Obviously lots of use.
| Fellow enthusiasts crossing the summit plateau after climbing the Avalanche Gulch route. |
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Interesting transition in the weather up there . . . definitely below freezing and very windy. Stark contrast with the heat and intense sunshine we had been experiencing on the Eastern exposure we had climbed that morning. After taking the obligitory summit shots, we all signed the summit register, and descended the 50-60 feet back to the Eastern aspect of the summit. Immediately we were out of the wind and about 15 degrees warmer.
Scott had stashed his skis at the traverse just above 12K, so he started down first on foot. After allowing him a bit of a jump, Jon and I started down this pitch only about 100 feet at the most from the absolute summit. The conditions were absolutely perfect! Corn snow at 14K!!
| Jon making turns way below as 2 more ascend the route. We made our camp on the rock band upper middle of the picture (the one that looks like the African continent). |
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The pitch steepened after a slight roll and the sense of altitude and pure vertical relief over the valleys below was awesome.
| Price check on June California Corn! (Jon Carney photo) |
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| Jon stops skiing for a bit to contemplate scale with the valleys far below. |
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Jon and I took turns staying slightly above and below Scott as he made his way down. Pretty impressive how much quicker a ski descent is than one on foot. This was Scott's first big-mountain ski effort and he felt that skiing on 35+ degree slopes with that much exposure below probably wasn't the strongest call for his first time. He regretted the decision slightly when he saw Jon and I making turns down this incredible pitch but we all agreed it was still a good one.
At 12,800 feet or so saw a tabletop sized rock go for about a 2000 vertical foot ride down the route below us . . . we were glad we were making a semi-early exit. There were still a tremendous number of people ascending this route even as we were descending at 11:30 or so. Glad no one got whacked that we knew of.
| Scott traversing across the face after slapping on the planks. |
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Rejoined Scott's skis at 12,400 feet - he strapped in and made turns on this softening corn snow like he'd been doing it all winter long. We skiied on withering legs the rest of the way down to our camp at 10,200 with many, many rest stops. Thighs on fire!
| Jon making turns. 2000 vertical feet to go to get to camp - |
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| Scott pointin' 'em at 12,000 feet. |
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Original plan was to spend another night up high and descend in the morning, but we made the decision to descend that afternoon to avoid downclimbing on refrozen crunchy stuff. Besides - we wanted to make a jaunt to Crater Lake the next day, so if we were willing to suffer for a few more hours we could get a massive jump. We were able to ski to about 9K where monster suncups and discontinuous snow made continuing on skis pretty ridiculous. Slogged our way down to the beers we had stashed in the last snowpatch - unfortunately 3 of them had melted out during the day, but were still there (no one had spotted 'em!) laying on snow and perfectly acceptable to our admittedly low standards.
After about another eternity of walking we saw the cars at the
trailhead and the beer-assisted decompression began. Sleep came
pretty easy that night at 8pm.