Luckily, the weather appeared to improve and we gave it a go, starting up around 10am.
Pitch 1, Clean Break
After negotiating the snow field, I dropped my stick/ice-axe in the pile on the big ledge, and Jeff geared up for the first lead. It's a doozy. Steep, sustained, and once you think you got it licked, it kicks back again with a steep, slanting section of thin hands. Glad I was on second. Nice lead Jeff!
"The Clean Break"
The Clean Break pitch is cool and nowhere near as strenuous. The sun was starting to
come out more and we were rolling along. We had some routefinding issues on p3.
After some confusion, we went to the top of the LF dike corner instead of taking the
less-used looking finger crack described in the Kearney. This ended up working fine,
with just a slight downclimb to start p4.
The pitches ran together on fine granite. A very thin sequence after a fixed pin, and
a strenous diagonal fist crack were highlights. The fist crack pitch had a second crux,
a corner with small tips holds and dish-smearing for feet that really got my attention.
The Kearney topo says "RP's useful", but I think you'll be much happier if you have small
cams for the parallel placements.
Easier terrain on upper route
A few more pitches and the ridge eases off. We simuled what Kearney calls the last five
pitches. We stayed mostly left, and never even saw the "Wild Crack". I thought the rock
was very good on this finishing section. Fun scrambling.
obligatory "view from top" photo
The summit views were stupendous, blah blah blah. No hints of the nasty cold wind and clouds
of yesterday.
We musta screwed up the descent, because it was heinous. We dropped down the gully just b
elow (SW) of the summit, and couldn't find passage N, until way down. At which
point we then scrounged way back up again to the ridge crest, then more down again
to Sunset Col. Even though we probably screwed up, it only took about 2 hrs to reach camp.
Packed up by 8:30pm, hike out. Made it to the basin and intermittent trail by dark.
Home 3am. Busy weekend!
the route from below ~8 pm