Kim and I headed up the North Fork Thursday morning (Aug. 5th) for a 3-day trip up the Mountaineer’s Route. I had been on the summit three times previously, twice via the main trail and once via the MR. Kim hadn’t been to the summit, having been turned back twice by snow on the main trail. My previous MR trip was with MooseTracks and Ellen Coleman in September 2009 (up the MR and down the main trail), so this would be my first time leading/navigating. Earlier in the week we’d done a 3-day trip up to Cottonwood Lakes and the summit of Mt. Langley so were as acclimatized as we could be.
Neither of us were feeling too good Thursday morning, which was a bummer because we ended up tossing out most of our fantastic Petite Pantry breakfast. Luckily, by the time we neared the bottom of the E-Ledges we were feeling better and wished we had that food back. But by then I was more nervous about the ledges and less worried about food. When I crossed the ledges with Laura last fall, we did it in the dark so the route was still essentially new to me. As luck would have it, we ran into Roland and Phil at the stream crossing, and we followed them to the top. It’s straightforward, and within a few minutes we were at the top of the Ledges. There is a very short section of exposure that, with my fear of heights, made me pretty nervous, but the rest of the Ledges are no problem. BTW, that short section of exposure for some reason makes me more nervous than any other part of the Mountaineer’s Route, even the Final 400 – probably because there is nothing to hold onto.
A minor navigational error on my part took us OVER a huge chunk of rock at the bottom of the slabs instead of UNDER and we had to scramble down a boulder field. Laura, Ellen and I did that part in the dark in 2009 and from below it looks like the way to go. That cost an hour and a bunch of energy, and by the time we made it to Upper Boyscout Lake we’d had enough for the day – even though we’d originally planned to go to Girlscout Lake.
Friday morning we headed up to Iceberg Lake at 7:30 a.m. at a leisurely pace, arrived at 9:00, and ran into Roland and Phil again. We all took a good break there and talked with some folks who’d been up the MR the previous day. This was discouraging because one group told us it had taken them 6 hours to reach the summit and also that the first chute (Final 400) was filled with snow – contrary to what I’d read on the Message Board before flying out. (To be fair, they were also trying to time their arrival on the summit with a group going up the East Buttress.) Still, after this conversation I was skeptical of reaching the summit, but we filled our Camelbacks and headed up the left side of the MR chute to avoid the snow in the chute. There is also a trail on the right side but neither of us liked the look of it. Luckily, two climbers on their way to Russell gave us completely opposite beta on the conditions to the summit so we felt encouraged as we headed up.
We arrived at the notch after only two hours and after a 15-minute break we scrambled up the Final 400 to the summit three hours after leaving Iceberg, easily avoiding the remaining ice and snow in the chute. The weather was fantastic and we felt good. This was an especially sweet moment for Kim, having reached the summit of two of California’s 14ers in one week, after trying since 2005 to reach the summit of Whitney.
We took in the views from the summit and listened to a man apparently ordering new hiking poles from REI by phone, but we knew it was a long way down and spent only 30 minutes on top. After a few moments of, quite honestly, terror, at the prospect of down-climbing the Final 400, we took a deep breath and climbed over the edge. Neither of us had ever down-climbed anything like this, but I told myself that if there are good hand and toe holds on the way up, that’s also the case on the way down. After a few minutes of down-climbing I think we both realized it was within our realm of possibility, and anyway, we didn’t have much choice since our gear was at Upper Boyscout! Not to say that we got comfortable. It was definitely nerve-wracking all the way down. The final problem was to negotiate the tricky little crack at the bottom of the Final 400. But as luck should have it, Roland showed up (again!) just as I was trying to figure it out. (Roland had taken a “detour” over to the East Buttress route on the way up the left side of the chute; by the time he’d back-tracked and reached the notch he didn’t feel there was enough time left to summit.) So with Roland’s guidance – “put your hand there, put your foot here” – we easily dropped down to the notch.
From there it was a long, slow descent down to Iceberg and the shadows were getting long by the time we got there. Phil had waited almost all day for Roland at Iceberg and greeted us as we reached the lake. By the time we got back to Upper Boyscout at 6:30 it had been a very long 11-hour day. Saturday morning we made it back to the Portal just in time for the big pancake.
I can’t thank Roland and Phil enough for their help on the Ledges, for the guidance on the Final 400, and for their companionship the whole three days. Hope to run into you again!
Pictures are here:
http://quandary98.smugmug.com/Other/Whitney-MR-2010/13258805_iMX3r#962869679_hQe9Q
