I haven't been up there lately, but on the basis of the time of year, the fact that it was a light winter and the report of conditions from Dade, I'm willing to hazard a pretty good guess as to conditions at the base of the most popular route on Abbot (ie NE couloir, then exit stage right up to top of ridge, then short knife edge thingie then summit). By the time the snow is gone in the Hourglass on Dade, the NE couloir of Abbot becomes glazed black ice. In order to reach the "exit stage right" area where the steep 2nd (or what folks today call easy 3rd) class route goes up to the ridge you have to (1) either do some work with hard ice or (2) take to the rocks on the right hand side of the couloir early and work your way upward above and along the right hand side of the couloir to the rightward exit slope. This is mostly messy class 3 with a lot of house cleaning to get abundant loose rocks off of ledges and other holds (very unpleasant)--there may be one awkward leaning mantle move (class 4) over a big joint face (I don't think there is much in the way of alternatives to that move) after which you soon access the easy upward exit stuff and breathe a sigh of relief (but stress out over downclimbing that mess later). Even getting to the base of the right hand slope may require dealing briefly with some black ice depending on the position of the rockfall talus "ridges" sitting on the ice. Now, you have to keep in mind that although I have a total photographic memory of the route and conditions, this was September 1977, and I'd hazard to guess that 32 years of glacial retreat may in fact leave you with clean sailing to the rocks to the right of the couloir (although you'll still be short of the easy right-exit route). Nonetheless, I know at minimum you'll have to deal with that nasty loose high 3rd stuff in order to avoid black ice in the couloir. Bottom line: Abbot's standard route goes much easier earlier in the year when snow sits on that ice and you can do some easy snow climbing to where the "exit" goes off right of the couloir.
I don't know much about Mills, not having climbed it, but I can comment on Dade. For Dade in these "dry" conditions, you can bypass the treadmill scree of a bare Hourglass by taking the "variation" route to the north shown in the older versions of the Sierra Club Climbers Guide (I think the Roper edition had this and the two earlier editions certainly did). This variation avoids the Hourglass by climbing around (on talus) to the north and ascending a broken face to join the easy southern flank above the Hourglass. This goes entirely class 2 on much nicer (firmer) talus and some broken cliffs. I've done Dade twice. Once when there was lots of snow in the Hourglass (early summer 1981) and once (in Sept 1977 when I climbed it in the morning before doing Abbot) when there wasn't anything but a speck of snow in it. Both times I ascended by the "variation" route.
Last edited by giantbrookie; 10/09/09 04:07 PM.
