Mt. Tyndall & Hooligans - May 29-31, 2010
This trip was a re-visit to the place of our winter debacle in March of this year. Stopped by deep snows and/or improper gear, James and I were determined to summit this time. We brought enough food for four days and could have even stayed longer. We needed less gas, as snowmelt would provide the water this time. Turns out we didn't really need the snowshoes, and could have saved the weight, but alas, we did not check the message boards.
Arrived in Independence on Friday afternoon and had a quick meal a Hooligans, our new local favorite! Imagine fresh hamburger meat, grilled to perfection for only $4.99 and draft beers for only 50 cents. Awesome. We swore we would arrive back at their doorstep at exactly 5pm on our departure day for another round.
Slept at the trailhead. Left for Symmes Saddle at 9:30 am (I had to drive back into town for AAA batteries), and topped out at noon - two months before it took us 8hrs to get only 3/4 of the way up. So we had lunch on top of the Saddle (9000ft) and then continued on to Mahagony Flat and then Anvil Camp, making it, very tired, by about 6pm. It is only at 10K, but you lose and have to re-gain about 1000ft in between. I think my pack was 48 lbs, including never more than 1.5 liters of water. A bit too much food, and of course the snowshoes and heavy-duty gators that I never used.
We arrived in camp 2nd (a german girl and male friend passed us), and a group of 4 guys from Turkey came in about an hour later. We were to see a lot more of all of them on Sunday. I marked three nice campsites (GPS coordinates) near Mahgaony Flat... for future reference it is 6hr to thoseinstead of 8hr to Anvil Camp. It is a hard summit day to Tyndall from Anvil Camp, and really hard to Williamson, so another approach would be to camp at Mahogony Flat on night one, and Shepherd Pass on night two at 12,200. Turns out the German girl and her friend were to try and summit from shepherd Pass, a much easier summit day. I also noted a nice campsite just at the base of Symmes Saddle, probably only an hour from thetrailhead... a nice option we would have taken in an instant if we had known about it on our first night, rather than camping on the gravel parking lot after driving 8 hrs.
Sunday AM I heard the 4 guys up around 5:15 so I woke James up (we had agreed to this the previousnight) and every one (six of us) left the camp around 7am. I think their names were Joquim, Jorge, Vlad and Ken. Joquim was trying to summit Williamson, it being the 15th of 15 14ers for him,,, his last. Vlad and Ken werepretty good rock climbers, having helped Joquim up Polmonium, Thunderbolt and Starlight in the last couple
of summers. James and I went more easterly, the team of 4 stayed more on the summer trail. Their route was better, but we were faster arriving at the base of Shepherd Pass snow field 15 mins ahead of them. We took criss-crossing paths up the 800 ft snowfield, James and I choosing only 3 long switchbacks, and waiting to put on crampons until up 1/3 the way... Three of the other party did short switchbacks up the right (western) side; and Vlad electing to go straight up the center, kicking in steps. We all arrived at the Shepherds pass at 11am; 4 hrs for a 2000 ft gainfrom Anvil Camp.
pic of Vlad:
A long lunch hour (40 min for me) lots of cheese, salami, pictures and questions and answers about who was going where. I was anxious to leave, took off toward Tyndall, ignoring Joaquim's suggestion to do the North Rib, instead of my planned route up the Northwest Ridge. Wish I had listened! Moosie had
also suggested the North Rib (Class 3) as opposed to the Northwest Ridge (Class 2).
pic of Mark crossing basin:
I set off across the basin, angling up and right, aiming to climb the snow chute to the right (west) of the NW ridge for as long as I could, figuring kick stepping and/or crampons would be much easier than the mixed rubble of the ridge itself. The path was of course nowhere to be seen, under 5-8 feet of snow. Before too long, James hailed me from below. I couldn't hear his words, so I slowed and waited for him. He wanted to give me the camera. His head hurt. Altitude problems. He said he was finished. We spent a couple of minutes making contingency plans, then took off in opposite directions. We both thought what I had in front of me was easily doable in 3 hours if I didn't slow down or have problems. I spent the next hour trudging up 1400ft of nicely consolidated snow, only hitting deep powder just once. By 2pm, I had reached a point where I figured I had better get on the ridge itself, and scout out the rest of the route from here (13,400) on up...
on the ridge:
As it turns out, there probably is a Class 2 route up the Northwest Ridge, but it would take hours and hours of climbing forward, and retreating, climbing forward, reatreating, etc to find it. And in the snow, maybe not, anyway. It was easier for me to just climb the Class 3 and Class 4 moves along the ridge just shy of joining up with the North rib. This amounted to several hundred feet of exposed traverse, almost all without any snow. It reminded me of the Russell kniferidge, just slightly less daunting and a bit shorter (but not much, on either accouht). Once past the North Rib junction, it is still exposed, but easier. Half hour later I was on the top, and in the back of my head, thinking I would descend the North Rib route, as I had scared my self a couple of times on the Northwest Ridge!
summit ridge picture:
I found the summit register, took some pictures, attempted a video and put some waypoints in my GPS. I broke out my brand new smart phone (a Palm Pre and sent off some text messages to one of my climbing buddies that couldn't make the trip, and also to James, just in case I didn't make it down before dark, he would know at least where I was at 3pm.) I only had cell-coverage just at the summit, or along the summit ridge when you have line-of-site to the Independence area. I headed down at 3:20; still a bit leary of being solo, and not liking the idea of the summit ridge traverse, now that some wind had started up...
It wasn't too long before staying off the ridge got me into trouble. I was losing altitude too quickly, and lost perspective of where the North Rib junction lay. I got site of it, but then had second thoughts and figured I might be going down the wrong side of it into Williamson Bowl if I actually attemped it, so I continued on down to the west side of the Northwest Ridge, but still losing altitude too quickly; now I was in danger of the exact same problem on this side... I was faced with serveral hundred feet of mixed rock/snow/ice climbing to get back to 13,700 where I first jumped on the ridge, if I continued in this manner. I was already at 13,600, and losing ground so I started trying to traverse and gain at the same time. This proved dangerous, several slips and one self-arrest as I traversed 3 small couloirs, crampons off and on and off and on constantly. Finally I just did one pitch straight up on mixed rock and snow, using my axe for aid in the rock cracks; pretty close to class 5. A fall would not have been fatal, probably not even a major injury, but I would have slid at least 1500ft and never had the energy to climb back up and over, and then back down, just to Shepherd's Pass. I was getting worried. Around 4:45pm I topped out the third or fourth of these westward facing colouirs and could see what looked like a fairly easy downclimb of 50-60 feet to reach the top of a massive snow filled ramp. Relief! The downclimb was all Class3 rock and straighforward. Too steep and filled with boulders at this point to attempt a glissade, I punch stepped down and North for about 5 mins and then sat down, rested, and started tucking in all my clothes for a long slide down the mountain. By now it was obvious I was on the massive gully one minor rib west of the NW Ridge. It was much friendlier than the gully I had come up... pretty much a 1500 foot clear
shot down to the basin of Shepherds pass.
picture of glissade track:
What a blast. I could have made the whole descent in 2 mins, except I stopped to take a picture or two. I have never had such a good glissade before. The snow was firm but not icy, and the angle was perfect, almost never any obstacles to avoid. That got me back to the Shepherds Pass sign by 5:30 where I ran into the German girl and her friend, sitting in front of their tent, having tea.
The rest of the return was uneventful; but I could not glissade down from the Shepherds Pass saddle, as the snow was too soft below 12,200ft. Return to camp 7pm exactly 12 hrs after leaving.
Two of the Turkish fellows (actually living in Berkeley now) arrived in camp at 1am. Talked with them the next morning before packing up to leave. Vlad had made the summit of Williamson, solo. They hadall four made it across Williamson bowl, to the base of big Willy, where Jorge stopped. Vlad became seperated from Joheim and Ken, and was turned back several times, but persevered to stand on the summit at 8pm. All four found there way back to the Shepherds Pass sign around 11pm, where Vlad and Ken decided to come down the 800ft ramp below Shepherds Pass saddle; Joquim and Jorge taking up an offer to sleep in the two man tent with the German girl and her friend. When they did not show in camp the next morning by 9 or 10am, we assumed they joined up with them for another attempt at the Williamson summit on Monday.
The hike out from Anvil Camp, surprisingly took me five hours on Monday. I believe James made it in less than four, in part because his taste buds were assuming another Hooligans cheesburger. Alas, that was not to be, as when we arrived there at exactly 5pm, the doors were not open and the owner/chef was outin the back yard relaxing. Fri, Sat Sun, 5pm-11pm, no exceptions, not even on Memorial day
all pix at:
http://melville1955.smugmug.com/Mountaineering/Tyndall20100529/12563331_ZsitE#901721746_5mfqp
Wow, Mark, that was one heck of a challenge! Appreciated the detailed TR. Congrats on sticking to it and making it happen! How cool to enjoy an awesome glissade after working so hard. Sorry that James got hit with the AMS symptoms again. 