| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2005-10-31 01:24:07 UTC-0500 |
| Description | We should bring the skis so we can ski the summit cone. After the usual morning ride drama, we leave ... umm, camelot? At Pinkham, we decide that it will be pretty nasty up top, so only Dan, Sgouris, and Christiaan this time. Trail cover on the Tucks trail is pretty good, but not quite good enough for skis. So we hike up a bit farther above the steep section of the Sherburne trail, then cut onto that. The sherburne is in good shape, so easy skiing up. Except that someone waxed sgouris's skis, so he is getting no kick. we make it up anyway, and back on the tuckerman trail. Sgouris stashes his skis at the rescue cache. Christiaan and Dan go on skis, and Sgouris bareboot. We end up being about as fast, with skis fast on the flats but bad with blowdown and streams, and bareboots the opposite. At the base of the ravine, the weather is a nice 30F, sunny and breezy. Time for lunch. mmm anna's al pastor.
We scope out the climbs, and everything looks pretty thin or out. We hear central is at least passable, so we head up. The lower snowfield is in good condition, with easy single-kick step-kicking. At the pinnacle buttress, we slap on crampons and rack up (since we are putting crampons anyway). Sgouris's boot sole sort of falls off, but it gets tied back on. We head up to the bulge on similar terrain. The bulge is barely showing, so we continue up unroped. The middle snowfield above is great easy snow climbing. Above that, the cover is super thin and sketchy. So we pop in a belay and continue up for two half-pitches to the easier terrain in the exit gullies Sgouris leading the first, and dan the second. Not a lot of ice to put in pro, but not really any rock gear either. From there we continue out unroped to the alpine garden. The gullies are in pretty bad shape, with little in terms of either ice or solid rock. The awesome die together or die alone scenario. Christiaan and Sgouris rocket up and out to a shallow ditch as protection from the ~50mph winds. Dan sort of coils the rope, which ends up coming loose and getting tangled with the rack just at the final super-sketchy section. A brief untangling session and attempt ensues, conveniently just out of sight of Christiaan and Sgouris. Everyone is off the climb just as we lose all light. Now for a nice evening stroll across the garden in super winds with sails (skis). nice! down the summer lion head trail, which is marginally less exciting then the winter one. Then a tromp out to the cars. In a gesture of good mental health, we weigh the packs at Pinkham. Dan = 50lbs, Sgouris = 60lbs, and Christiaan = 47lbs. Although Sgouris didn't have the ski/ski boot weight during the technical portion of the climb, he still wins for total weight integrated over distance. |