One of the guys involved in the incident described in the previous message posted a
trip report:
Re: ice / summit (sorta) trip report
Posted by Evan on February 27, 2008, 22:34:41, in reply to "ice"
76.175.183.154
Thought the least I could do would be to provide a trip report from the comfort of my home, thanks to Bill and the others, so that anyone else thinking of heading up knows what to expect. I was the one who did have crampons/axe; my partner had snowshoes only. We left from South Fork around sunrise, breaking trail somewhere between poopout hill and dry lake when the existing tracks faded.
Pic 1 is of the surface along the way – obviously icy, but thin enough that the cleats on snowshoes were sufficient to gain traction.
Pic 2 shows that snow is deep but consolidated enough that even in the softer areas our steps only sink in a couple inches, but snowshoes are still sufficient.
Pic 3/4 – we have the bright idea to take the direct route to sky high trail/summit via the north face even though reflections clearly indicate that pretty much the entire slope is iced over, compounded by the fact that we rely on our eyes instead of the contour lines on our map to gauge the steepness. Because of this, my partner essentially ended up climbing the entire face on his toes in order to maintain his footing. By the time we acknowledged that it was a bad idea to have tried without everyone being properly equipped, we had already climbed the majority of the way but had expended far more energy and time than anticipated. We decided to simply get up and over the ridge fast enough to catch some snow/ice that we hoped had been softened by the sun, and take the regular trail back down and around the base to get home.
Pic 5/6 – no such luck; if the south side had thawed at all that day, it was completely refrozen by the time we got there with maybe an hour or two of direct sunlight left. Ice was rock hard, uneven, and several inches thick in many places. My partner’s legs were severely fatigued and cramping by that time. We made it down a couple hundred feet before a close call and the deteriorating condition of his legs ends the trip for us. We spend the next couple hours in a shallow pit until the SAR guys come and pick us up, which they do with marvelous care and professionalism. Thanks again, fellas.
