jstod

Nick Elson and I completed this traverse on August 29th, with no knowledge of Wayne and Jen having been there the day before attempting the same thing (though we did see some signs of recent travel along the way that had us wondering). We left the truck at 4:45 in the morning and traversed to the south ridge of Labour Day Horn as per Don Searl's report from 2006. Kept the rope in the bag with a few moves of 5th here and there until the descent from Slesse's Third Peak. Made a few raps down to the 3rd/South Peak notch, from near the plane wreckage site. Ascending and Descending the South Peak was our crux. We were likely "off route" on ascent and ended up simul climbing some mid 5th on quite bad rock, In retrospect we'd have been better off staying closer to the crest where the rock was cleaner (we were slightly West). A few raps from the south peak (again would have been better to stay right on the crest) brought us to the base of the main summit. A quick traverse had us on the regular descent route, which we climbed quickly to tag Slesse proper, passing Kevin McLane and partner who were descending from the NEB. The usual crossover descent slog was straight-forward and we made it back to the truck before dark, after a very satisfying 15 hours on the move.