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Trip: West Mcmillan Spire/Elephant Butte - West ridges via Stetattle Ridge Trip Date: 09/06/2020 Trip Report: Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of getting back into the Southern Pickets with @JasonG and @Trent. We took the eastern high route/approach via Stetattle Ridge. I outlined the route in the approach notes, this will be more for a general itinerary/thoughts/photo dump. Hiking along Stetattle was extremely panoramic and quite pleasant. We setup camp the first night just north of North Stetattle (pt. 6728). There were abundant tarns for water and flat spots to setup at. Not long after unpacking the guys pulled out the whisky and chocolate, a ritual I'm not familiar with having spent most of my time trying to be as ultralight as possible. We shot the shit for hours and listened to tunes on Steve's little speakers. I'm sure now that theres a little room in my pack for some whiskey. I slept really well until the (full?) moon was dead center over the sky and woke me up with its brightness. We got up decently early for the big day of tagging Elephant Butte and and a plan of making it to the summit of West Mac for the nights bivy. We were a bit above an awesome sea of clouds down in the valley. The drop down to the notch above Torrent creek is fairly straight forward and to get up out of it toward the benches at 6200' above the small lake east of Elephant Butte is just a bit more involved, but not too bad. We dropped packs at the notch at the base of the west ridge of Elephant Butte. Was a quick romp to the summit and we were surprised how many entries in the register there were as of late. We toyed with the idea of staying on the ridge crest and tagging the next two high points west of the Butte (Hippo, Rhino). But some hairy climbing/scrambling, lack of inspiration to tag them, and a concern for having enough time to deal with the ridge to get into Terror basin pushed that idea to the side. I'm glad we spent the effort on the more important task of getting into Terror Basin safely and efficiently. We stayed more or less at 6200' from Elephant Butte until we got to the notch just west of pt 6455. From there it was staying very close to the ridge crest. At this point, the route gets very exposed, serious and committing. Scrambling on 4th class rock, heather benches, veggie pulling. It was not too far removed from what you'd experience on the NEB of Jburg. It finally eases off just before Little Mac. A small sandy notch allows entry into Terror Basin. From there we traversed down across snow to get to the base of West Mac, we were able to go up a dry mossy waterfall on the rib extending down from West Mac which cut out quite a bit of travel. We scrambled up the west ridge and made our way up to the summit. Theres now currently three one-person bivy spots up there now. We made dinner, drank whiskey and waited for the sunset. It was an awesome sunset, highlight of the trip for sure. But after every calm, comes a storm. We settled in for the night in really pleasant weather. At some point the winds picked up dramatically and Steve and I got sand blasted all night. Meanwhile Jason was locked in mortal combat with the snaffles. He said they were trying to take his headlamp off his head. They had told me the night prior that the snaffles really like him. I think the wind that Steve and I were experiencing were keeping the snaffles at bay, leaving Jason as easy prey. Didn't sleep a much that night as you'd guess. Got up and made breakfast and a big pot of coffee in a spot on the summit mostly out of the wind. The sunrise was fantastic and made up for the night we had. Packed up and made out way down West Mac and out Terror basin without issue. This was an incredible trip and thanks to Jason for inviting me on this, I cant say I would've thought to do this kind of trip myself. It was the kind of trip I have been meaning to have for some time now though. And big thanks to Jason and Steve for being SOLID partners. It was really cool being around two guys that have been climbing with each other for as long as you both have. I won't be caught without whiskey on the next Choss Dawgs trip. Myself as we make our way up Sourdough Creek. Jason Photo. Jason and Steve looking at the next two days. North Stetattle. Sunset, Elephant Butte and The Southern Pickets Sunrise, Snowfield group and Davis Peak Sea of Fog. Jason up on Elephant Butte About to make our way into the business end of the traverse. Steve Photo. Steve with the veggie belays. End of the hairy stuff. Jason photo. Into Terror Basin. Headed up West Mac. Up on West Mac preparing for battle with snaffles and wind. Steve photo. Dinner time. Jason photo. Sunset on Mt. Fury Morning light on Inspiration, The Pyramid, Degenhardt and Terror. Kulshan in the distance. Ray of light on Azure Lake. Hopefully Jason and Steve will drop off more of their photos! Gear Notes: Ice Axe, Crampons, Whiskey, Chocolate, Van Halen Approach Notes: Start at Sourdough Lookout Trail, go up along Sourdough creek, Stay on the crest of Stetattle Ridge. From pt. 6154 follow game trails down ramps and ledges to the notch above Torrent Creek. Ascend more ramps and ledges with a bit of steep schwacking up to ~6200'. Traverse westward around that elevation, Elephant Butte is a quick jaunt from the notch west of it. Gain the ridge proper from a notch just west of pt. 6455 (just east of the Mcmillan Spires). This is where the scrambling gets extremely exposed. Traverse mostly solid rock and heather benches toward East Mcmillan, occasional goat trails and veggie belays. Aim for a small notch to the left of where the ridge meets Little Mac.

I was digging through my old photos and remembering an epic and formative trip. Thought it would be worth a share. I lived in Valparaíso, Chile for most of 2010. That's where I started doing mountaineering and rock climbing, with a group of chilenos of questionable safety standards. Most of them were part of the Club Universitario Andinista, which was a club formed by former students of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria. The university club was disbanded after a very public tragedy on one of the Patagonian icefields where, after being pinned in tents by a storm for some number of days, a bunch of students perished from exposure after getting separated into two groups. One of the survivors became my friend and mentor Carlos, although he didn't talk much about that experience. I had climbed a couple times at Las Chilcas, an area in the central region known for sweet but hard sport climbs and easy bus ride from Valpo or Santiago, and tasted the oceanic rock around Valpo. My friends Jose-Luis and Pato Chico made money doing ropework odd jobs all over, and their big paychecks were often working for the mining companies. They got a job doing some work for a mining company around Antofagasta or Calama and invited me to meet them there for some climbing. I was soooooo stoked and I think I flew up there to meet them. Jose-Luis' sister put me up in Calama, I think, the I went to San Pedro de Atacama. SAN PEDRO San Pedro is a popular tourist town in the desert and very beautiful. There aren't many other places in the Atacama that foreign people visit. I spent a few days exploring around town and stayed with friends of friends. (I'm kind of embarrassed about how cheap I was back then, given that I was getting paid pretty well for a person living in Chile.) Licancabur, a beautiful symmetric volcano on the border with Bolivia, as seen from town. Checking out the geysers is a popular tourist activity It was cold at night. This is June, and the water is frozen. Wild camelids, either guanacos or vicuñas, I'm not sure which. I tried eating barbecued llama meat on this geyser tour and ended up getting really sick for nearly the rest of the trip. Pueblo atacameño típico I scrambled up and over some of these giant piles of dirt and salt and almost couldn't get myself out. Kind of scared myself and was an omen of more near-disastrous experiences to come. Below me was a dark sarlacc pit of doom. SOCAIRE Anyway, at some point Pato and Jose showed up and we went to Socaire, which has a beautiful canyon with sport and trad climbing. They had been there before. We took a bus and paid the driver extra to bring us a few miles closer to camp. I don't remember much of the details, but I think most of the climbs we did were in the 5.9-5.10 range with cool pockets and eroded features. Steep, bolted, although the other guys TR'd some cracks. I didn't know how to crack climb yet. Pato belaying with me up top. Jose belaying Pato ' The scenery is amazing { During our couple of days climbing, we slept in a bivy cave in the canyon and drank water from a trickling stream that ran through it. None of my chilean friends ever treated or filtered their water in the Andes, so I didn't either. I was pretty dehydrated all the time at this point in the trip from diarrhea I got from the llama meat. I think the second day of climbing, I gave a try at leading a short, 3 or 4-bolt route that was pretty much vertical. I was new to climbing but had learned to lead on day 1 at las Chilcas because... that's what they had me do! So it wasn't my first lead but I was pretty green. I clipped all bolts and was at the chains, totally pumped and trying to clip. I remember being so pumped I grabbed the chains and clipped my draw, but couldn't make the clip. My hands got greasier and greasier until I fell. Jose was belaying me but not really paying attention and had out too much slack. I basically fell right onto his head, but the rope came taught. Although I tweaked his neck, scared the shit out of myself, and scratched my glasses when they fell off, we were more or less okay. I took the next day off climbing and hiked around the canyon taking pictures. I think this is a picture of the route I ate shit on: The crew: a couple strong chilenos and one weak gringo! We walked into the town of Socaire then spent all day bumming around the plaza and trying to get a ride to San Pedro. Eventually, we found someone who was heading that way that we paid for a ride. LICANCABUR Licancabur (5916 m according to wikipedia) is the volcano that just calls to you from San Pedro. It's amazingly symmetrical and is sacred to the Aymara people of the region. Like a lot of high, dry peaks, there are ancient ruins at the summit. We decided to try and climb the thing from the Chilean side, because of course that way we'd be doing it the Chilean way and could bring any sort of smoking kit needed. Typically, people climb from a beautiful green lagoon on the Bolivian side. There is a marked trail there and that's the way guides will take you. But it's just a walk-up, so no big deal, right? Well, the other reason people climb from that side is that the Chilean dictatorship mined a lot of border areas to prevent a feared Bolivian invasion. (The Chileans took a huge chunk of land from Bolivia and Peru during the war of the Pacific in the late 1800s, which both other countries still complain about, with good reason.) So to get to the Chilean route, which climbs the N rib of the volcano, one needs to travel through an area which is known to have land mines. I was young and dumb, so was content to trust my (experienced yet crazy) Chilean friends and go that way. We found some other fools to join us, friends of Jose and Pato, mostly tourist/mountain guides from San Pedro, and a guy who worked in mining who crucially had a 4x4, plus a Spanish dude who was stoked. We piled into the car and drove towards the border on the paved highway, then turned north on the dirt road that would take us towards the climbing route. Like most remote land in Chile, it's privately owned. We called the landowner who said it would be okay for us to use it and that the road had been de-mined and was safe. As we drove down the road, we passed a fenced-off minefield that was signed. Eventually the road became too rough to drive, so we left the car and walked. There is absolutely no water in this area, so we carried I think two large soda bottles each (maybe 4 L?). I remember having to take a crap (still diarrhea) and digging a hole in the road because I didn't want to leave the road. I got behind my friends but kept walking along. Then the weirdest sight. A dude on a bicycle coming from Bolivia! He came by and I said hello. He was friendly enough, and I asked him if he was coming from Bolivia. He said something like "no, I'm just out for a spin". But it didn't make any sense. He looked Bolivian and had a Bolivian accent. He was also riding a bright red beach cruiser style bike and carried only a tiny daypack. It was weird, but I was pretty zonked from dehydration, etc., so I just kind of accepted it and walked on. We regrouped and my friends said they were pretty sure he was a smuggler. It made sense. We decided to not worry about it and keep going. As we walked, the road turned into more of a path. At one point we saw a small, metal sign on the ground with only one word: "minas". It wasn't clear where they would be. We continued and camped at a tongue of lava, on the border, where the route was described to begin. From there, it was just a chossy hike to the top of the volcano, but the altitude was brutal even though I'd been at 4000 m for a week. I was also still really dehydrated, but amazingly got over my diarrhea mid-climb. I don't think everyone made it to the summit, but Pato, Jose, and I did. Early light looking into Bolivia One of the homies (Marcelo I think?) feeling smoked, Spanish dude we called "Super Tío" behind On the summit. One of the highest "lakes" in the world. You can see a trail going down on the other side of the cone. Pato delirious Crew: I remember being so tired I wanted to just sleep on the summit. I probably was in the early stages of some kind of edema. We decided to descend by foot-glissading down this incredible chossfield that went on for ages. It was one of the craziest boot-skis I've done. We CRUISED down that thing. Somehow it didn't start a rockslide. After descending this, we made it back to our camp without exploding. This was stressful... we crossed a big flat area, on the Chilean side, that we weren't sure if it was mined or not. You can see the boot-ski big gulley with the choss "runnel" in it here, and the flat expanse we crossed below: Well, we'd been successful so far, so we felt pretty stoked. But then we got back to our car to find it had been broken into. Likely the smuggler and his friends decided to try and sweeten the deal (he likely had a pack full of cocaine) by grabbing a newer SUV as well. Luckily the anti-theft system worked. One guy had left a laptop in the car, though, and it was stolen. Marcelo tried to hotwire the car himself and actually got it running for a second before the anti-theft kicked in and shut off the engine. At this point the stoke was wearing off as we realized we probably had to walk back to the highway and were out of water. We didn't even have any in the car---although there was a bottle of red wine that the smugglers had left us. We managed to get a cell phone call to town and ask for a tow truck, but they told us it would be a while. We started walking. We met the tow truck on the road. They gave us a little water but said the road was too rough and were going to turn around. So we ended up having to call a different truck to come later. Not really a good scene when you're walking on a "safe" road and spot this (edit: probably just a bit of junk that scared the crap out of me!) But we made it.

A story that keeps on giving and a formative adventure no doubt!

Mec has been all downhill since they got rid of the serratus line of packs.. I love my genie pack which they no longer make.

wow. For a second, I thought you were talking about your bowels.

I love everything about this! More TRs please @Kameron, you have the knack!

So great meeting and getting out with you @kmfoerster! You were an integral part of the adventure and anyone would be well served to have you along on a trip! I will try and add a few more of my favorites in the coming weeks, but that was a super memorable outing! I think part of the issue I had with the snaffles, aside from being snaffle bait, was that I didn't have a bivy sack to seal them out. That and I didn't figure out why they were attacking my head until way too late in the evening. They really do like shiny things! I'm sure a headlamp would be a prized midden addition, and a sure fire hit with the snaffle ladies! I so hate snaffles. A respectful hate, but hate nonetheless.