Val Zephyr

I was up in the Enchantments last weekend. Sherpa had quite a bit of snow.

Sometime Sunday afternoon or evening, the wind picked up and blew away my stuff! I'm missing a red bivy (Integral Designs), a Blue MountainSmith sleeping bag and an orange thermarest. I'm assuming that they are all together. I was camped on climber's left of Heliotrope ridge. And I believe that the wind would have taken this stuff down to the meadows below, possibly all the way to the treeline.

Thanks for saving the tent! We noticed the extra rocks inside. We arrived back at camp just as it became dark. The gusts were really intense by then. We had to have two of us sit inside the tent while the other two people tried to quickly take it down. With that wind, I was amazed that the tent was still there. Good job with the restaking!

Hi, I, along with three others, also tried Baker on Sunday. No skis though. Did you guys (or anyone else up at Baker Sunday or after) see a red bivy bag and assorted gear inside? Mine blew away Sunday afternoon while we were on the mountain. We were camped on climbers left of Heliotrope ridge and I believe that the wind would have taken it down the meadow towards the trail. I know that it's a long shot, but I'd love to get my stuff back. Thanks.

Nice job Hayley and Nick! Only ~75 more peaks to go right?

Trip: Sherpa - NorthRidge Date: 9/14/2008 Trip Report: Last weekend Ben and I headed to Sherpa Peak for an ascent of the north ridge. A few small events added up to turn this trip into what felt like my first epic adventure in the mountains. This was also, Ben’s first alpine rock climb. What an intro to alpine rock! Our first view of Sherpa Arriving at camp Sunday morning we left camp at 7:30, confident that we would have plenty of time to make it back to camp before dark. We were at the start of the route by 9 am. We started off with two pitches to gain the ridge. The first pitch was just an unprotected run up the slab. The second was a cool chimney with some run-out friction moves. First two pitches went up the left-hand side of the gully. Then we simulclimbed the sandy ledges until more climbing led to some rope-drag issues. We ended up taking considerably longer on this lower portion than we had anticipated. The pitches always seemed to turn several corners causing major rope-drag. We ended up pitching out most of it because of this. The pitches were also often shorter than a full rope-length because of rope-drag. Here is a pic looking up at the lower portion of the climb (with the summit in the background). The route climbs up and over the top of this spire and to a rap station on the other side. We reached the rap station at 4pm (far later than I had expected). We had 5 pitches to the summit and pressed on. Looking back at the last spire before the notch The first pitch was a fun knife-edge traverse The next pitch cost us a lot of daylight. So, I apparently can’t judge how steep the angle of a pitch is going to be when looking at it straight on and I went up a crack that I saw from the end of the traverse pitch that looked mid-fifth. I ended up having to pull through some very difficult mossy moves and finally had to aid the last move to get over the top. The route goes left of this and is much easier. The good news though, is that after this, the crux pitch seemed easy, solid and fun! I don’t know why it has such a bad reputation. We raced the setting sun on the last two pitches (easy fifth) And summitted after dark Now for the epic descent……… We rapped off slings to the SW under a full moon. Everything felt more sketchy in the dark. We didn’t find the second set of rap slings from the bottom of the rappel and were a bit apprehensive to pull the rope until we were sure that we were in the right spot. Once we found another horn that we could rappel from we tried to pull the rope. It got stuck twice. UGH! We finally freed it, and rapped/downclimbed further until we reached the second station. Relieved that we were in the correct couloir, we rapped again. We saw a slot notch to the east, we went through that and wandered along the ridge as best as we could, often getting stuck by the imposing cliffs of the many rocky ribs that we were trying to cross and never feeling sure that we were on route. We eventually gave up trying to descend with just moonlight and decided to backtrack to the last point we were certain of the route, the bottom of the second rappel. Along the way back, winding up and down steep gullies and ribs, we stumbled upon a perfectly level, sandy platform perfectly sized for a two person bivy. Without a moment’s hesitation we dropped packs and waited for daylight. Navigation was easier the next morning, but still not entirely straight-forward. After getting all the way back to the base of the second rappel and searching all around, we decided that the slot notch to the east was the way to go after all, so we set out once again following the tracks we had made six hours earlier. The descent crosses very many sandy gullies and rocky ribs, each time losing a hundred feet or so down a gully, before climbing a hundred feet back up to cross the next rib. Overall the route stays mostly near the top of the ridge, but on the South side until reaching Sherpa-Argonaut pass. We relaxed, re-hydrated and hiked out. As we were celebrating our climb in the Leavenworth Beer Garden, we found out that Ben’s wife had alerted S&R and the Sheriff’s office of our late return and a helicopter had been rerouted to look for us! Holy Crap! Ben called the search off and we finally made our way back to Seattle. Despite the unplanned events of this trip, I thought that the route and over-all experience were spectacular! The moonlight bivy at 8000’ was surreal. The route itself really does deserve more ascents, but I doubt that it will ever be very popular because of the bushwhack approach and the tedious descent. Thanks Ben for being a solid partner during all of the unplanned challenges of this trip. And Thanks Molly (Ben’s wife) for watching our backs in case something did actually go wrong.

Nice job up there you guys! It is amazing how much the conditions have changed in just one week. I'm glad you guys still managed to squeeze this one in this year!

Nice work guys. Looks like a fun climb! I love the sunrise pics. It looks like a pretty sweet place to bivy (even if it was unplanned).

PM sent

Thanks for the Welcome to CC! There was barely any snow on the approach. However, the snowfield on the descent might be tricky without an ax or crampons if it is cold enough to harden up. We were able to just plunge-step down in soft snow though. We decided to belay every pitch, but you could definately simulclimb the upper portion if you want and save some time. The upper portion did have some loose areas, but was pretty good overall. My opinion on good might be a bit off though (Hayley and I have been known to seek out choss).

Trip: Dragontail - Serpentine Arête Date: 7/26/2008 Trip Report: Hayley and I climbed the Serpentine Arête route of Dragontail last Saturday. We knew that this climb would challenge both of us, but we finally felt ready for such an undertaking. We started at the trailhead at 5:00 am. We dropped one of the packs at Colchuck lake (one pack for the person following worked very well on this route), had some breakfast and were at the base of the climb by 9:00 am. We had a few difficulties at the beginning of the climb. As we were trying to locate a way onto the rock, a large rockfall flew over our heads onto the snowfield below that we had just come up moments before. This definitely made me a bit concerned about what else we might encounter up there. Next we located what looked like a good way onto the rock above. It looked a bit tricky, so we roped up and Hayley took the lead. The route didn’t go and Hayley began backing off. She slipped and fell onto her first piece. We re-grouped, investigated the base of the climb some more and found a better way up (a leftward ramp on the right-hand side). So after dodging some heavy rockfall and taking a leader fall, we were now beginning the climb at 9:30. Three easy pitches brought us to the base of the first 5.7 pitch. Hayley climbing the 5.7 pitch This brought us to the first of the two crux pitches. It was already almost noon by this point. We had taken a bit longer on the first part of the climb than I had anticipated. Luckily, we had thought to bring extra warm clothes and extra water in case we took too long and needed to bivy while on route. We had a quick lunch while planning the best way up this section of rock. Thanks to Frank and Obadiah’s Serpentine Arête trip report, I avoided the obvious, flaring crack in the middle and went for the twin cracks just to the right of it. I found this line to be very fun! It finished with a sweet 30 foot hand crack. Hayley topping out on the first crux pitch Hayley took the next crux pitch with two dihedrals. Looking down from the top of Hayley’s pitch One more pitch brought us to easier terrain. At this point we realized that we had one more unexpected “situation”. The container with the extra water that we had brought in case we needed to bivy had sprung a leak and soaked our extra warm bivy clothes. Crap, so much for our careful planning! With this new situation, we really felt the need to get off the route before dark. Luckily, despite the immensity of this peak and the warnings of route-finding being difficult, we managed to stay on route (save a couple short accidental detours) and made good time on this section, arriving at the summit at 7:30. We arrived back at the trailhead at 2:00 am, tired, but thrilled about the incredible day that we had shared on the side of Dragontail peak. We both agree that this is a spectacular route, with good challenges and mostly good rock. We were amazed that we got this route entirely to ourselves that Saturday. Gear Notes: Cams (camalots): one each of .3, .4, and 3; doubles on .5, .75, 1, and 2 We took a set of nuts but didn’t place a single one. We took 10 single slings but would have been fine with 8. We had 4 double slings and used them quite often on the upper section to prevent rope-drag.