cfire Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 (edited) Trip: Lincoln Peak - Standard Route…I guessTrip Date: 06/11/2018Trip Report: Trent texted Sunday night wanting to know if I was in for tomorrow. Uh, sure. For what? His partner bailed on his planned Lincoln Peak trip. Did I want to go. I haven't climbed any alpine in month's, out of climbing shape, drank all weekend with friends. Sure, I'll go. But I don't know anything about the route or approach, so Trent is the navigator on this one. We got a later start Monday so we didn't have to sit in camp for too long that afternoon. Left Burlington at 11am and drove up to the infamous FSR34. We had the secret weapon for FSR 34. Big Blue, a '79 Ford super duty beast of a truck. We drove up the road through brush and ruts to within 1 switchback of the end. Big Blue would not be denied. We then started the thrash up the old road bed. It is a thrash with plenty of slide alder, rock and an occasional trail. We broke off uphill after having enough of the road bed and enjoyed steep underbrush until finally breaking out onto snow. Surprisingly there was a fairly substantial layer of fresh snow, but travel was easy from there to high camp at the end of the ridge. We got from the car to camp in under 3 hours thanks to Blue. Great views of Lincoln and the route were enjoyed while sipping some whiskey and trying to stay warm. It was breezy and colder than we expected for the evening with clouds moving in and out. A 2am start got us to the top just after 6 for a cool sunrise. The shrund was negotiated with about 40' of steep s'nice climbing, then some crappy snow climbing with a 2" breakable crust with 4-5 inches of sugar underneath. We did have the occasional front pointing, but the large part of the climb was popping through the crust, unless you're bantamweight Trent who seemed to dance on top way more than clydesdale me. Route finding was pretty straightforward and the climbing consistently steep and enjoyable without being hairy. We broke out the rope for the final 10ft onto the summit. Great views with clear weather on top in fresh sunshine was perfect. One rappel off the summit and then we down climbed the entire route with the exception of the schrund, where we did one 30m rappel off of a picket. The steps I bitched about on the way up made for easy down climbing and back to camp. The thrash back down to Big Blue made us cuss and spit, but we made it back in 2 1/2 hours and licked our wounds with IPA spittle. All in all a great day out with Trent. The climb is really enjoyable with a bit of Rockies taste to it. If someone cut a path through that hell of an approach I think it would be a regular classic for its short climbing window. Some crappy cell phone pictures. No Jason G on this trip to capture the great images. I suck at photos. Gear Notes: 2 tools, rope, pickets, HuntersApproach Notes: Big Blue. Shwack, thrash, swear Edited June 20, 2018 by cfire 2 1 1 Quote
sepultura Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 Nice work Chris and Steve! You guys got it done in fine speed and style! Quote
Matt Lemke Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 Holy cow you had completely different conditions than we did. Looks like a lot of fresh snow fell after our may 26th climb. You were sinking through a crust? Damn the snow was hard ice the entire way for us!! Front pointing from start to finish. Nice work getting this one done Quote
JasonG Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 Damn! You guys almost make me want to put Lincoln back on the list @Trent @cfire......almost. Way to make it all seem so casual, conditions are everything! Quote
dberdinka Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 great photos and nice looking conditions. So how did the dad with endless free time miss out on this one? Quote
JasonG Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 Just now, dberdinka said: So how did the dad with endless free time miss out on this one? I'm saving some of that "endless" time for our Big Island vacation this November. They went Mon-Tues....and to be honest, I go back and forth on Lincoln. Not a lot of room for error on that one and I don't relish all the face-in downclimbing Quote
Bronco Posted June 22, 2018 Posted June 22, 2018 That truck is perfect except for the missing half of the gun rack. Quote
Trent Posted June 22, 2018 Posted June 22, 2018 Chris: Thanks for the great trip! And the belay up to the summit! And the IPA!! Quote
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