[TR] Mountain Loop - Mile High Club 07/20/2019

[Alisse]

Trip: Mountain Loop - Mile High Club

Trip Date: 07/20/2019

Trip Report:

Finally made it out to climb Mile High Club, and it was a super fun and awesome route!!

The update is that it appears that perhaps the intermediate rap station on pitch 3 was hit by rockfall; the chain and rap ring were gone, and one of the bolts is a bit bent and sticking out about a half inch. We were able to use a hefty tree and a boulder to the right to easily downclimb to the big unexposed ledge after coming off rappel, and walking over to the next rap station felt completely fine to us.

Views of Glacier and Baker were awesome. The water in the gully is still flowing well. No other parties on the route (unexpected but awesome).

Thanks a ton, @Rad and @dberdinka for a super fun route with such a short approach! My partner's knee limited our options to short mileage and elevation gain, and this route was perfect to allow us to do a multipitch to a little summit in an awesome setting ☺ (oh yeah, and it was his first multipitch alpine/alpine-esque route!)

I hope more people get on this. Lots of really fun moves! Leading evens or odds, you'll get good climbing!

Gear Notes:
I appreciated how well-bolted this was. We brought 12 QDs and 3 alpine draws, and that seemed to work well. 70m rope!

Approach Notes:
Easy

[Rad]

Thanks for the TR and note. Sounds like a fun day.

As we discussed via PM, the intermediate anchor is fine. The bolt hanging out is not an anchor but one on the 3rd pitch. It was botched and a new one was placed nearby, and we haven't had the tools in hand to remove the botched one and patch the hole. Hopefully we will get to that this fall.

FWIW, you can now get up and down w a single 60m rope. From the summit, rap to the LOWER anchor at the top of p6. Then rap to the UPPER anchor above the dihedral. The rest is the same, with separate anchors to reduce congestion. Warning, if you use the dedicated rap anchor skier's left of the p1 anchor, be careful not to let your rope run into a constriction. I got a rope stuck there once at night by myself. Escaped by moving back to the original p1 anchor and flipping rope. Last week I was careful not to let the rope run in the constriction, but it was still really hard to pull. Not sure why. So maybe just stick with the original p1 anchor. You can get down to the starting ledge from there w a single 60, but it's close so tie knots and be careful. 

[Alisse]

@Rad You beat me to my post edit! Thanks.