[TR] Mt. Triumph - NE Ridge 09/21/2019

[kmfoerster]

Trip: Mt. Triumph - NE Ridge

Trip Date: 09/21/2019

Trip Report:

On Saturday @willgovus and I climbed Mt. Triumph's NE Ridge in a day, roughly 16.5 hours c2c. Camped at the trailhead and set the alarm for dark and early. Only two other cars there, possibly camping around Thornton Lakes. Approach went pretty smooth through the brush around the lakes, felt like hiking through a car wash. Took about 4 hours to get to the base of the ramp before the notch at the start of the NE Ridge. The only snow travel was a ~50yd patch after the notch above Thornton Lakes. After that it was walking along mostly dry slabs.

We made the mistake of staying little too high initially on the slabs only to get cliffed out, but found a mellow mossy ramp down lower on the slabs. I'd recommend staying low on the slabs until after crossing the big gully in the middle of the cirque. Climbing on the ridge was almost entirely done simuling, with pitched out sections at the cruxes. I thought the rock quality from after the vegetated beginning to the high gulley towards the top to be really good. The rock was damp here and there and keeping the soles of our shoes dry was a challenge. The 5.7 "off width" crack was pretty fun and protected well, even though a bit moist in spots. I imagine other, easier variations exist on the north side.

After the high gulley we traversed the south side on heather ledges and scrambled up to the summit. The scrambling near the top it quite loose and nerve wracking and doesn't get any better when having to down climb. If doing this again I would bring the rope up to rappel down this section. It took us about 3 hours from the notch at the base of the ridge to get to the summit.

It took about 2 hours to get back down to the notch at the base, mostly rappelling and simuling the lower angle sections of the ridge. Cant remember how many rappels we did exactly,  though enough to make me glad we were only a group of two. Some rappels with a 60m rope ended up being just short of the next station which we delt with just by down climbing 5 to 10ft. Reversed the long hike out and got back to the car around 6:30pm. This is easily one of the more amazing ridge climbs I've ever done. This thing is long and delivers the false summit effect a few times along the way. Very happy to sneak in one more big outing before things get even more rainy around here!

Gear Notes:
Cams .3 to 3, set of nuts, 7 alpine draws and 5 double length runners. 60m rope is fine if you don't mind down climbing a bit of easy 5th to get to the next station a few times. Otherwise, if you have a 70m that's somehow lighter I'd bring that.

Approach Notes:
Approach shoes, aluminum crampons and a light axe

[Kameron]

That's WICKED fast!

[mountainsloth]

Nice climb. And, agreed, I’ll give the NH “wicked fast” label too.