skyclimb Posted April 25, 2003 Posted April 25, 2003 Anyone Been to Muir or above in the past few days. Quote
Dulton Posted April 25, 2003 Posted April 25, 2003 Going up tomorrow... (Friday), to check out Gib Ledges or maybe ID, and of course to whip my butt into shape.... I'll let you know. Quote
Dulton Posted April 25, 2003 Posted April 25, 2003 (edited) these days the days seem to run together, i think its withdrawls from climbing.... DARN school!!! Edited April 25, 2003 by Dulton Quote
Dulton Posted April 28, 2003 Posted April 28, 2003 Headed down to Paradise to do the slog up to Muir for some conditioning and to check out the Gib Ledges route. The snow at Paradise has finally caught up to the average snow-pack, I think there was about 13 feet at Paradise so it seemed that Gib Ledges still could be in season and might be for a couple more weeks. The gate opened around 8am (an hour earlier than usual) and the drive up to Paradise was a little icy at spots but pretty good otherwise. Started out under blue skies with an approaching front from the east. The snow up to Pan Point was fairly well consolidated and the winter route was in pretty good condition. There have been many slides over the last few days (mostly wet slides), but if you go early enough the snow is hard enough that it isn’t a problem. Didn’t really need snowshoes the whole way although they would have been nice to have below Pan Point on the descent after the sun had softened up all up. About 1:30pm the clouds that had been approaching finally reached it to the snowfield and as they moved across small-scale whiteouts settled in. We made it to Muir around 2pm and the snow was still in good shape. One person made it up there before us (a skier) and we met a first-timer up there named Jim and he tagged along with our group. We descended after an hour or so up at Muir through the clouds again… the snow started to fall on us and the wind picked up from the south. Made it beneath the clouds and the snow was still falling (even though the temps were way above freezing… 38 degrees?). Other day hikers had turned around because of the deteriorating weather, after I gave some crazy confused directions on how to use a compass to a couple of guys (one who was planning on doing Denali in a year I think) we continued to descend. The snow was horrible for glissading (although Greg brought a little flexible sled thing and he got some good runs in on that thing as we watched and trudged downward L), I imagine that it would have been great skiing or snowboarding on the way down tho! I met a five man team heading up to Muir who were planning on doing the Ledges in the next day, I thought it was a little late to head up to Muir and the weather wasn’t looking promising, but WHATEVER! Made it down to the car in about 2 hours and realized that we forgot the sunscreen DOH!! We all got pretty burned, so that wasn’t fun. When we got to the car we had a car full of people from Chicago who didn’t seem to understand that we had only gone half way up the mountain and interviewed us for their personal home video as the people who “conquered the mountain” hmmm, that was a little strange but we got a good laugh from it on the drive back. One question for y’all… one of our group (who had never been up to 10k feet before) came back and is suffering from a punctured lung. Is this from the fact that he had never been at that altitude or something else, he wasn’t pressure breathing or anything like that, I just feel bad because Greg and I were moving fairly fast and he was pushing himself pretty hard and have never been up that high before. Hope that’s enough beta for ya! All in all it was a fun trip and good conditioning, hoping to go back in a couple weeks and complete the Gib Ledges, i'm hoping those guys that were heading up there post their TR somewhere (their from Minnesota tho!). Quote
Dulton Posted April 28, 2003 Posted April 28, 2003 I have some pretty nice pics if you guys wanna see em' but i'm an idiot when it comes to computers and i don't know how to post them... i think the file size is too large.. what do i do? Quote
Dulton Posted April 28, 2003 Posted April 28, 2003 another..... (theres gotta be a better way.....) Quote
slothrop Posted April 28, 2003 Posted April 28, 2003 Punctured lung? Did one of you guys prod him too hard with your trekking pole to get him hiking faster? Quote
Dulton Posted April 28, 2003 Posted April 28, 2003 well the gate was going to close at 8pm and i had to work that night too...... Quote
ryland_moore Posted April 29, 2003 Posted April 29, 2003 Was up there all weekend. Don't know about the exact snow conditions on Gib Ledges, but the snow is in good condtion......if you like postholing your way up! There was a decent amount of snow accumulation Fri and Sat, but Sunday was an awesome day full of sun and clear skies. The snow probably got a chance to melt and settle a little. Good luck if you head up! Aside from the postholing the whole way up, the mountain seems to be in prime condition for a ski descent. Got some excellent turns coming down off Pan Face as well. Quote
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