early morning spire dorado needle link up

[tyree]

going for earlly morning spire next week and have a few days off. trying to gather any beta for a EM spire-Dorado needle linkup. has any one done this, any suggestions?

[wayne]

It depends on which routes you want to climb on the 2 peaks. or if you want to take an extra day, or if you have Croft -like abilities.

The way is long in there ,and the routes can take people a while,

Plan on getting up 1 route if its a big one and try another if you have the notion afterwards.There are shortcuts and a good way up if you just wanna peak-bag too.

[wayne]

I had the same idea of linking the 2 in a 2 day trip. with another bivvy at the eldo-dorado col, i could see it going in 3 days . I didnt feel very strong after doing just the classic rt. on early am. there are a couple threads out there, do a search

[daylward]

We (Forrest and a guy named Chris Turchin and I) did Early Morning Spire the weekend after doing Dorado Needle, back in the Summer of Virtue ('97). After knowing the descent off Dorado Needle back down to the McAllister glacier was easy, we wanted to see if a similar descent would apply to Early Morning spire, whose summit is not only northwest of Dorado Needle's, but set away from the main line of the ridge that borders the McAllister. The visibility was not great when we got there, but from the summit of Early Morning we descended slightly in a north-easterly direction (straight toward the McAllister), then ascended a snow bowl that led to the notch in the ridge. We could not see the glacier below us due to the poor visibility, so we were hesitant to rappel into the void. But we began to traverse and ascend ledges (low class 5) back toward Dorado Needle, and soon we reached a point where we were either close enough to the glacier or the visibility had improved to the point where we could see it. It was then an easy 30m rap to the glacier, where we could easily head back to our previous night's bivi site near the Tepeh Towers.

 

I'm trying to think how the terrain was to the climber's right of the snow bowl beyond the summit of Early Morning. Is there a relatively easy ramp that leads to the base of Dorado Needle? I don't think we could see much that day. But I remember the gully we ascended to reach the base of the Dorado Needle route seemed to head up and to the left, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a piece of cake to get from the summit of Early Morning to the base of the route on Dorado Needle. Neither route is super long, I'm sure a fast party could do them both in a day (after a high bivi) and get all the way back out to the car. Maybe even car to car in a day? That would be a challenege.

[iain]

it would be agony to be on that cascade river trail twice in a day with those climbs in between. Heading over Dorado rather than dropping down is very tempting from that notch after Early Morning Spire. We could not do it because we had cached some bivy stuff down low, but it is clearly the fast choice.

[tyree]

thanks guys for the beta. i think that we will take three days climb early morning then the needle and a high bivi on the way out if the need be. ill post a tr next week.