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Croft's Enchantment traverse


lancegranite

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Yes, there is some more interesting trivia on this mammoth day, which involved a free solo of N. Ridge of Stuart, including the Gendarme finish, and other peaks on the traverse over to Prusik, which he also climbed. There were rumors that Peter had an encounter with the law due to his midnight start and a spate of vehicle breakins at trailheads.

 

I was in Bishop CA climbing at Owen's Gorge in March and ran into Peter, out guiding that day. I asked him about that big day. His client asked what we were referring to and Peter humbly mentioned a little hiking and climbing trip in Washington! grin.gif

 

Anyway, he didn't have a ride to the trailhead that "day" (sometime around midnight) and so was starting the trip by hiking up the road ooo.gif from camp at Icicle Creek to the trailhead, which adds several miles and more than 1,000' of elevation. So here he is hoofing it up the road in the middle of the night and along comes a Larry the Tool rentacop the_finger.gif who was patrolling parking areas and who thought Peter was a nefarious character out to vandalize vehicles in the middle of the night. He pulled a gun on Peter, who needed 10-15 minutes of fast talking to extract himself from what proved to be probably his closest brush with injury or death of the day so he could get to the trailhead and move ahead on a colossal day of solo alpine climbing.

 

He is also very friendly and engaging, a pleasure to watch climb, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the routes at Owen's which he freely shared. Another high point: watching Peter toprope a 5.7 sport climb, complete with quickdraws, after his client led it. Glad I got that gem on film! hellno3d.gif

 

Anyways, here's to a legendary and inspirational climber: bigdrink.gifbigdrink.gif

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Didn't he tag "Outer Space" on the way out?

 

 

Anybody, is this really true, Outer Space after all that other climbing? Man and I thought adding Prussik was sick and unnecessary, but to tack on OS too, the dude is a machine. I'll be happy if I can pull off doing Stuart to Dragontail in a day, some day.

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Anybody, is this really true, Outer Space after all that other climbing? Man and I thought adding Prussik was sick and unnecessary, but to tack on OS too, the dude is a machine. I'll be happy if I can pull off doing Stuart to Dragontail in a day, some day.

 

I would be more surprised if he DIDN'T tack on OS.

 

I was recently flipping through Alex Huber's photo book, which includes a chapter by Peter Croft. Croft mentions that one of the several times that he free-soloed Astroman, he followed it up--the same day, right afterwards--by free-soloing the Rostrum, the Nabisco Wall, Outer Limits, and Red Zinger! Someone who solos at this grade probably would not get too tired from tacking on a 5-pitch 5.9 (which probably took less than 30 minutes to climb).

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Yes C45, but what distinguishes the Enchantments traverse, the Evolution traverse, and others of the ilk is not the difficulty of the climbing, which is quite moderate for Croft, but the sheer mileage and vertical, much in technical terrain. At some point, despite moderate climbing, everybody runs out of juice or light or both. Except for Dan - maybe. laugh.gif

Edited by matt_warfield
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Well, I have no references in front of me, but I'll take a shot: the trail alone from Stuart TH to Snow Lake TH is about 19 miles. Considering the spur to Stuart and all the zigzaggin' and shite, it's gotta be 25+ miles. The elevation gain from Icicle Creek to Stuart summit is more than 7,000' so including Colchuck, Dragontail, and Prusik's ups 'n' downs has to add up to at least 12,000' of gain. A worthy effort considering a bunch of it is off trail and, well, climbing. And by the time you pull the great granite on the N. Ridge of Stuart (Peter raved about the quality of that route) and end up on Prusik, well you're going to feel like Outer Space just gets a wave.gif on the way to a bigdrink.gif

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I know he did the upper North Ridge, including the 5.9 Gendarme direct finish, and would be surprised if he didn't also do the lower North Ridge. And there is a lot of ridge traversing in between, but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't do the S. Face of Prusik instead of the W. Ridge as a finale. Anybody have a reference with details?

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i was skiing with an older couple last week and when they discovered i was moving to squamish for the summer to rock climb they said oh, we have a friend who climbs. they were wondering if maybe i knew him since i'd done a little bit of climbing up here. they said his name was croft. my mouth about dropped open as i said "peter?" and they just looked at me like - oh you do know him. i had to explain to them that i didn't know him at all, but that just about anybody who climbs knows *of* him in some way or another. they were pretty surprised. seems he's fairly low key about his accomplishments. thumbs_up.gif

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Doing that all in a day is amazing enough, but has anyone done all these peaks in a single trip? Start with complete north ridge and then dragontail and colchuck, Prussik, and then what about extending that to the rest of the peaks by Prussik? Then hit snow creek wall on the way out. Probably more likely a 3-4 day trip for me but that would be an awesome traverse! Anyone done it?

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The rest of the peaks were just ridge traversing?

 

Well I know Shepra and Argonaut have techincal climbing to get up and down them so those are not just ridge traversing. Colchuck and Dragontail can be easily scrambled/hiked. Prusik is a technical climb.

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  • 4 months later...

I was reading "Ways to the Sky" last night, and there's a small section on this:

To paraphrase...

Croft went from the Stuart TH w/ only a banana & 1 litre of water. Climbed the NR of Stuart, Sherpa, Argonaut, & Colchuk. Grabbed a fig bar that Greg Foweraker stashed for him. Then Dragontail, Little Annapurna. Had extra daylight, so he then did the south face of Prussik.

A couple weeks later was the Waddington traverse w/ Foweraker & Serl!

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