one or two ropes on Inspiration descent

[layton]

?

[forrest_m]

mike - it is possible to descend the w. ridge/gully with one rope (i've done it), but it sucks. some friends of mine did the same thing last summer, and went back the following weekend to do the south face, and sent me the following email:

 

we rapped the left side (west) of the south face yesterday after doing the s. face. the rap is good and we backed all stations up with new webbing and rings (and 1 nut). as you are descending the upper west ridge (or climbing the s. face), you can see rap slings at the top of the sw butt/left side of s. face. we didn't actually use those ones - if you go about 30 more feet down the ridge, there is another station at a notch. i scoped this station on our last trip. either would work, but since this station is lower and we had 1 60 and 1 50m rope, we chose the lower one. this rap gets you down to the 3/4th class slab. you could downclimb here, but we went to skiers left 25 ft. to another station and did another double. then, we did 2 singles with a 60 and one more double down the west side of the sw butt (because we couldn't get to the kearney start on the right side of the sw butt due to crevasses). it was really nice to leave axes, packs, spikes, boots ..... at the base of the route. a great choice if you have 2 parties of 2 (or if you carry a second rope).

 

my understanding is that this REQUIRES a second rope

 

 

i have also heard of people rapping the east ridge (including 1st ascent party), which seems like it might be reasonable with a single rope, (the steep pitches are pretty short) but this is a total speculation. would be nice, though, if your plan is the e. ridge, to leave axes & boots at the bottom!

[nothing]

i assume you are doing the east ridge or south face? you can rap the west ridge with a single rope. a 60m is nice, but you shouldn't have a problem downclimbing short sections - as many have descended with a 50m rope. i've descended the west ridge with 1 rope - works fine but not a route worth climbing up (upper part is cool though). i've also rapped the west side of the south face with 2 ropes after doing the s. face - might be able to get by with one, but you will have to build a station (we built some pretty good stations last year). you can downclimb alot of the lower part. other than the 2 rope weight, the south face descent is nice because you leave all of your crap at the base. even if you do the s face descent, you are probably going to need shoes, spikes, or an ax to get to the east ridge. it's pretty easy to climb the east ridge with this though because the climbing is moderate - 1 5.9 pitch.

other stuff - keep you options open - you can probably get to the s face pretty easy - it might be harder to get to the east ridge (crevasses). also, if you do descend the west ridge, there may be a big crevasse near the base that you have to run and literally fly over (the upper side is higher so it goes). worst case you have to walk west a ways to skirt it - could add 30 minutes.

[John Frieh]

Your rack? 2 ropes

 

Someone else's? 1 rope

 

I would say since you have no clue what the N face holds 2 would be much safer and also hauling is then an option.

 

Enjoy d00d!