[TR] Alpaca Pk- Al-Pika Slabs 9/6/2004

[Dru]

Climb: Alpaca Pk-Al-Pika Slabs

 

Date of Climb: 9/6/2004

 

Trip Report:

Thurs night: drove to Wall Cr trailhead area

Fri AM; encountered berdinka & friend at trailhead. Exchanged lies about destination. Lugged huge rack of chimney and aid gear in to Wall Creek Meadows. Stupid.

Fri PM: clouds and wet. Sat in tent.

Sat: hiked insane amounts of gear to base of 5-pitch line. Hail and sleet. Hiked gear back to tent. Interesting encounter with all-camouflaged frame pack man Camp fire. Rain started late afternoon & continued all night.

Sun: sat around debating whether to bail. fresh rime ice and cold winds sealed choice. Increasing sun and warm weather as hiked out. Encountered Berdinka & Ty at cars again - they made same call to bail. Felt better after that. Drank beer. Ate dinner. Drove convoluted route to point south of Merrit.

 

Mon: alarm at 6. Up at 7. Breakfast. Bushwack & hike slowly thru boulders to base of NE face of Alpaca. Climbed a pitch here 10 years ago with John Simms, had always meant to come back and finish route; today was finally the day.

 

P1: clean corners and wet rock to belay. Fun traverse.

P2: Mer practices vertical gardening, finally traverses long clean slab runout to belay.

P3: Wandering around, lots of edges, not much pro to speak of.

p4: 65m of glacier polish, thin flakes and low angled offwidth. Fun.

P5 simple and short. Also the textbook #10 hex placement was found.

 

Hike to summit. Descend (too long). A bit of rain starts after we are back at the van.

 

Sort of a nice consolation for 3 days of playing alpine Sherpa to an oversized aid rack in bad weather....

 

This route is on good rock but has vegetation issues. Green thumbs and winter mixed climbers encouraged to repeat. look for the killer peregrine dismembering a pika in midair!

 

Gear Notes:

Way too much gear. #1 copperhead to #4 Big Bro

 

Approach Notes:

Wall Creek and Coldwater River roads.

[snoboy]

So it's about what? 5.fun??

 

[Dru]

It's harder than the sidewalk from Starbucks to Murraysovereignco. storefront, and its for sure easier than driving the Unimog off the top of Burgers and Fries and doing a flip on the way down.... alpine AV (assez vegetative)

[Dru]

there are some fotos in der gallery

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=7463&sort=1&cat=last1&page=1

 

and

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=7462&sort=1&cat=500&page=1