My First Bivy.

[sobo]

My first unplanned bivy was on WR of Stuart about 15 years ago. I was fresh out here from Virginia, and looking for an alpine adventure. Phil and I had planned to do the WR "in a day". At only 5.4 to 5.6, we figured, "This'll be a great introduction to Cascade alpine climbing. How hard could the WR be, anyway? Piece o' cake!"

 

We had yet to learn of the intricacies of what was later to be explained to us as "Beckey Time."

 

After starting out in sun and getting headwalled a few times, and watching my partner almost slide off the snowfield below LJ Tower, we got hailed on, then a lightning strike as we made the move onto the north side at the notch, then snowed on at the summit, we figured, "Well, we're (half) done. How much worse can this really get?"

 

Folks were bivying at the standard south side bivy spot below the summit. They tried to cajole us into staying. We didn't figure we had the gear for that - shorts and t-shirts, with a fleece jacket and nylon wind gear for the outer layer.

 

We headed down what we *thought* was the Cascadian. Later learned it was Ulrich's. Came back up about 300 feet and met the bivy-ers again. They tried a little harder. We were still deaf. By now it was full-on snowing. Found some cairns and headed down, but too much east. Later learned that we were following cairns down Sherpa. Somewhere in the dark we (finally) broke out the headlamps at the top of a headwall. It was after 10 p.m. now, and I announced that we were going to have to spend the night up here. My partner, recently wed, had been stammering all night that he was not going to spend the night on the mountain, but rather with his new wife. The headwall convinced him otherwise.

 

All night long we huddled on a ledge, roped to a little larch, clothed in everything we had. We watched the storm clouds roll in and out over the half moon, waiting for it to rain or snow again. Phil had one of those chintzy little REI-type thermometers you wear on your zipper. It read about 35^ at about 2 a.m.

 

I leaned over to Phil and profoundly stated, "Ya know, if it rains, we're dead men."

 

Phil's response: "Thanks for the fuckin' weather report!"

 

I thought I would die laughing! We toughed out the night, and felt like popsicles right before the dawn. We finally began to move, like lizards when the sun gets on them.

 

We spent a while traversing from one side of our bordering ridges to the other, trying to find a way off the headwall. It was too tall to rap and retrieve the rope, and I wasn't going to leave it. After about an hour, I made the decision that we were going to cross the eastern ridge at our headwall, which we did. It dumped us in a gulley where we leapfrogged down, taking turns hiding from the beach ball-sized boulders we kept trundling down upon each other.

 

Ultimately we made it down to Ingall's Creek, and hiked up and over Long's and out. It was my first trip to Stuart, and I still think of it as my best one, or at least the most fun.

 

Someone recently stated in another thread that just about everyone who tries to do Stuart in a day gets to enjoy an unplanned bivy. I think I can agree on this.

 

Oh, and

[dlofgren]

Was going to pack my alpine skis to Muir and enjoy the run back to Paradise; decided instead to leave the skis and boots (too heavy) and just make a quick trip with an extra-light pack to Muir and back. First weekend of January, 2003. Make a long story short, reached Muir, tried to descend in a typical howling, snowing, can't-tell-up-from-down whiteout, ran out of daylight, dug a cave, laid on my empty pack for 12 hours, only cover was the clothes I was wearing, finally made it back to the parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon, totally exhausted. After making some STUPID decisions that got me in the mess, I made some smart ones that enabled me to survive. Still a vivid memory. I plan to write it up in detail some day; may even submit it to the flame test on this site!

[catbirdseat]

We had a planned bivy on Stuart this year, except that we didn't, or at least I didn't plan on it being as cold as it was. I had a super light 40 degree down bag and a bivy sack which was fine except that the temperature fell to 20 degrees in the night. I stayed warm by moving around a lot, but I didn't get any long periods of ininterrupted sleep. I had plenty of food which was a huge bonus. Every time I ate a snack I could feel the warmth.

[tread_tramp]

My first unplanned bivy was during a january descent from Muir, in which we were caught in a white-out and a bit off route. So we hunkered down for the night in a snow cave. But we had all our overnight gear so it wasn't that bad.

 

My first unplanned bivy with only a day-pack was on a descent of Mt. Garfield main peak. We got off route and funneled into a ravine which Becky describes as the Lower West-side approach. Long story short, we came to some cliffs as it was getting dark, around 10:30 pm. So we backed up into the trees and got next to a big fallen tree trunk. I had an old Chouinard vapor barrier in my pack that I used for a bivy bag. There was some drizzle during the night but I stayed dry. In the morning we re-examined the situation. Just had to retrace our way back up a bit, step across a stream, then followed a steep wooded hillside that avoided the cliffs.