[TR] Mt Rainier- Gib Ledges 5/29/2005

[Alpine_Tom]

Climb: Mt Rainier-Gib Ledges

 

Date of Climb: 5/29/2005

 

Trip Report:

The climb was organized by Dan Larson, and originally included him, Lu Lui, Mike Bell, and myself. The plan was to hike up to Muir, hang out until dark, and then do the Nisqually Ice Fall.

We met at Dan’s on Saturday and drove down in two cars, getting to an extremely full Paradise parking lot around 1:00. Where we dithered and ultimately decided to bag the Ice Fall and do Gib Ledges instead.

On the hike up to Muir – man, it was hot! I was wishing I’d brought a small umbrella – Lu was lagging behind, and Dan slowed down to hike with him. Eventually, Mike and I got to the newly refurbished Muir hut around 6:00. Dan and Lu never showed up – we found out the next day that Lu had twisted his ankle, so the two of them turned around.

The hut is much more spacious than it was, but only holds about half the numbers of sleepers, it seems. Anyhow, we set up our stove and melted snow, drinking water and resting.

Around 10:30, we headed up to the ledges. The snow was an okay consistency, and there was enough starlight that you could see the basic shapes of the rock. We followed a boot track up the ridge, which proved to be a skiers track when it petered out above the beehive.

The ledges were pretty sketchy. It was right around freezing, and water was dripping off the rocks onto the snow, where it froze into a hard water ice and rock mix, pretty dicey to hang onto with crampons or ice axe. The snow was nearly as bad, a hard crust over sugar snow, so that when you punched through (I weigh a lot more than Mike so I fell through a lot more) you’d wallow thigh or hip deep. The ledges may not be done for the season, but if you want to get the route this year, be prepared.

Last year in April I did what I thought was the Gib Ledges, and was a bit surprised at how easy it was. We’d actually done the ramp BELOW the ledges. That route (I don’t know if it has a name) seems to be still in, and less dicey than the actual ledges.

Eventually we got through and up onto the exit chute. From here it was a routine long hike up to the summit, which we reached around 6:30.

We hung out on the crater rim for a while (I got my kite up into the summit wind for a bit) and headed down behind two strings of RMI folks, down the ID route.

 

Conditions were generally quite good, aside from the actual ledges. Cathedral Gap is currently all snow, none of that nasty stumbling and sliding on choss, though it probably won’t be much longer. The Ingraham Direct route is in fine shape, pretty direct.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Crampons, ice axe, 30m rope.

 

Approach Notes:

There's a LOT less snow than there was a couple weeks ago -- you're mostly on dry trail up past Pan Point.

Edited May 31, 2005 by Alpine_Tom

[Juan]

Good job Tom. Maybe we need a category for the over-40 climbers. You're in that group right?

 

Sharp

[Alpine_Tom]

Both Mike and I are, in fact he's a member in longer standing than me.

[pup_on_the_mountain]

Good job you guys! We climbed the ledges on Friday (5/27/05), and found the route to be in great shape. There were some

mixed ice and rocks as you guys saw, but the snow was pretty good - we hardly punched through, and sank only to our ankles

even if we did.

 

But after reading your TR, I'm in a little doubt now - did you guys actually scramble up some rocks to access the

"ledges"? We found some boot marks right at the base of the Gib rock which we accessed directly from the snow ramp at

the end of the ridge. And we basically were walking all along the base of Gib rock on a LEDGE till we had to

scramble up some rocks to access the upper portion of the Gib chute. Do you think we did the ramp BELOW?

 

Any ways, climbing the steeper upper portion of the Gib chute was great fun under quite ideal cramponing

conditions. Interesting how a couple of hot days can change conditions up there!!

[Alpine_Tom]

Well, when I did it last year with Alex Mineev and Aaron Bailey, we traversed under the rock, on a safe-feeling shelf. This time we went all the way up to the very top of the snowfield that you ascend, on the SE side of Gibraltar Rock, and went onto a very dicey, steep-sloping snow and ice ledge that at the start was only about 4-5 feet wide. Mike, who's done the route several times in the past, assured me that THIS was the actual ledges route, and the one I did last year (and it sounds like you may have done) is not.

I had a camera with me, but since we got to the ledges around 12:30 or so, there was no way to take a picture, so I can't provide any better description than that.

[pup_on_the_mountain]

Thanks for the clarification Tom. Now I'm pretty sure we were

actually on the lower shelf, as we did not go all the way to

the SE side of Gib rock. In fact, we got lost a bit before

that and actually went on the left side of a smaller rock

which sits below the Gib rock. Both of us had not done this

route before, and in the dark, we found a narrow ramp at the

base of this rock which we thought was the "ledges". But it

ended soon and we were traversing some 55 degree snow (icy

at places)! We came to a dead end before we realized that we

were off route. The Gib chute was way below us, and when we

looked around the rock on our right, we saw the actual

ledges on the other side! Initially, we thought we'll get

down to the chute and climb it all the way up, but could not

find a safe exit. So we traversed back all that 55 degree

snow and got back on route. We wasted more that 1.5 hrs here

doing some hard shit. Hence when we were back on track, we

went straight for the base of the rock (followed the snow

ramp). As you mention, we found it pretty safe (even though,

the "ledge" got quite narrow at places higher up).

 

Any ways, it was a fun outing. I'll have to do the actual

route next time.

[thelawgoddess]

super tr!