Gary_Yngve Posted July 7, 2005 Share Posted July 7, 2005 Fortress: the SW route is in great shape. the E ridge is still holding steep snow up top, turning a mellow ridgewalk into scary exposed traversing. we felt that traversing to Chiwawa would have been inappropriate for our group; obviously a stronger party may make a different decision. Buck: Lots of snow up top, making for nice cramponing in the early morning. I don't think I slogged through any pumice. Head close to the West Peak, and then locate the Middle Peak from there (it has a thin white dike on the upper middle of it). As for the approach, I think any approach sucks. Two of us took the Beckey ramp; the other four went over LG Pass and up Louis Creek. The two of us got off-route on the E Ridge up Berge -- we ended up in steep brush and cliffbands to the right, which were joyously wet on Saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary_Yngve Posted July 7, 2005 Author Share Posted July 7, 2005 One more note: The altitudes in Klenke's SummitPost description seemed a little off. The altitude to leave the trail to hit the ridge seems like it should be more like 4200 than 4300. Don't be too literal on the WSW. You should be able to see the ridge through the clearing if the weather isn't sucky. Unlike us, use common sense. If it's too steep, correct yourself sooner than later. By the time we realized that we needed to go climber's left, there were ravines/cliffs preventing us from doing so -- we didn't top out onto the ridge until 6200. We did find exposed wet slopy ledges to traverse on at 6400 that took us into the basin. The ramp that you need to find is pretty darn obvious. But it was more like 5700 feet than 5900 feet. Basically, at the toe of the buttress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted July 7, 2005 Share Posted July 7, 2005 My Buck route page. You will note that I use approximations for my elevations. You could be right, you could be wrong. I could be right, I could be wrong. But thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plexus Posted July 8, 2005 Share Posted July 8, 2005 Chiwawa: Sucked. Used the ice ax for a total of 100 feet. This was on Tuesday. Dropped tot he saddle, felt cheated so wife and I went and investigated Fortress from the SE. The gully/depression was in nice condition. Got to the ridge line and felt like we would have wanted a rope for that 40 feet getting onto the ridge. The meadows were gorgeous. Surprised on how little snow there was. I would highly suggest Fortress over Chiwawa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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