cluck Posted July 26, 2005 Posted July 26, 2005 Climb: Prusik Peak-West Ridge Date of Climb: 7/17/2005 Trip Report: Took my first trip into the Enchantments 7/16 thru 7/19 and had an amazing time. The hike up the Snow Lake trail went smoothly until the last bit between Snow Lake and Lake Vivianne. Climbing 1,300 feet in ¾ of a mile was a beotch. And this is supposed to be the easy way?!? Once in the Enchantments proper, we were promptly met by goats… We set up our camp on Leprechaun lake where we wasted no time catching a handful of trout. Sunday morning we caught some more fish and eventually got around to packing for our climb of Prusik’s west ridge. The first pitch was a breeze (5.0) but I didn’t trend far enough left and ended up on the ridge crest a bit too early. Not much of a problem though as I just made a second, upward traversing pitch which brought me right to the base of the crux slab. There was some fantastic exposure heading up the slab and across the top of the ridgeline. From the end of the 3rd pitch, we sort of gathered up the ropes and scrambled up to the large ledge at the base of the summit block. We botched the routefinding somewhat on this last pitch because we misinterpreted the vague route description from ‘Selected Climbs.’ We found the 5.6 lieback crack to a ledge and a flake to a second smaller ledge. From there we found an obvious offwidth dihedral directly above heading straight to a short chimney and the summit so we climbed that. It ended up being a little tricky but we got up without any major difficulties. Turns out it would have been easier to climb to the right out over the south face and up a different chimney. Oh well, rope drag that way would have been a bitch anyway. Views from the summit were awesome and it was the only place we found refuge from the torment of mosquitoes all weekend. The descent seemed straightforward to me, but there must be some confusion since we saw a couple other parties struggling to get off earlier. Basically, you rap directly off the north face straight down until you can walk over to the saddle at the base of the west ridge. We did it in 2 double rope rappels and 1 single rope rap. We must have passed a half dozen rap stations festooned with brightly colored slings that made the descent feel more like a gay pride parade. Note to future climbers: don’t build any more damned rap stations. There’s already more then enough there already so just look around a little. After the climb we celebrated a bit back in camp: Monday we wandered around the upper Enchantment basin, hiked up Little Annapurna, explored lakes and waterfalls and generally enjoyed the spectacular surroundings. All-in-all a fantastic trip in one of the most amazing areas I’ve ever been. Gear Notes: 2 ropes for the descent saved a lot of time. Double-length runners also came in handy. Quote
dkemp Posted July 26, 2005 Posted July 26, 2005 must be a heavy pack for that little guy... Way to go folks Quote
Kraken Posted July 27, 2005 Posted July 27, 2005 that picture of the goat is now my background. Hope you don't mind. Awesome picture. Quote
cluck Posted July 29, 2005 Author Posted July 29, 2005 that picture of the goat is now my background. Hope you don't mind. Awesome picture. No prob.... Enjoy! Quote
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