Lowell_Skoog Posted July 28, 2002 Share Posted July 28, 2002 And do be careful on Mixup. A friend of mine fell to his death on the peak fifteen years ago. He was pulling the rope after completing the rappel from the summit. Some rocks fell and threw him off balance. He wasn't anchored to the ledge he was on and he fell. There have been other accidents up there as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrible_ted Posted July 28, 2002 Author Share Posted July 28, 2002 Hi all: For those interested (and you should really reconsider...) in Mixup Peak, I'll offer some encouragement. No one had signed the register since last year, but we added 6 names on Thursday night. We also paid for it with a 2:00am bivy at Cascade Pass (shhhh! don't tell...). The moat at Gunsight Notch is readily scrambled on the right hand side. The rock on the route sucks. If you don't have a helmet on by the time you get into the moat, it's because you're deaf, blind or have nothing in there to protect. The scramble up the 'gray staircase' is nice - it reminded me of a Mayan temple or Egyptian pyramid. PM me if you need anything more than that. -t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiplash Posted July 28, 2002 Share Posted July 28, 2002 We were up there sat. There was only about 50'to 100' of visibilty all day. Made the route finding interesting not being able to see any of the mountain. TT-Saw your tracks in the moat going up to gunsight notch. Where did you go from there? We dropped down the other side of the notch about 100' and scrambled out a ledge about 50'. Started the first pitch here and went up trending left to a ledge on a rib that felt more like 5th class than the 3rd-4th in the guide. Next pitch we climbed up and left across a rib and into a chimney that ended up vertical to overhanging at the end, some mid 5th class moves got us out to a easy gully. Figured we were off route by this time. Took this up through some small trees to the ridge. Followed the ridge along through a dip and reaching the gray staircase. Kept going on solid, fun scrambling to about 7200'. Thought we could see the summit finally, but it was late and visibilty wasn't getting any better, turned around here and started down. Decided to just rap the route we climbed instead of trying to find the normal route and chance getting lost in the white out. Found some booty on the last rap, 3 biner's-one being a locker, and 2 nuts, looked like they had been there awhile. I second the helmet comment as the rock is garbage. Pulling the rope brought down massive amounts of crap. Have to make it back up there when we can see something! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tread_tramp Posted July 28, 2002 Share Posted July 28, 2002 whiplash, it sounds like you stayed on the south side of the ridge spur that heads from gunsight notch up to the flat shoulder. if you start just 30 ft past the col the climbing is not very difficult and sends you more directly up the route. although it starts a little harder than 100 ft down, it never gets as hard as what you described. nothing eliminates the loose rock. that just has to be looked out for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrible_ted Posted July 29, 2002 Author Share Posted July 29, 2002 Hi Whiplash: We went ~100' down the gully on the south side of the notch, and then almost doubled back to the NE, heading up a wide gully. We belayed from just up out (2M) of the scramble gully. It sounds like you traversed farther around at this point than we did. I stretched out the 1st pitch almost a full 48M, ending up just after the cave/chimney problem. Real bitch getting through that with a pack. One more full pitch following the same line left us just short of the shoulder, which can be gained by moving up and to the left of the belay stance. The climbing was never that difficult - just chossy. Getting to the summit ridge from the 'staircase' is tough: the right way was relatively straightforward (although 5.2 is a serious sandbag, even by Fred's standards...) and the wrong way is a protection resistant 5.8 or greater... Our next to the last rapp was a double, which was almost overhanging and almost a full 45M, dropping us into the gully on the North side of Gunsight notch. Our final rapp was actually down in the gully, as it was getting near midnight and we had some less seasoned climbers. The weather was pretty miserable come Friday morning - sorry it didn't clear for you. I won't go up there again. Too much unavoidable rockfall to do that twice! -t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiplash Posted July 30, 2002 Share Posted July 30, 2002 Thanks guys for the info. Did you happen to noticed some slings in the moat that looked pretty new. One was rapped around a chockstone about mid way up the moat, the other one which was blue was closer to the bottom were you exit out of the moat. It was slung around a big flake that looked like it had fallen off from higher up with the sling already on it. The sling was all beat up and I couldn't move it, so I figured it wasn't tied were it was at. Spooky to think that someone might have rapped off that flake at one time and now it sat down in the moat with the sling still on it. Or I could be wrong as maybe all the rocks getting kicked down the moat scuffed up the sling and ended up getting packed in around the flake making the sling not move. Getting down in the dark must have been exciting, I think if we didn't turn around, we would have been in the same boat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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