Mt. Persis - Mt. Index Traverse

[Bronco]

My partner Brian arrived at my house ½ hour late, 4:30 am, which allowed me enough time to eat the waffle I made for him. We drove to the Lake Serene trailhead, parked his truck and drove my truck to the foot of Mt. Persis. Our plan was to scramble up Mt. Persis, traverse the ridge connecting Mt. Persis and Mt. Index, tag the summit of Index, descend the “non-technical” East route to Lake Serene and take the leisurely hike down to the trailhead. The total elevation gain and loss was approximately 14,000’ over 11 miles. Our bivy gear consisted of a cigarette lighter and ultra-lightweight bivy (Hefty Garbage) sacks.

We started out well hiking with headlamps and, topping Mt. Persis by 7:30 under a clear blue sky. We reached the ½ way point on the traverse ridge by 10:30 despite stopping for ½ hour to look for Brian’s bite valve to his water bladder, (DOH!), which popped off while climbing over a big boulder. Lots of big boulders encountered, which is a lot of fun! We ate lunch and decided to switch sides of the ridge and travel along the north side on the open face above the cliff band as opposed to the near vertical forest we had been traveling on the south side, which sucks! As we descended to the low point on the ridge of 4,800’ I found a small gully to glissade the final 400’ to the bottom. I soon discovered the snow too shallow and soft to adequately control my speed and flipped over to self-arrest as I gained speed. Now hurtling down the gully with the pick of my axe bouncing off of rocks, ice and brush I steered toward a small tree to stop my decent not noticing the rock protruding from the snow just up hill from the little conifer. Pow! Well, I was stopped. I was missing my hat and most of the skin from my knuckles and was now losing some blood. Brian brush belayed down to my position and we inspected my left hand deciding there wasn’t anything we could effectively do except move fast and get to the truck.

We put on our crampons, steadily climbed the west ridge of Mt. Index and reached the summit at about 2:30pm, signed the register and descended the East ridge to the saddle at 5,450’ where we were to find the key to the descent, the “obvious gully”. We found 3 obvious gullies, #1 didn’t look like it connected to the main gully without an 80’ rappel, #2 started and ended with a long rappel, #3 was 4’ wide and contained 70° neve. Since the total length of our rope was 80’ we took gully #3 as it also lead directly into the main gully. I kicked steps down 100’ to where I discovered a 20’ rock step covered with water ice with no obvious rap anchors to be found. Climb back up and try Gully #1. Nice and wide 60° neve with a ramp leading to the main gully. It was now 4:00 and fog was covering the lake creating, a sense of urgency. We down climbed a couple of 30’ easy 5th class steps to arrive at an overhanging, 40’ waterfall gushing with freezing fresh snowmelt. Tied 2 runners around boulders, attached the rope and tossed it down. Peering over the edge we could see the end of the rope dangling inches off the deck, Hallelujah! Brian went down first followed by the packs and myself. Very cold water. We gained the ridge to descend to the bench above the lake, followed a trail to where we found several old rap slings. As we were forced to leave our rope at the waterfall (it was short) we had no choice but to down climb into the clouds. It wasn’t bad, make like Tarzan most of the way, with lots of trees and brush to lower down. We reached the lake at 6:00pm, took 15 minutes to eat and break out the headlamps. Brian’s headband broke so; he held the light in his hand. It took an hour to circle the lake in the dark, climbing over and around boulders the size of UPS trucks. We finally reached the North end of the lake where we had to enter the woods, bushwhack up a vertical forest, where Brian dropped his hand held headlamp, which fell off of a small cliff. Sharing mine was a pain, I would climb ahead up through the thick brush for 10’ –15’ and shine it back to him then he would come to my position; repeat until we were thoroughly lost and frustrated. Brian was getting panicky and started thrashing and cursing the vine maple that had a hold of his pack. I finally got my bearings and hooked up with the nice USFS trail to the truck at 8:00 pm. We trudged down the trail swinging the light back and forth, Brian was very dehydrated and refused to drink water from the streams causing him to move really slow, yell at and taunt me for not planning the trip better. Sheesh! Some friend! (He later apologized after I offered him some Gatorade).

We finally made it to the truck at 10pm wet, tired and not happy to find the back window had been pried open and Brian’s toolbox and wallet were missing. This was the last straw for Brian and he delivered some colorful comments and a couple of kicks to the fender of his truck that would have made Pele proud. The Trailhead thief should consider himself very very lucky he wasn’t still there when we arrived. The headline would have read something like “Suspected Trailhead thief found dead of multiple stab wounds, ice axes are considered the primary weapon of the killers”

 

 

[philfort]

wow! good job. Sounds kind of epic. Sounds like you guys had a lot of bad luck too.

Two questions:

1) Why did you have to leave your 80' rope at the 40' waterfall?

Ok, just one question, I answered the other one myself.

[Alex]

That sounds awesome! Can't wait to go try it...what would it be like in winter? I guess we'll soon find out!! Have any pictures?? Post them when you get them,

Alex

[Bronco]

Philfort:

Good question, the closest/easiest anchors were set back from the edge of the waterfall. In hindsite, I should have sacrificed a couple of nuts or hexes to keep the rope, but speed was the issue. Someone gave Brian the rope anyway.

[Bronco]

Alex:

I have read at least one account of someone doing the traverse durring the winter but instead of descending to Lake Serene they make a 2 dayer out of it and go back to Persis. I think it would be a lot easier to travel over snow than verticle dirt. We took several pictures, but they need developing. I'll send some in if they turn out.

[Jerome]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bronco:

Alex:

I have read at least one account of someone doing the traverse durring the winter but instead of descending to Lake Serene they make a 2 dayer out of it and go back to Persis. I think it would be a lot easier to travel over snow than verticle dirt. We took several pictures, but they need developing. I'll send some in if they turn out.

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My friend and I did this route in early spring, April or so, this year. We climbed the W. Ridge of Persis, traversed to Mt. Index main peak, then retraced our steps to the car. We had snow from 3/4 of the way up the W. Ridge all the way to Index; it was thankfully firm in the morning, but rather mushy by the afternoon. It is very beautiful with snow on it, and only had one moderately interesting spot; the ridge traversing to Index steepens a bit just before opening up onto the summit plateau. Probably a hundred or so feet of steeper snow. Also, the summit cornice on Index was large, and stepping over it for a brief tour of the E. Face would be terribly easy.

With reasonable snow conditions the climb is quite feasible in one day. We're not exceptionally fast by any stretch of the imagination, and we were car to car in 9.5 hrs.

Jerome

[Cpt.Caveman]

First off bummer he lost his wallet! Death to the thieves!

Second conrgrats

Tell Brian to start drinking that water when he is dehydrated too. I do it all the time as long as it is not stagnated or have beavers living closely upstream. A real headlamp is pretty cool too as you probably noticed.

Having good gear is one of the 5 T's of climbing well. Here's the only 4 that I can recall. I only posses Tools and Tenacity

Tools

Tenacity

Talent

Training

 

 

[Bronco]

TESTOSTERONE!

[Cpt.Caveman]

At least you left one of the more technical vertical bushwhack routes for us to do next season

[This message has been edited by Cpt.Caveman (edited 10-23-2001).]

[Bronco]

That is one MANKY lookin bushwack on the N.Ridge!

You know what else was fun on that climb was every so often I would think "mabye now is a good time to put on our crampons". I had just read one of Chounaird's tip for speed is to cut steps instead of stopping to put on crampons and did that instead. Chop Chop Chop, it only took 2 swings to form a nice secure foot hold and ususally no more than 6 or 7 were needed to get to better footing.

Jerome: wow! 9.5 hours is awesome! I think route finding would be easier in April under a good snow pack. Was the big boulderfield just east of the summit of Persis covered?

[Cpt.Caveman]

Maybe hobnailed boots will be manufactured again one day.

[wotan_of_ballard]

the 5th or 6th T is TIMING, either hitting good conditions, or when you're on, which happens less often the older I get.

[Jerome]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bronco:

Jerome: wow! 9.5 hours is awesome! I think route finding would be easier in April under a good snow pack. Was the big boulderfield just east of the summit of Persis covered?

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Thanks! There wasn't any visible boulderfield,although I think I know what you're talking about, at least where it'd be. All nice, solid snow.

Jerome

[Cpt.Caveman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jerome:

With reasonable snow conditions the climb is quite feasible in one day. We're not exceptionally fast by any stretch of the imagination, and we were car to car in 9.5 hrs.

Jerome

---

And you expect me to believe you aint fast? I think I saw you last year near Colchuck Peak.

It would be like DPS saying he is not a good climber to say you are not fast. If that is of course you are the dude I recall.....

[This message has been edited by Cpt.Caveman (edited 10-23-2001).]

[mattp]

The 6th or 5th is TIME. This is different from "timing," an important factor which is founded in both judgment and opportunity. But the raw factor, "TIME," is probably more important than any of the others listed by Cavey. An untalented climber with crappy tools and little tenacity can eventually find a way to link-up Perisis and Index but, for most of us, our work and family lives sure do get in the way, don't they? The best time to try ANY climb is when you have time to do it!!!

[Bug]

Nice TR. I was up there playing hooky from work and wife in late April. I was going to do Persis, Index and back from the south basin under Persis. The bushwhacking directly up the south west slope of Persis was slow. I found tracks of someone coming down that way. There were also a lot of tracks up on the traverse and down into the basin from the gully in the east headwall. Next time, I will take the west ridge trail or probably better, go up the creek bottom in the south basin to the headwall, up right on brushy slab, and up through the talus to the north east to gain the ridge between Persis and Index. Return by the same route. This way would save a lot of time but you would miss scarfing that used 80' rope. I have a 60m 7mm for trips like that. It has been useful, nay, ass-saving many times.