chris Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 Climb: Mixup Peak-East Face Date of Climb: 8/3/2006 Trip Report: The Story Inspired by Tom and Alex's trip a few weeks ago, M and I decided to check it out last Thursday. We went for a sport-climbers alpine start, leaving the car at 10:00am... The approach is incredibly straight forward - and this is after I've spent a summer in the Sierras. The trail kicked in by the Ptarmigan Traverse looks almost as if it was built by a trail crew. The bugs that Tom wrote about were no where to be seen. Gunsight Notch is actually two notches, a "U" and "V" seperated by a tower. We ascended to the U notch, and found that a car-sized block of the snow-lip had collapsed and created a bridge across the moat, making our access much easier than what Tom and Alex reported. We traversed around the south side of the Tower to gain the V-notch, and the start of the route. Two obvious starts are visable when traversing by the slings marking the first pitch - the left-hand start (probably the Beckey recommendation), is marked with one old, faded grey sling. The more often used right-hand start to a nest of red slings is recommended - it allows the belayer to sit off to the right in the notch, protected from rock fall. We roped up for this entrance pitch, but then soloed. If you were to pitch it out (recommended with beginners or the hesitant), then head up and right for pitch two, keeping the dropoff close to your right side. The second anchor station is located at the top of a knife edge. The 3rd pitch follows this knife edge up to a tree (slings are hidden underneath the branches). These anchors are ideally placed so that climber-inspired rockfall descends away from the belay stations. A short bit of 1st class soloing leads to the east face. The Beckey description recommends traversing across the amphitheater to the rib that makes up the right side. We went directly up the bowl, wandering around looking at the gendarme protecting the south-east ridge (there are slings on top!) and finding a loan protection bolt, an old 1/4", half out and bent, with an aluminum hanger. Looking at the options for the final pitch, we chose the obvious corner that access the lowest point on the summit ridge. That works, but in the future I'll probably use the crack/corner system next to the left, since it leads directly to the summit blocks and bypasses a tricky-to-protect ridge traverse. A slung anchor/rap station clearly marks a great place to pitch it out to the summit. To descend, we rappelled from a rap station on the north end of the summit blocks, immediately before the ridge knife edges. A 30 meter rappel reaches the anchor/rap station I mentioned above. A second rappel puts you firmly in the 3rd class of the East Face. A hard search failed to find the third rap station that Tom mentions in his trip report. Downclimbing leads to the top of the 3 pitches to the notch. The rappels are 30m, 25m, and 15m. We cleaned the useless slings from the 2nd pitch (they were getting in the way of the rappel rings). All told, we roped up for the first 15 meters and the last 10 meters, soloing the terrain in between. Remaining roped up for the first three pitches, and the last two pitches, would probably add an hour to the ascent of the technical route. Times Car - Cascade Pass: 1:30 Cascade Pass - Cache Glacier: 1:00 Cache Glacier - Gunsight Notch: 0:30 Gunsight Notch - Summit: 2:00 Breaks (20, 10, 20, 10 minutes): 1:00 Summit - Gunsight Notch: 1:00 Gunsight Notch - Cascade Pass: 0:45 Cascade Pass - Car: 1:15 Totals Ascent - 6:00 hours with breaks and summit Descent - 3:00 hours, no breaks Car-to-Car - 9 hours Mountain Notes Tom mentioned the North Ridge, a class 4 route, in his trip report. During our approach, we worked hard to identify this route as well and believe we did so. It is not the rib defining the right side of the East Face amphitheater, as Tom suspected. The North or North-East Face of Mixup is divided from the East Face by the Mixup Arm, a buttress that sweeps from the summit to the NE - and is crossed down low to gain the Cache Glacier. Rather, the North Ridge is visible from the Trailhead as the sweeping arm framing the north side of Cascade Pass. Once on the Ptarmigan Traverse trail, the N Ridge Route is gained by climbing the first gully/snow field (glacier remnant?) to a visible ramp on the gully's right side, and gains a ridge line. The route looks pretty straight forward from below - I'd like to try it sometime. Conclusion This route - and this mountain - is perfect for a fun endurance day trip. Possible bivy sights on the Cache Glacier make it a great day and a half trip too. The rock is not as bad as some spoiled climbers would imply - you simply need to knock on a few holds at the beginning and end, and mind some obviously detached blocks. I hope to head back and check out the North Ridge sometime as well... Gear Notes: 50meter rope - which required us to down-climb between rappels. A 60 meter rope would be perfect, though you can keep 30m coiled in the pack until the descent. Rack: A set of nuts, cams from 0.75-3, five shoulder slings. We used the 1, 2, and 3 cam on the route, each once. I'd bring the same rack in the future. Crampons and ice axe. Made for a quick traverse of the Cache Glacier. Aluminum crampons would be perfect for this route. Approach Notes: As mentioned above, the trail to Cascade Pass is built by trail crew, so be prepared for 4 miles of 2% grade and numerous switchbacks. The Ptarmigan Traverse looks like it could have been built by trail crew (though they ignored that 2% rule in some places). 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Billygoat Posted August 8, 2006 Share Posted August 8, 2006 great beta, thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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