[TR] Clark Mountain - Luahna Pk July 11-13, 2008

[iluka]

Trip: Clark Mountain - Luahna Peak

 

Date: 7/11-7/13/2008

 

Trip Report:

Brian, Laurie and I headed out for a three day trip to the Dakobed Range to do Clark Mountain via the Walrus Glacier and, time permitting, Luahna Peak as well.

 

Friday was spent getting to camp near Boulder Pass. The trail is in good shape with minimal blow-down to deal with but lots of vegetation crowding the trails in spots. The lower crossing of Boulder Creek on the White River Trail was easily done on some big downed trees. Loads of mosquitoes on the White River Trail but none once we started the ascent to Boulder Pass. The ascent was easy and very un-MailBox Peak-like as the trail has some of the mellowest switchbacks I've walked in a while. The creek crossing at 4100 feet required taking off the boots and putting on sandals as the water is just below the knee at its deepest and the creek cannot be rock-hopped at the crossing at the current water levels.

 

 

From there the trip up was easy. There is discontinous snow on the ascent out of the basin to the pass but it is easy to pick up the trail.

 

 

We arrived in a basin just west of Boulder Pass, finding mostly snow but one nice dry patch for camp as well as running water and few bugs. A warm, pretty night with a nice moon. Car to camp: about 6 hours with breaks.

 

 

The next morning we awoke to bluebird skies and I was reminded of the famous Ernie Banks quote from his days with the Cubs, "It's a beautiful day for a ballgame... lets play two!"

 

 

We left camp at 6:20. The east side of Boulder Pass was largely snow covered and quite firm at that time so we put on crampons and down-climbed into the basin just east of the pass. From there we traversed across the basin ascending an easy snowslope (the rightmost slope in the photo below), taking that up onto the shoulder where we roped up and accessed the Walrus Glacier.

 

 

We picked up what we thought were tracks from an earlier party but, instead, found were mountain goat tracks. The goats were above us on the Walrus... they weren't roped. We traversed without losing elevation and then ascended the left side of the glacier to below the rock pinnacles seen in the photo and then cut right across the top. This route may not be open long as there were some growing crevasses up there. It looked possible to go up the center of the glacier as well.

 

 

After moving across the top of the glacier to an elevation of 8,000 feet at the foot of the ridge running east from the summit of Clark, we found a notch that we used to pop over and access the southeast flanks of Clark. This required about 50-75 feet of downclimbing on loose scree and slabs. Once down the slope, we found the snow on this side was firmer than expected. Since some of us had left our crampons on the other side of the notch with the rope, we opted not to climb the snow to the summit and, instead, traversed straight across the snow and accessed a scree slope which easily ascended to the summit from where we had great views of Luahna and Glacier. Camp to summit of Clark: 4 hours.

 

 

 

After a break on the summit, we downclimbed the ascent route and were back at the notch within about one-half hour and set out for Luahna at 11:30AM. We originally planned to traverse around to the north side of Clark without losing elevation from the notch but found the slopes a bit steep for our liking. We dropped about 100 feet or so and found a better spot to traverse around. In the soft snow, it was straightforward. Had it been firmer, a lower traverse would have been better.

 

 

Once on the north slide of Clark, we descended to about 7800 feet and headed over to the ridge that separated Clark from Point 7970. It is not possible to get down from where we were to the lowest point on this ridge between those two points, as there are some very steep dropoffs on the glacier. After a bit of poking around, we found an access point that allowed us to cross over onto those southwest facing slopes between Clark and Point 7970. We dropped off about 200 feet and then traversed over on loose scree to about the 7600 foot level on the ridge running down (southwest) from Point 7970. This afforded good views of the route to Luahna shown in the photo below.

 

 

We decided to do the scramble route up the southwest slope rather than taking the Richardson Glacier route. Rather than then ascending to the col just north of Point 7970 as called for in the guidebooks, we dropped off the ridge a bit and opted to follow the snow up to the summit. Here is where we made our one route-finding error of the day. As you get up higher, the rock formation on the ridgeline in front of the summit starts to look like the summit. (This is marked in the photo above with the blue arrow). We headed for that, found what looked like the gulley described in the guidebooks and headed up. After a series of Class 4 moves (the summit is listed as a Class 3 scramble in the books... this should have been our first clue to our error) we popped out at an opening only to have a great view of the actual summit and a realization that we had erred. We downclimbed our faulty route, dropped back down about 100 feet then came further northwest around the mountain to the proper spot where we found the leftward trending gulley that ran right up to the true summit (The red line in the photo above shows the correct route to the summit gulley). As you move around to the correct area for the ascent to the summit, there is a big blocky formation on the ridge above you. Climbing up and to the left of this, the gulley becomes apparent (red line in the photo below).

 

 

The gulley to the summit straightforward Class 3 scrambling on mostly steep lose scree with one Class 4 move required at the top of the gulley. Apparently this peak is not visited often as there were only 3 summit register entries from each of the previous two years (including one from Lowell Skoog and another from Brian Bongiovanni). Time from Clark to Luahna: 3.5 hours including the route finding error which cost us about 30-40 minutes.

 

 

 

From there, we retraced our route over to the glacier on the northside of Clark. Heading from there to the northeastern slopes of the Walrus, we took a lower traverse than we did on the way over to Luahna, finding a mellower slope with less of a drop-off below. A few crevasses in spots, but they were all easy to navigate around. We caught some nice views in the softening late afternoon light and eventually arrived back in camp at about 8:00PM, 13.5 hours after our morning departure. Time from Luahna to camp: 4.5 hours

 

 

 

 

The only surprise upon arriving was that the trekking poles I had left in camp had disappeared. I quickly found one but didn't find the other until the next morning, some 50 meters away from camp in a clump of trees. Seems the marmots in that area like them quite a bit as they chewed up the handles on both poles pretty good.

 

 

A relaxed start the next morning, had us back at the car in about 4.5-5 hours

 

 

Gear Notes:

Axe, helmet, crampons, pickets (2), rope, harness, sandals

 

Approach Notes:

Trail is in good shape. Creek crossing at 4100 feet requires sandles or the like right now.

[Alex]

I was going to comment on how that all looked very similar to the SE Route on Buck that Gene and I did a few years ago, then realized ah right it's in the same range just one vally over....

[pc313]

NICE TR KOOL PIC'S,GIT YOUR SELF A COLD ONE!!!!!!!!!!