[TR] Monte Cristo - std route 9/6/2008

[Alpine_Tom]

Trip: Monte Cristo - std route

 

Date: 9/6/2008

 

Trip Report:

Reduced to doing a solo outing, I thought this might be a reasonably interesting feasible outing for a day with iffy visibility. I was up in Glacier Basin two weeks ago with Alex M, climbing Cadet Peak (not really worth it but for the scenery) and so it was a known quantity.

 

The bike ride in to the townsite, about 4 miles, has been damaged badly by floods. There are a couple of bike-over-your-shoulder portages in the first part (unless you're far more of a single-tracker than me) but the rest of the road is okay.

The trail up to Glacier Basin is in fine shape. I was surprised by how much lower the water was than just two weeks ago.

 

I followed the route description in Jeff Smoot's book, heading up the 'obvious' scree slope up between the cliff band, and from there bearing left up to the V notch. The visibility sucked; I kept hoping it would clear, which the weather report said it was supposed to, but it didn't really get very clear until mid-afternoon, so I was navigating mostly by hunch.

I stayed off the snow heading up, and hiked up the dirt-scree-rock hogsback, and then scrambled up a couple of crappy gullys, aiming for what I hoped was the v-notch.

Once you're at the v-notch, you traverse behind the mountain for a bit, like Silver Star peak, to a gully that you follow up to the summit. Here I was out of luck: the moat was ten feet wide and hopelessly deep. I did find another spot I could get across the moat, and tried to claw my way up the rock, but it got to be mid-fifth class climbing, and I didn't feel comfortable doing (or reversing) it in hiking shoes and no pro.

 

So, I headed down. The book suggests that you can scramble up to the summit from the north side, and if the visibility had been better, I might have tried that. But for now, the 'standard' route is pretty well out.

 

As a whole, the climb is much more enjoyable than the bushwhacking and heather slogging on Cadet Peak. The rock is kind of interesting in that there is two distinct varieties, an absolutely crappy crumbly red rock, and very nice granite (I think.) It looks like the north face scramble route would go up the granite, as the summit block is generally.

 

I took some photos, but they're on my PC at home. I might post them if anyone's interested, or they'll show up on my website eventually.

 

Gear Notes:

crampons (needed them on the back side.)

hiking poles.

coulda maybe used rock shoes.

 

Approach Notes:

The road is in okay condition. Apparently the 'trail pass' money isn't being used to actually work on access any more. The trail was fine, if muddy in places.

[Off_White]

Sure, I'm interested in the photos when you get a chance.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Sure, I'm interested in the photos when you get a chance.

 

+1 pics are always good

[pink]

yeh, who reads trip reports

[JoshK]

The Monte Cristo area is a really neat place, both for the natural scenery and the interesting historical aspects. Nice job, Tom.

[benmurphy]

A friend and I climbed this last year about the same time (Sept 7, 2007)...we accessed the rock from inside the moat just after passing through the v-notch...however, it was probably low 5th class climbing to the summit (rock quality gets worse towards summit) and we placed a few pieces of pro on the way up...beautiful area!

[Alpine_Tom]

The Monte Cristo area is a really neat place, both for the natural scenery and the interesting historical aspects. Nice job, Tom.

Yeah, I ran into a couple of guys in Glacier Basin who were heading up to Cadet Peak, and that had apparently spent a lot of time poking around in mine adits and exploring old mining artifacts.

[Alpine_Tom]

Pichers, if ya want 'em:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~tbreit/monte.htm