[TR] Ingalls, East Peak - SW Face 7/4/2011

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Trip: Ingalls, East Peak - SW Face

 

Date: 7/4/2011

 

Trip Report:

 

Yesterday we climbed the East Peak of Ingalls. This route is rarely done - we saw a handful of entries in the summit register for each of the last few years. It seems October is popular. We didn't have much beta but thought it would be a fun go for a relaxing, uncrowded 4th of July.

 

There is still a lot of snow on the approach, continuous from around the Longs Pass trail junction. Headlight basin is under a blanket of snow with little running water.

 

View of Ingalls Peaks from the approach:

 

We made a route-finding errror by following foot prints all the way to the top of snow on the approach gully to the notch. This appears to be the same mistake spotly made a couple years ago. We thrashed around here for a while burning some time but eventually got to the notch with chockstone.

 

DC at the top of the snow gully:

 

We climbed the chockstone and went up about 20 feet to a big belay spot and the first real pitch. It may be possible to just scramble to this spot from around the back (North) side of the notch, but there is so much snow there now that we didn't try that.

 

The climbing is very similar to the standard route (South Ridge) on Ingalls, North Peak. It's all about fun slabs with cracks for pro, taking mostly small cams.

 

View up the first pitch:

 

Upper Pitch:

 

You top out on an exposed chossy ridge that joins to the highest point a few feet up.

 

Dramatic scenery from the summit towards Ingalls North Peak:

 

There are four obvious rappel stations along the route - pick your poison for descent. We opted to downclimb to station #3, rappel to station #2, then #1, then double rope rappel partway done the snow gully.

 

Descending snow gully:

 

The deproach in the evening was very pleasant and cool. We saw one party descending from the North Peak from the summit and passed a couple campers both going in and out, but in general, we had the day all to ourselves.

 

Lake Ingalls still frozen over!

 

Evening light hits Stuart:

 

Gear Notes:

Lots of cams: C4 .5, .75, 1, and 3, Master cam #1 and 2.

Had a full set of nuts and used only one. Small tri-cams would work too.

 

Approach Notes:

Continuous snow starting from the Longs Pass trail junction.

[mountainmatt]

Nice one!

 

I did this route last year and found the raps to be less than obvious. Luckily we had some nice shiny webbing to leave behind. The rock is not as clean as the rest of Ingalls, but its still a nice little romp as well. Not having to scramble up the rock gully must have been nice

[Gaucho Argentino]

Sweet! How come you can get D to climb and I can not?!

 

Nice pic of Stuart, you think the N ridge could be already in?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Nice pic of Stuart, you think the N ridge could be already in?

 

From Ice Cliff Glacier last weekend the N ridge was looking pretty good... but we only had an oblique view of it rather than head-on.

[acc]

We climbed the east ridge of north peak on 7/3 setting the bootpack up the snow gulley. I felt like we were higher than I expected we would be by the time the snow ended, but the nasty chimney was easily bypassed to the left.

 

I thought it was a little dicier than I was lead to believe, but doable. The scramble up did wander a LOT. I must have been off route a bit.

 

[KaskadskyjKozak]

We climbed the east ridge of north peak on 7/3 setting the bootpack up the snow gulley. I felt like we were higher than I expected we would be by the time the snow ended, but the nasty chimney was easily bypassed to the left.

 

I thought it was a little dicier than I was lead to believe, but doable. The scramble up did wander a LOT. I must have been off route a bit.

 

The route up left is where we ended up going. I climbed the E ridge of the N peak 2 years ago and we definitely started lower and to climber's left. I should have paid more attention and headed that way (it's easy class 3 with a couple of brief class 4 sections)

[Sean Garcia]

Damn. Who's the handsome fella in the middle of all that Dramatik Scenery?