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[TR] Sloan Peak - West Face 12/10/2011


Taluscat

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Trip: Sloan Peak - West Face

 

Date: 12/10/2011

 

Trip Report:

I have posted asking Q's regarding this awesome face though in the meantime I will summarize our accent that occured Saturday and will have Braden follow up with the photos..

 

So on the lunar eclipse,Braden Downey,Will Hinkley and myself made an accent of a long snow and ice route on the Northeren aspect of the west face and IS the line of weakness to our eyes (well provide an overlay shortly) the route begins at the lowest part of the face and follows a steep ice flow aprx 950'

up to grade 4 climbing and provided 5 full length pitches,We found fair quality ice though at times a bit runout and very

insecure and coined pitch 4 "The Window" due to a hollow hole in the middle that I gingerly passed "puckered up" high above gear, the flow gave way to an additional 1000' of steep snow and ice to 50' mostly good neve'and solid ice that we climbed ropeless.This deposited us at a prominent notch in the north ridge, we soloed out the notch maybe 40'of easy 4th class with snow before ropeing up for a rock pitch that had a fixed yellow alien, the lead carried upward then went hard left through a very insecure series of off balance moves on really poor feet and worthless tool placements,felt 5.8/. one more lead of easy mixed and steep snice over a short but steep wind blown ridge crest saw us on the west side of the N.ridge, ropes away and the long and sometimes very exposed ridge required an additional 1000' of route finding, down climbing into a deep notch and false summits that were non the less exausting, we finally topped out just pass 3:00pm after 12 hrs on the go A brief snack,high fives and we were now racing the fading light and tempetures down the corkscrew route which none of us were familiar with, incoming clouds made rt.finding issues not so trivial and were further made difficult by nightfall and fading headlamps, the traverse over two passes and basins went supisingly well given the w/x lack of knowledged and whiteout conditions..we were relived to finally make it back to our poles were we could put ourselves in autopilot mode and make the slog back to the car and well deserved beer. I want to thank Braden and Will for an amazing time to a cool place on a fun adventure climb..This was the first time I had met Will and the first time any of had climbed together-it was the beginning of some fun things to come! photos to come soon..thanks for reading..

 

"Full moon Fever"- New route?

IV,AI4R,50',5.8,3000'

West Face of Sloan Peak 7835'

Braden downey,Will hinkley,Kevin hogan

12/10/2011-lunar eclipse

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

3 pins

set of stoppers

.00,green alien,orange tcu,.75,1,2,3

8 screws

7 draws-3 alpine,3normal,1dbl lentgh

 

Approach Notes:

Mt.loop Hwy> FR 4906> Bedal basin trail to bottom of face

rd 4906= packed snow and ice,4x4 with some balls or chains reccomended

Bedal basin trail= broken trail inn now

No flotation needed

Edited by Taluscat
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I hope these pics give you a feel for the good time we had last Saturday.

 

Also, I'd like to recognize Kevin and his regular climbing partner Doug (who couldn't make it due to work) as the masterminds of this climb, and that I was just a lucky dude who happened to have an obligation-free Saturday.

 

Sloan_Peak21.jpg

Sloan2.jpg Will leading insecure 'shampoo ice' on pitch one - *camera tilt unintentional. "it's been a while since i've climbed ice" :shock:

Sloan_2.jpgSloan_3.jpgSloan_4.jpg "thumbs up" for bomber rock anchors!!Sloan_8.jpgSloan_9.jpgSloan_10.jpg

Sloan_11.jpgIMG_0276.JPGSloan_12.jpgSloan_1.jpg

IMG_02851.JPGIMG_02861.JPG

*Sorry no summit pic for ya, Wijavascript:void(0)ll!

Sloan_13.jpgSloan_14.jpgSloan_15.jpg - Stoked to be back at the 'bivy boulder' after a disorienting descent in a whiteout :rocken:

Edited by downey
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Ok, here's a start...

 

At first glance, I know most drool over the thought of the lines to the right side of the face, lookers left of the shaded spur/lower ridge-thingy.

 

The "obvious weakness," though, might be the far left of this pic?

 

Either of these arrows close to your line? Arm-chair mtn-eers, unlike yourselves (!), want to know.

 

Cheers,

 

N

 

 

 

sloan_west_face1.jpg (Scurlock, but you already knew that)

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Thanks for all the positive feedback-to clarify the accent-

Noah T> your overline is not far off, the first arrow should go up the steep even runnel to the left- the second and third arrow should funnel through the snow ribbon/field that wishbones Rt. of the rock in the middle and the up to the big U shaped notch.from there we were on the south side of the peak for two rope lenghths bringing us to the N.Ridge were we made the traverse mostly on the W. Side to the summit..

 

For the descent- down the corkscrew to the gendarme, downclimbed the couloir to the first bench, then a similar gully to the second bench angleing down and right on to a snowfield A long Westward traverse to a pass,name? then n/n.w

traverse to the pass above bedal basin a glissade into the basin and out...wheeew dose this help?All of this was onsight,mapless in a whiteout...

Edited by Taluscat
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:rawk::rocken::brew:

 

Been waiting for someone to pull of a winter ascent - I guess yours counts as fall*, but who cares. Nice work!

 

Lots more lines to be had out there...

 

* depends on if you define winter as calendar, seasonal, or conditions-based

 

Calendar winter starts on the solstice (Dec 21)

Seasonal/traditonal winter starts in early November (Nov 10 or 15)

Meteorological winter starts Dec 1st

Conditions-based, seems like "winter conditions" to me from the pics although the Scots might quibble about that bare un-hoarfrosted rock.

 

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OK, as I had mentioned to Kevin I thought I had recently photographed it and sure enough I did on November 28. You would think I'd have automatically remembered....

 

Here it is, click 'original' below the image to see the largest uploaded size, it's big, somebody can grab that 'original' version and put the lines on it:

 

http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/140342851

 

I don't think I can do any better than that.

 

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