Devin27 Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 Trip: Gardner and North Gardner Mountain - Date: 5/26/2012 Trip Report: Team: Danika, Dustin, Jeff, Devin and Indy With the sun out and a long weekend, we decided to head out to Winthorp and climb some top 100’s. Our original plan was to climb Gardner, North Gardner and Abernathy, although we knew that Abernathy might be a stretch. We weren’t particularly looking forward to the long 10 miles of approach, especially since some of us were still dusting off our leg muscles from a lazy winter of skiing. The approach was long and grueling, but actually pretty pleasant. There are only a few easy to cross blow downs and plenty of small stream crossings for water. We wore light hikers for the approach but switched into boots at about mile 7 or 8 when we started to find patchy snow on the trail. There isn’t full snow until you are into Gardner Meadows completely and it was melting pretty fast. There are a few lower campsites that are melted out around 5700 but we elected to camp on snow at the base of Gardner at 6100ft. It took us a lot longer to make the approach than we thought, and with clouds coming in we decided not to climb Abernathy that day. This turned out to be a good call when the rain started lightly a few hours later. Sunday morning we climbed Gardner first. Crampons made for much faster travel, but the route could be climbed without them as one of our team did. Easy climbing on only a few slightly steep areas had us on the summit in less than two hours. There was some debate if we were on the summit or if the rock bulge to the East was taller. Thankfully the USGS put a marker on the summit, so we got the requisite summit shot and planned our route to North Gardner. We followed the ridge as best we could to point 8374, dropping low when it got a little rocky for our dog Indy. Very easy route finding and easy class 2/3 climbing up to North Gardner. The decent from point 8374 was probably one of the best glissades I have ever done. There was also some sweet boot skiing by Danika and Jeff. Once we got down to camp, we realized no one was in shape enough to make the long hike over to climb Abernathy, especially with a 10 mile hike out the next day. The hike out was everything you would expect a 10 mile hike out would be, long but nothing exciting. What was exciting was beer and ice cream in Winthrop. Great weekend and got two more top 100’s Gear Notes: Standard alpine scramble. Ice axe, crampons (made travel in the morning much faster and easier) Approach Notes: 10 miles of easy trail with some patchy snow on the last few miles. Quote
Gaucho Argentino Posted June 4, 2012 Posted June 4, 2012 Super-awesome doggie!! Cool trip, guys/gals! Quote
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