[TR] Cutthroat Peak - N Ridge to False summit 8/25/2013

[trees4me]

Trip: Cutthroat Peak - N Ridge to False summit

 

Date: 8/25/2013

 

Trip Report:

Finally lured my friends out for some alpine rock. They both did the cutthroat classic on Saturday (Matt placed 11th overall!), so it was easy to convince them to climb the north ridge on sunday.

 

 

The cc.com and t-man's beta was good, thanks! It sounded like pitch 1 was the worst, so we looked around for the "hidden gully" referenced in an old Mountie report. Found it! Pitch 1 was probably my favorite, easy climbing with lots of cracks for pro up a gully feature.

 

To find the gully go to the apex of the big dirt fan at the right in Boo's photo ( link ). The gully heads left from this fan.

 

 

Starting up pitch 1:

 

Pitch 1 went for about 45m to some nice trees, then we belayed up a loose class 3 pitch to the ridge. From the ridge it was a series of fun steps broken up by easy class 3 scrambling.

 

starting up the ridge:

 

 

 

After a couple pitches along the ridge I ran into a problem I didn't really like. I didn't see any good pro in the first 10-15' and there was one move that felt a bit above the 5.6-.7 I was expecting.

 

After feeling it out, I bailed to search out an easier path. I decided to climb out left on an awkward exposed traverse that had the advantage of me not decking if I fell. Definitely the hardest moves of the day, but there was at least 4 routes through this area I saw so I probably should've just looked around.

 

 

Past my manufactured "crux" and we were enjoying the ridge again.

 

 

And the slabs were a fun super grippy finish to the false summit.

 

 

 

(false) Summit!

 

 

After reaching the false summit, we could finally see south and the sky was black with thunderstorm. It seemed to be moving pretty fast right at us and I was a bit worried about the speed of our raps, so we bailed.

 

 

Saw a bit of lightning not too far off, and the rain hit at our last rap.

 

 

Really cool route, with great friends. This was the first 3-person climb I've done and M&J's first alpine rock climb. We were definitely working out some kinks and could have been more efficient. Overall this was a big intro to alpine rock and they did awesome. Even with my crappy leading abilities we made the false summit car-to-car in under 11 hours. We figured it would've added 2 hours more for us to tag the summit and back.

 

Pics are all by Matt, thanks for being the ice cream in our alpine sandwich!

 

Gear Notes:

hexes, nuts and tricams to 2.5"

lots of doubles and a couple triples and singles

single 60m rope

sweet 3-man rap technique worked great

 

Approach Notes:

go to wedding, then pack, then drive to trailhead and sleep next to portapotties in parking lot

[genepires]

nice job and good judgement!

 

that three person rap setup looks good. thanks for reminding.

 

[curtveld]

Fun route for sure, with lightning providing a bit of drama!

 

We started out on the same 'ramp' (too nice to be called a 'gully') access from the west, and found it to be a great choice. Will just get cleaner with use.