[TR] 7FJ, Fernow, and Maude + heli rescue - 6/27/2015

[JonathanToner]

Trip: 7FJ, Fernow, and Maude + heli rescue -

 

Date: 6/27/2015

 

Trip Report:

I climbed 7FJ, Fernow, and Maude in that order on June 27 & 28. This felt like a pretty tough link up! Looking at the map all of these peaks are close together; however, because the connecting ridges are heinously steep and rotten, you have to do a lot of vert to climb each one. There is also quite a bit of loose rock that makes traversing particularly tedious at times. All in all, not my favorite link up, but you can't complain with three 9000' peaks in a weekend and spectacular scenery. Did I mention it was hot?

 

The real highlight of the weekend was a heli rescue I witnessed up close. A climber in a party descending from 7FJ slipped on the snowfield, flipped over, and rocketed into talus a few hundred feet down, launching over several rock steps on the way. Thankfully, he stopped short of the much bigger cliffs below and his injuries were not life-threatening. By the time I got up to the climbing party, he was all trussed up and I sat down with his partners to watch the show.

 

Video of the Rescue (sorry, can't figure out how to embed the video)

 

Press Release

 

Sunset pictures coming down from Fernow:

 

[neek]

Nice running into you out there. Glad the rest of your trip went well. We did make it up Maude but the traverse from below 7FJ is indeed loose and crappy. BTW your video link says "The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you're not in."

[Dale Smith]

The 'Highlight' of your trip should really be that everyone made it off the mountain safe, including you. Anyone who is involved in a heli rescue puts themselves in harms way anytime they set foot in a helicopter or on the trail to extricate a fellow climber or hiker from any where in the mountains. This climber you talk about managed to survive the fall and injuries he sustained....many are less fortunate than him. He still has time to recover. Please keep him, his family, in your thoughts. Thanks to those who put risk first to save him.

[JonathanToner]

neek - glad to hear you got up Maude too. I was wondering how you guys would do with the heat. I drank 6 liter of water that day and was still pissing dark yellow. Also, I fixed the video link, should work now. And now that I think of it, I accidentally put up this post using an old username...

 

Dale - by 'highlight' I only mean to say that it was an amazing experience.

[JonathanToner]

Someone pmed me for more info about climbing the trio, and I thought my reply might be useful for others too:

 

I went with an ice axe, running shoes, and crampons, along with the necessary overnight gear. The guy who fell from 7FJ had micro spikes, which probably contributed to his fall. The snow this year is more like mid-August snow, and is quite consolidated even under direct sun. So I would recommend crampons. For 7FJ and Maude, there is no need for crampons because you don't have to touch snow, but you do need crampons to descend snow slopes on the way to Fernow. On Fernow proper, it is easy to ascend without touching snow. There are no crevasses, so no need for ropes when descending towards Fernow. Everything else is easy scrambling. Make sure you research the routes on summitpost. I didn't and wasted a bunch of time route finding on Fernow and Maude. For Maude, the West Couloir option (I did this) is quicker and more direct than the standard route. Although I wore running shoes, a light boot would have been better because of all the scree/loose rock.

 

As for timing, I climbed 7FJ first and then Fernow in the evening on the first day. I then camped in the basin below Fernow proper. By doing it this way, the climb up Fernow was done during cooler evening hours. Also, the next morning I was able to ascend the 1000' out of the basin and get to the upper slopes of Maude in the shade. A definite perk on hot days.