Past Featured Trip Reports

In June I was pretty busy showing parents around the nearby mountains, going to the various salt mines and "Sound of Music" tours that us Americans just have to do. But the visit to Berchtesgaden was especially frustrating for the mountaineer in me. Sitting on a patio above the Koeningsee, looking across at the Watzmann, I longed to burst away and race up as fast as possible (in my case, not very fast). Had anyone given the slightest signal of wanting a nap, or a lazy day reading books I would have pounced at the chance to visit the high rocks! Alas - we all had too good a time to allow such things, so it was with deep "mountaineer frustration" that I planned a day trip to the Wilder Kaiser with Josef. The Predigtstuhl (or, Preacher's Pulpit) had a long (16 pitches), relatively easy (IV+) North Ridge that seemed like a perfect intro. Plus, a small but delightfully exposed ridge climb was next door on the Hintere Goinger Halt (III+). As a reward for being efficient, we could climb that too!

Ever since I first visited Yankee Boy Basin to climb Sneffels with my wife in 6/05, I have been entranced by impressive Teakettle Mountain. I look at it each day at work as it is my desktop background. Enlarge Teakettle from Lavender Col on Sneffels during an early June '05 climb. The tiny summit of Teakettle is considered to be one of the most spectacular in Colorado. The enchanting place is surrounded on all sides by cliffs and loose, unstable rock. From below it appears to be a scary climb, but as long as you stay on route the climb to the summit block can be kept at a steep class 3. When Layne Bracy invited me to climb this with him and his experienced brother, I couldn't wait! Layne's brother Andrew is not a peak bagger, but agreed to lead us up the short 5.3 summit block. He didn't know what he signed up for!

Now that the Tigiwon Road is open for the season Tracy and I decided that an ascent of the Cross Couloir on Holy Cross was in order. Our plan was to head down on Saturday and camp at Halfmoon Pass, get up and leave camp at 3 and be at the base of the couloir by sunrise. This didn‘t happen. Based on reports from someone at the trailhead, we had heard that the base of the Cross was melting out, and we started to form a back up plan. Originally we thought we would check out the cross and if it was bad we would continue on to Teardrop. When waking up at 3 proved difficult, we reset the alarm for 4 and decided maybe we would try Angelica instead.

In the summer of 2004 we were again in the Dolomites, but for the first time the weather was mostly bad and had only permitted us to do some easier tours with a good prospect of being completely soaked. This gave us more time to study the Klettersteigführer, and we found out that the crux of the Mèsola ferrata is a 35 m high vertical slab with few grips along which the ferrata cable hangs loose with no anchorings. Especially the latter deprived us of any real wish to try that route, for what is the advantage of a ferrata if you risk a free fall of 35 meters?

Stuart has been on my wish-list for a LONG time. I have stared lustfully at its impressive granite massif from almost every summit in the central cascades, but had yet to actually stand on it. I work full time in the summer for the Forest Service (can’t complain—I get paid to hike:) so multi-day climbing trips are few and far between. There was finally a window of good weather coincident with my days off, so I started plotting my climb of Stuart. My sister’s boyfriend Adam had the same two days off, but had previously arranged a rock-climbing date with said sister for the first day. I attempted many times to convince Adam that Stuart is more attractive than my sister, but either he isn’t convinced, or my sister is really just that evil and manipulative (I’m going with the latter). Long story short: we decided to try Stuart in one day…

I have had this climb in my mind for the better part of three months, so you can guess how excited I was when we finally decided to go do it. For some reason though we thought it would make a good day climb. Why you may ask, I don’t know. My climbing partners (Brian and Aaron) and I (Jordan) made the drive over on a Monday night to camp in the parking lot, which would allow us to get an early start. Anyone who has had an alpine start knows how hard it can be to get to sleep, so Aaron had the great idea to buy a six dollar bottle of California wine (to help calm our nerves). He also had a bottle of Tequila, but we thought it would be better to sleep, not pass out.

Time is crawling. I’m stuck in a prison called “work”. The days are perfect. The weather is blissful. The Yosemite forecast is calling for 80’s during the day, 50’s in the evening. No complaints. Everything has been organized into two categories: Wall stuff and Weekend stuff. Wall food is done and packed away into a white plastic bucket with a screw top that is secured to the bucket for the butter-fingerly. Weekend food is decidedly different from the wall food and includes fresh fruit, steak, chicken, and salad. Wall food consists of Pringles, Dinty Moore beef stew, beanie weenies, Chef-Boy-R-Dee pasta shells, beef jerkey, fruit leathers, fruit cups, parfaits, cheese and cracker packets, Jolly Ranchers, Thai iced teas, Mochas in a can, and beer.

I'd heard of the great scrambling to be had on this mountain but had always been scared off by the approach. You see, I'm just lazy and have a short attention span so pushing a mountain bike up 3000 vertical feet along about 13km of logging road which ranges from extremely well graded to not much more than a narrow trail through slide alder has never been my idea of a good time. I was won over however by the promise of sensational scrambling and a good time with 13 of my closest friends.

My brother Gabi and me together with our dad Suso, travelled by car from Madrid to Benasque (Huesca province). It took us 5hs and we arrived with a lot of rain. Weather forecast for Saturday was pretty bad as a lot of clouds and some storms were expected. During dinner we discussed alternatives and after consulting with the hotel owner the weather forecast for the following 2 days, we finally decided not to climb on Saturday and wait for further news on Sunday when some improvement was expected. As we needed to return anyhow on Sunday we felt a bit disappointed.

I woke up and I could hardly wait for the sun to come up. I was so excited because I would begin my hike up Mount Whitney today. First things first, I had to eat breakfast, pack my backpack, and put all food items not going up the mountain in a bear-proof locker. I was thrilled to be on the trail around 8:30am! The first part of the trail is pretty easy—lots of switchbacks, and a few stream crossings. I remember crossing the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek, where the Mountaineer’s Route veers to the right. I eventually came upon Mr. Cho, a Korean American from San Diego. He is also an accountant like I am. He was hiking to Lone Pine Lake and then back down.