OWilderness - Oct 15, 2010 4:36 pm Date Climbed: Aug 22, 2010
The Be(a)sst
We made up to almost 10,000 just a few hundred vertical feet below the summit on the North Ridge. Bad weather moved in quickly and we had to descend in a hurry. We got stuck on the way down trying to rappel over a large bergshrund. We found out that where we made our first anchors to rapp off of was extremely overhanging, so we lost about an hour moving 50 yards over and making new anchors. Our team rapped down and the last person rapped off of one picket (we unfortunately didn't have the time to dig a bollard) and we had to leave it on the mountain. It was raining hard at this point and my cheap shell soaked through and I was absolutely freezing. The clouds moved in and we got stuck in a complete whiteout at 8:30pm. Still miles away from camp and travelling over heavily glaciated and crevasse-filled terrain, we were forced to bivvy overnight (my first!) At around 4am the clouds cleared and we used our headlamps and some compass-work to get ourselves back to camp. We were cold, wet, and miserable, but we survived. I will come back to this spectacular mountain one day and make it to the true summit...
OWilderness - Oct 15, 2010 4:36 pm Date Climbed: Aug 22, 2010
The Be(a)sstWe made up to almost 10,000 just a few hundred vertical feet below the summit on the North Ridge. Bad weather moved in quickly and we had to descend in a hurry. We got stuck on the way down trying to rappel over a large bergshrund. We found out that where we made our first anchors to rapp off of was extremely overhanging, so we lost about an hour moving 50 yards over and making new anchors. Our team rapped down and the last person rapped off of one picket (we unfortunately didn't have the time to dig a bollard) and we had to leave it on the mountain. It was raining hard at this point and my cheap shell soaked through and I was absolutely freezing. The clouds moved in and we got stuck in a complete whiteout at 8:30pm. Still miles away from camp and travelling over heavily glaciated and crevasse-filled terrain, we were forced to bivvy overnight (my first!) At around 4am the clouds cleared and we used our headlamps and some compass-work to get ourselves back to camp. We were cold, wet, and miserable, but we survived. I will come back to this spectacular mountain one day and make it to the true summit...