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| tombcronin | California Mountaineering Group Date Climbed: Aug 24, 2008 | |
| Camped at small lake at 9,800' night before. Brought crampons. Seven members of our party summited via North Arete. Some loose rock - beware. | |
| Posted Nov 16, 2009 12:37 pm | ||
| haishan | Tough climb  Date Climbed: May 26, 2002 | |
| Cold spring day, found snow in the crack throughout the upper dihedral... made for a tough but exhilarating climb. | |
| Posted Sep 27, 2009 6:30 pm | ||
| granjero | pretty fun! | |
| a nice jaunt up a pretty mountain! | |
| Posted Sep 10, 2009 7:06 pm | ||
| bighornmonkey | c2c in a day Date Climbed: Jul 4, 2008 | |
| We started from the Twin Lakes parking lot at 4:00am and made a mistake from the start finding the trail. We ended up on the west side of Horse creek which went straight up along the raging river. When the bushwacking started getting on our nerves (after 1h30min) we decided to wade the river and got back on the offical trail. The day was pretty windy (and cold in the shade). The technical section took us about 4 hours to complete. We reached the summit at 2:30pm, started our descent at 3:00pm and back to the car at 7:00pm. We did not need crampons. Back in time for the 4th of July fireworks in Bridgeport. | |
| Posted Jul 7, 2008 2:37 pm | ||
| stoneman5 | Short but nice | |
| Did this with a group of three, which was Ok on this route as the technical portion is short, really only two pitches, the face pitch and the dihedral pitch. The remainder fun 4th class goes pretty easily. | |
| Posted Feb 19, 2007 5:47 pm | ||
| Misha | North Arete in a day Date Climbed: Jun 25, 2006 | |
| Barry (bearbnz) and I day-hiked North Arete from Twin Lakes. It was more difficult and not as fun as expected. However, we had a good time despite several set backs. A few high-lights: - Continuous snow cover from 8,500' - We missed the start of the route and climbed two pitches of increasingly difficult (up to 5.8) and somewhat loose terrain until a dead end. Fortunately we were able to traverse to the actual arete from there and resume the proper route. - Since we did not have large enough gear to protect the first half of the last pitch, and both of us were under the weather (for different reasons), I led on the face/arete to the left of the original route for about 50' before traversing back into the chimney right below the top. That variation was poorly protected but fun climbing with tremendous exposure. The last chimeney section of the the route was a grunt but well protected. Had to take our packs off for that bit and haul them separately. - We simul'd the summit ridge. - We opted for a Horse Creek Pass descent since it was getting late and we did not feel like downclimbing East Couloir under vanishing sunlight. This is one of the rare alpine routes in the Sierra where you will find vertical or even overhanging 5.6-5.7 pitches. It was steep and rather sustained throughout. We delivered a long missing summit register back to where it belongs after it has been removed by then a Yosemite wilderness ranger (see this thread for details). Make sure to buy Barry a burger next time you see him - he hauled this heavy metal box all the way from the car in his pack! | |
| Posted Jun 26, 2006 10:41 pm | ||
| alexamies | Alex Amies and Adrian Schneider Date Climbed: Jun 18, 2006 | |
| Matterhorn Peak via North Arete 6/18/06 On Saturday afternoon we hiked in along the Horse Creek trail from Twin Lakes to a camp at about 10,000 ft. On Sunday we left camp at 5:15 am. We needed crampons immediately because the snow was as hard as ice. We dropped our crampons and extra gear at the base of the route just up the start of the East Couloir, where we started climbing the arête. Having to haul up mountaineering boots and ice axes that we could use for the descent down the East Couloir added to the challenge of the climb. There was no sign of anybody else on the mountain and looking at a few tracks from the previous day or two going up the East Couloir I wondered how long it had been since anybody had done the North Arete and, also, whether we were in our right minds. At 7 am we put on rock shoes, roped up, and started climbing where we left the crampons and other gear. The first pitch ended with a chimney between two split blocks up to a ledge. My climbing partner, Adrian, seconded with the pack and took an alternative up the face of the left block. Maybe we were off route here because it didn’t feel like the 3rd class pitch described in the Summitpost write-up. Having been concerned about being off route I was relieved to see a piton on the second pitch, just up from the ledge where the pitch started. The route descriptions that I had read on Summitpost and Moynier’s 100 Classic Climbs in the High Sierra didn’t mention the piton in their three sentence write-up of the route. The difficulty of the pitch unnerved me since I was expecting something between a 5.5 (Summitpost) and 5.6 (Moynier). My reference point for 5.6 climbing is Left Ski Track on Tarquitz, which I think is way easier than the second pitch on the North Arete. After the second pitch the route descriptions became mostly impossible to follow since the 700 foot arête was full of cracks and corners. However, we did finally cross over to the right side of the arête where we found the large dihedral described in the guides and obvious from the photos. Unfortunately, it was choked up with rock hard snow for the first 40 feet. Being impossible to ascend without the crampons we had left at the base I traversed higher across the face. Above that I found the face to the right of the corner easier going that the dihedral itself. Overall there were three to four pitches of 5.6 like climbing. However, we used 9 fixed belays because in between there was a bunch of 3rd / 4th / easy 5th class climbing and remaining roped up was the best option. Simul-climbing did not work very well on the easier rock because of rope drag. Also, to deal with of wind and communication difficulty I did a few very short pitches. The route was mostly clean with great quality granite. We topped out at 3:45 pm. On the descent down the East Couloir the snow was too hard for plunge stepping. We front pointed (no crampons) down the snow then descended the talus to the gear that we had stashed in the morning, arriving at about 5 pm. The snow was softer on the way back We did not see another soul all day until we returned to within an hour of Twin Lakes. We arrived back at the cars at 8:50 pm, just in time for a change of clothes and my eight hour drive back home in Orange County. | ||
| Posted Jun 20, 2006 12:45 am | ||
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Yosemite National Park
