Matterhorn Peak - Double Dihedral ?

[rhyang]

I was perusing Secor for info on Matterhorn Peak's N. Arete and noted the Double Dihedral ( 5.8 ) route.

Curious to know if it's good, and how much actual 5.8 is on the route ... I see it seems to start from the vicinity of the West Couloir.

[Matt Worster]

I've read up on that somewhere . . . it might be included on the SuperTopo for the North Arete. It shares part of the route, doesn't it? Drat, wish I could be more useful.

[Deleted User]

I did part of the route. We traversed over to the N Arete about halfway up.

We went up the glacierette and attacked from the bottom of the dihedral proper. The first pitch was horrendous, my lead of course. Delicate climbing up and out of the dihedral to a ledge on the left wall. One of my partners fell following that pitch. Probably 8 or 9 in a couple of places. Loose, shattered, alpine granite shattered-dust covered everything for the first 50 feet. I got the impression a lot of snow lingers there many years but was mostly melted out when we did it. So we were climbing rock that may have been and likely was buried on the FA. I know it was scary!

Another face lead to another ledge, then we were at the start of the 2nd dihedral. Its wide but reportedly not too hard. However, stupidly, we had no wide pro at all, none. So we traversed over and picked up the N Arete at the base of IT'S dihedral, simuled off from half way up the face haha (party of 3).

While were were climbing another party approached and started up DD. Instead of starting at the base of the 1st dihedral like we did, they started over to the left (looking up) and face climbed up to our perch, avoiding the lower dihedral in its entirely. THAT looked like the right way to go. They contd up the 2nd hedral where we traversed off.

Dude said it was about 5.8, had no reason to doubt him He was a very competent climber.

I'll see if I can dig up an e-shot or two.

DMT

[Deleted User]

Younger, fitter, faster, smarter...


But THEY don't know where they're going so they have to wait for me. Haha, DD in a day from Twin Lakes the goal.

Walking is the greater part of mountaineering?


You can see the upper of the 2 dihedrals of the double dihedral route in this pic on the right side of the face. The start of our climb is shielded by the big toe that forms the loose 5.9 direct start to the North Arete. we started well to the right of that bulge, up in the loose gully at the bottom of the lower hedral


I didn't take any useful pics of the first pitch. It was so ugly looking I didn't even want to gaze at it much prior to launching up the thing. Here is Angus leading p2. This pitch was steep and fun and not terribly hard. This is to the left of the lower hedral.


Care to critique Angus's anchor? What... are you planning to fall?


Once Jason the Cannuk took the lead we told him, 'keep going if you want, we'll follow' so we simuled the upper part of the North Arete all the way up. Sorta pissed off a party of two above us that made the mistake of taking the easy option out on the arete proper. Jase stayed in the corner and just climbed right past them, haha. It was funny watching them watching him, they kept expecting Jason to stop and belay (and thus fuck up their line) but of course he kept going and so did we. I smiled at the leader of the other team but he just scowled back. Hey, fuck you too!


Angus really liked the dihedral on the N Arete. This was the very first alpine climb I did back in the day with my master Stu Pollack. He sorta taught me a lot about the alpine rock gig. You can just see the shoulder of the dude out on the arete who scowled at me.

I was tied in about 40 feet shorter than him so if I fell for some reason the rope stretch (8.1 doubles) wouldn't have me landing on his head.

Top out!


Guys a man can count on, two of my strongest partners ever, Jason the Cannuk in front (since returned to Vancouver) and Angus Carbide in the back, we're in our 20 th season as partners THIS YEAR.


Descent. Jason didn't really care for the amount of walking to do this route.


A last look as evening stretches on.


This is the only shot I took that sorta kinda shows the start of the route way over to the right where a steepening gully blends into the lower dihedral. My loose pitch was up and curving left from the bottom of that thing through an arch of loose rock. The mid point traverse to the N Arete is fairly obvious, the rock type goes from brown to gray. A big ledge system you could almost walk over there. The other team started somewhere to the right of the bulge but out on the face to the left of where we started.

Sorry, didn't take any useful pics of the upper crack system for some reason either. Too much smoke at the belays I think. These boys are chong lords.

DMT

[Deleted User]

I was perusing Secor for info on Matterhorn Peak's N. Arete and noted the Double Dihedral ( 5.8 ) route.

Curious to know if it's good, and how much actual 5.8 is on the route ... I see it seems to start from the vicinity of the West Couloir.

I looked at the west coulor pic... we went up the mini gully to its left, just over the rib, and scrambled to its top. The other party just started up the broken rock from the base of that same gully instead.

DMT

[rhyang]

Cool, thanks ! I have read that the first few pitches of the N. Arete kind of suck, so maybe starting up that 5.8 face would be the thing to do, and then traversing over to the N. Arete ... btw what time of year were those pics taken ?

[rhyang]

Picking up where I left off three years ago Anyone done it since then ?

[kovarpa]

I can tell you which way NOT to start. This is the route where K*** "stopped" climbing and gave me his ropes Once we got on route, it was really nice, though. Moderate/easy climbing with great views. The last two pitches are shared with North Arete.

[Diggler]

I can tell you which way NOT to start. This is the route where K*** "stopped" climbing and gave me his ropes Once we got on route, it was really nice, though. Moderate/easy climbing with great views. The last two pitches are shared with North Arete.

I don't know who this K*** is, but it seems like he might as well just start a family & stop climbing!

[rhyang]

[Deleted User]

I thought the bottom of Double Dihedral sucked. Loose crappy choss covered in decomposed rock grit.

We switched to North Arete halfway up when we realized the upper dihedral wanted bigger pro than any piece we had on the rack, hehe. Sorta screwed ourselves out of the better part of the route.

But its easy to switch to N Arete, or fairly easy I should say.

I think we did it post Labor Day, the fall before Jason went back to Canada, so 2004 I think.

DMT

[Zzyzx]

I can tell you which way NOT to start. This is the route where K*** "stopped" climbing and gave me his ropes Once we got on route, it was really nice, though. Moderate/easy climbing with great views. The last two pitches are shared with North Arete.

I don't know who this K*** is, but it seems like he might as well just start a family & stop climbing!

Yeah, that sounds like a safer option than climbing alpine "5.5" (or was it 5.4???). Rob, don't forget to ask Pavel about that one traverse....

The views are definitely great though.

[rhyang]

Thanks guys ! Maybe I should stick with a route that has a nice supertopo There's so much beautiful stuff back in there .. need to do Whorl and the west couloir of Matterhorn too.

[Deleted User]

BTW rhyang the first time I did the North Arete we approached the traditional way of scrambling up some 4th class out of the east gully to gain the arete above all the bogus rock of the direct start. We didn't use a rope though it made me quite nervous, for the 4th class bits.

DMT

[fatdad]

Thanks for the trip report. Nice photos. Droolworthy. How long did it take you R/T? I got rained off the second pitch of the N. Arete a while ago and have been meaning to go back, but am inclined to do it in a day.