| Stupidity At It's Finest on the North Peak of Mt. Timpanogos Trip Report |
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| Stupidity At It's Finest on the North Peak of Mt. Timpanogos   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Utah, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 40.41620°N / 111.6669°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 4, 2005 | Page By: fowweezer Created/Edited: Jul 8, 2005 / Object ID: 170192 Hits: 668 Loading... Page Score: 86.96% - 3 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Stupidity At It's Finest on the North Peak of Mount Timpanogos
NOTE: If looking for information on this route, please read all the way to the end of the trip report. Things will become more clear at that point.
The day began at 11 am when I woke up to go to work on Sunday, July 3rd. The plan was to get off work a half hour after midnight, go home and pack my stuff, perhaps sleep a little, and hit the trail from the Timpooneke Campground area sometime between 4 and 5 am.
At 4:15 I woke up from a 45 minute nap. I packed my gear and drove to the trailhead. En route, I began to feel a little bit sick to my stomach. Chalking it up to the early start and lack of sleep, I kept going. After passing the Tibble Fork turnoff and nearing Mutual Dell, I had to pull the car over and was sick on the side of the road. Luckily no one else was around in the canyon, and it was still dark. I got myself together and continued driving up the road until I found the Timpooneke Trailhead.
Heading out from the trailhead, I put on my mountaineering boots, assuming that I'd hit snow soon enough. My first mistake. After about a half mile I switched into my running shoes because I realized snow wasn't going to come anytime soon. When I changed my shoes I set all my gear down to find my shoes and then repacked it all and continued.
I got as high as the second snowfield below the approach gullies before I decided to pull out my longer ice axe, just in case I fell and slipped. The snow was very hard and slick. It was at that point that I realized I didn't have my ice axe. Pissed, I dropped my gear and jogged back to where I had changed my shoes, thinking the axe was there. It wasn't. Then I remembered that I had put it back in the car when I drove up the road further to make sure I was in the best possible spot (which I wasn't). I had never retrieved it and never noticed it since it was buried under the huge map I had open.
I ran back to the car, and it was daylight by this time. Then I jogged back to the trailhead, slowing down once I reached the first snowfield. I had to cross a couple of streams on the way up, which meant that I crossed them a total of 6 times by the time I got back to my stuff. From there I started heading up.
I followed the gully listed on the route page, and encountered a steep cliff. I went left, against Glenn's good advice on the route page, and encountered loose rock and cliffs. So I went back right and found my way up to the Woolly Hole Cirque, where I began the long trudge toward the couloir itself.
At some point along this way I was sick again, which didn't bode well for the actual climb. But I made it to the base of the couloir and saw a little bit of rockfall. Staying as far as left as possible, I encountered steeper snow than in the middle of the couloir. Very near the start of the climb I busted out my second, shorter axe, and frontpointed up. It was the first climb I had done that I felt required two axes, at least for someone of my limited ability levels. I did take a small slide before getting the second axe out. I self-arrested after about 6-8 feet, but it shook me up enough that I decided to go with both tools.
The left side of the couloir steepened further, becoming a difficult-to-climb sideways wall at times. It made it significantly more difficult to climb, and since I hadn't seen any rockfall since entering the couloir I traversed to the runnel and climbed up that way. The climbing was much easier here, but I had to be careful to remind myself to keep my eyes open and pointed upward.
From here the climbing went slowly, but the conditions were great and I was enjoying it a lot. I kind of wished I had had a partner out there, and a rope, just so that I could have moved faster and been more comfortable, but it definitely was not necessary if I took my time and really planted my axes.
After about 250 vertical feet I looked up and noticed what looked like a rock band intersecting the couloir. It curved right at this point, so I thought maybe the snow continued right-ward and then up. I figured I would see once I got there.
When I reached the rock band, the snow ended abruptly, just as I had feared. The rock was definitely climbable, but it was wet, I didn't have rock shoes, and I had brought very limited protection (a couple of nuts and cams, in case things got really desperate and I needed something to rappel off of). More importantly, I had no one to belay me. Because of a recent incident, I had promised myself I wouldn't solo things like that, regardless of whether it meant I wouldn't finish the climb.
At that point I called summitpost member Glenn Merrill, and asked if there had been any breaks in the snow when he climbed the couloir two days prior. He said "No," but there was one section where it curved right. I traversed onto rocks on the right, but these cliffed out also, and were very loose. At this point I knew I must be in the wrong spot, so I began to look for something to rappel off of.
With no other good options, I began fashioning a snow bollard that promptly broke away as soon as I weighted it to test it. Good thing I wasn't trusting, or I would have taken a long slide. No trees were available to sling and the rock was all broken, so I began downclimbing the route, even more slowly than I had come up it. About a third of the way down I rappelled off a rock horn, but there were no other good options beyond that, unless I wanted to climb 6 feet or so of sketchy rock to sling a tree. I didn't, so I just downclimbed the rest of the way, exiting the couloir and debating whether to attempt to find the true route. I decided not to, since I had plans for around 4 pm, and I was headed to southern utah to tackle a slot canyon the next day. The couloir would probably last awhile longer if I decided to give it another go.
At the top of the Cirque, I began a series of long, partially controlled glissades until I reached patches of rock, which I walked over. I had to rappel down sections of the area between the Cirque and the first snowfields (where you take the gully upwards) because of very loose dirt and wet rock (I had gotten off course slightly and was too lazy to try to find a better way).
From there the descent was straightforward.
Of course, part of the way down the cirque I looked back and noted that the Grunge Couloir was the right-most couloir on the face, and I had entered the left one. The left couloir looks wider and more promising from the cirque, or so I thought, and I didn't give it another second's hesitation. I had just gone straight for it and not even bothered to debate which was which. Of course, if I had remembered right, the route page specifically states that it is the right couloir. But in my sleep-deprived and hurried state I hadn't even thought of it.
So basically, the moral of this story is: Don't be stupid and go up the wrong couloir, because you WILL regret it. I can't be too angry though, because the climbing was phenomenal and it was one of my first experiences on steeper snow and ice. Even the downclimbing was fun, and I got to use my second axe for the first time. The left couloir looks less steep in the beginning, although it steepens some towards the top. I would say the top (where the rockband occurs, it's not really the top, it's only about 500 vertical feet up) is approximately 65-70 degrees, in the same range as the actual Grunge Couloir. So if you're looking for an interesting climb that leads nowhere, head there!
My mistakes included, but were not limited to:
-Climbing despite being very sick to my stomach.
-Forgetting an essential piece of equipment in the car.
-Taking the wrong route.
Lesson Learned: Get more sleep before a climb, particularly a solo one.
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Wasatch Range (South)
