The day before we decided that today would be a good day to go climb and ski Arrow Peak. We weren’t wrong about the day, but the climbing would prove challenging, but still fun.
This is my favorite time of day. I love being up for the start of a gorgeous day.
The goal for the day.
We leave camp doing the now familiar skin/boot into the upper basin. Our legs feel tired, but conditioned after a few days of this business. We skin the headwall as far as the coefficient of friction allows, and switch to booting in the soft snow.
Nick trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes as we make our way into the upper basin.
The Trinity mountains look on as we climb our way up the ramp towards the summit.
We boot up the low angle ramp and at some point something lights a fire in Ben’s pants and he is gone; up, up and gone. Nick and I don’t even try to keep up, we just let him do his thing. Eventually he stops as we come to the end of the consistent snow.
After a quick break, one of the short times we see Ben during the bootpack.
Ben finally stops at the end of the snow.
There is some discussion about leaving the skis at the top of the snow and just climbing up to the summit. Joe Brannan and I a long time ago made the agreement and rule for ourselves of carrying skis to the summit in order to count it. Nick and Ben follow suit.
Ben and Nick pick their way through the gnar at the top.
The climbing consisted of class 4-5 rock moves interspersed with patches of completely unsupportive snow over rock. The climbing was fun, however certainly puckering at times. Finally we all make the summit in good fashion.
Myself on some of the easier climbing. Photo Nick Thompson
Ben making moves high on arrow peak. Photo Nick Thompson
Nick makes the last move to gain the short summit ridge (picture taken from summit).
Options off the summit were limited to say the least so we opted for a rappel down some steep rotten snow. We kept our skis on though.
Myself on the Rappel. If you are up there in the summer, that's why there is a rapstation there.
Myself contemplating where we should go next. Photo Nick Thompson
The San Juans are pretty cool.
After the rappel, it was some side stepping, lateral climbing, and overall funky scrambling to get back to consistent snow. Case in point:
Nick demonstrating a new technique.
Finally back to the couloirs proper, there is some slough management, but overall it is a good descent down the chutes and onto the ramp where we make a hard traverse left over to another north face we have been eyeing.
Nick:
Ben:
Myself:
Skiing down the North Face was pretty cool as it brought us directly to camp on fun, steep skiing.
Ben. Photo Nick
More fun before dinner. Photo Nick.
Our line. Red= Ski. Blue=Rappel. Green=downclimb. Photo Nick
The view of our last bit of skiing from camp. The face is a bit of a maze, but it sure was fun.
I think this pretty much sums up how we felt at the end of the day.
Another good day, just as a storm blows in to prep for more fun tomorrow.