Six of us had an adventurous weekend that started with summiting Mount Washington on Saturday. Friday night we all met at my small cabin in Detroit. Saturday morning it was up at 5:00am and out the door by 6:00am….at the trailhead by 6:45, and hiking at 7:00am. I haven’t been on this trail since the burn, although it made for an interesting hike in. About an hour went by before hitting the climber’s trail, where we take a left and head east along a climber’s trail that disappeared once in a while giving us the chance for some navigation challenges…which is pretty easy since all we have to do is gain the north ridge… Once on the ridge we followed the obvious climber’s path up the ridge to the notch at the base of the summit block. I led the first pitch, and then Chris fixed a line with the rest of the rope. Chris then continued up, fixing a line with the second rope all the way to the bottom of the top crux, a short wide chimney of exposed 4th class scramble. Some of us chose to just scramble unprotected, while others prusik’d up from the top of the first pitch. Same thing on the final crux at the summit…some scrambled, while some prusik’d.
The 360deg summit views were awesome…the bugs weren’t. Swarms of flies were waiting for us to summit. Had a quick break for photos, snacks, and water before heading back down. All prusike’d off the summit before I knocked down the anchor and down-climbed back to the bottom of the upper crux. We all did a quick rap, then scrambled to the top of the first pitch…where we waited for about 45-minutes for a group to ascend where we needed to descend. Finally we were able to rap down to our packs…and head down the mountain. We took the infamous scree slope descent, and a little cross country back to the climbers trail, then hit the main PCT trail…back to the trucks. 11-hours car to car…although probably would have been a 10-hr day if we weren’t stuck waiting… Oh well, cool place to wait IMO.
Fun climb with a great group. Hat’s off to Chris for his help fixing the lines, and the top anchor. It all looked good and safe.
Now it’s off to Marion Forks Restaurant for Burger’s and Beer’s…
Tomorrow it’s on the Spire Rock…