North Peak - Mt Conness - Linkup

Paul Souza and I zipped up highway 120 Friday night to climb a classic High Sierra link-up, the Northwest ridge of North Peak (II, 5.3) and the North Ridge of Mt. Conness (II, 5.6). We both had climbed the Mt. Conness route previously, but neither of us had done the North Peak route.

Paul below North Peak. The Northwest ridge takes the left hand skyline

We bivied in the Saddle Bag lake parking lot, and had a fairly leisurely dawn start. The hike to the Northwest ridge of North Peak is fairly easy, only about 4 miles with 1500' or so of elevation gain. The hike is truly nice, this area is one of the most accessible alpine areas in the entire Sierra Nevada.

Lakes and meadows on the approach

Paul is stoked on the views

Getting close to the ridge

The route up North Peak was very casual, we didn't bother to rope up, I climbed it in approach shoes, and Paul had no problems doing it in running shoes. There were two short cruxes, which involved down climbing into notches and then climbing back out again. I would say the difficulties stayed in the 4th class range. Most of the ridge was easy 3rd class scrambling, and there was one  enjoyable and moderately exposed 4th class bit on a narrow steeper part of the ridge. 

The author high up on the Northwest ridge of North Peak. Photo credit - Paul S. 

Paul - near the top of the ridge

We relaxed on the summit for a bit, and chatted with another climber who had just soloed up the North-east couloir of North Peak. We hiked down to the saddle with Mt Conness, and started up the next route, the North Ridge of Mt. Conness.

Summit views - Taboose fire burning in the valley

North Ridge of Mt. Conness

We made short work of the North Ridge, I think it only took 90 minutes to descend North Peak and climb the whole ridge. We never felt the need for a rope, except too rappel from the two towers on the ridge. A highly enjoyable scramble. 

Paul nearing the top of the North Peak.

The author near the summit of North Peak - Photo credit - Paul S. 

It took us about 5 hours from the car to climb both routes. We were bth feeling pretty good. One problem with our chosen route, was that the standard descent would deposit a few miles and several hundred vertical feet below where we parked the car. I had the "brilliant" idea of taking the east ridge down. 

This turned out to be the hardest part of the day, as it involved long distances of crumby 3rd class choss, and mind numbing slabs. Well, now at least I know why people don't normally descent this way!

North Peak to Mt Conness link-up with East ridge descent.

Sawtooth Peak

As part of my training for my upcoming Fall trip to the Himalaya, I have been doing a bunch of trail running and starting to do a bit of peak bagging as well. On Saturday, I headed up to Mineral King to hike up Sawtooth Peak (12,343'). I hiked up it a few years ago, and I thought it would make for a nice day trip. Round trip is about 13 miles with 4800' of elevation gain.

Suunto track for my hike up Sawtooth Peak.

 I took the long twisty road to the Sawtooth trailhead, and started hiking around 9am. It pretty much heads straight uphill right away, taking a typical well maintained, groomed and graded NPS trail.

Trailhead

The going was really quick, and it was not long before the 1st five miles were down, and I was at Monarch lakes, and the end of the maintained trail

Heading up to Monarch lakes. Sawtooth Peak is the pointy pile of choss in the back

 

Lower Monarch ake

There are two ways to hike up Sawtooth, up a dusty hill called Sawooth pass, or up through the two Monarch Lakes and then up the North ridge. As the pass looked heinous, I opted for the North ridge, the same route I took the last time I hiked up. Its a bit longer, but much nicer!

Looking towards Vandever mountain. Next time I'll try traversing over to that pile

Its been a long time since I suffered from a bout of AMS, but somewhere above 11,000' I got all the usual symptoms, dizziness,nausea, and I slowed WAY down. It took me way longer than it should have to climb the last 1000'. I stopped and took a few mini cap naps, eventually making up to the summit block.

Summit block

I napped a bit longer and then quickly dropped back down to the car for the long drive home.


 

Nova Scotia - Its not always climbing

Well, I can't always go climbing! Tese and I headed up to the area near Parsboro in Nova Scotia for a week of hanging with the family. I squeezed in a fair bit of trail running in-between beer drinking sessions. Fishing, beach walking, and relaxing in the cool weather, a great vacation!

Tese and Kristi - hanging

Tha'ts right people, and dogs. 

The (in)famous - Brookville rock. The biggest choss pile around. 

Hanging in the kitchen(?) shed(?)

Mom and Dad's spot up on the hill

Uncle John - bringing us out fishing

Canadian Tux

Umm... because American's are lame. Also we kicked their ass in the war of 1812. Take that 'Merica

Halifax citadel 

I drank a lot of this

Bye Nova Scotia!

Mt Whitney - East buttress

I had an overnight permit for the north fork of Lone Pine creek, I was itching to climb the East Buttress of Mt. Whitney (14,405', III, 5.7). Its a classic moderate Sierra route which I have not done! I found myself a partner on Mountainproject, and off I we went.

My partner was an interesting guy, a former Israeli counter-terrorism officer from the NDF. He had never trad climbed, or done a technical peak, but was psyched to get out.

We zipped up to iceberg lake and made a camp. I didn't take many pictures on this trip, so this will be a short blog post!

Thor falls, on the approach to Whitney

Heading up toward Upper bouyscout lake

We woke up just before dawn and headed up to the buttress. I led all 11 pitches, since my partner was inexperienced with alpine rock. The climbing was really easy, and went really fast. 

East buttress (right hand sky kine of the peak) of Whitney at dawn

We summited in a few hours, and made our way down, back to the camp, packed up, and drove back to Fresno, all in the same day! 

Fun easy climb.!

Michael on the summit. Not bad for a first Sierra alpine experience!

Supernova!

Supernove is a ultra-classic 4 pitch climb in Shuteye, the crux goes at 5.10c and traverses a massive roof. I had climbed it last year, but followed (and hung) on the crux). Paul and I headed up to climb this and I tricked him into letting me lead to first two hard pitches. I got them clean, redpoint complete.   I was pretty psyched to get that done. FUN!!!

Thanks Paul!

Paul cleaning the massive roof pitch

Paul traversing the roof

Paul leading the top "knob gobbler" pitch. classic!

Early season in the Bugaboos

After spending a few weeks climbing, hiking and hanging out around Powell River, I met up with Kevin, Paul and Sue to spend a week in my favorite climbing place, the Bugaboos! Late June/early July is a bit early for the Bugs, but we went for it anyways. 
Sadly weeks of excellent weather in BC came to end right when I picked up Kevin and Sue in Vancouver. But despite lots of rain, we ended up having a pretty fun little trip.

The gang Paul, me, Kevin and Sue! Photo credit - Paul Souza

We drove from Vancouver to Lillooet where we met up with Paul. The plan was to start by climbing a massive sport route called "the Goat", but up by Danny O'Farrell, one of Kyle's friends. Too bad it poured rain! 

The goat - in a shroud of cloud, rain and mist

To keep on schedule and get away from the rain we had to forego climbing the goat and headed towards Golden, BC and the Bugs. On the way, the weather cleared so we stopped on the side of highway 1 outside of Kamloops to do a bit of sport climbing at one of the local crags

Sue - getting ready to climb in Kamloops

Pretty climbing spot near Kamloops

The climbs were pretty fun, well bolted sport routes on basalt with nice soft "vacation grades". We all took turns, climbing a bunch of easy 5.10s and I took a crack at 5.11a. 

Sue working through the crux on a fun sport route near Kamloops

After a few hours of climbing in the sun, we headed off and made our way to Golden, in order to get supplies and head into the Bugs for the real climbing.

Pee break on the way to the Bugs - Photo credit - Sue Song.

Despite a gloomy forecast we headed down the long logging roads to the Bugaboos parking lot. When we arrived I was shocked to see how empty the lot was, I guess that's the advantage of arriving early season! We wrapped the cars in the obligate chicken wire to protect them from porcupines, and started the hike into the Bugs. 

Protecting the car

The hike in is short, but steep and fairly grueling with heavy packs. The scenery is top notch however, so makes it bearable.

Approaching the Bugs

Almost up...

When we had arrived and saw the near empty lot, we made the (foolish) choice to ditch the tents and try and stay in the hut! Boy was that a mistake, we got up to the hut it was full of parks personnel who were there on a maintenance weekend to get everything ready for the coming season. 

They were not too happy to see us... and were not psyched on us trying to stay at the hut. Sooooo... I dropped my heavy pack, grabbed my empty day pack and hiked all the way back down to the car to grab the tents. sigh. I got to do the approach twice in a day.

After that fiasco, we decided to stay at the boulder campground, which actually lies below the hut, and ended up staying the entire trip.

The next day we slept in (a habit we never really broke all trip.) and decided to head up to climb the Kain route on Bugaboo spire. 

Views on the approach to Bugaboo spire. The hut is in the lower bottom. 

I climbed the Kain route back in 2016 with Kyle, but it was still a fun outing.  The approach is a bit of a slog, you hike up Bugaboo-Snowpatch col and then start out on the ridge. 

Heading up the col

Bathroom with the best view on the planet

Snowpatch and Howser towers from the top of the col

I was hurting a bit on the approach, but after taking a moment too chill, I started to feel better. And once the slogging ended and the scrambling and soloing on the ridge began, I felt better and better.

Me - feeling the suffering - Photo credit - Kevin J. 

Susan on the knife edge, right before the start of the roped climbing

Kevin is psyched, and ready to rope up

After maybe 1000' of scrambling and soling a couple of easy low 5th class pitches, we reached the base of the roped climbing. It's very easy, but the crux is a highly enjoyable and very exposed 5.6 slab move. Fun!

Start of the roped pitches

Looking up towards the roped pitches on the Kain route

Susan on the crux slab of the Kain route

We chilled on the summit for a bit, then began the raps and down climbing to get us back to camp. 

Summit glory!

Paul looking casual on the summit

Heading down

We made it back to camp just around dusk. yikes! 

The next day Susan, Kevin and I climbed Lion's way on Crescent towers. This is another route I had done before, but it was still a fun casual outing.

Kevin and Sue - You could not asked for more stoked partners!

Kevin lading a pitch on Lion's way

Me leading a pitch - why is my harness such a shit show> - Photo credit - Kevin J.

Susan nearing the top of Lion's way - Photo credit - Kevin J. 

Kevin models on the summit of Lion's way

Back at camp we busted out some beer and a giant brownie to celebrate Kevin's Bday! Pretty cool place to spend you birthday! 

Birthday cake?

Sadly after that the bad weather rolled in and that was pretty much it for the Bugaboos. I'm a bit bummed I didn't get to climb anything new, but it was still a pretty fun little trip. 

We packed up and headed to the Vancouver area for a bit of sport climbing, which ended up pretty fun

Breakfast - photo credit Kevin J.

Camera tilt - photo credit - Kevin J. 

It was great to climb with Paul, Kevin and Sue, looking forward to our next trip!