Giant Mtn rappel & wack 1/6-7

[cbcbd]

ADK - Giant Mtn rappel & wack 1/6-7

Date: 1/6-7

Trails:Giant via Zander Scott, bush, Roaring Brook falls trail

Miles: guestimating 7-8mi

Mountains:Giant

Plan:Go to Rocky Ridge Peak, sleep, bag Giant, rappel off Giant, bushwack rest of way following valley

Special Equipment:Weapons of mass pointyness, 4000ft-long rope

So my friend Mira is working on her ADK 46 and of course I'll tag along and help, so I suggest - hike to Rocky Ridge Peak, sleep, head back for Giant next day... possibly doing a bushwack or rappel

Head out pretty late from Chapel Pond at around 1:30pm... thinking we were speed machines... me deciding to carry our heavy-a** 10.2mm rope - I proposed that after we got to Giant we rappel off the top following the slides and then bushwack the Roaring Brook down to the trail.

Making steady progress, we pass some folks by the Washbowl on their way down.

It had been raining and foggy all day, so Chapel Pond looked extra cool with it's ice shapes.

Going up for what seemed like forever, we start getting high enough to catch some sweet views of the Great Range!

We hit the Giant trail junction at around 3:30pm... hmm... Rocky Ridge is probably out of the question unless we want to pull an all-nighter. We head down towards the col and, with dwindling light, decide to find any semi flat spot and set camp. We'll skip RPR and do Giant the next day.

We ate some mashed potatoes with lemon tuna, leaving the couscous for the morning - delicious!!

We played some cards and took pictures of the stove for some night time entertainment. Hit the hay and never slept so well!!

Woke up close to 6am to a gorgeous morning. Overnight we received a dusting of snow, perfect!

Started out ~8:30am back up to Giant. Crampons were on, trail was pretty icy

Short hike up, we got to the summit around... I don't remember what time.

I tells ya... the views were magnifico!!

I took a walk around the top and scoped out some slides and a good place to start descending. After some getting ready and whatnot, we get to the top of the first rappel - Now the fun got even more fun

I wanted to go Old School, so without harnesses and such we DulferSat
It was quick, less stuff to deal with, and tons of fun as we spent a lot more time
in the sun and going down some pretty steep
and gnarly stuff.

The rappelling was fun... but managing the rope and finding clear paths with good anchors at the top took time. We were planning on 'wacking the Roaring Brook valley all the way to the trail and we were running low on time.

We don't remember exactly, but after ~6-8 rappels and going deeper and deeper into the icy gulches we reached the trees and the spot where the bush would begin and you could still see the rocks we slinged for our first rappel waaaaaay up high!

From that point on the rope went in the bag and the camera was forgotten (sorry!). According to my altimeter we still had about 1300-1400ft of descent before meeting up with the trail at 2000ft.

Well, it was a long and brutal descent following the river - pretty narrow, icy rocks, tons of slides and a lot of debris from these... but lots of beautiful waterfalls!!

It was 4:45pm and getting darker when my altimeter read in the high 1800s and still no trail. Headlamps were on and no less than 10 minutes later we cross the trail!!! Oh, sweet ecstasy!

The hike out was now painless and worry free... hiked down the Roaring Brook trail and the ~2mi down 73 back to the car and, very hungry and very happy with the hike (and finding the trail just in time) headed over to the Noonmark Diner for some Lasagna and a Michigan hamburger...

aaaahhhh... how sweet it is

Doug

 

[AMF]

Great report, & great pics.... hard to believe its January up there. Those Giant slides make for a LONG butt rap!

 

[cbcbd]

Great report, & great pics.... hard to believe its January up there. Those Giant slides make for a LONG butt rap!

It rained a lot on Saturday, melting a lot of stuff and thunder sounds could be heard from falling ice on the slabs across Chapel Pond. When we were out it was drizzly the whole time. Sunday it was just much better, nice, crisp, sunny, and cold - there was some ice falling on the slides, but not too much. They were much longer than I anticipated and I wish I had bought the ADK slides aerial view book so I could route find better around the slides... but it was all good in the end.

 

[pudgy_groundhog]

Nice trip report and pics! The rappelling looks like it was fun (the long and brutal descent, not so much ).

 

[Jacko]

This is a great trip and great picutres too. How long a rope did you really use and do you know what slide you went down? Was it Finger or Eagle or Bottle?
I am asking cos it souinds like a great idea.


Jacko

 

[cbcbd]

This is a great trip and great picutres too. How long a rope did you really use and do you know what slide you went down? Was it Finger or Eagle or Bottle?
I am asking cos it souinds like a great idea.


Jacko

Hey Jacko, thanks! It was a great trip, and the rappel idea was completely impromptu and I honestly had no beta - that means that I have no idea what the slides we were on were called, didn't know about the popular slides, and picked the way down when we got to the summit (I saw quickly a picture of the slides the day before in a book, but didn't take time to memorize it or plan a route since rappelling wasn't set in stone yet). I borrowed a pic from summit post to show around
where I think we went down
I guess I can figure out which ones are Eagle and Bottle... could you point out which slides are where on the pic?

We used a 10.2mm 60m dynamic single rope (3.8Kg)... it was in the car already, but I wish I had brought my lighter 8.5mm 60m double (2.8Kg)- looking at the pic of the bigger slides, two doubles would probably be even better for those since it would give you a whole 60m to find anchors. As you can see from where we went down, there were plenty of full pitches of open slides, but most were broken up by patches of trees or vegetation here and there which we had to negotiate or go around.
I haven't really been on the bigger, more continuous slides of Giant, but I guess thinking back now it was probably easier for us to find anchors (trees) where we were than if we were on one of the more open, continuous slides.

Rappelling was lots of fun and, with good anchors present, I bet rappelling some other slides would also be a blast. The bushwack was pretty rough though.

-doug

 

[Jacko]

From your photograph and also the one taken at the top it looks very much like a slide called the Question Mark. Which would also present quite a bushwhack and a steep section at the top. I think if I do it I might be tempted to do as you suggest and use 2 9mm ropes to get a longer reach and go down Eagle slide in the middle. It is very big and open (obvious in the middle of the pic) there would be less anchors to find but a great exposure. You must have had a lot of anchors to set up. Great idea Doug its good to hear of creative ways of being in the hills.

Jacko

 

[mtn.goat]

I'm planning on doing the Eagle Slide this winter (heading up not rappelling down it) and wanted to know what the conditions were like. I realize that the conditions you were dealing with were hardly normal (for that time of the year) but how was the slides. How thick was the ice on it? Good enough to get screws into? What quality was the ice? Were the slides mainly ice or was there open sections of rock? I'm planning on giving it a go (as well as the N Face of Gothics) this Feb and am trying to get any beta that there is. It's rarely done in the winter so there's so little info about it. All I've gathered thus far is to avoid doing it 2 days or so after any major snowstorms but otherwise that it is doable. Thanks for any info you can give me...

 

[Jacko]

I dont want to put you off but - The reason Eagle is not done very often in the winter is that it faces south and gets too much sun and is prone to being out of condition so you really need a good cold spell and a cloudy day. Even then there is a risk of water flowing under the ice. I think Gothics N.Face is better in the winter allthough steeper! But as always you never really know till you're on it.

If you go I'd vey interested to see how it works out

Jacko

 

[NYBRAD]

TNF Gothics

The TNF of Gothics usually comes into shape in late Feb, March for the best ice conditions. But weather really determines this. The angle of the sun,
Freeze and thaw cycles help condense the snow and minimize avalanche danger. In low snow years it can come in earlier.
Beware it's a real calf burner!

You can contact Ed at Rock and River for condition reports.

 

[cbcbd]

Hey goat,
I think the guys have answered most of your questions and since I have relatively no experience on the Eagle slide in winter or summer... well, can't tell you much about that one.

The slide we were on (Question Mark) had very thin ice with water running underneath - nothing protectable with screws, although plenty of trees around. Granted this was after going through a very warm spell and some rain. If you are looking into climbing a slide in the winter up Giant, consider the other side of the mountain, which has an ice climb mentioned in the Adk ice climbing book, "Blue Lines".

I'm also waiting for Gothics N Face to be more in this season and try it out. Good luck!

-doug