giggy
New member
Awesome day in the ravine. Woody48, Annalisa and I took a stroll up Yale Gully on Sunday. We were loosely heading in with team Denali (arm, frodo, jeff, mats, dr d, etc..) , but headed up a bit before them as we were planning a different climb.
Lots of snow in Huntington right now - which makes travel nice.
Yale is a nice mix of about 4 or 5 ice bulges seperated by steep snow. Nice alpine gully.
Conditions were pretty good. Snow was soft enough to kick nice steps to rest the cavles a bit when off the ice and the ice was nice and butter - one swing and one kick got good solid placements. Yale is one of the longer climbs in the ravine - we simul-climbed and ran out the longer steep snow sections with a picket or 2 - or in some cases rock pro or a screw.
Classic Line of the day:
Giggy: "Hey woody how is the belay anchor?"
Woody: "Its 2 equalized screws in slush"
(it was actually a solid anchor - though we didn't test that thankfully)
Woody led, I trailed pulled the pro and Annalisa took up the middle and belayed me up the steeper ice sections.
Day started off hot (snow slog up the fan was a sweat fest!) and we were roasting in the sun and then the summit and ravines became socked in and it got quite cold with wind chill (for april) and by the top out, we were covered in rime ice..
At the first belay on top of the Yale bulge, we heard a very very loud crack and crash and roughly 1/4 of the Harvard Bulge came crashing down to the base of the ravine. Later we found out that Frodo, Arm, Mats, Jeff, Dr D, Stevo, etc - were at the bottom of the ravine gearing up for a central gully climb and not only had to dodge the chunks of ice but said some were probably around 700 pounds heavy. Nice way to get woken up anyway - and the winds at this stage were nothing and I could actually hear someone in damnation gully yell - "what the F**k was that????" If someone would have been climbing those to get into diaganol - game over.
pic that shows harvard bulge to the left
http://www.tuckerman.org/photos/huntington/imgpages/image003.html
all in all - awesome alpine climb - felt good to top out as woody and I got partway up in December and had to bail off it due to sudden bad weather moving in with very high winds and low visibilty.
Lions head winter route was a pain in the arse mess coming down (though better than usual) - total mash potatoes with gravey tossed in - the really steep section (the one where you grab the tree stump and swing and downclimb the wet rock) is totally filled in with snow.
Due to low avy danger and nice weather - busy day in Huntington - at one point I saw parties in every gully. A nice suprise was seeing team denali at the bottom of the lions head winter route after doing central gully (which also looked nice!). Hike out with them.
Summit was socked in - didn't bother heading up there.
some pix.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawoodford/sets/72157604418025300/
Lots of snow in Huntington right now - which makes travel nice.
Yale is a nice mix of about 4 or 5 ice bulges seperated by steep snow. Nice alpine gully.
Conditions were pretty good. Snow was soft enough to kick nice steps to rest the cavles a bit when off the ice and the ice was nice and butter - one swing and one kick got good solid placements. Yale is one of the longer climbs in the ravine - we simul-climbed and ran out the longer steep snow sections with a picket or 2 - or in some cases rock pro or a screw.
Classic Line of the day:
Giggy: "Hey woody how is the belay anchor?"
Woody: "Its 2 equalized screws in slush"
(it was actually a solid anchor - though we didn't test that thankfully)
Woody led, I trailed pulled the pro and Annalisa took up the middle and belayed me up the steeper ice sections.
Day started off hot (snow slog up the fan was a sweat fest!) and we were roasting in the sun and then the summit and ravines became socked in and it got quite cold with wind chill (for april) and by the top out, we were covered in rime ice..
At the first belay on top of the Yale bulge, we heard a very very loud crack and crash and roughly 1/4 of the Harvard Bulge came crashing down to the base of the ravine. Later we found out that Frodo, Arm, Mats, Jeff, Dr D, Stevo, etc - were at the bottom of the ravine gearing up for a central gully climb and not only had to dodge the chunks of ice but said some were probably around 700 pounds heavy. Nice way to get woken up anyway - and the winds at this stage were nothing and I could actually hear someone in damnation gully yell - "what the F**k was that????" If someone would have been climbing those to get into diaganol - game over.
pic that shows harvard bulge to the left
http://www.tuckerman.org/photos/huntington/imgpages/image003.html
all in all - awesome alpine climb - felt good to top out as woody and I got partway up in December and had to bail off it due to sudden bad weather moving in with very high winds and low visibilty.
Lions head winter route was a pain in the arse mess coming down (though better than usual) - total mash potatoes with gravey tossed in - the really steep section (the one where you grab the tree stump and swing and downclimb the wet rock) is totally filled in with snow.
Due to low avy danger and nice weather - busy day in Huntington - at one point I saw parties in every gully. A nice suprise was seeing team denali at the bottom of the lions head winter route after doing central gully (which also looked nice!). Hike out with them.
Summit was socked in - didn't bother heading up there.
some pix.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dawoodford/sets/72157604418025300/
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