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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
08 Aug 04 |
incomplete |
incomplete |
On Saturday evening, we drove up to the Thompson Creek Campground, which is across the highway from
the trailhead. We quickly went to bed, then got up early for our little day trip. Here we see
Brian and I standing around the stove, about to boil water for coffee and oatmeal.
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As the sun was starting to come up, we had been in the rain for about 90 minutes. About this time,
we reached the headwall, near some big waterfall. Here we see Dan showing how much we were enjoying the
weather.
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This is Brian. It was his first mountaineering experience, and by the look on his face, you could tell
he wasn't quite sure what to think... "We're going into that?"
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This is Brian and Dan heading into the fog. I'm not sure how it happened, but we made a wrong turn, and
instead of going left to the lakes, we went right up a slope. Of course, we had no idea we had made the
wrong turn until it was too late.
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So, we kept heading up the slope, then we came across a ridge with a cairn. Hmmm. This can't be right.
Let's get out the map and GPS and see where we are.
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We figured we could just stick to the ridge we were on, and traverse it westward until it reached the
toe of the glacier, which is where the correct route would join up. That was a great plan until we
started coming across these huge pinnicles. This picture shows the first one, but as it turned out,
this was the smallest one, and it got to the point where we couldn't stay on the ridge any longer.
We had to drop down into the valley below us, and come back up a gully.
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While we were trying to stay on the ridge, it got to be a lot of scrambling around. Here we see Dan doing
some scrambling. In hindsight, this was wasting a lot of time. We should have dropped down into the
valley earlier.
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At the top of the gully, where we would soon intersect the correct route, we encountered a snow slope.
Here we see Brian heading up with me close behind. Being the newbie, I didn't want Brian to fall, so
I stayed right behind him.
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After topping out of the above snow slope, we traversed across the southern scree slopes of Owen to the col between
Owen and some other peak. This col is the toe of the glacier. The normal route comes up from the left side of
the picture to access the glacier.
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After we put the crampons on for the glacier, Brian took off. We didn't rope up for the glacier. Anyway, he got
across the glacier, then took a picture looking back. If you look closely, you can see myself crossing. On the
right edge of the photo is the col we previously were at.
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As you follow the glacier up and leftward, you'll reach the Cline/Owen col. This picture was taken from that
col, and if you look closely, you can see Brian and myself slowly making our way to the col.
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Here we see Dan above the glacier, scrambling along the ridge. The notches are coming up.
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Based on the last picture, it looked like the weather might clear up. No such luck. Here we see myself
standing on the edge of the cliff. Lots of fog and drizzle.
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This is taken at the notches. Brian took one look at the first notch, and said, "No thanks". As Dan and I went across,
Brian took a picture of himself to show how much fun he was having.
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I climbed through the first notch to the other side, which has a bolt and pin for a belay station. I clipped into
that, and got ready to belay Dan over. Awesome weather.
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This is another picture of me on the other side of the first notch. Now, it's starting to snow.
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Dan and I got over to the second notch, Dan went across, then I decided we really didn't have time to proceed to
the summit. I was also concerned with Brian just sitting around, wet and with the temperature low enough to snow.
I turned us around. Here we see Dan downclimbing into the first notch on the way back over to Brian.
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When we got back to the col, the sun actually came out (briefly). We looked back, and this is the most of Cline
we had seen all day.
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Here we are heading home. We're walking down the glacier to the Owen/Something col. It's nice to be able to
see where you're going.
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Here are the lakes that we should have come to on the way up. Most people circle the lakes on the far side,
but we dropped down to the lakes on this side, which may have saved an entire km of distance.
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Here is looking back through the main valley and Highway 11. Our route through the trees follows the creek,
until it intersects the main creek, turns right and goes toward the road.
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