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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
14 Jul 01 |
incomplete |
incomplete |
| 2nd Time |
30 Aug 03 |
5:30 |
5:00 |
After a nice approach (under two hours), we reached the base of the lower east ridge.
This is looking up that east ridge. There are a few different ways you can ascend
this, but in the two times I've done the lower ridge, the easiest is to scramble up
the rocks right of the snow gully, then towards the top, cross the gully to the far side,
and continue up. You can also go straight up the gully, but watch out for rock fall.
The lower ridge can be loose at times. It's no where near as solid as the upper ridge.
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Here we see Dan wearing the blue helmet scrambling up the lower ridge. It's pretty
easy going in this part. I'd say "moderate scrambling" on the Alan Kane scale.
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Still more moderate scrambling on the lower ridge. Dan is in the blue helmet, while Blair
is in the red. I had a red helmet on too, so maybe Dan is feeling a little left out for not
having a red helmet. Maybe he's feeling a bit 'blue'.
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After about an hour, you end up on the shoulder between the upper and lower ridge. Here we see
Dan taking a picture of Blair with the upper ridge in the background. It looks a bit intimidating from
this angle, but rest assured, it's not as bad as it looks.
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Here we see Dan coming up one of the many pitches on the upper ridge. The ridge is really solid, and
as you can tell from Dan's face, we were having a lot of fun.
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This is one of Dan's pictures of me going up the upper ridge. There is one section that's about a 30m
5.3, but the rest is little shorter sections of 5.3, so about every 10-15 ft, you can stop on little ledges
(like where I am) and pause for a breather. This is one of Dan's pictures.
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As you get closer to the summit ridge, you can see the cornices hanging over the north face. Pretty
cool. This is one of Dan's pictures.
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As we got closer to the summit, Blair broke away from the group. He's just a lot faster than Dan and I.
In fact, he beat us to the summit by 30 minutes. Here we see Dan walking along the summit ridge,
approaching the west summit, trying to catch up with Blair. The cairn is at the west summit, which
means you have to walk over the east summit and the main summit to get there. What a pain.
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This was Blair's birthday, so his wife gave him a birthday card to read on the summit. I'm impressed that
Blair didn't open it the minute he left home. He actually waited until he was on the summit.
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Here is the summit picture with everybody. Unfortunately, Dan set up the camera to point directly into
the sun, which turns everything else into shadows. From left to right, we have Blair, Dave, and Dan.
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This is looking down the north face to Edith Cavell Lake and the parking lot. It's a long way down.
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Here we see Dan wearing the blue helmet scrambling up the lower ridge. It's pretty
easy going in this part. I'd say "moderate scrambling" on the Alan Kane scale.
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Going up, we solo'd the entire route, but coming down, we had to rappel three sections on
the upper east ridge. This was rather time consuming. It's also a pain because of other
parties that are coming up behind you, creating a bottleneck. This is one of Dan's pictures.
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Downclimbing most of the east ridge was lot of fun. Here we see Dan and myself slowly
picking our way down. This is one of Blair's pictures.
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