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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
25 Jun 06 |
9:00 from truck |
0:25 to Lost |
I forgot my camera this day, so these pictures are from Blair and Trevor.
This is Mt. Anderson, as seen from the Red Rock Canyon parking lot.
Our route basically follows the treed ridge, which turns into a rock face.
In the beginning, we hiked along the Blakiston Creek Trail toward Blakiston
Falls, but after about 10-15 minutes (well before the falls), we turned
uphill and started some light bushwhacking.
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Grandpa Blair always has the best cardio of the group, and on this sweltering day, this
was as close as we got to him.... until we threw a rope on him.
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This is Trevor (in red) and myself (in blue) chasing after Blair. If you look closely at the top
of the picture, you can tell where Blakiston Creek is located, so the bushwhacking isn't too long.
But being an east face, the sun hits it early. I moved to Canada to get away from the heat.
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Yep. It was a scorcher that day. In the background, you can see the Red Rock Canyon parking lot.
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This is looking back at the top end of the grassy treed arete that leads to the rock face. As you
can see, the trees thin out toward the top.
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This is Blair and myself taking a quick break. Of course, Blair reached this point several minutes
before Trevor and I, so he's looking a little more rested.
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This is us getting back up after the above break. Attacking the ridge head on can lead to some serious
climbing that is over our heads. We found some more moderate 5th class stuff to the left. Actually, if
you look real close, there is a snow patch on the left edge of the photo. Our route went up the chimney
beside that snow patch.
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We traversed over to that little snowpatch on a wide ledge. The snowpatch is actually above the picture,
but we end up ascending the major chimney in front of me.
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Here we see myself heading up the snow. If you look closely, you'll see Blair's red helmet
at the top of the picture. About where Blair is standing, the gully got steep enough that we
roped up for it. In case you're wondering why we didn't get on the snow and just go up... we
didn't have crampons with us and a slip on the snow would not be arrestable.
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This is me topping out of the chimney. This picture shows just how horrible the rock was.
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When we topped out of the chimney, we reach another ledge. Lot's of interesting features on this mountain
like this big buttress/fin that sticks out. One of us should have walked out on it because it would have been
a cool picture. Unfortunately, we were all taking a break and nobody wanted to get up. In the valley bottom is
Blakiston Creek.
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Ahh. The only good rock on the mountain, and it came just at the right time. This is Blair leading the
crux. The rock was good prickly limestone with lots of friction moves. About where Blair is in the picture,
there was a large flake with a crack on the right. Basically, you give the flake a big hug and scamper on up.
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Once the crux pitch was over, it was back to crap rock. We went up this chimney next, and if you look closely,
you can see Blair starting at the bottom of it. Everytime he moved, it rained rocks (often big rocks), so I belayed
him from back here. Eventually though, I had to move in closer. The gully was about 80m high.
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After we finished the above chimney, the rest of the way to the summit ridge was exposed 5.2 scrambling. Here we see Blair
and Trevor as they topped out of the chimney. Trevor was letting out a mighty roar because this was his first alpine climb (other than
Joy on Indefatigable, which I'm not sure qualifies as a big alpine climb).
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Here we are on the summit ridge. Blair is coiling one of the ropes. In the background behind Blair, you can see the
summit of Mt. Anderson. On the left edge of the picture, behind the connecting ridge to Anderson's summit, is Lost Mtn.
Lost Mtn could definitely be considered an outlier of Anderson.
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I coiled my rope faster than Blair, so I took off for the summit. This is me walking the line.
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It didn't take Blair very long to catch up to me. Here we are making the slog up to the summit.
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There are actually two summits beside each other, and we couldn't tell which was the highest, so we bagged both.
Here we see Blair and me at the further summit, while Trevor (taking this picture) is standing at the first summit.
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Trevor came over to the second summit and decided to strike a pose.
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Our trip up Anderson was followed by bagging Lost Mtn.
Check that part next.
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