Pyramid Peak Trip

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Just finished a successful backcountry snowboarding trip up and down Pyramid Peak in Desolation Wilderness. Did the trip with my brother and dad.

We left later than ideal, which caused us to have to snowboard the second half of the descent by moonlight.

Thunder Mountain

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Solo trip down Thunder Mountain. Little less than an hour hike from the Cornice chair at Kirkwood.

Round Top North Face

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Trip Date: January 1, 2008
Mountain: Round Top
Location: Mokelumne Wilderness
Route: North Face (East Side)
Who: Solo

Trip Report:
After a long night of partying till 3am, I awoke at 6am to get down to business. I drove over to Carson Pass, geared up, and left the car at 10am. I snowshoed approximately 4 miles to the base of Round Top with relative ease and felt good. I headed over to the base of the north face (east side) and cached my snowshoes and trekking poles at the base. Here I switched to crampons and an ice axe. Read full post...

I began climbing generally solid snow and neve up the lower portion of the face. Further up I started to hit some rock bands with mixed climbing. About 150 vertical feet from the summit, I hit an impassable cliff band. From this point, I traversed to my left (east). I found and climbed a steep couloir that pointed left up to the ridge top.

Once on the ridge, I encountered some exposed mixed climbing on the face of the false summit. From the top of the false summit, I traversed west across the ridge-top towards the summit. The final 50 vertical feet up the summit block consisted of an exposed traverse across a neve slab just under the rock face with large cliff drops below. A fall from this point would likely end at the bottom of the mountain. From this point, 20 more vertical feet of rock and mixed climbing yielded the summit.

Once on the summit, I felt a large sense of relief and accomplishment after completing a route unlike any other I had previously done. I planned to head down the west ridge, a nontechnical route I had previously come up with my brother.

While traversing across the ridge along the top of the mountain, I spotted a new couloir heading down the north face pointing slightly to the west. I could see quite a way down the couloir, but could not determine whether it had an exit toward the bottom or ended with a cliff. I decided to descend this route hoping that it would reach the bottom or that I would find a way to traverse across the face to viable descent route.

I descended approximately 200 feet of steep but stable neve, where I encountered a rock and ice wall 6 feet high. Under this chute was another steep and narrow neve slope pointing straight down the face. I carefully descended the rock and continued down the neve slope. As I continued lower, I could see that the neve couloir ended with larger rock cliff below followed by a vertical drop of over 300 feet.

Realizing that I was now unable to continue descent, I carefully turned around with a heightened sense of exposure after looking at what remained below. I began climbing back up the neve slope where I soon ran into the rock and ice band I had descended. Now aware that several hundred feet of cliff lay just below me, I attempted very carefully to climb back up the rock band.

The snow slope I was standing on collapsed under my feet, and I was now left with a higher rock-band to scale with ultimate consequences if I were to fall. With no choice to go any other way, I made one attempt and backed off when I felt like I was losing control of the climbing. After gathering composure, I made another attempt and succeeded in clearing the cliff-band and anchoring my axe just above. I felt that I had taken it too far at this point, because the climbing was difficult enough that a fall felt like a real possibility, the consequences of which would certainly have been fatal.

After re-climbing the rest of the couloir, I descended the west ridge, traversed over to my cache, and snowshoed the four miles back in pitch black by headlamp.

Tuolumne Meadows Trip

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Trip with Dad. Scouted out Cathedral Peak from the John Muir trial on Saturday. Got stranded in Lee Vining on Sunday due to highway 120 being closed (ice and snow).

Mt. Conness

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Kevin and I. We arrived the day before our ascent and set up camp in a high meadow. It got cold at night even with five layers on inside a sleeping bag and tent.

The top ridge scramble was technically easy, but the exposure made it pretty exciting. Definitely a high sierra classic.

Matterhorn Peak

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Grant, Kevin, Chuck, and I headed up the Southeast Slope from Horse Creek Pass route. This turned out to be a long outing for a single day. We camped out at Twin Lakes and took off in the morning. We followed a trail for a ways up into a meadow area that looked really good for camping. Read full post...

From this point, we deviated from the standard trail by cutting sharper to our right over a ridgetop. This made for a more interesting variation to the route, although it most likely did not save us any time.

After summiting, we began the long descent back to our camp. We made it back with the last light of day, 17 hours round trip.

Half Dome

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With Matt, Dustin, Erika, Paula, and Shane. The second half of the trip got interesting when we found out Mullet had been eating only gummy bears the entire day. He bonked hard, and we finished in the dark.

Mt. Dana

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Kevin, Dad, and I spent Saturday night at Sattlebag Lake. Kevin found a log that lasted through the night (and then some). We met Chuck at the trailhead at 7am sharp, and were off to a good (fast) pace. We only saw one other group the entire time we were on the mountain. We made it to the top after only 2 hours 20 minutes, which was much faster than I anticipated. Overall, a great trip.

Mt. Tallac

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With Dad. We decided to turn around due to rapid warming of the snowpack causing surface instability.

Kirkwood Exploration

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I decided to stay closer to Kirkwood (was planning to do Mt. Tallac) due to an incoming storm and the fact that I was solo.

Mt. Rose

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The lesson from this trip: bad planning, preparation, conditioning, and timing add up to failure. Grant, Kevin, and I.

Round Top

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Grant and Justin. Descended just east of the Crescent Moon Couloir (only 40 vertical feet from the summit). Great trip.

Red Lake Peak

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First backcountry snowboarding trip. Grant and I. Perfect conditions going up, great snow going down. Had lasagna on the summit, almost got a third degree burn on my hand cooking it.

Crested Butte

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Seven day trip to Crested Butte, CO with Grant, Chuck, and Mike on March 4-10, 2007.

We stayed in a nice hostel run by an insane lady. Got four good days of riding in and one super fun day of snowmobiling. Favorite area was Spellbound, an extreme limits bowl with steep runs through trees and rocks. Mike came through one night by climbing onto the second story in snow and ice when all four of us locked our keys in the room.

Crested Butte is an true mountain town with the best ski resort I've been to.