| Bucked off Whitehorse Trip Report |
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| Bucked off Whitehorse   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Lat/Lon: 48.21100°N / 121.6775°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Nov 30, 1999 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Spring | Page By: tazz Created/Edited: May 11, 2007 / May 11, 2007 Object ID: 292378 Hits: 1054 Loading... Page Score: 88.73% - 13 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
What a great mountain! Conditions on Whitehorse change overnight. There where at least 5 reports in the past weeks all the way up to 2 days before our climb. All reports had sloppy snow conditions. That changed drastically...Here is my climb partner dicey's write up. with my personal account after.
OMG! Another Whitehorse TR!
Sorry, but it is the prime time of year to hit this peak, so everyone ends up doing it at the same time for obvious reasons. If you go too early, avalanche danger is an issue, and if you hit it too late, brush can be an annoying issue. April-May is generally the best. I was saving this one for the weekend, but with all the warm weather I was worried the moat below the summit would be melting out. I was right to worry, and push this trip up.
Now on to the trip report which hopefully offers some useful information for anyone planning on heading up there soon.
2am seems like (and is) a horribly early time to get up for a climb, but Yana, Tazz and I were all up and getting rolling. Tazz drove up from Tacoma (!) to get me and we continued north to grab Yana on the way. The road to the trailhead was challenging for Yana's passenger car, but I think we made it without leaving any important car parts behind.
We were walking up the trail by first light, 5:45am. Trail is nice and easy to follow, but has quite a bit of blowdown to work around. We hit the snow a little below 3k and donned crampons, helmets and beacons. Last weekends' wet slides had me overly cautious, but that is not a bad thing! We followed the beaten in track to lone tree pass, where we took a little break. It was still early, so the snow was rock hard. I was glad crampons were added to the gear list last minute!
The final open steep traverse to high pass was a little sketchy in the hard snow as many many slides had come down over the boot track leaving a lot of smooth ice swaths to negotiate.
The weather forecast called for morning clouds with afternoon clearing and partly cloudy skies, so the views we didn't see clearly on the way up were now glorious from high pass! We ohhed and ahhed for a bit, then continued on towards the summit block, which was looking a lot steeper than it did it pictures from previous reports. It also appeared that the moat was beginning to melt out, but it looked like going far left or far right of the middle would avoid this issue.
I'm about 200 feet above anything that could be considered remotely flat. I look down between my legs at Yana, about 50ft below me. I squint my eyes as I look up towards the moat. The brilliantly bright sun is reflecting off the icy snow above me. I'm standing on the front points of my crampons trying to get the shaft of my ice axe to penetrate the hard snow more than an inch, but it's not happening. I sigh, and resort to using the pick of my axe dagger style. I don't feel comfortable thinking about downclimbing this face in, but there is no other option if I continue up.
Yana looks up at me expectantly, questioning, "What do you think?". I look up squinting, try to kick my front points in deeper for a better stance.
"I think we should have brought the rope."
We decide to descend to the flats and wait for the sun to soften this last obstacle between us and the summit. We goof around for quite some time, taking pictures, etc. After about an hour and a half, Yana and I decide to try again. We leave our packs under the watchful eye of Tazz, and trudge back up. Before I even got to my previous high point, (6630) I knew the sun was not doing it's magic. This north facing slope was not getting intense enough sun to soften up. Without a rope to rappel from the summit, we were hosed. I was willing to climb up, but not willing to downclimb some 400 ft of steep hard snow face in.
A rope and picket was suggested in the gear list, but I didn't think we would need them. The pictures I have seen of this slope didn't look as steep as it is. I was hoping for softer snow conditions. I learned a hard lesson, and it cost us the summit. Sorry Yana and Tazz. frown.gif
After not seeing anyone all day long, we ran into two guys on their way up. They had a rope, but we were out of time. Below high pass on the traverse we ran into 3 more older guys, doing an overnight. They had ropes I bet they had a great sunset and sunrise to enjoy!!
Of course by now, the snow had softened up to allow us to experience the posthole wallowfest we missed out on the way up, yipee! Some glissading and more postholing brought us back to the trail, and soon back to the cars some 13 hours after we started.
My personal account...:)This was a surprise for me. We had talked about doing it this weekend . Even then I was apprehensive. I got word at 8:30 pm after work that is what the plan was. It is an intimidating peak, just for the gain let alone the (possible) technical aspect! The technical was not my issue. I was worried I was too slow and would slow them down too much. Especially after only 3 hrs of sleep and a bum ankle. That damn self doubt rant.gif !! I did great (I believe) and was very happy that I could have summited if the conditions were in our favor.
The icy/hard snow conditions started at 2600' all the way to the summit total opposite from previous reports. The sunny weather and freezes at night helped. I think it was great for our ascent, till the summit climb . The traverse from lone tree to high pass was very icy due to all the slides, a fall would have been one hell of a ride! I remember saying to myself an Yana heard me..”this is f–ing solid ice!”
We wore avy beacons (thanks again dicey) after the avy trip on Morning Star Sunday. Glad we did, although most avys and sloughing happened Sunday and Monday. Still, better to be safe than sorry!
When we reached High pass I looked up at the summit climb and the freak out in me acted up! I remember saying out load there is no f--ing way I am going up that!!! After another 10 minutes I was like ok I can do this and was all set to go for it. Then dicey was stopped by the ice. That was when I said I won’t go till is softens (or if we had rope) I thought it was a great idea to hang and wait. We had time ( we made good time up...for me anyways.) so why not.
After 2 hrs, it was still crappy. I was jealous when ericeric and his partner came up roped up. These two posted a tr on TAY with some really great images.
The descent was just as steep and but after reaching a couple hundred feet from high pass it got sloppy! After Lone tree pass my bum ankle, legs, and feet got “stupid". I was tired for the first time that day.
I am proud of our time. I know those two could have shave some time off without me but we still did the whole climb in 13 hrs. That includes 2 hours messing around waiting for the ice to soften and many 10-15 minute breaks up and down. So we did it in 11 hrs give or take....
What a great day and climb!! Thank you, Yana and dicey for such and incredible day I will never forget!! I don’t care if we summited or not! It was such a great time with you two in the mountains (AGAIN!) What a blast!! I will be back!! I want that summit now! What a fun climb!! This trip meant a lot to me...3 gals on a kick ass climb...thanks you two!!!!
Dicey was so awesome as to give me her camera to take pics after High pass. Mine crapped out and I about had a fit and tossed it down the slope! Thanks girl!!
Stats and gear:
about 10 miles rt
I did 6500' gain Dicey and yana did 6700 (appox)
crampons
axe
helmet for rock and ice fall on the traverse (some rock but ice was showering down from the cliffs as we traversed under them)
rope and pickets would be useful.... ;).
this is a post to our trip report on NWhikers from the two guys we talked to. Your right, it was much steeper than the pictures showed. I was one of the guys you met below the summit. I was able to get my ice axe shaft down each step but it took several hard thrusts each time. The 2 pickets were a lifesaver. Turns out from where you stopped, it was two 70 foot rope lengths. My climbing partner belayed me to the summit from the bergschrund. Solid footing could be had after 5 or 6 foot thrusts. I was so intimidated by the final pitch; I topped out on the summit, looked around to see that I was the highest thing and started down climbing. The whole event took way too long. The old guys went for the summit as well with the rope but they had no pickets. I watched them from tree line below. They made it to where you did, and then turned back.
Thier tr here on TAY
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