Ledge Peak

July 23, 2018

Guides: Todd, Bastian
Participants: Mike, Katharina, Clifton, Alan, Natalie, Mary Ann, Alda
Time: 10 hours

Left camp at 07:30 on a cool but sunny morning. A scrabbly hike up the moraine led to us triggering a couple of large and dangerous rockfalls, one of them caused by me. Bastian commented that we all knew how to scream "rock!" very well. Some gentle snow patches followed which were easily traversed as the surface was soft in the baking sunshine. After about 400 meters of this we reached the glacier, put on crampons, roped up, and unsheathed axes. Natalie was not feeling well so decided to turn back. As the terrain here was fairly benign, Todd let her go and radioed camp for Pierre to climb up and meet her somewhere around the halfway point. A long, steep, but very asthetic snow climb awaited us up the glacier which took us all the way to the col between Ledge 1 and 2. Mary Ann decided that she was done for the day, so settled down on a warm rock in the sunshine for a nap, while we spent a fairly long time scouting the route up the broken rock of Ledge 2. Finally, Todd settled on a route, and a very scrappy scramble followed, with some massive exposure. This was followed by a loverly granite ramp beside a wall of snow which was climbed with axe plunges for hand holds and rock slab for feet. This brought us to the col between Ledge 2 and 3. Some storms were visible around us, but none were immediately threatening our position, so the decision was made to climb Ledge 3 which is the highest summit on the mountain. Apparently this climb goes at 5.5, but it felt much easier than that. Good holds and feet made for enjoyable climbing, with only the occasional loose block to be avoided. We reached this summit quickly and sat down for a break to enjoy the view and refuel. Todd lowered us off to the col and we scrambled up to the summit of Ledge 2 which was also fun. Another lower and we rejoined Mary Ann who was just waking up from her snooze. Clifton, Olga, and I decided to climb Ledge 1 which was an easy but steep snow slope followed by some crampon scratching up a slab to the summit. Tip-toeing down the slab on the return was a little frightening, but accomplished without mishap. We all roped up again in two separate teams and began the long, steep snow slog downwards. The snow was now very sloppy in the beating afternoon sunshine, so it was fairly slow going, but eventually we made it down off of the glacier and unroped for the lower snow slopes. Katharina slipped on one of these and had to self arrest with her ice axe, but was otherwise fine. We picked a nicer line through the moraine, one with much fewer loose boulders during our final descent back to camp. After spending ten hours in the hot sun, mostly on snow, the can of beer I had stashed in the creek went down very nicely!

Today's objective, the triple peaked snowy mountain in the center.