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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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Thx Kris. The right info is key. When we went in to recon we got to the gullies. But we could barely see the rocks thru the clouds/mist.
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Bill Sherman
Mountain climber
Culver City, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2010 - 03:16am PT
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Radish,
We had no intentions of removing the original records up there. Our plan was to consolidate anything into the Pelican Box I was bringing up there for the new register. The box we had contained a new notebook, Clint's spreadsheet (laminated), an oil based pencil, several lead graphite pencils, and a sharpener.
Kris,
It is possible we went up the wrong gully. We followed the GPS co-ordinates from Summitpost.org. It pinpointed us at the start of the approach gully.
It is correct that there was no snow where I got injured. The run-off was running through there stronger than any of the other gullies. When I took the GPS co-ordinates for my location, it indicated we were 0.35 miles from where the gully took off from the trail.
After talking to Mooch, he indicated he had his gear cached one creek East of where we went up. He said the last time he went up there he went straight up through the woods to a point where it opened up and then traversed West into the gully. I know which point he was talking about as I found his beer cached in the creek. Don't worry guys, it's still there and we left ours in the gully we started up. If you guys don't find them, we'll retrieve them when we go back up.
The Fin is so big that our perception of how close we actually were may have been off.
When the helicopter took off I had a good view of the gully we were in and it definitely went directly up between the Fin and the Spire and contained plenty of snow. We were probably about 500 feet away from the bottom of the snow tongue and the notch didn't look too terribly far away but again perceptions could have easily been off. When I look at Radish's photo from across the valley it does look like we still had quite a ways to go.
Once I get my GPS unit back from Jordan I'll post the co-ords to where we were at the time of injury. If we were in the wrong gully I'd really like to know as we are planning on going back up there at some point. It could potentially save us plenty of time, energy, and another broken ankle.
Bill
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Bill Sherman
Mountain climber
Culver City, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2010 - 03:57am PT
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I just went through the photos that Jordan took. The first one looks up the gully from where I was injured. My foot is on the pack in this picture. The spire is on the far right, the fin predominates the picture, and the sub-dome below the fin is on the left. We were just below the dome in the gully.
Those of you who have been up there and climbed this, such as Kris, William, Joe, please comment to let us know if we were off track or not.
The second picture was the GPS co-ordinates I took at the location. I wrote them down and then Jordan took a picture so we would have the info in three places for redundancy.
Bill
Edit: I just downloaded Google Earth to figure this out a bit more and used my co-ordinates. We were definitely in the right gully but we were only half way up it. We were 0.35 miles from the trail and 0.38 miles from the notch. From talking to Mooch the other day, it still sounds like his approach might be a little easier. We'll talk again after this weekend to see how it works out for them.
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Yes, surgeons are known for thoroughness. They like being exact with their statements, measurements, and time. I really don't think Bill knows how to be any other way.
He sadly doesn't have my islander's vague sense of time, or ability to generalize one's location to encompass the size of a city. That talent is all mine.
AFS
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Bill your coordinates show you to be in the right place. Here's how it looks on google to me. The gps points are very close but not exact. The trail location is from summitpost. Bringing the view around to SE puts the formations sort of in perspective.
From Radish's pic I would expect you to be in snow by there, but the foreshortening of the long shots plus Google Earth's wierd perspective is obviously throwing me off.
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Jordan Ramey
Big Wall climber
South Pasadena, CA
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That's where I had Bill mapped to as well Kris. We couldn't have been to far below the snow, but we were further from the spire than we thought while we were ascending. We were only at about 5600 - 5700' by my watch altimeter and GPS unit, which is well below from the notch, but the going up was pretty easy (comparatively).
Bill, your GPS unit is in your truck, either in the passenger seat back pocket or where you set your phone down. I definitely saw it in the truck while we were driving home.
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Jordan,
I'm driving the truck and guess what... I found the GPS exactly where you said it was. I swear we would never have looked in that pocket without your help. Dang it Jordan, somehow we owe you MORE BEER! At this rate you're going to be drunk all summer.
:)AFS
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Bill Sherman
Mountain climber
Culver City, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2010 - 02:08pm PT
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Kris,
That is accurate. The distance from the trail to the injury site was taken off my GPS unit when I took the co-ordinates. The unit is one of the first generation Garmin eTrek's so it's accuracy can be off by even a couple of hundred feet but at least it was close enough for the helicopter crew to find me first fly-by. I'm going to need to learn some pointers from you and Jordan on using Google Earth. That was my first experience with it last night. I tried to pinpoint the notch and the injury site then draw a line from them for the distance. In direct lines, we were 0.38 miles from what I thought was the notch.
It really puts it in perspective how tough it is to move anywhere in that place. We thought that an hour of moving up that gully put us much closer but it was wishful thinking. We knew our elevation and where we needed to get to for the notch. There were parts of the approach through the thickets where moving 100 feet in an hour became an accomplishment. Having such a wild place makes that area even more fun.
Radish's photo does make it look like the snow comes much farther down but I'm thinking it might be an illusion from the white granite reflecting the sun directly as well as the water in there reflecting the sun. That part of the gully was in the sun from 0930 until about 1930.
Jordan, we're going to have to figure more time for the approach next time or figure out a better way to get into that gully.
Bill
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Jordan Ramey
Big Wall climber
South Pasadena, CA
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CRS in-a-day!
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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As I understand it, the old register is a goner. Brutus made another one as a replacement to the old one whern they did Cinco De Mayo in '05, which also met its doom when the 2009 party found it completely destroyed by water. So, from what I understand, Bill is sending us the new (and only) register.
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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But I still gather that the one found destroyed by the '09 party was the only register up there.
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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Jordan, we're going to have to figure more time for the approach next time or figure out a better way to get into that gully.
Recon, recon, recon....
However, a 6 pack of Moose Drool and I'll get you up there in 5 or 6 hours (depending on how many Gatorita breaks you take), loaded packs and all. ;)
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Roper's guide refers to a first gulley (with water) and then the main gulley. He says to head directly up the main second gulley.
Vernon's SEKI guide refers to a stream and then the main gulley. He suggests hiking up the ridge between the two (west of the main gulley) until almost across from the Fin.
We started up the between ridge, and dropped into the gulley at snow line (well below the fin.) The SEKI guide has it right, but how far to push the ridge depends on the snow level. If there is good consolidated snow get on it.
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mooch
Trad climber
Old Climbers' Home (Adopted)
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Vernon's SEKI guide refers to a stream and then the main gulley. He suggests hiking up the ridge between the two (west of the main gulley) until almost across from the Fin.
Bingo! Yep, hike up throught the woods, right of the main gully. Pop over to the gully when the thicket thins out just below The Fin's base about 200 or 300 yards.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Using the photo Kris posted, do these lines show the "trail" and "ridge" between gulley/stream?
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Jordan Ramey
Big Wall climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Yeah, that pic is pretty accurate.
We headed immediately up the gully from the trail past a bit of 4th class then got to a steep section (unclimbable with water) and went into the woods for a bit and re-entered the gully. The gully proper is bomber, the sidewalls are a loose conglomerate of boulders, rocks, and dirt. I was in the main gully and Bill went up one section of the side to bypass a bit of scrambling where the rock fell. I would still think the gully is fine, just don't mess with the sides. It's a pretty big gully. Climbers left is crap, climbers right is pretty solid, middle is bomber.
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Bill Sherman
Mountain climber
Culver City, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2010 - 03:48pm PT
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del cross, we did head straight up that gully and that's what I was referring to as to the "small cliff bands". They were maybe 20-30' at a time but it was definitely grungy 4th class. We headed off into the woods a few times to get around them. We should have just stayed in there and it would have probably made the approach much easier and been boulder free.
We actually camped somewhere between the two gullies the night before. We couldn't find a flat spot and suffered for it. All this discussion and images (thanks Clint and Kris) is making a lot more sense. The going through the woods was somewhat steep in places but very easy to walk through relative to the previous approach and to the gully.
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Jordan Ramey
Big Wall climber
South Pasadena, CA
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As Bill said though, I'd probably go up the woods first and cut into the gully later than we did though.
i agree the approach "could" be done in 5 hours with packs, but you gotta have that trail WIRED. I thought with our GPS, maps, etc.. we'd be pretty good, but it's just so thick and steep everywhere it's hard to ever tell where you are. The printed out topo maps with notes all over it and GPS waypoints definitely kept us in the right general direction and I doubt we'd have ever made it to the approach gully without them.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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I had to use my MPS (Mooch Positioning System), else it's madness trying to get in there without GPS and full armor, swords, and halberds.
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