Sun Ribbon Arete

Well, I just had one of the best adventures of my life. I'll let this video tell most of the story but here's a VERY brief synopsis:

• Drove up to the eastern Sierra to climb a route on temple crag
• Spent Thursday eve camping at 10,000' near Mt. Whitney to get used to the elevation
• Grabbed a bear box and permit Friday morning and hiked into the north fork of Big Pine. I belive it was roughly 5 miles to the second lake where we camped
• Spent Saturday hiking up talus/steep snow to contact pass. BEAUTIFUL
• Woke up at 4 a.m. on Sunday to climb Sun Ribbon Arete
• Approach took almost two hours of hiking talus, then snow, then chopping steps up VERY steep slippery snow for a few hundred feet to access the ledge at the base of the route
• Climbed some 5.7 pitches and about 300' of 4th class garbage
• Tyrolean traverse across a 20' gap, tons more easy ridge cilmbing with some spicy sections of very loose rock, then the 5.9+/5.10a crux pitch: Wide hand jams to a thin (hard 5.9) traverse
• A ton more climbing up, down, and around various gendarmes. A few rappels, tons of loose rock, and before we knew it it was getting dark
• Forced bivy on a small ledge a few pitches from the top because we took our sweet time not expecting the last half of the route to be so long,tricky, and sketchy owing to all the loose rock
• Woke up at first light and got moving after a breakfast of champions (a packet of tuna...hadn't had any water for a LONG time, and wasn't going to either so the fish juice was a surprisingly welcome treat)
• A few more pitches of easy 5th class and some downclimbing followed by 4th class crap to the top of the route
• Skipped going to Temple Crag's real summit, as we had no desire to climb anymore loose sketchiness and wanted to get down and eat/drink
• Downclimbed, rappeled, and glissaded a ton of steep snow back to the base, then slogged downhill to camp
• Packed up, hiked out, and put the hurt on hamburgers and beers in bishop before driving back to J-tree

CLASSIC time, though I've learned my lesson about underestimating the "easy 4th class" sections in the sierra. There was some seriously sketchy rock on parts of this and I may have been off route, but it was certainly a great deal more tricky than 4th class at parts. All told, the route took us about 20 pitches and quite a lot of that on some funky terrain. That said, it was a blast and a memory I'll cherish.

Hope ya'll enjoy, call my phone if you want the real play by play!


Here's the video:

Cheers,
Mike

4th of July In Bishop

Some photos from a weekend in paradise  (the eastern sierra near Bishop, CA)

More photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150695877375524.704461.572250523&l=7da009836a

 

 

Hope everyone is well!