Attempt on Institute
On the drive back from Seward I was eyeing the Deltas to see what conditions looked like up there. Institute Peak and the area surrounding it was still quite snow-covered, so I talked Tim into heading down there with me.
We slept near the base of the Gulkana Glacier, with the plan to awake early, summit by about noon, and be back at the car by 5.
Conditions weren't great when we started hiking - it was overcast and the everything above 5000 feet or so was obscured by clouds, but we decided t give it a shot. The first couple of miles were hiked in boots.
After a couple of creek crossings, one over a conveniently-placed bridge, we got to snowline and started skinning. Here's Tim disappearing into the ether. Needless to say, conditions never improved. We went for a while in a completely flat light, not always entirely sure we were headed the right direction.
Eventually we hit what we believed to be the summit ridge, where it got steep enough to throw on the crampons. Already past our projected turnaround time, this is Tim right before starting our final push to try to make the summit before it got too late.
Institute's an 8000 peak. We got up to about 7500 when I fell 15 feet into a crevasse. This is a picture I took looking up out of the crevasse, with the rope that was my lifeline on the right. It took about an hour for me to climb out, at which point we decided to descend.
The high points never lost their cloud cover, but on the descent the lower sections started to clear up, making it a nice ski down.
Towards the bottom the snow turned real wet and manky. Here's Tim switching back to boots after having rocked out.
Tim getting ready to jump across a stream on the way back.
Crossing the same bridge we came in on - it picked up this wild harmonic motion at the either end, which made crossing it pretty fun.
So I'm still o-fer on Delta range summits, but the trip was great. It encompassed a little time on crampons, skis, and boots, and I had a new experience - climbing out of crevasse. Hopefully I'll never have that experience again, but it makes for a good story now.
We slept near the base of the Gulkana Glacier, with the plan to awake early, summit by about noon, and be back at the car by 5.
Conditions weren't great when we started hiking - it was overcast and the everything above 5000 feet or so was obscured by clouds, but we decided t give it a shot. The first couple of miles were hiked in boots.
After a couple of creek crossings, one over a conveniently-placed bridge, we got to snowline and started skinning. Here's Tim disappearing into the ether. Needless to say, conditions never improved. We went for a while in a completely flat light, not always entirely sure we were headed the right direction.
Eventually we hit what we believed to be the summit ridge, where it got steep enough to throw on the crampons. Already past our projected turnaround time, this is Tim right before starting our final push to try to make the summit before it got too late.
Institute's an 8000 peak. We got up to about 7500 when I fell 15 feet into a crevasse. This is a picture I took looking up out of the crevasse, with the rope that was my lifeline on the right. It took about an hour for me to climb out, at which point we decided to descend.
The high points never lost their cloud cover, but on the descent the lower sections started to clear up, making it a nice ski down.
Towards the bottom the snow turned real wet and manky. Here's Tim switching back to boots after having rocked out.
Tim getting ready to jump across a stream on the way back.
Crossing the same bridge we came in on - it picked up this wild harmonic motion at the either end, which made crossing it pretty fun.
So I'm still o-fer on Delta range summits, but the trip was great. It encompassed a little time on crampons, skis, and boots, and I had a new experience - climbing out of crevasse. Hopefully I'll never have that experience again, but it makes for a good story now.
posted by Slim at
4:38 PM
1 Comments:
Christian,
Great account. Man, I'm so glad it turned out the way it did. Minus no making the peak.
I think when you took that picture of me checking the watch on that steep pitch, I was actually softening up that snowbridge you later fell through. Pretty sure I threw an axe in right above there and discovered packed snow/ice instead of that soft thigh deap stuff...might have been a bergschrund of sorts. Ah! Again, so glad it was a learning experience and not a tragedy.
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