Sawtooths Crest Traverse (the one in CA) - Part 2: The Sawblade

“It’s a lost, or it’s kind of an ignored idea, the idea of magnificent failure rather than a mediocre success.”- Peter Croft

Traversing Blacksmith Peak on Day 1 was quite enjoyable... clean, mostly solid granite with easy raps.   All Type I fun.  I'm intending to scale one of the routes on Blacksmith peak and keep traversing across to Glacier Col and loop back to the car in a day.  We were hoping that the rock quality would continue...

Part 1, part 3, and part 4

The next morning we quickly finished our morning ritual of eating brekky, dropping a #2, and gearing up.  After scrambling up the Cleaver we were reading the summit log wishing we had brought a pen with us.

Many sections of old school "3rd class"... which looks like this. At times a bit intimidating, but the holds are there and after dissecting it into one or two move sequences it becomes quite manageable.  With the rope in my bag, and the rack in Nick's this was the fastest way to move.  

Other sections we pitched it out.  The route finding on this route is akin to soul searching.  You just go up whatever looks or feels good.  As Nick said, "I figure the holds will reveal themselves when I get up there..." and they did.  

Simul-climbing on the ridge.  LOTS of exposure...

If I had one pic to show what the traverse felt like, it'd be this one.  This shows the exposure on both sides of the ridge, the scenery, and shows what we were doing most of the day.  

There were so many quality sections of this traverse... including short features like this, which ended up being a beautiful splitter crack that we just ran out.  

A typical section of exposed 2nd/3rd class on the ridge.  

Summit of the Middle Teeth...

Summit block of the Doodad and the moon... as seen from the last tooth.  So close, but yet so far... there's a few more teeth between where I took the pic and where the block sits balanced probably just a few hundred yards away.  We were hoping to get past the Doodad and into Polemonium Col on day 2, but I need to brush up my scrambling skills and get in shape.  

Our last rap into the notch between the Three Teeth and the Doodad.  Before the climb we had debated taking my 60m tag line... in the end we were very happy to have taken Nick's 70m rope.  This last rap barely reached the ground with rope stretch.   

Soon we ditched the ropeand the gear (stashed it on the cliffside so that the varmints won't chew up the rope).  And walked down 15 min to some flowing water and flatter ground.

Our bunk for the night... there was a small stream in the snowfield so we didn't have to melt water tonight... Another night of sleeping on Nick's backpack!  Weehaw!

TR: Sawtooths Crest Traverse (the one in CA) - Part 1: Blacksmith Peak

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” -Hemingway

I'm not too familiar with bullfighting or motor racing, but this past weekend I quit playing games and participated in the sport of mountaineering as defined by the thinly controlled alcoholic Nobel prize winner.  

I had been looking forward to this weekend of climbing.  The first weekend of climbing since last September when I did N. Peak and some routes on Daff dome.  Really wasn't prepared for this, and haven't done anything like this since Steve and I did the Palisades Traverse back in 2008... I was certainly in better climbing shape back then.    

part 2, part 3, and part 4

The Sawtooth Ridge, a pic by Sean Duggan

We had originally planned to hike out to Charlotte Dome, but Wed evening Nick gave me a call and persuaded me to go along with the adventure.  Nick was lamenting on the fact that he had recently made a breakthrough in his climbing where these trips weren't as anxiety ridden any more.  He didn't get knots in his stomach thinking about the epic ahead.  He would just be excited.  That's great! ... I thought... but Nick then went on to suggest the Traverse as just the thought of it made his palms clammy.  Huh?  So... you'd rather be anxious than excited?  Then Nick articulately explained himself by saying that after doing a trip where you are anxious beforehand just makes it that much more rewarding.  What a masochist...   

Found the last spot in the Twin Lakes TH parking lot... kind of a tight squeeze...


Anyway, I didn't have my eyes set on any particular climb, I just love being in the mountains, feeling the granite with my hands, and sharing the experience with a trusted partner.  So with palms sweaty, I went along with the plan.  But told Nick that he'd probably have to lead the majority of the route as I'd be quite slow since I hadn't climbed for so long.  

As our guide we had printed out "A Climber's Guide to the High Sierra, by Hervery H. Voge" from 1954!  Pretty short descriptions, but still probably had the best description of our route as Miley forgot to print out the applicable sections from the Secor guide.  

here's the illustration from that guide.

As recommended by one of Miley's mentors Bela, the founder of ASI, we decided to go from Blacksmith to Matterhorn, the reverse of Croft's described solo in his book, the Good, the Great, the Awesome (BTW, this was rated, "Awesome").  Honestly S to N, N to S, it'd be a very similar experience either way...

Here's a pic of Stevee stoked to be passed by Croft while we were climbing Cardinal Pinnacle the day before our Small Palisades Traverse.

Croft described their adventure. “I loved the whole thing except the gullies and raps. It seemed like in every gully on the Sawblade to the Three Teeth there was some dirty, frozen ‘kitty litter’ chimney or crack that wasn’t any fun. There were a few spots that you had to be real careful with teetering blocks. My favorite part about the route was being on the ridge the whole time—it felt like you never left a summit. Summiting the Doodad and traversing the Dragtooth was an excellent finale to the ridge.”


On our hike up the talus fields to the base of Blacksmith Peak, there were numerous teetering blocks.  One actually pinned my left foot and probably weighed 50 lbs.  I could have let it roll over my foot, but that would've hurt like hell, so I yelled at Nick and with his help lifted the block just enough for me to slide my foot out... phew.

Fireweed growing out of the cracks.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilobium_angustifolium

Blacksmith Peak from Glacier Lake.  Here's a cool TR with Dave Nettle of an FA on the peak.  Blacksmith is quite an impressive looking peak and I would love to go back to do the North Arete (10a) sometime.

Climbing up the snowfield up to the notch between Blacksmith Peak and Eocene Peak...

Here's the whole crest from Blacksmith Peak.  Nick and I were getting ready to start scrambling up Blacksmith Peak (Class 4) with our limited daylight.

Check out this massive landslide on aptly named "Slide Canyon"...

looking back down at Glacier Lake.

and the Cleaver with Twin Lakes behind it.

Summit of Blacksmith Peak 6 pm.

and the crest traverse begins!

After a quick rap, we decided to start roping up and simul climbing...

One of my favorite shots from the trip.  This is when I learned that traverses take a LONG time.  We were still on Blacksmith Peak 2 hours after we summitted, even when we were simil-climbing...

As the sun was setting we were doing our final rappel and downclimbing down to Glacier Col between Blacksmith Peak and the Cleaver.

After hiking down a 100 yards and collecting snow, we made dinner, melted snow, and got ready to pass out for the night.

Too bad my sleeping pad got a huge hole in it... so my sleeping pad for the night involved the 70m rope + Nick's backpack.  We also had a sheet of Tyvek which was really loud, but kept us pretty warm.

Day 2 - Part 2: The Sawblade coming soon...