Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Mt. Humphreys - N Face, 2004

Another one dug out of the archives.
I had really wanted to do this as a winter climb but Sam agreed to go in June of '04
I guess I really didn't know what the route was supposed to be at the time, but I envisioned a traverse across the N face ledge system and up the summit cone, which is what we did. Reading further later, it appears as if the FA was up the NE couloir direct then up the N. Face. Oh well, our route was pretty cool, if rather loose in places. We got an alpine start and summited early. Descent was made via the E ridge until dropping the couloir (extremely loose!) back to Longley Reservoir. We never did rope up although we rappeled  at least once going down the E ridge. We hiked out to the car the same day.

The N face ledge system is the obvious snow line going across the mid face



Snow was rock hard so we put on crampons to speed things up

The north couloirs - right and left

approaching the N face ledge system

Traversing loose ground on the ledge system

Better rock high on the N face

Sam at the notch below the summit cone

Sam on the summit



A rap on the E ridge descent