Mount Darwin: 2017-08-26 скачать в хорошем качестве

Mount Darwin: 2017-08-26

Mount Darwin: 2017-08-26 Iris Ma joined me for this dayhike of Mount Darwin, an SPS Emblem Peak. Bob Burd had done this during the very first Sierra Challenge, using a route up from Midnight Lake. His route sounded pretty tough, and with all the snow in the Sierra this year, we weren't sure if his route had become even harder. Instead, we chose to go over Lamarck Col, and climb Darwin via the West Ridge route. We got started from North Lake around 4:30 AM, and it was just starting to get light as we reached Lower Lamarck Lake. I guided us up the sometimes confusing trail that leads up to Lamarck Col, where we found a nice boot track in the snow that allowed us to reach the col with ease. After descending into Darwin Canyon, we took a short break at the low point before scrambling up some nice rock slabs to reach the basin above. We used as much low angled snow as we could find to help minimize the boulder hopping, and we soon found ourselves at the base of the climb up to the west ridge. I put on my crampons, while Iris tried to continue without them, since she was only wearing trail runners. She would have to put hers on eventually as the snow got steeper, and we met up again on the class 3 ledges leading to the ridge. There were some loose sections here, and we had to be careful about dropping rocks on each other. Once at the correct notch on the ridge, we turned left and climbed towards the summit plateau on some pretty decent rock. Once on the Plateau, it was an easy walk, until the famous summit block came into view. We had two different route descriptions telling us to go around the right side of the block, but I could not see a feasible way of going around that way. We had to drop about 50 feet while circling the block on the left side, but that proved to be the better way to go. A few more class 3 moves brought us to the top of the summit block, where we took a short break. We couldn't stay very long, as it was getting late, and we still had a long way to go back. We returned to the notch on the west ridge without much trouble, but I took a few wrong turns on the descent which took us onto some more loose terrain. Once back on the snow, we had a fun little glissade down the steepest part. I tried to take a more efficient route on the way down by utilizing more snow fields, and we managed to make it back to Darwin Canyon in pretty good time. After a nice long food break, we slowly climbed the 1100 feet back up to Lamarck Col, where it was pretty much all downhill from there. Sunset came not long after we crossed the col, and we ended up hiking the last hour back to the car by headlamp. A very enjoyable day! 00:00:00 Lamarck Lakes Trail 00:01:02 Snowfield 00:02:05 Lamarck Col Glacier 00:03:05 Descending Lamarck Col 00:03:52 Climbing Up Again 00:04:54 Streams Coming Down 00:05:59 Crampon Time 00:06:31 Class 3 Ledges 00:09:10 Climbing Past the Notch 00:10:18 Summit Plateau in Sight 00:11:47 Darwin Summit Plateau 00:13:12 Climbing the Summit Block 00:14:26 Summit of Mount Darwin 00:15:35 Distant Mountains 00:16:46 Sabrina Basin Lakes 00:17:52 Summit Register 00:18:07 Sides of the Summit Block 00:19:27 Descending the Plateau 00:20:06 Evolution Basin View 00:21:04 Easier Section 00:22:22 Descending from the Notch 00:24:06 Descending the Class 3 Ledges 00:25:40 Descending the Snow 00:26:47 Iris Glissading 00:27:55 Back on our Feet 00:30:45 Large Snowfield 00:31:30 Back Over Lamarck Col 00:32:03 Final Snowfields 00:33:08 Back at the Car