Elpoca Mountain II

Elpoca Mountain II – July 15, 2007

Mountain height:     3069 m (as recorded on my GPS)
Elevation gain:      1050 m
Ascent time:           7:35
Descent time:         5:30

Alpine climbing with Mark.

After a splendid, but disappointing day on Elpoca Mountain the day before, we returned to complete some unfinished business – the summit. With all the necessary equipment (crampons, ice axes, and climbing gear) we expected the ascent to be straightforward and relatively easy…..yeah, right!

Ascending the snow gully started off okay, but quickly the grade increased to a degree where a belay was a good idea. This was incredibly time-consuming, but the soft snow felt a little unstable at times. Higher up the grade again increased to about 45 degrees, but the snow was more stable. We therefore ascended the final few hundred metres without belaying. The ascent of the gully was physically brutal, requiring two or three kicks per step and two solid ice axe placements (lucky we brought two axes each). It took far more time and energy than expected. Finally at the top of the gully, we were able to take a short break and prepare for the assault on the summit. Admittedly, I was already nervous about descending the gully, as invariably the snow would soften a little in the time it took us to get to the summit and back.

The push to the summit was a good opportunity for me to test out my rock shoes in an alpine setting. Having followed Antri up a multi-pitch sport route three days earlier, I was anxious to find out if wearing the rock shoes would make a significant difference. Again, we used Orvel Miskiw’s excellent route description. That description and the shoes were instrumental in getting us to the top. With the shoes, I found I was very comfortable on steep, exposed terrain that would have unnerved me a great deal had I been wearing boots. As well, Miskiw’s description was very accurate and easy to follow.

The significant exposure caught us a little off guard, but as Miskiw points out there are always good belay stances. A couple of boulders with slings left around them also pointed us in the right direction. Again, our progress was slow, but extra care was needed throughout the ascent. The mountain dropped away on both sides quite often and any slip would have been extremely serious.

The summit was the most unique we’d ever been on – no scree, just a narrow slither of clean rock, with a straight drop-off down the west side and a 5 metre slope leading to a straight drop on the east side. Someone had very graciously placed a bolt at the summit and we were both glad to clip into it. There was no register in the summit canister. Only on small piece of gum wrapper with a couple of names on it, including Mr. Miskiw’s himself. Since this had probably been our most difficult ascent to date, we scribbled our names in tiny writing on the remaining space on the paper.

The summit view was amazing although marred by hazy skies to the west. Miskiw points out that the descent back to the top of the gully may take longer than ascending it and he’s right. We rappelled two short sections off the slings that were left there and carefully downclimbed the remaining sections. Physically wiped-out, we eventually arrived back at the gully to the most unpleasant task of descending the long and steep snow gully, with potentially iffy snow conditions. The snow had not deteriorated very much, but I was still uneasy about the steep top section and was cautious and slow in my descent. Naturally, the weather decided to take a turn for the worse at this point and it rained through most of the snow descent.

At some point we decided our progress was too slow and feared that at our present pace we might be in for an epic descent. Mark is much better than I on snow and ice (more confident and much faster) and so he graciously suggested that I rappel down the slope and he would downclimb it. We had a 60 m rope and so I was able to quickly rappel 60 m down the slope on a single strand and then Mark would downclimb. We did this twice, saving a huge amount of time. After that the grade of the slope became a little gentler and we were able to descend together. Once off the snow, the reminder of the descent was easy, but we were both exhausted upon reaching the car at 10 pm, having taken only one short break on ascent and none on descent.

Overall, an extremely memorable day on an outstanding mountain.