East of East Ingalls – rapping with 19.5m of 70m rope.
Type 2.5 fun. Getting a rope stuck on rappel. Finding two previously stuck ropes, moving them down a huge gully a bit. Awesome adventure climbing with a new friend. Getting home safe.
Summary
tl;dr: Be more sure of your route start. Pick good partners (I had a great one). Be prepared to lose your things, not your head.
We set off to climb the East Ridge of Ingalls, we were not successful in that objective. We ended up climbing close to East Ingalls via it’s East Ridge, and had some shenanigans on the way down. You can see previous shenanigans in the photo above of two stuck ropes.
We started the day with the standard approach to Lake Ingalls.
We didn’t find the base of the East Ridge of Ingalls, what we found was an unknown 4 pitch 5.6ish PG13 route to a small boulder hump at a notch above a huge gully of East Ingalls. We basically climbed half of the East Ridge of East Ingalls. First ascent? Unlikely. Not the first descent for sure.
We were off route, ended up finding a pair of stuck ropes, rapped into a gully, retrieved those stuck ropes, and then I rapped too far into the gully causing our rope to get stuck upon trying to pull it. We had to cut it down and build other anchors to rap / downclimb from. Everyone stayed safe and communicated well in a pretty full on scenario. Lots of learnings but back home at 2am after a great day.
Was the first time I was in a situation where an inreach was useless, there was no gps and almost no sky cover in the gully. We did actually have cell signal which was boss. I did let my family know of our situation (altitude, rough gps coordinates, status, gear) in case we lost cell signal and had to spend the night.
Most of those ropes are still stuck now, just a bit shorter. It was actually my first fully overhanging rappel which was dope! Rapping on a gri-gri is way better imo. We used a Reepschnur hitch (carabiner block) and the other trashed ropes as a pull cord, worked great for raps 1,3,4 just not so much for rap 2.
In the foreseeable future I am not going to start a climb without coordinates as to where the base of the route is. At least while I have a lot of learning still to do. Looking forward to getting out to continue to learn. Hopefully the lessons slow down a bit. More type 1.5 fun… West ridge Stuart calling? Maybe the actual East Ridge of Ingalls first?
All is well that ends well.
Other Stuff / Gear updates
The mountaineers are having a fantastic book sale at 25-35% off retail. Expanded the guide book library to what you see here. I’ll do a blog post on the full library “soon.” There are still some big gaps in guidebooks here, always open to suggestions!
BD #8 cam, can of coke for scale. Not sure I’ll ever place the beast, but it weighs as much as the item below. Venerable Dave Searle in the background with one of the best videos on Kiwi/Alpine coils out there.
One of the best tents in the world, samaya assaut2 ultra. Weighs less than 1kg, and can wait out storms at 8000M. Sleeps two, and probably not a dog. Also, been working on my WFH/alpinismproject.com video setup. It’s mostly yellowtec m!ka. Another blog post coming “soon.”
SBP with Cam and River.
Mountaineers columns.
That’s pretty much a wrap, trying to find a partner to do the “High” Haute Route with in September, otherwise do some “easier” mountaineering in Chamonix or Zermatt. If I don’t end up pairing up with someone from here, I’ll do the Walkers Haute Route.
Until next time, hopefully with less learn fast content.
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