Kelly-Gates Pass to Blanket Mt 2003 Climbing Camp
Kelly-Gates Pass to Avalanche Lake. 2006 Climbing Camp
STRIKING IT RICH in the GOLD RANGE – Climbing Camp Report July 26 – August 2nd 2003
Location Southern Gold Range Kelly-Gates Pass to Blanket Mt
Camp participants Maurice, Let’s Not Climb Higher Than We Need To, de St. Jorre David, I Should Have Brought Bug Repellent, Shadbolt Diane, I’m So Happy To Be Alive, Colwell Sandra, Let’s Get Going, McGuinness Doug, Don’t Call Me Leader, Brown
Peaks climbed: Mt Odin (9745 ft), Unnamed on SE corner of Frigg Glacier (9120 ft), Mt Grady (9548 ft, we aborted 100 ft shy of summit), Mt Skade (7300 ft – not much of a peak, but it’s got a name), Saturday Peak (8858 ft), Mt Fosthall (8793 ft)
Itinerary: Day 1 From our parked vehicles at the head of North Fosthall Creek FSR (82 L/8 195894), we helicoptered into a camp on the south side of Mt Odin (82 L/9 204990, 7130 ft)
Day 2: Mounts Odin and Unnamed are climbed Day
3: Mount Grady is attempted, Unnamed is ascended again
Day 4: We moved west to a camp under (south of) Mt. Gunnerson (82 L/9 163993, 6545 ft).
Day 5: We climbed Mounts Skade and Saturday
Day 6: We continued south and endured Gold Range bush and bugs until we surmounted Gates Ledge and entered the Valley of the Moon; then we turned west and descended to a camp on Peters Lake (82 L/8 130930, 5700 ft).
Day 7: We ascended Mount Fosthall Day 8: We walked south to return to our vehicles
Day 1. Fly in
Under mostly sunny skies, Highland Helicopters whisks us from the end of North Fosthall Creek FSR to a beautiful alpine meadow on the south side of Mt. Odin at 82 L/9 204990, 7130 ft. Soft barefoot-friendly meadow, babbling brooks, large boulders for food hanging, and splendid views make for an idyllic setting for our first campsite. Idyllic, that is, until the clouds of mosquitoes descend upon us. Mt Grady to the east is on our hit list, so our objective for the rest of the day is to recce a route over the “shark’s tooth ridge” to the east. Maurice and Diane head off to check out the highest and most northerly notch, the route of choice for the KMC 1990 Climbing Camp (“Notch 1”). Sandy and I don’t like the sound of Kim Kratky’s description of this route in the 1990 Karabiner, so we opt to take a peek at the lowest and most southerly of three obvious notches in the north-south trending ridgeline (“Notch 3”).
David, who isn’t feeling great, decides to rest up in camp. Idling about trying to read his book, he discovers that the Avon “Skin So Soft”, that he picked up at a recent Tupperware Party, repels mosquitoes like burley repels sharks. Maurice and Diane return with tales of loose, dirty, down sloping slabs on the east side of Notch 1. Sandy and I find the gully up to Notch 3 to be loose, dirty, and generally unpleasant, but no worse than stiff class 3; the other side is an easy descent on talus and meadow. We decide on Notch 3 (82 L/9 213987, 7719 ft), but to break into things slowly, also decide to leave Grady for day 3.
Day 2, Mount Odin and Unnamed.
The next day everyone heads off as a group to try the East Ridge of Odin, the highest peak in the range. Ascending to the col east of Odin (82 L/9 214997, 8540 ft) proves straightforward (meadow, boulders, and snow), and takes us an hour and a half. Just below the col we discover shattered pieces of a helicopter rotor blade and various unidentified bits of broken metal – as we’re in prime heliski terrain, we assume we’ve stumbled upon a crash site. Maybe walking out isn’t such a bad idea after all. We ascend the easy Frigg Glacier, pausing to rubberneck at the fine views of Arrow Lake and the impressive Frigg Tower, until we intersect the East Ridge of Odin a short distance below the top. From here we easily scramble up pleasant class 3 rock to reach the summit, our first of the camp, at high noon.
It is a beautiful, sunny and hot day, and we are treated to amazing views of Mt. Thor, Mt. Niflheim, and Stegosaur Ridge that joins them, as well the northern Gold Range as far as Mt. Begbie (we think). To the west is the aesthetic silhouette of Mt Fosthall, a view that will become very familiar over the coming days. After a prolonged summit lounge, Sandy begins earning her nickname, and gets us moving again.
We retrace our steps back to the col and arrive at 2:30. As the day is yet young, we eventually all saunter off and make our way along the ridge to the summit of Unnamed, which provides very fine views of Odin and Grady.
Day 3. Mount Grady and Unnamed.
Today Sandra and I elect to have a go at Mt. Grady, the western peak of the impressive double-summited massif of Burnham and Grady. We leave camp at 5:00 am and grovel our way up the gully to Notch 3. By 5:15 am it is already warm, and we are in shorts and t-shirts and I am sweating heavily. We reach the notch at 6:15 and descend mostly easy ground to the lake below (site of the 1973 and 1990 “high camp”) by 6:50 am.
From here, we start following Kim Kratky’s excellent instructions printed in the 1990 Karabiner. We ascend the gully to prominent notch in the next N-S shark’s tooth ridge, descend down into the next drainage and contour around the basin and then climb boulders and steep, grassy goat tracks to gain the South Ridge of Grady a short distance south (climber’s right) of a prominent notch. We are finally on our route now, a hard four hours from camp.
The south ridge starts as an amble, but soon rears up. We soon reach the two gullies Kim refers to, and take the right (east), less obvious one. While Kim and Hamish scrambled this section in flip-flops, Sandy and I soon have the rope out. Unfortunately, with our on-and-off again use of the rope, we’re rather slow, and don’t reach the junction with the West Ridge until 11:00. From here things get really exciting (for such a geriatric pair as ourselves). The climbing isn’t particularly difficult, but the exposure is thrilling – steep slabs for 1000 feet on the south; the north side of the knife-edged ridge is overhanging, providing 3000 feet of vertical entertainment. We feel cowardly as we carefully belay much of this section knowing that Kim and Hamish skittered along unroped and in bare feet.
The West Ridge is long and (for us) complicated. Alas, 2:45 finds us topping out on a high point on the ridge about 100 vertical and 500 horizontal feet shy of the summit. As the West Ridge is sharp and overhanging to the north, but often not particularly steep, we know that rappelling isn’t an option, and we will need to down climb almost the whole way. Discretion (cowardice?) wins out over ambition and we turn tail bitterly disappointed that after almost 10 hours of effort we are thwarted so close to the top.
We descend the West Ridge with two 30 m raps and much down climbing, but as we short-rope most of it we are much faster than anticipated. We grind our way home over the two intervening ridges to arrive back at camp just as the last of the daylight fades.
The rest of the crew, bless their hearts, take pity on us and quickly ply us with hot food and drink. David and Maurice spent a relaxing day wandering the ridges above camp, summiting Unnamed again, and investigating a route along the ridge line to Grady. Diane wandered in the meadows near camp doing the stuff artists do.
Day 4. Move Camp to Under Mount Gunnerson
Having eaten as much of our heavy loads as possible, it’s time to move on. We traverse west on meadow and through light trees to “Silvertip” Lake (82 L/9 187982, 6800 ft) where we meet a geology graduate student from Queens University and her assistant who are camped here doing fieldwork. We follow the outlet stream for a short distance, and then turn north (right) and follow a meadow ramp about 200 m. Here we descend a narrow ramp back south through the first cliff band. We descend through some light bush and then take a series of ramps, ledges, and game trails left across the top of another cliff band.
We exit off this cliff face onto a talus slope about half way down the cliff. Once on the talus, we easily descend to the forest below. From here we make a descending traverse to the northwest through thick bush and avalanche-damaged forest to a lake at 82 L/9 175985 (5650 ft). David starts threatening the management of Avon. It is another cloudless and very hot day, so we take shelter in the shade of some trees at the lakeshore for our lunch.
After taking sustenance, we continue up the drainage a short distance and then turn left and bushwhack up steep ground, eventually making camp on the shore of a beautiful small lake at 82 L/9 163993 (6545 ft).
The lake is remarkably warm, and most of us jump in for a refreshing swim. It would be a splendid camp but for the bugs: the mosquitoes are unbelievable. David starts threatening the workers at Avon.
Day 5. Saturday Peak
Today, David, Sandra, and I head off at the civilized hour of 7:00 am for an assault of Mt Gunnerson. Maurice and Diane elect to have a leisurely breakfast and then wander the ridges around Mt Skade and maybe follow us on Gunnerson. Gunnerson is an attractive shark-fin shaped peak, but its lower slopes look suspiciously loose. The three of us wade through a 15 dense cloud of mosquitoes all the way to the Gunnerson-Skade col. David starts threatening the workers at Avon. From here it is obvious that the lower slopes of Gunnerson are crumbly and loose slag. It is a quick and unanimous decision to change our objective to the mighty, but more distant, Saturday Peak. (Later in the day Maurice and Diane poke around a bit looking for a route around the slag, but find none, although Diane is very happy to get 3 peaks this day: Skade, Skade, and Skade.) David, Sandra, and I continue over Mt Skade, which is followed by a few more ups and downs before reaching the toe of the Saturday Glacier. Out comes the rope, and we tromp up the gentle west side to below the bergschrund.
From here it gets interesting: I lead off crossing the gapping ‘schrund’ on a solid bridge, and ascend snow to 50+ degrees (big, big runout) to reach a rib of rock descending from the NW Ridge. After Dave and Sandy join me, Sandy leads off on fourth-class rock to reach the NW Ridge proper. From here is a very pleasant class 3 scramble on solid rock to the summit.
As it is yet another hot, cloudless day, we lollygag around the summit admiring the view for a while before Sandy gets us moving on our descent.
On the way down the ridge, we elect to descend a wide, loose ramp dropping from right to left (east to west) that delivers us to the top of the glacier about 100 m NW of our ascent route. A full 30 m rappel takes us just to the lower lip of the bergschrund. We then scamper down the glacier and we descend avalanche debris in the drainage of the north fork of Ledge Creek; a wee end-of-day grunt up takes us back to camp in plenty of time for a dip in the lake.
Day 6 Move Camp to Peters Lake
The attractive form of the north side of Mt Fosthall has been calling to us all week, so we decide to move camp a day earlier than planned so we can make an ascent of Fosthall before we exit out to the vehicles on Saturday. On our way to camp at Peters Lake, we will tackle Gates Ledge, a significant obstacle in the form of a ridge line protected by cliffs, rotten rock, and Gold Range bush. We have been checking it out along the way, and it doesn’t look too bad, but Dave Smith has warned that finding the route through the cliffs is tricky and involves some nasty bush. We head west from camp and climb an open ramp up a ridge line and start contouring around the basin below Icebound Lake hoping to stay above the bush as long as possible. Relatively easy travel, with the exception of one unpleasant traverse across a greasy slope, brings us to the top of a ridge line running parallel to, and just east of, Gates Ledge (around 82 L/9 163982).
This ridge initially provides pleasant travel in open forest, but after a while, thickening bush pushes us into the boulders and thin trees of the drainage to the west. Traversing through increasing bush from here, we eventually spot a narrow boulder field that we think is the one Dave talked about and the one we had spied from our vantage points to the east. We traverse another steep slope of greasy vegetation and ascend the (climber’s) right hand side of the boulders. When the boulders run out, we continue up steep and nasty bush (hand-over-hand alders and huckleberry), eventually ascending a faint animal trail up very steep dirt and soft vegetation to top out on Gates Ledge at 82 L/8 172965 (small cairn on top).
From here conditions improve dramatically. We continue on through open forest in the hot sun to a lunch spot in the shade by a stream.
After lunch we continue through amazing fields of wildflowers on our way to the unusually named Valley of the Moon (I figure it should be named Valley of the Flowers) and the very beautiful Fawn Lake. I’m itching to plunge my sweaty, smelly person into the lake, but after a short break, Sandy again gets the herd moving, and we begin our descent to Peters Lake. An easy walk through light to moderate bush brings us to an official Monashee Provincial Park campground on the south shore of Peters Lake.
The campground is deserted, and I for one, will enjoy not hanging the food tonight. Everyone but Sandy enjoys a swim in the remarkably warm water. Mercifully (and remarkably), this campsite is nearly bug free, and we enjoy sitting around unmolested for the first time in nearly a week.
Day 7. Mount Fosthall
Today the five of us head off together to tackle the south ridge of Mt Fosthall. After enjoying fine views of the attractive north side of this peak from many vantage points over the past 6 days, the climb itself is a bit disappointing. A sturdy BC Parks bridge gets us across the creek flowing out of South Caribou Pass, and then an intermittent trail takes us easily to South Caribou Pass, where we lounge in the sun conducting an animated environmental cost/benefit analysis of the heli-ski/helihike industry. From the pass, we contour around, mostly on pleasant meadow and easy talus to the South Ridge of Fosthall. Treadmill scree leads to talus of the easy angled south ridge that leads directly to the summit.
We are treated to splendid views (cloudless skies again) of all of our previous ascents and much of the terrain we have traversed in the past week, so it is a very appropriate ascent for our last climb of the trip. An easy descent the same way gets us home in plenty of time for the now obligatory pre-dinner swim.
Day 8. Heading Home
Sadly our trip is nearly at its end. But the moaning and snivelling about damaged feet has risen to a crescendo, and everyone is pretty much ready to head home. We head off following a Park’s trail, which soon becomes intermittent, through delightful meadow and mosquito infested swamp to Margie Lake. There is rumoured to be a blazed trail from Margie Lake to the North Fosthall Creek FSR, but we can’t find it. We follow a flagged route until it ends, and then do a little easy bushwhacking to the road. Once on the road, it is a quick jaunt downhill to the vehicles.
Notes: 1. Dave Smith, a Nelson-based ACMG guide, led an ACC group on a very similar trip in July 2002; he very generously shared with me his “Guides Report” which was a very helpful planning tool and gave us some much appreciated directions at a couple junctures along the way. 2. Dave Smith rated the final section of the NW Ridge as class 4, but we all felt that a rope was unnecessary.
Doug Brown’s report is on the Web at http://www.kootenaymountaineering.bc.ca/reports/goldrange/goldr ange.html (It has great pictures).
Doug Brown
GOING BACK FOR GOLD, Kelly-Gates Pass to Avalanche Lake – Climbing Camp Report [By Doug Brown] July 22-30, 2006
Participants: Axel Betz, Doug Brown, Dave Jack, Sacha Kalabis, René LeBel, Marvin Lloyd, Sandra McGuinness, Delia Roberts, Jane Weller.
It started in the usual way. Last minute jitters and worries about all manner of organizational and logistical camp items were interrupted by the whap-whap-whap of our approaching chopper. In a flash, the whole crew was whisked up to a beautiful camp amongst slabs and lakes at 6600 feet on the south side of Gates Peak in the Gold Range. Also as usual, all my worries were for naught: camp was beautiful, the climbing looked grand, and everyone was happy to be there. The 2006 KMC Climbing Camp was underway.
In 2003, the KMC climbing “camp” was a traverse of the southern Gold Range from Mt Odin to Margie Lake (CAJ 87:101); this year we went back for more of the same fun, traversing north from Mt Kelly to Cranberry Mountain. I had initially planned to start camp off by flying into a location in the Kelly-Niflheim cirque known as the “Rock Garden”. After announcing this in the KMC newsletter, Earle Whipple kindly wrote to me to tell me my plan was daft because the slide alder guarding the exit from the cirque is evil, vile, and not fit for human passage (he was more polite than that, but I got the message). Upper Thor Creek is a rarely visited place, and consequently I found it very difficult to get any recent condition reports. Nelson-based guide Dave Smith summed it up best when he referred to the “dark rumours” about the bush up Thor Creek. At the camp-planning meeting, the crew voted to skip the bush (and thus an attempt on the north ridge of Niflheim) and fly into the alpine.
Day 1. Saturday July 22, saw us flying into our first camp between the two large lakes on the south side of Gates. It was sunny and the temperature was incredibly warm … which pretty much set the tone for the next 9 days. After setting up camp, Sacha and Axel (“the lads”) packed up bivi gear and headed off for the Kelly Glacier planning on a high camp that night and an attempt the next day of Steve and Hamish’s route on the southwest ridge of the impressive Niflheim.
The rest of the crew headed off for the unnamed 7600′ peak 1.5 km south of camp (82L/9 161-069). Fine views, and no cairn was found on top (class 2-3).
Day 2. Everyone still at base camp rose arose at the painful hour of 4:00 and left at 5:00 for Mt Kelly. After gaining the long north ridge of Kelly at around 176068, we made our way along the ridge crest, bypassing the first bump on the east side. At the prominent 500′ step in the ridge, Sandra, Marvin and I tackled the ridge head-on, while the others descended to the Kelly Glacier and followed the second ascent route of 1973 (CAJ 58:75). We encountered loose rock up to fourth class as we made our way up to the flat section of ridge that merges into the west ridge of Kelly. The others weaved their way among the crevasses until they could gain the west ridge of Kelly just west of the snowpatch peaklet immediately west of Kelly’s summit, which is where our route rejoined theirs. The glacier route proved uneventful, with a much talked about butt massage providing the only excitement. A final 30 m pitch of 5.2 delivered the last of us to the top at 11:30, which was somewhat sooner than expected.
To my knowledge, ours was the first ascent of what I have taken to calling the north ridge of Kelly. Unfortunately the lads’ day was not so profitable. They had spent the night on a flat section of the north ridge of Kelly, and as they were making their way across the steep bare ice of the much receded toe of Kelly Glacier, they both went for a slide down steep ice and then slabs– Sacha was fine, but Axel injured his foot, ankle, and knee. They managed to make their way back to camp with Axel hobbling and Sacha carrying an enormous load. By evening Axel had accepted that he would be unable to carry his huge pack on the traverse we had planned and needed to fly out.
That night, whilst I was enjoying a deep and restful sleep, there was a perfect storm of an alarm clock; all at once there was an amazing flash of lightning, a vicious gust of wind, and Sandra screamed “Holy Sh**!”. Talk about a rude awakening. Afterwards we were treated to an electrical storm with loads of lightning but not too much wind or rain. Our friends camped in the valley to the north suffered a more direct hit and apparently had a bit of a rough night.
Day 3, we turned our sights north and tackled Gates. Delia, Sacha, Jane, and Dave didn’t like the look of their first choice – the east ridge of Gates 3 – and made their way around on the heavily crevassed north side of Gates to the Gates 2-3 col. From there they climbed the west ridge of Gates 3: Dave and Sacha doing the leading, the two of them finding slightly different lines that provided 3 pitches of 5.6-5.7 with some loose rock. I believe the west ridge was previously unclimbed, and I believe theirs may have been the second ascent of the peak.
René, Marvin, Sandra and I climbed up the south side of Gates 3 on ramps, ribs, and meadow to the snow below the Gates 2-3 col, which we followed to the col. We easily ascended snow to the top of Gates 2.
We then traversed to Gates 1 by dropping down on the north side; some steep snow and a tenuous bridge over the bergschrund kept us entertained.
The final climb to Gates 1 was pleasant class 3 scrambling.
While we were on top of Gates 1, a chopper was flying around, presumably come to take Axel home, but clearly the occupants didn’t know where to look for him. We did our best to direct them with arm-pointing and pantomime, but after that didn’t work, the chopper landed just down from the summit. Marvin and I scrambled down to direct them. It turns out they were looking for “a man with a broken leg on a glacier”. After confirming that they really were looking for Axel, we told them to look for a skinny German man sunning himself by the lake back at our camp.
We returned to the 2-3 col by traversing the glacier at about the level of the col, which was much easier travel than our higher traverse from Gates 2. It was strange to return to camp to find Axel gone.
Day 4 – sunny and hot again! – saw more assaults on Gates 3. René, Marvin, Sandra and I made our way up the south side of Gates 3. A cliff band separating the upper and lower snowfields was passed on the left – the old ice climbing skills came in handy as we front-pointed and swung our axes to surmount a section of vertical meadow (never done that before!). At the base of the south face, Sandra and Marvin went right to tackle the middle of the face, while René and I choose a line on the left-hand side of the face that intersected the south ridge after 1.5 pitches.
Marvin and Sandra started in an obvious gray corner at the top of the snow: P1: Climb the gray corner, 4th class. P2: ascend a large chimney crack, 5.6. P3: Move right over a roof and up a slab to the East Ridge, 5.4. Scramble a short distance to the top. I believe this to be a new route.
René and I started at left-hand side of the base of the south face: P1: climb clean slabs to 2 vertical cracks; climb the left, somewhat awkward crack up to a broken, steep corner, 50 m, 5.6. P2: climb the awkward corner or the face to the right; turn left onto a ramp (loose blocks above) that leads to the S ridge, 25 m, 5.6. P3: Fun, easy climbing up crest of the south ridge, 40 m, 5.3. Fourth class scrambling takes you to the top. I believe this also to be a new route.
While the four of us were on the south side of Gates 3, Delia, Sacha, and Dave were challenging themselves on a line on the south side of the east ridge of Gates 3, starting from the top of the lower snowfield. The climbing proved difficult (5.10a+), so they backed off and started up the East Ridge, but ran out of time before reaching the top.
Jane spent the day around camp and ascending Gates 4 via its south ridge.
Day 5 we packed up, shouldered the beasts, and headed north to the Gates 3-4 col. From the col, all but Dave and Marvin traversed around to the south, and ascended the southwest slopes of Gates 4 (class 2-3). After some food, we roped up and headed down the Gates Glacier. Having scoped our route from the summits of Gates, we knew to keep far skiers right to avoid the cracks. We didn’t get far before we hit blue ice and unroped. We continued zigzagging down, but very soon bumped into a huge crack that spanned the width of the glacier. It was obvious that continuing down the main tongue of the glacier was going to be a time-consuming ordeal, so we traversed to the far skiers left and did a 60 m rap to get off the ice. We then continued down loose glacier slag to the very bleak looking silt lake at 164118 (now much larger than the wee tarn shown on the 1974 1:50K topo).
Once at the lakeshore, the scene proved far from bleak – we gingerly made our way through veritable fields of Indian Paintbrush. We found ourselves a very fine campsite on gravel beds on the north side of the lake. Our view across the lake to the north side of the Gates massif was magnificent.
Day 6, we traveled as a party of 8, and tackled Hughes. Hughes is very prominent from the valleys to the east, and needed to be climbed, but the ascent was far from aesthetic: too many greasy traverses, steep loose gullies, and giant boulders for most of our aging knees.
We hiked around the north side of Dickinson Lake, and then turned uphill (light bush, greasy vegetation, meadow) and gained the west ridge of Hughes around 184123. A climb over a bump on the ridge and then a 500 foot descent down a boulder field brought us to under a southwest facing basin. We spread out to reduce rockfall hazard and climbed various unpleasant loose gullies back to the ridge crest. Some ambling and one class 3 step delivered us to the top.
Day 7 was another travel day, so we packed up and climbed the easy meadow slopes north of camp. Once on the ridge line, it was obvious that we should have taken a route past the tarns near the pass at 156122, but a little scrambling took us to a slippery ramp that provided a route through the cliff bands to the north.
We stopped to refuel at a most beautiful lake situated in a circular basin of clean metamorphic slabs (164134). We continued around the east side of the lake and climbed to the pass above Avalanche Lake (166138). Our route down to the lake first took us a couple hundred feet up the ridge to the southeast where we found a series of descending ledges, ramps, and snow patches that were easily followed east until we were above the outflow of Avalanche Lake. We then easily descended to the lake and crossed the outflow on a snow bridge (avi debris).
A promontory 200 metres west provided lumpy tent sites and a suitable chopper-landing site for our pick up two days hence.
Dave decided to sit out our last climb day, while everyone else marched off to Cranberry. We made our way west up the valley on the south side of Avalanche Lake and then on the north side of the glacier and newly formed lake (glacial recession) to a point where it was easy to gain the prominent east-west ridge that is 1.5 km south of Cranberry. We followed this ridge west to the junction with Cranberry’s south ridge and then climbed clean class 3-4 slabs to a point where we could easily gain the upper portion of the glacier on the south side of Cranberry. We roped up and marched across the mellow glacier and through the col west of Cranberry; once over the ‘schrund on the other side we continued around to the north ridge. The north ridge was an aesthetic snow arête of moderate pitch that provided a pleasant route to the final, short rock scramble to the top.
For the first time of the trip, it was cool on top, so we only lingered long enough to eat, admire our traverse route from Gates, and count the many forest fires burning nearby.
Day 9. Matt from Arrow Helicopters arrived early the next morning, day 9, and shuttled us to the valley faster than we could say “Isn’t he early?” Another amazing camp come to an end. I did, however, ruminate over the carbon credits we used up in our short flight until I heard of our friends 13 hour epic descending the very headwall we cruised over in 0.1 chopper hours. Thanks to Laura Adams for her assistance in the planning of this trip.
Summary Traverse Route: Kelly-Gates pass to Avalanche Lake. Mountains Climbed: Unnamed 7600′ 161-069 (no cairn found) Kelly (possible new route on north ridge) Gates 1 Gates 2 Gates 3 (possible new routes on west ridge, south face, and south face/south ridge) Gates 4 (south ridge and southwest slopes) Hughes (west ridge) Cr
I heard of our friends 13 hour epic descending the very headwall we cruised over in 0.1 chopper hours. Thanks to Laura Adams for her assistance in the planning of this trip.
Summary Traverse Route: Kelly-Gates pass to Avalanche Lake. Mountains Climbed: Unnamed 7600′ 161-069 (no cairn found) Kelly (possible new route on north ridge) Gates 1 Gates 2 Gates 3 (possible new routes on west ridge, south face, and south face/south ridge) Gates 4 (south ridge and southwest slopes) Hughes (west ridge) Cranberry (south glacier and north ridge)
Doug Brown
