April 29, 2006
Humphreys Peak - NE Couloir of the Big Humph
Joe, Toby, Dan, Buddy
Dan and Toby striding towards the Big Humph on 4/29/06.
The plan to ski and summit the Big Humph was originally hatched by myself and Rich Steele. We had our calendars marked for the weekend of 4/22 for at least five months prior to the big adventure. Turns out we were skunked by another Spring storm that weekend. Instead we hauled our bodies up and over 4 Desolation peaks on a point to point tour from Highway 50 to Emerald Bay in that same Spring storm (TR coming soon!). Unfortunately for Rich the weather turned perfect for big Eastside ski descents the very next weekend. I was skeptical about the likelihood of pulling off two consecutive full weekends of skiing away from the girl world. But I've somehow landed the perfect wife in my life, as Jodi kindly allowed me to feed the insatiable obsession one more time with Toby on the Eastside. Toby's family was due back from a long trip to Florida the following week, so he was super anxious to get down to the Eastside before family obligations were back on the forefront. Neither of us had never hit the Sierras via the Buttermilks outside of Bishop, so we felt that needed to change. So we departed the South Shore at 7:00 PM on Friday. Dan and Brian generously allowed us to crash at their place that night in Mammoth. The next morning Dan, Toby, Buddy and I set off from Mammoth at the late hour of 6:00 AM for the drive down to the Buttermilks, which would be followed by the long ensuing slog up towards the big Humph. Dan's friends Juan and Lisa started the trip out with us, but took their own route along the way. Although we didn't get to make any turns together, we bonded strongly when we used my truck to pull Juan's Subie out of the thick Buttermilk mud (some gooey stuff). We battled heat, thick snow, fatigued legs, thin air above 13,500' and found it all to be worthwhile for our grand descent down the epic Northeast Couloir and following snowfields was superb. Below is the story of us and the Big Humph, in pictures:
The approach and the Buttermilks:
We did not start hiking until 8:30 AM (not so smart). It turned out fine as we were able to easily avoid exposure under the warming South and East facing slopes. We did pay for our tardiness by slogging through deep unconsolidated snow on the way in, and the way out of McGee Creek drainage. Big Humph is out of view until you reach Longley Reservoir. Fortunately views of Peaklet are a very worthy appetizer (left). It was H-O-T! Toby and Dan seeking some shade (right):
We climbed up and over a ridge near the East base of Peaklet. It was not exactly efficient to ski down (above) a few hundred feet to the base of Peaklet on our way UP the mountain.....but it beat the hellish brushy traverse others had taken along the South side of Basin. We tried to skirt South of this ridge on the way out, but found that to be an exercise in gully crossing and ridge skipping. There really is no easy way to deal with this ridge.....but it's size is pretty miniscule compared to the daily objective.
Dan and Peaklet (left). We joked that if you swapped Tallac for Peaklet, Peaklet would be the greatest peak in Tahoe, and Tallac would be an even less significant bump on a minor ridge in the Eastern Sierras compared to little Peaklet.
Then the first grand views of Humphreys, the Northeast Couloir and the tasty North ridge greeted us upon arrival at the old Longley Reservoir dam....who built this thing way up there (10,600') on this rugged mountain?
Like many Eastside monsters, the enormity of Humphreys and the surrounding basin and ridges felt out of scale to what our eyes were telling us. The summit of Humphreys was still nearly 3,500' above us form the Lake.
Then the great Northeast Cooooley appeared to be at our feet. Of course it was still a 20 minute skin just to the bergschrund. Finally Peaklet began to look sort of small (right). After a refuel break, Toby, Buddy and I headed up.
We skinned all the way to where the Y splits into two separate upper chutes. From their Toby led a mean boot pack up the less steep (lookers) right side chute. The snow in the 1,000' line was showing some promise for wintry conditions to compliment our already sweet and steep descent.
Toby topping out on the ridge where vast views were abound and ablaze!
Darwin and Mendel stand tall in the background (left) and Mount Goddard is huge, and further West (right):
The frozen sea of Humphreys Basin to the West:
Other lower, but worthy Buttermilk neighbors: Mount Tom and Basin (left), Mount Emerson (right):
We still had a bit of a ridge scramble over the high point on the ridge to reach the top of the Northeast couloir for our descent. The summit pyramid loomed above us, beckoning:
We had hauled our climbing gear to 12,000' to support our effort on a potential summit scramble. We had heard it was somewhere between class 4 and easy 5th class. But the snow covered gully and ledges looking particularly scary to this AT boot wearing duo at 3:30 PM, so we opted to save the summit for a return trip with Rich Steele, in drier conditions:
Summit route:
My Sophie handkerchief with her handprint kept my head cool (in more ways than one) on this long hot day. It fit so comfortably under my Nicely's hat. I thought she would like this shot (left)
Time to ski. Me:
Nice background, eh?
What had started steep soon became narrow. It was cool to see the blue ice along the rock edges of the crux choke, just below the top. It's the same ice that makes up the classic ice climb many people visit this couloir for later in the Summer / Fall. I don't usually ski with my whippet drawn, but it seemed to fit the spirit of this line.
A camera handoff was made, and I took some shots of Toby and Buddy scooting through the choke, and arcing through rest of the couloir below:
Our legs were cooked! And we still had 4,500' of vertical to ski. Thank god the snow wasn't thick potatoes all the way down....oh, that's right, it was. Well there were some good cream of corn turns to be made to Longley Reservoir first:
Owens Valley views while skiing sagebrush and pushing slurpy snow with our shins:
Back to the car around 6:30 PM - 10 hours, 5,500 vertical feet and gallons of sweat. Gimme a beer!
We changed our original plans of camping in the Buttermilks that night. Instead we returned to Dan's pad (after feasting on a Giovanni's pizza) and decided to ski the most coveted couloir for both Toby and I over the past few years.
Click here to see what went down on Day #2 of our Eastside April 2006 weekend madness - Red Slate Couloir - 4/30/06
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