Matterhorn Peak...Like Fun Only Different

Last Tuesday Myself and two friends of my buddy JJ departed to climb Matterhorn Peak near Bridgeport, CA about and hour past Mammoth. We got to the trail head around 1:00 AM and it was cold somewhere in the low teens. After a cold nights sleep we woke up late around 9 and were hiking by 10. The hike up to base camp was very easy the trail was one of the nicest i've been on in my life. There were patches of snow and ice on the trail but not enough to slow us down. After about 2 hours or hiking we reached a huge scree field around 10,000ft and the trail was still easy to follow. After getting past
all the rocks we reached a small area of trees where we made camp where some climbers we ran into had camped the night before. My buddy Sam wasted no time making a fire which was amazing even though it was still two in the afternoon it was still freezing. We set up camp melted snow and had a early dinner around four. By 6 it was totally dark and we decided to get into bed to wake up at 5:00 AM. The night the worst night I've ever had climbing. My sleeping pad decided to not stay inflated for more than a minute so I was stuck spending the night on freezing snow while it was a few degrees below zero outside our tent. I spend the night wearing my fleece and my down jacket in my sleeping bag and it was still cold. After a night like that I was eager to get up at five in the morning to climb. We were climbing by 5:40 and started scrambling up snow and rocks to the left side of the main route. after topping out on that stuff we down climbed onto the Matterhorn glacier and after putting our crampons on we started towards the east couloir. It was much steeper than i though especially because of conditions. The slope was at least 45 degrees but was as steep as 50+ degrees on what was

mostly hard snow and ice. We had to use more advanced alpine climbing techniques to get up the mountain. It was a tad scary because there was a lot of time where only the fron

t points of my crampons and my one ice axe were all that held me on the mountain. Did I mention we opted to bring no rope. It was still a ton of fun and after climbing what was a much longer couloir than we though we had a short 200ft steep scramble over rock to the summit. The summit was amazing it was super small but so rewarding to climb a peak I failed at less than a year ago. Scrambling down was pretty easy but the down climb on the snow and ice was harder because it was so tiring it because the conditions were to dangerous to glissade down the mountain. So we had to down climb instead. After getting all the way back down to camp I was beat. After taking a break by packing all our stuff u

p we started our speedy decent to the cars. We made it down in about 2 hours and hiked

for about 30min with head lamps but it was no big deal. Overall it was an amazing trip Great

replacement for Shasta although I will be heading up to Shasta in May when I'm done with school. The rest of the pictures are on my picasa page above.

Summit for Someone 2012

I'm about to kick off my fundraising efforts for Big City Mountaineers for the 2012 season! I have made a new Facebook Page (link at the top) and My new and more official looking fundraising page should be up in a week or two! I'm so stoked for this year and I might even be a mentor on some BCM trips this summer! Check out the insentives for donating this year and please give generously! Remember it's for the kids!

Multi-Pitch Climbing at Tahquitz Rock

Last week I went up to do multi-pitch rock climbing with friends of my buddy JJ, Tom and Kate. They were really chill and I'm happy I've gained more climbing friends. This was my first time rock climbing outdoors and it was amazing. Its a totally different beast than mountaineering. On the first day I had to bail after the first pitch of a 5.6 route called Angles Fright. Thanks to some super nice climbers on the same pitch I was able to rappell down. I was scared and not used to vertical climbing so I felt I just needed to get used to the environment. Then later I met 2 very nice women who let me climb a 5.9 top rope route with them and upon finishing the route I felt comfortable with climbing. And on day 2 I was ready to tackle my 1st multi-pitch route. We started up a 5.4 route called The Trough at 2:30 PM.... a little bit of a late start but not a huge deal we though it was only a 4 pitch climb. But it started to get dark fast after getting to the top of Tahquitz Rock it was already past dusk and we still had a sketchy friction decent. We hurried up coiled up the rope an packed the gear and quickly started the decent in the dark... with only the headlamp that I brought up. We made it down safely and were back at the car by 10:30 PM. And headed straight back to LA with a pit stop at In n' Out for a 3x3 with fries and soda.... a 1,500 calorie meal is only okay when you ate under 1,000 calories during a day of climbing and though hiking. It was a great trip super fun route and now I'm stoked to do some multi-pitch climbing again. In the mean time I am planning a Mt. Shasta climb as my plans fell though. And I will be doing lots of backpacking and climbing in August. I will be posting often and I am also start working towards getting sponsored to climb Mt. McKinley in May 2012.