North Arete 5.8

This is my second time doing this route.... The first was back in 2005 and we camped out the night prior up above Dade Lake. I was 12 years younger and there was much less snow!

This time, my boss and I left work around 4pm on Friday 7/21/17 for a car to car ascent (ugghhh). We bivy'd somewhere on the road up to the trailhead around 8k feet, woke up at 3:30am Saturday and hiking by 4:45am.

Timeline:

4:45am to 10am - Took us all this time to get to the base of the route with a couple stops to rest and get water. There was a sh#t ton of snow and left the ice axe in the car. This came back to haunt me on the decent. Had micro spikes for my approach shoes which helped. My thighs were worked form 1.5 miles of snow. Why am I doing this? This was the crux of the route.

10:15ish am to 4:30pm - Climb the route. Super fun mellow climbing. I was tired from dealing with the snow.

4:30pm to 10:30pm - Descent on the upper snow field was scarry without an ice axe. I had not gloves and slipped at the top sliding down about 500 feet. I was freaking out a little, trying to stay feet forward as I recently broke my neck in a surfing accident. All went well with only a few bumps and scratches. I was impatient waiting for my partner as he didn't slip! About 18 hours car to car. To tired too drive home we pulled over off of highway 395 to sleep 4 hours before driving back to LA. He had to be at his daughters Gymnastics comp sunday morning. I laid around my apartment all day sunday super tired drinking mimosas. Fin....