Trip Report on Everest Ridge, Mt. Timpanogos!

Well people, it happened. I went on my first mountaineering trip! For those who are interested in a trip report (this should be everyone), here it goes!

The whole thing started on the morning of friday the 7th. I had to get up at 5:30am to cover a shift for one of my coworkers. The snow conditions had been iffy that week and friday morning Darren and Matt were going up to the base of the mountain to dig a snow pit a decide whether the conditions were too avalanche prone or not. The plan was that, if it was too dangerous to climb Timp, we'd make the three hour drive over to Nevada to climb another peak instead.

Thankfully Darren sent out an email around 9 that said the snow conditions were great and the trek was on!

So I spent all day trying to do homework and focus on other things, but of course I couldn't! This was my first mountaineering expedition!

My buddy Cameron was good enough to give me a ride to the trailhead for Dry Creek Canyon where we were going to meet up with the rest of the climbing club. We got there right at 10pm and spent some time getting our gear together while the rest of the group (about 30 people!) decided to start making their way up the canyon. Thankfully they weren't moving too quick and we hoofed it up to the group in time to get a breather before the self-arrest practice.

Self arresting (not like cops, we did not throw ourselves in jail, this is a method of stopping yourself on the ice and snow if you start to fall off the mountain) was at the Baldy Saddle and was really fun, but the snow was so powdery that you didn't really need to even use the ice axe to stop yourself from sliding. Good practice nonetheless!

After the brief self-arrest clinic everyone strapped on their crampons and warmer gear and we took off straight up Everest Ridge. Most people were using their headlamps, but the lit up city in the valley and the moon were so bright that I found it unnecessary most of the time. It was a pretty cool sight to see some thirty-odd headlamps moving up the mountain in a single file line. I wish I had snapped a picture of it!

After a while people started to peel off and different groups were formed according to how fast you wanted to climb the mountain. I found myself in the front group of five or so people and even got to break trail for a while! I realized that climbing a mountain this way was all about the patient, methodical progression up the side of the snow-covered slopes-- pretty different from sport climbing, but just as awesome, if not better.

At about 2am something happened (I may have peeled off for some water or food or something) and my front group kept going and I found myself pretty alone on the mountain for the next three or four hours. I didn't mind this too much because I could still see the front group ahead of me and got to follow their freshly broken tracks. Eventually someone caught up to me (I think it was one of the Matts...) and we caught up to the group right underneath the Hillary Step (if you look on the map above, the Hillary Step refers to the rock outcropping right below the ridge line on the mountain).

In my humble opinion I thought this was the absolute sickest part of the whole climb. It was so steep that if you fell there was no chance that you could self-arrest and stop yourself from falling... so don't fall haha. We traversed underneath the straight cliff faces for a bit and then climbed straight up when there was a break in the cliff that formed a snow covered chute. From there you make your way up to the summit ridge line. When we broke over the ridge the sun was just starting to come up over the mountains farther east of us and it was absolutely gorgeous. I'm so lucky that I go to school here...

Then we traversed the summit ridge line over to the summit of Everest Ridge and then chilled there for a little bit (kind of a pun, someone guessed that, with the wind chill, it was about -15 up there). I decided to break out one of my celebratory bananas and we had ourselves a little mountaineering feast on energy goo, powerbars, shot bloks, and, for me, a banana as well.

It being pretty cold, Andrew was the first to leave, followed by me and the two Matts. Andrew and Matt 1 BOOKED it down the mountain and Angela ended up going back up the mountain with some friends that she was ahead of while Matt 2 and I just kind of enjoyed an easy pace on the way down.

Instead of having to downclimb the Hillary Step we just went around it on a longer, but more timid slope. The whole way down Matt was a good sport and answered all of the beginner questions I had for him. From crampons to recognizing snow formations, he answered them all and answered them really well also. For the sake of our pants and because the snow was warming up, we chose not to glissade down and instead just kept trekking. By the time we got to the bottom of the snow fields we both were sunburned pretty bad because we didn't put on any sunscreen and I thought it was hilarious to see a sunburned guy with a big 'ol beard.

We made our way down pretty quick, but Matt was pretty tired and decided to ease up on the pace (I think he ended up stopping and taking a nap) while I kept up a pretty good clip to the bottom where I hung out with Jen and Andrew for an hour or two until Cameron got down and we made our way back home. It was pretty funny sitting there because the trailhead is in a pretty nice neighborhood and I swear we looked like homeless people just chillin' in this really nice place.

One family passed by and somehow it came up that it was really cold on the summit and the dad said, "yeah well I've been in -55 before."
Yeah. Big deal. Did you do it for fun at the top of a mountain?

Most everyone was really nice though and it was pretty funny to see all the exhausted climbers coming off the mountain and staggering to their cars to go home and sleep for the rest of their lives!

I think I learned lots of valuable lessons from this trip. Some of them were life insights, but I think the biggest one was that you really need boots that fit well when you do things like this. My feet still hurt!

But it won't stop me from doing this again :)

This is what Summitpost has to say about the climb