JUNE SNOW CLIMBS IN THE SIERRA NEVADA / JUNE 1981

After spending the month of May in the range with Mary, she headed back to Dartmouth in June for grad school, I headed back to the Sierra with Ace the big black dog that had been on so many trips with us since he joined the team in 76.

I was looking to take a peek at the climbs in the Evolution Group, visit LeConte Canyon and do some climbs along the way. What I came up with was a loop trip out of the Bishop Creek that went into the park over Larmarck Col and out via Bishop Pass.

Ace decided to ditch his pack just short of Lamarck Col so all progress came to a halt until I could back-track thru the scree and find the bloody thing. We weren't going anywhere until I could locate his 10 days of food. Took a while, but I found it just short of a big hole in the scree where he had apparently pulled up short rather than deal with the void below. Pitching forward, his loosely strung pack went right over his shoulders and down into the pit. That little epic behind us, we found a pleasant campsite in a sandy bench a short while later.

What followed next was simple. Climb in the morning, move camp in the afternoon. So in no short order I had been up one of the nice gullies on Larmarck, the N Face of Darwin and the nice couloir on the north side of Mt Huxley. I figured timing had to be everything since these routes were probably nothing more than choss come July. This time of year they were excellent snow climbs with a touch of ice here and there. Ace got to the point where as soon as he saw me take out the crampons, he would head back to camp and wait upon my return. We had a nice rhythm going there for awhile.

After the long haul from Huxley up over Muir pass, down thru LeConte Canyon, both of us were beat. Next day we wandered up to Dusy Basin and found a place to camp. Day 7 I found a nice line on the west side of Thunderbolt up one of the 4th class ridges. I think I came down the SW chute. We went over the pass to South Lake that afternoon. Even got a ride back up to North Lake at the end of the day. Should have stayed until the food ran out.