Well, it’s June and I’m still hitting the peaks. The past couple weeks have seen two storms dump a foot of snow apiece in the mountains, which has ensured good conditions for another few weeks. This is what I’ve been up to:

May 17 | Dromedary and Sunrise Peaks

The triple traverse has been on my list for quite a while, but all the organized trips I’ve come across I have had scheduling conflicts with. So, on the 17th I thought I’d give it a shot, with the vague goal of getting up at least the first two and perhaps Broads Fork Twins too.

At 7 am I was on the trail and hiking up Tanner’s Gulch. During the winter this gulch funnels enormous amounts of avalanche runoff and is undoubtedly one of the worst terrain traps in the state. However, in the Spring it’s pretty benign. The first half mile or so was hiking on bare ground to a stream running out of the gully.

Traverse

My route up Dromedary (right peak) and Sunrise


From there the snow started and eventually bridged the stream. Already, streams of runoff were running down the gully walls. It was a pretty cool, if not eerie, sight. After an hour or so I emerged from the tunnel of the lower gully and started climbing steeper snow into the bowl between the two peaks. The whole time I could hear the roar of water beneath me, where the snowmelt was running down the rock 20 feet beneath me. Pretty unsettling. Rarely, glide avalanches cut loose in similar conditions, where the entire snowpack cuts and glides down the lubricated rock. These types of avalanches are entirely unpredictable, but thankfully, extremely rare.

After another few minutes I caught up to the two climbers ahead of me, one of whom I recognized from SummitPost. They were hoping to summit both peaks as well, but ended up turning back early. We climbed together for a little while before I pulled ahead, right about where my route takes a right-hand turn in the map. From there I gained a ridge and fought through some horrendous waist-deep postholing to make my way to more solid ground on the upper ridge just west of the Dromedary summit. From there it was easy class two terrain to the top.

After a snack I pushed on to Sunrise Peak. Downclimbing the ridge was pretty easy, but this time I continued all the way down to the saddle, having to do a slight traverse around a cliffband. From there I started up the ridge up Sunrise, which entailed the most fun climbing of the entire day. 60 degree snow slopes and sustained class three rock scrambling gave way to more gentle snow slopes all the way to the summit. It was pretty sweet.

The descent was ridiculously fun, too, at least once I got back down into the bowl between the two peaks. The snow had turned pretty slushy by then so I decided to glissade. It was hands-down the most fun glissade I’ve ever done, where you’re basically riding a sled of snow for 1500 feet until the slope gradually eases. I took a video of one of the shorter glissades (small | medium),
with which I will include some commentary:

  • 0:14 > run over a rock. Ouch.
  • 0:19 > run over something else. I ignore it and continue sliding since it’s so sweet.
  • 0:31 > Realizing I’m about to collide with a rock outcrop, I attempt to turn.
  • 0:33 > Turning is less than effective; as I glance off the rock, softening the impact a bit with my boots. I am still gleeful and continue glissading unperturbed.

The rest of the descent went off without a hitch, and I was back at the car by one, sunburned but satisfied.