Plan #2: Come with more time (and food). Come later in the season - which turned out to be important because it was a big snow year (same as our other recent climbing experiences) and July 20-23 turned out to still be early in the season. Any earlier and we might have had a much bigger challenge.
We also decided to hike in from the Pinedale side. The trail was completely clear and ready for hikers (there were plenty of folks out fishing and camping all the way to Titcomb Basin). Camping in the basin was spectacular. And we felt we were ready for the big summit day that included two crossings of Bonney Pass.
The basic theme was "let's give ourselves the best chance possible."
Along those lines, we needed to carry more compared to our recent Granite climb, but tried to keep the pack weight as low as possible. No stove, hopefully enough food but not too much, a couple fewer pieces of clothing (it was a bit warmer), aluminum crampons/no boots, and a glacier rope this time but only long enough for 2 people. We were happy to keep our starting pack weights at ~40 pounds (John) and ~30 (me).
Ready for another fun trek into the wilderness!
Signing in:
Walking up through Elkhart Park, making great time in the early miles around dawn:
Sunshine, yay!
Contemplating the view from Photographers Point - we now know that you can see Gannett from here, at least the very top snowfield, but you have to know exactly where to look. Regardless, all of the Wind River mountains are amazing!
Gannett is the little bit of white just to the right of the taller tree, in between two other peaks:
It has been a couple weeks since this photo was taken, and I have NO idea what John's expression was about. All I remember was enjoying the morning :)
First of many, many ponds and lakes of all sizes:
Such a peaceful morning:
Sunlight was coming from the wrong direction for this angle, but you can kind of see John sitting on the rock:
With every hiker we passed going the other way, we considered asking them if they had climbed Gannett. Especially if they were carrying a helmet, axe, and/or rope on the outside of their pack. We got lucky and found a couple guys who had done the climb. They seemed in a hurry but did offer a couple helpful tips. Most helpful was that they had made it to the top and they had started from camp at 1 am (and suggested leaving earlier than that). Thanks for chatting with us!
After a section of a bunch of little downs and ups, we emerged with a spectacular view of Seneca Lake, wow:
Super enjoying this morning. Especially since we had our mosquito defense in place.
Fun little trail next to Little Seneca Lake:
Briefly joining the Continental Divide Trail, cool!
We were on the CDT for only 0.4 miles, but it was a steep climb to a minor pass, and our first glimpse of snow. The CDT is no joke.
Loving the mountain views. That's pretty much going to be the point of this blog post. Go hike in the Wind River Range. It's amazing.
So much water, so many mosquitos. We'd started hiking early and planned to see how far we could get, maybe the whole 16 miles to Titcomb Basin if we were feeling good. That ended up working out especially well mosquito-wise, walking through swarms of the buggers until we could get higher up and mostly away from them.
Island Lake, just stunning:
The little beach on one end of the lake, too funny:
John could sleep here:
On our way up toward Titcomb Basin we met a couple guys hiking out. They had successfully summited and were more than happy to hang out, offer advice, tell their story, and answer all our questions. Hugely helpful. They had had a very long summit day (21 hours), starting before midnight and returning to camp the next evening. Wow. They had not dealt with the bergschrund, going up a snowfield to the left instead. Their opinion was that Gannett is technically easier than Granite, just a lot more of it. Which I think is a perfect description. At least in the conditions we experienced. Thank you so much, Steve and Andrew!
Making tracks toward the Basin:
Approaching our "home" for the next couple days, can't beat this:
You really can't beat THIS! It was one of the first shelters we found, and a bit lower down than we might have wanted, but it was so perfect that we couldn't pass it up. Plenty of shelter from the wind (which occasionally blew fairly strong) and even a little bench and table, and we were so lucky it was available. If we could just order this up anytime we went camping, we'd be all set forever.
The wind was blowing during our tent setup process. Trying to prevent tent fly-away:
John could most definitely sleep here!
Unwinding and enjoying our prime location:
One option was to rest a few hours and then get up to start the climb that night. Another option was to take a rest day. That phrase is really not normally in our vocabulary. However, we'd left time for it, budgeted enough food, loved our camp location enough to hang around an extra 24 hours, and in the end decided a rest day would give us the best chance of summiting.
The next morning we did a bit of scouting toward Bonney Pass.
Before the sun hit the snow, the snow surface was a bit hard and slippery. Nothing crampons couldn't handle easily on the lower slopes, but then we ran into a group of guys who were returning from Bonney Pass. They had considered maybe climbing Gannett Peak (they were in the middle of a longer adventure), but reported Bonney Pass being super icy and challenging. They'd looked over at Gannett and decided they didn't have the energy, time, or food to complete the entire climb.
That helped us with our biggest question - what time to get up to start our ascent? It was now clear that people who started in the middle of the night experienced softer snow on Bonney Pass, while people who headed for Bonney at sunrise were having difficulty with a hard surface as everything froze in the coldest part of the morning.
OK, it's settled - 11 pm wake-up call!
Enjoying the view back toward our tent after talking with the group of guys:
I took the "rest" part of the rest day literally, hanging around camp, filtering water, prepping gear, and taking a nap. John couldn't resist exploring some of the inviting stuff all around us. He did a short hike up to Mistake Lake and took this fun photo of Mistake Lake on the left and one of the Titcomb lakes on the right:
Time for dinner and sleep. The sun left the valley early and we were already in our sleeping bags.
Happily it wasn't too cold when we got up a few hours later. A short bit of final prep, including triple bagging all food (Aloksaks and a dry bag) to thwart Mr. Marmot we'd seen running around.
Then we were on our way up toward the pass. Somehow I managed a pretty straight path that avoided the wettest areas without too much rock scrambling, then we were on snow and watching the shapes of the peaks around us. A partial moon was about to rise, and the light helped a great deal (timing we had not ever considered, super lucky for that).
Donning crampons, soon we were on the ascent up to the pass. We roped up and John led the way. As we had hoped, the snow was soft enough to make walking easy. It's a long steep climb, and we topped out at 2 am.
Heading down the other side, the moon provided plenty of glow to illuminate the Dinwoody Glacier and all the landmarks we were looking for. I led the way down the back of the pass, which wasn't quite as steep. The snow was still in great condition. I wondered if it might get icy on us toward dawn and where we might be at the time.
In the meantime, we moved well across the first part of Dinwoody Glacier, aiming for the bottom of the "turkey leg" spur. Downhill walking was super easy. OK, time to go uphill again.
We could see over to the Gooseneck Ridge, a distinctive shape that needed to be traversed to gain the glacier on the other side. It seemed like there was a snow field higher up that perhaps would help. We traversed directly across to the Gooseneck and started up the right side of the snowfield along the bottom of the rocks.
John did some great route-finding as we made our way up. We were a bit surprised to find a couple large crevasses along the way, but he didn't blink. Since we were back on rope, he'd find a way through and then call down that he was going to belay me around the edge of the dropoff. There were older footprints taking the same path, and although I was a bit skeptical of this route, I was way happier on snow compared to rock scrambling. The belay was also very helpful, and soon we were back on a "normal" snow field.
When the steep slope to our right leveled off a bit, John found a way through the rocks and we were on the Gooseneck proper. We alternated rock/dirt and small snow fields, climbing as we went. Then, still in the dark, we popped out on the Gooseneck Glacier. Nicely done, John!
It was a veritable highway of previous tracks on a path up the easy part of the glacier. We stopped briefly to eat and assess the next part of the route, gaining visibility help from the early glow of dawn. The famous bergschrund wasn't visible, although some huge crevasses over to the right were impressive. The tracks led up to the left, going up a steep snow slope like the 2 guys had reported.
Let's do this! John continued to lead the way, and the snow continued to allow for good steps. I wondered if we might be too early, would it get slippery at some point? Or was that problem confined to Bonney Pass? Turns out we never had a problem with the snow condition, excellent.
We gained the top of the snow and scrambled through some rocks. There's practically a trail up here, and that's coming from me. I was completely comfortable. As it looked like we'd be off the snow for a bit, we stopped to take off our crampons.
First photo of the morning!
And a lovely morning it is:
At the end of the dirt and back to snow - crampons back on and roped up for the last big section:
The main advice up here is to be deliberate. Nothing is difficult, just snow walking and one more steep slope. The snow was in great shape and the footprints before us helped a lot. We kept focus, kept careful, and all of a sudden we were at the top!
Woo hoo!!
We loved the summit area - broad, flat, easy to walk around and admire the views in all directions. For once we even spent some time enjoying ourselves! So happy to be there.
It took us 7 hours 22 minutes to reach the summit (on 7/22, funnily enough).
Looking down at a couple lakes and plenty of snow:
Heck, even I could sleep here :)
John's arm isn't actually stuck inside the world's largest summit register tube:
View of the trail to the top:
It's the Tetons! We were psyched to be able to see them. I was grateful the whole month of July to have good air everywhere we went. No wildfires this time.
I'd added a song to John's phone for one of our previous mountain climbs, but we'd never really had the chance to play it and enjoy the heck out it. Now we were the only ones around and it was time to boogie.
John told me it was OK to post this:
OK, we did need to get going. There were small rain cells in the distance, it would be dumb to get hit with a storm right about then. We left the summit at 7:30 am.
My latest favorite mountaineering photo, complete with a rainbow!!
One last shadow selfie on the way across the summit ridge:
Coming down the snow slope:
John's still got his classic "top of the mountain" pose:
Taking off crampons for the rock section, where we met a couple guys on their way to the top:
Gooseneck Pinnacle:
Another mountaineering pose (i.e. my ice axe is too short for this easy slope):
A view down to the glacier below us, cool crevasses:
Nice path down the snow:
We had a bit of slowdown getting off the other side of the Gooseneck Ridge. We tried retracing our steps but couldn't figure out where we had come up through the rocks. So, we can navigate in the dark but not the daylight sometimes!
After a couple tries and a couple nice breaks to enjoy the morning, we dropped down the Gooseneck enough to find the rough trail through the dirt portion. Well, that probably would have been the best way to come up too. I might should have known that. We only lost a bit of time on the return, no big deal.
Back on easy terrain:
Contemplating the climb back up to Bonney Pass. We can do it!
We're going that-a-way:
John doing the hard work (again) of kicking steps and dragging the rope behind him. Thank you John!
Thank you Gannett Peak, that was awesome!
Back on the top of Bonney Pass, quite a view of Titcomb Basin:
We were back to the tent at 3 pm, and we slept great that night!
Hiking out the next morning, I guess we have to go.
Super enjoying this trip!
Trying a set-up shot of us hiking, just for kicks:
Another beautiful morning in the mountains:
Marcy is happy:
Small creek crossing and rock hopping:
Stunning:
Looking back toward Gannett:
And a zoomed in shot to show Gannett - the highest white snowfield:
Back in wildflower terrain:
A bit more rock hopping:
One last downhill/uphill; I thought this crossing would be tough but it wasn't too bad:
The last several miles took forever (don't they always?) and the mosquitos got particularly vicious, but eventually we were back at the trailhead. Yay!
#43, well-earned and well-enjoyed:
http://www.kipley.com/marcy/highpoints/index.html
And in between climbing Gannett and writing about it, I got to be a guest on a podcast for the first time! It was fun!
https://fastestknowntime.com/podcast/45-marcy-beard
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