Pagoda Mountain an Alpine Climbing TR

[brice618]

A few pictures from a recent and very exciting trip up Pagoda Mountain. Great weather to be had, but we made several mistakes in route finding and it turned into a very long and at times scary experience.

After reaching the trail head at 10pm and hiking till midnight we bivyed somewhere just below Spearhead and woke at 6:30 to some other climbers coming by. We weren't in a big hurry since we were expecting just 7 or 8 pitches and after a few hours hike to the base and breakfast got started climbing around 8:30.

We weren't completely sure on the line we wanted to take and it ended up making this into a 12 pitch climb on horrible rock. I was pulling off microwave sized blocks on most leads, and only getting a few pieces in per lead. Fortunately most of the climbing was super cruiser, maybe 5.5 with a max of 5.8. We summitted at 6:30 and then started the slog back to my truck, and didn't get back till 12:30. Slept well that night!

The pictures are from a disposable so they aren't much but I tried to photoshop them into something presentable.

The Bivy


Spearhead




The gear


Getting ready


Rich on the scramble before we roped up


First Pitch - no gear in...


Rich happy to getting lunch with spearhead in the back


Me at the top of a particularly scary pitch. Loose rock everywhere!


Beautiful ridge line only a few pitches from the summit


On the summit!


Happy to be relatively unscathed


Rich with longs in the background


Summit looking down the 4th class ridge with very loose rock to the top


Longs and beautiful ridge line attached


Hope you enjoyed!

[hutash]

Summit forum, JONGhehehe

Very nice, i love to see climbing stoke, or any mountain stoke this time of year.

[Huck_Schmuck]

Photos ended up pretty cool. Good work.

[mikemcee]

Pulling off microwave sized blocks on most leads and your belayer lived to summit with you? Dude must have some mad ducking skills.

Nice TR...ditto Hutash. Always love to see mountain stoke.

[brice618]

Hah, yeah it took some coordinating at times when I knew something was going to go to get them to miss the rope and not hit Rich.

By coordinating I mean -

*Pull* "OH SHIT! -- ROOOOOOCK ROCK ROCK ROCK!!!"

We tried to lead above each other as little as possible to lessen our chances. At one point I was seconding and the rope pulled a rock off and sent it directly towards me. I immediately began climbing/ running (who knew that was possible) across a slab to escape.

Thanks for the comments!