“What do you mean?”
“I just made that term up; if we could do the North Ridge as a day hike it would mean we did Iron from all 4 sides, you know like a box.”
Rolling his eyes, Mace laughed and said “Sure I’m in, what’s another death march”
So I went about the Internet scouring for beta on the North Ridge only finding a few reports done as multi day hikes. I was able to get an idea of what gulley to go up but not too much on how long it would take to get to that point.
So with a preliminary topo with elevation points marked off we set off from East Fork trailhead at 5:10. It was already 65 degrees and we knew it was going to be a hot day but if we didn’t do it today we would probably have to put it off until the fall. We figured we could stay out of most of the early heat until we hit the gulley.
With only 2 stream crossings we made the bridge in 1:40 minutes. Since neither one of us had never been past the bridge the rest of the journey would be all new to us. I estimated we could be at the gulley by 10.
We were pleasantly surprised to find a pretty good use trail from the bridge to Iron Fork. We saw a few prospector camps along the way, which would explain the use trail.
We made Iron Fork by 8 and at 9 we were at the waterfall from Falls Gulch. We were going in and out of the stream by then, mainly in.
Once we started up Fish Fork the conditions changed which really slowed us down. No more use trail and if you tried to stay out of the water you would run into poison oak.
Going up stream the rocks were really slippery. They seemed to have a film of algae on top of them. You had to be careful not to slip. This wouldn’t be a good place to get injured.
It felt like we were in the jungle with overlying trees and brush shielding us from the sun and it was getting very humid being that close to the water. The water felt warm and dousing ourselves didn’t seem to help much. After 6 hours this water stuff was really getting old.
We had calibrated our altimeters at the bridge and so far they had been right on with the topo. So right at 4140’ we spotted a small opening in the trees and low and behold there was a gulley. Right or wrong we were going up it.
It took us until 11:50 to get here. A little over 6 ½ hours after we started. I was already off by 2 hours on my estimate. The water stuff had really slowed us down.
We rested here and ate and drank as much water as we could and then filled our backpacks with 6 liters each. It was 85 degrees down by the stream out of the sun and we could only imagine what it would be once we started up.
We started up the gulley at 1 and right away we ran into a large headwall. I didn’t remember reading about any headwall so I thought maybe we were going up the wrong gulley. No matter, we were committed so we started up the ridge to the right of the gulley since it was less brushy figuring we would go up a ways and then go back into the gulley and continue up. But as we continued up the gulley was looking pretty bad with brush so we just continued up the ridge working our way through the brush and deadfall. After about 500’ the ridge cleared up a bit and we eventually started to contour our way over to the gulley at the top and made the ridge at 6000’ by 4.
I had stopped about 200’ below in some shade to change into dry socks, as my shoes were almost dry by now. As I hiked up to meet Mace on the ridgeline I heard him say “you’re not going to like this.” As I looked south up the ridgeline all I could see was 1500’ of mainly class 3 climbing. This was going to be a long day.
As it turned out the class 3 was easy and ended at around 7000’. After that it was mainly class 2 with some occasional 3.
We finally topped out at 6:45. We took a 30 minute break and refueled ourselves. We were doing fine with fluids. We only ended up at the end of the day using 5 of our 6 liters, which surprised us considering the heat. Drinking up at the stream before heading up really helped hydrate us.
We zombied on down to Allison saddle where we had to put headlamps on, making it back to the truck at 11:15 for an 18 hour day.
I think we’re both done with Iron for a while.
We both agreed on this scale of difficulty:
1. North Ridge-no contest
2. S/W ridge-shorter hiking time to 4000’ and just a little class3
3. South trail (regular route)
4. East Ridge (Baldy Traverse) - 10000’ of downhill and most of gain is on Ski Hut trail
Up through the Narrows
Dave's not here
Iron Fork confluence
Stanley Miller mine up there somewhere. More vertical then it looks here. There is a gulley to the east that looks doable
Past Narrows toward Fish Fork
Stalagtite Formation just before the waterfall
200' waterfall
Fish Fork confluence
Fish Fork camp
Heading up Fish Fork
Fish Fork slimy rocks
Iron Mt. drainage,looking downstream. Easy to miss drainages as they come together. Take a right turn here
Up Iron Mt. drainage
Gulley at 4140'
Weaving our way to the ridge
500' up the brush cleared
Gulley to our left
Looking down the North ridge
Looking North of what we just climbed at 6000'
Ross Mt and Baden Powell
Looking South toward Iron
Making our way thru the 3rd class
Head wall at around 7300'. There is a gulley to the left to get around this
Almost there. The top is 7800'
The End or just the beginning to the end
