Baden Powell to Islip, and all the peaks in between 3/10/12

[Eric Su]

Ive heard a lot about the peaks on the ridge between Baden Powell and Islip and decided to check them out all in a day.

Stats
mileage: ~22
elevation gain: ~7,300 ft

I started from Vincent gap at a little after 9am and took the trail headed towards the summit of Baden Powell


There were a few small snowfields at the start, but they wernt much of a problem. At about 1,000ft above Vincent gap, the snowfields were getting larger and icier. I started wishing I had brought crampons. Many areas involved having to get on all fours, face up, and kick into the snow to get across.



big snowfield not far from the summit



view from a ridge just below the summit




It took about an hour to reach the summit of Baden Powell.







My first peak on the ridge was an unnamed "bump" between Baden Powell and Mt. Burnham, which Im calling "Powell Burnham Peak."

view west from the top of Powell Burnham Peak




Seen from Powell Burnham Peak, Mt. Burnham is the closer peak. Throop Peak is the taller one in the distance.


summit view on top of Mt. Burnham


I descended Mt. Burnham and headed towards Throop Peak. I gave up trying to find the trail which had already begun to disappear under the snow. I traversed along the ridge until I reached Throop Peak.

Throop Peak summit





looking towards Mt. Islip. Mt. Hawkins (my next destination) is out of the frame but should be on the left.


descending Throop






view from the top of Mt. Hawkins


descending Hawkins and heading towards Islip




Islip getting closer


The forest service needs to check their signs. A little more than a tenth of a mile after the sign in this picture (I should be getting closer) is the sign in the next picture.



I had lunch on the summit of Mt. Islip






heading back










weird tree






















I decided to summit Throop peak again for no apparent reason




On my way back to Baden Powell, I summited both Mt. Burnham and Powell Burnham Peak again to avoid the snow covered trail






















Clouds had started rolling in and the wind was picking up fast


back on top of Baden Powell



descending back to Vincent Gap





While heading back, the entire east side of the mountain had frozen solid. Now I really wished I had brought the crampons. The only way to get down now was to get a stick and smash footholds in the ice and hope it would not give away. While descending the steeper sections, I had a few close calls slipping and sliding down the mountain. The scariest one was at elevation ~8,100ft when I slipped on black ice and slid about 15ft before stopping myself. Soon I gave up trying to walk on the ice and just slid down the steep scree slopes facing the direction of Vincent gap. I imitated the form of glissading, using a stick with an odd branch sticking out as an ice axe. I got back to Vincent gap at 6:50pm, 40 minutes after sunset.

[Taco]

Nice pics dude. I know you probably know, but it would be wise to have some microspikes or strap crampons and an ax with ya if you're unsure of conditions.

[lilbitmo]

Eric,

Those are some outstanding pictures and that's a epic days work.

I'll be even more impressed if you can show me how you gained 7,300 feet on that route and those summits, I just mapped it with Mapmyhike and I've done those summits and even if you regained all the summits twice (except Mount Islip) the total I'm getting is 5,700 feet and that's being a little libral, is there something I'm missing here
Were you using a gps or did you manually calculate that?

Whichever I'm still impressed with that kind of day in that short of time, nice work.

[rokclimbr]

That hike is in my top 5. The lighting looked spectacular!

[asbufra]

The sunset picture and several of the others are as good as anything I have seen. Just beautiful.

Good job.