My friend Matt Kraai and I did Charlton Peak today, leaving the South Fork trailhead at 6 am.
The hardest climbing of the day was about 100 feet from the parking lot, where the trail was completely covered in ice. Matt somehow managed to get up it, probably through some combination of patriotic fervor and taking deep breaths to decrease his specific gravity. I failed several times in a row, including one attempt where I had to self-arrest with my ice ax. If you're having trouble visualizing the situation, you should watch the Monty Python skit Climbing the North Face of the Uxbridge Road, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U0tDU37q2M. So I heroically put on my crampons and kept wearing them for the next few miles of trail, which were mostly dirt and mud. For anyone not as pathetic as me, the place to put on your crampons would have probably been somewhere around Poopout Hill, where there started to be 100% snow cover.
We started out on the trail system, but went straight up the gully above Dollar Lake to Dollar Lake Saddle, then up the ridge line to Charlton Peak, which Matt wanted to bag because it's on the HPS list. The ridge had some interesting and varied snow conditions, including hard snow on the north side, sheets of ice on the crest, and a bunch of steep drifts of powder.
From the summit of Charlton we got a gorgeous view of the chutes below San Gorgonio, which are all in beautiful shape.
For the return trip, we went down to the saddle between Charlton and Little Charlton, then northeast and curving around until we were back on the trail. Snow conditions in this area were excellent and firm on the north-facing slopes, but blechy and soft at South Fork Meadows.
We ate a late lunch/early dinner at The Oaks in Angelus Oaks, where the waitress teased us about our body odor.
Charlton Peak from South Fork, Jan 27, 2019
That's also how people get up Everest. They drink in bottled oxygen.bcrowell wrote:Matt somehow managed to get up it, probably through some combination of patriotic fervor and taking deep breaths to decrease his specific gravity.
I like that Monty Python skit. "Burt, some people say this is crazy." John Cleese is hysterical.