EISPIRATEN

Ryan,

As they say "picture's worth a thousand words" -- it all speaks for it self. This is one heck of a route and while I'm no "alpinisto" I think it deserves the bloody, cool name you gave it -- Taco Sauce!

Hope you feel better man! Drink a lot of water ....

Thanks Boss!

Ellen wrote: Vitaly -- great job and sorry I called you by the wrong name at the summit. I'm going to blame the hypoxia.

No worries Ellen! We were all wearing parkas and hats looking like snowmen

lilbitmo wrote:Vitale, way to capture the day, great pictures, thanks for sharing them.

My pleasure Patrick -- thanks for the high five at the summit! You have a hand grip of a vise! You could probably belay a team of 6 like Pete Schoening on K2.

What a fun mini epic to start the season.

Mostly due to poor planning/choices on my part. I didn't bother to sleep the night before, nor did I hydrate or eat much. Kind of a bad start.

I got on the trail around 0530 or so, kept a nice slow pace all the way into the middle of the bowl, where Ryan and Zach caught up with me. Ryan picked the most suicidal looking line, while Zach and I picked one that "looked cool but not too scary". Hah.

I guess the one we went up is "Hourglass" couloir, which normally wouldn't be so bad, but the snow conditions just kind of sucked, and I'm in terrible shape. There was constant rime-ice/rock-ice fall in the left-side bowl amplified by any activity up higher, so I couldn't even get into the chute until Zach had topped out. Then I expended so much energy battling the varied ice/snow conditions in the couloir - everything from postholing to the ultra-fun "crampons skipping off blue ice leaving me dangling from my lone ice axe".

Anyway, after taking a short nap/snowmunching break on a cornice 3/4 way up Hourglass, I groveled my way to the top, where I followed Zach's crampon prints to the summit trail. I thought I was also following Ryan's Grivel prints, but a few hundred yards from the summit I turned to see/hear him coming from the bowl, nicely bloodied up.

Quick tag of the summit, then we headed on down. I was on the verge of having my quads cramp up solid from around the summit down to the lip of the bowl, then they warmed back up and were fine the rest of the way down. Got in some great glissading coming down the rim and west bowl.

Definitely some lessons learned: if I want to test out my tent in the snow, I should just pick a patch around the ski hut instead of hauling 5-6 extra pounds up a pretty technical icy chute, especially in the shape I'm in. Second, the three of us either should have stuck together, in which case there would have been someone to spot Ryan in the event he completely peeled off the route, and been able to report and render aid. Alternately, radio comms would have been useful, because as soon as we got in our respective couloirs, voice and visual communication were gone. I could have let Zach know I was taking my sweet ass time getting up the chute, and Ryan could have let us know he got rockraped and he was picking his way over to a plan B route.

Most of all, I need to get to a stairclimber or elliptical machine more often.

Don't you worry about me, Hoss. This whole irresponsible solo thing is my game. 8) Had AI become injured, I likely would've been at the bottom of the Bowl when I ran out of momentum.

TacoDelRio wrote: This whole irresponsible solo thing is my game. 8)

I thought of this exact thing last night while I was negotiating the Devil's backbone ridge in the pitch dark.

When you do it, you take responsibility for your actions, and the outcome. I always sarcastically say "irresponsible" for these kinds of things, as some folks I've known whose most dangerous activity they take part in is playing Xbox think it's irresponsible or whatever. Just gotta do what you gotta do. Sorry to go off on a tangent.

It's all good stuff.

TacoDelRio wrote:Just gotta do what you gotta do... It's all good stuff.

Ryan,
you got balls of steel though i'm still not sure what your brain is made of?

seriously, it was great to meet you on Thursday and i'm blown away by your sense of adventure. it's always fun to read your TR's and i'm hoping there is less bloodletting in the future. oh yeah, i like your board.

I wasn't issued a standard civilian brain.

too bad i didn't do the same dave. we missed ya on sunday.