20100626 Cirque & Langely

Post by **Taco** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 4:15 pm

Thanks for the trip, guys!

I felt great until a while before the summit of Langely. I took my RX migraine pill to knock out the headache I started to get, and also took some RX painkiller. The painkiller was great at first, but I think it made the altitude sickness about a billion times worse. Felt better as we went further down, until a few miles from the car when it got even worse. Finally felt good when we got into Lone Pine.

Fiddled around with a Pine Borer Beetle that Patrick found in the Carl's Jr parking lot. Flipped it over a few times and it screamed at me a lot. Crazy little bastards.

Thanks for waiting up for me while I felt like I was being run over by trucks, guys.

Hike in

Crizag

Tina

Walk the walk

Langely South Face

Zach, Tina, and some dude.

Cirque East Face. We ended up hiking up the north slope/face. I tried to stick somewhat close to the north ridge, but it was rather loose. Not San Gabriel loose with little rocks and short falls, but big loose with oh-shit moments kinda stuff.

Headwall. Wonder if there are any/many routes up it? Bully Pulpit is the little diving board up top.

Possibilities...

My personal favorite shot I took. Patrick (lilbitmo) hiking up the north face of Cirque.

Up!

Yet more up.

New Army Headwall

North Ridge

Looking down the east face

Gimme a break. Those who supposedly want peace so badly create conflict by crossing out stickers for Military units. Grow up.

Zach!

Myself doing a knife advertissement up top.

Everybody

Old Army Headwall

Joe Devel Peak

Zach attacking a scrambling portion on the way up to the summit of Langely.

Patrick and Tina in the scrambling bit.

Zach and Patrick on the summit. Patrick's 3rd time.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Scared the shit out of me while I was trying to keep from throwing up.

Going home

Zach

Tina reppin' tha wessssside!!!!

Stuff

Patrick at the base of New Army pass

Want climb

Also want climb

Zach doing something

Crag-o-rama

So, two peaks, 32 miles? #ft elevation gain/loss?

Elwood · Post by **Elwood** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 4:41 pm

Nice pictures and report. Love the Sierra! Sorry you weren't feelin' so hot.

Post by **Taco** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 5:03 pm

I was thinking of your 30 mile + hikes on this one, Elwood. 8)

norma r · Post by **norma r** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:31 pm

Great photos Taco! Great job on an ambitious hike Taco, Zach, Patrick and Tina!! Thirty miles? Yikes! Even my feet would have felt sick on that one!!! With 30 miles and 15 plus hours of scrambling, i bet you ALL went through waves of pain and suffering. No wimps on that hike!

Those headwall photos are awesome. I'm gonna have to pay more attention to them next time i'm up there. and... "possibilities." I like the way you think Ryan!

lilbitmo · Post by **lilbitmo** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:11 pm

Nice work everyone, though it was a long and slightly painful day it was one of the classic hikes we've done.

The hardest part for me was that 400+ feet back up to New Army Pass from Old Army Pass after it was agreed to go back down the safer way and that last mile or so getting back to the truck - my mind was saying keep going but my bady was laughing "Where do you think you're going"

The snow is melting fast even in the high country but it was nice to stomp through a few spots in my boots where as everyone else was wearing trail shoes so they avoided most of it - except when they had no choice.

All and all great 22 hour day from wake up at the trail head till I walked through the door at home - I slept half the day away

My pictures here

Post by **Taco** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 11:51 pm

Cool pics, Patrick. 8)

Johnny Bronson · Post by **Johnny Bronson** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:36 am

Super crag o rama adventure central O_O

very Kool stuff and sweet pics from everyone =D

Mr Taco Zubat glad you were ok and got over your sickness quickly ,those damn pills man! :/

tinaballina · Post by **tinaballina** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:04 am

It was a great trip...topped out on my mileage...32 is the longest i have gone. it was so nice to get home and shower and sleep all day.
thanks again ryan, patrick and zach.

EManBevHills · Post by **EManBevHills** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:21 am

Nice day, y'all!

Patrick, are you really changing your handle to lilbitmopain?

TracieB · Post by **TracieB** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:27 am

Nice TR and Pix! Thanks for sharing!!

Taco, if it's any consolation, I wasn't feeling so hot, either.

sorry we missed you all up there.

tinaballina · Post by **tinaballina** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:43 am

TracieB wrote:Nice TR and Pix! Thanks for sharing!!

Taco, if it's any consolation, I wasn't feeling so hot, either. sorry we missed you all up there.

Patrick mentioned you were up there, too bad we missed you tracie.

Dave G · Post by **Dave G** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 11:14 am

High quality work, guys! You really know how to squeeze the most out of a day hike and do it in fine style!
I can relate to what Patrick said about the trek back up to New Army. The same thing happened to me when, after a coin toss, my partner and I left our axes in the car and Old Army was icing up in the PM. Sometimes doing "the safe and responsible thing" is helluva lot of extra work!
Ryan, I have some info on those climbing routes somewhere. If I can dig it up I'll send it over.

Post by **Taco** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 6:31 pm

Thanks all.

Thanks Dave! I'd dig any info/topos of the area.

snmtbaldy · Post by **snmtbaldy** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 8:30 pm

Hi Ryan,
Congratulations to Patrick,Zach,and Tina,too!!!!

Mark and I were at Horseshoe meadow on 24th and hiked up Cottonwood lake.

I got a secret mission form lady T. on 25th to put your two stickers at Mt. Whitney summit register box. The mission is accomplished. I joined with 8 other people to climb Mt. Whitney/MR and it was my very first MR and I made it.

Looking at your pictures, my next target will be two mountains you guys just
finished.

Keep on opening up new adventure options for us.

Shin

cougarmagic · Post by **cougarmagic** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 8:39 pm

100% kickass.

Congrats! You guys are a huge inspiration.

Post by **Taco** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:54 pm

Thanks Shin!

snmtbaldy · Post by **snmtbaldy** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:39 pm

Hi Taco,
I couldn't attach the picture because it is too big but I forwarded to lady T.
Shin

Post by **Taco** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:41 pm

Do you have a photobucket or other photo hosting site?

snmtbaldy · Post by **snmtbaldy** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:47 pm

Hi Taco,
This is it.
Shin

Post by **Taco** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 12:11 am

simonov · Post by **simonov** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:38 am

When I was on Langley last year, I thought about going up and doing Cirque this year. It never occurred to me to do both in one day!

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 12:40 pm

I had a great deal of fun on this hike. Thanks to everyone for coming along and GigaMike for the good beta. The thing is, when I looked at the topos and kind of pulled the idea together, I was more concentrating on the total elevation gain than worrying about how many miles we'd have to hump. I think in actuality the elevation gain is no more than ~5500ft, that being said, I didn't stop to thing that all of the mileage is done above 10,000ft elevation and about half of that is above 12,000ft. I think for me it was the altitude that was more of a challenge than the mileage.

PS: Tina, I apologize for telling you it was going to be a nice relaxing weekend

TracieB · Post by **TracieB** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 1:27 pm

30 miles is really a long, long day - 30 miles above 10K - that is kick A$$.

Congratulations again...

TracieB · Post by **TracieB** » Tue Jun 29, 2010 1:28 pm

snmtbaldy wrote:Hi Taco,
This is it.
Shin

Shin, you are my hero! Bwaahhaa!!!

tinaballina · Post by **tinaballina** » Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:43 am

Zach wrote:I had a great deal of fun on this hike. Thanks to everyone for coming along and GigaMike for the good beta. The thing is, when I looked at the topos and kind of pulled the idea together, I was more concentrating on the total elevation gain than worrying about how many miles we'd have to hump. I think in actuality the elevation gain is no more than ~5500ft, that being said, I didn't stop to thing that all of the mileage is done above 10,000ft elevation and about half of that is above 12,000ft. I think for me it was the altitude that was more of a challenge than the mileage.

PS: Tina, I apologize for telling you it was going to be a nice relaxing weekend

My legs were fine the next day so its all good. it was a great trip, i am glad i did it. plus, being taco's first 14er, we all popped his cherry on that one.

GigaMike · Post by **GigaMike** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:02 pm

Congrats Ryan, Tina, Zach and Partick!

Which route did you take from Cirque to Langley?

Ryan- Welcome to the high altitude climbing headaches and nausea

tinaballina · Post by **tinaballina** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:57 pm

Giga....thanks for the 411 on the route. i will let the guys tell you the route, this would be my description:
took the trail, crossed a river runs through it. ended up going around lake number 5 or 6. crossed another stream and started up the boulders. went up tagged the peak, came down walked across that long looking ridge (plateau) which wasn't as long as it looks. then down into some valley, crossed some snow then started our ascent up langley. we wont even talk about going down that's a whole other ball game.
the end.

lilbitmo · Post by **lilbitmo** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 4:01 pm

GigaMike wrote: Which route did you take from Cirque to Langley?

We took the Cottonwood Lakes Trail until it split, we then crossed over to the south of the Creek heading towards New Army Pass, after going around the north end of Long Lake (it was extremely mushy and muddy on the southwest side and we took this way back but paid the price of wet feet - just asked Zach) heading in a slightly west by south west direction crossing over a small sub ridge at 11,400 feet, it flattened out for about 100 yards then went straight up the Southeastern Flank of Cirque, there's a faint use trail inbetween all the boulders and lot's of boulder hopping here. It's a 1,400 foot boulder scramble to the summit, once on top we did the complete circumnavigation of the bowl that seperates Cirque Peak Summit and New Army Pass topout, you drop 400 feet as you travel in a half circle around this bowl approximately 1.6 miles or so, then we headed do north across the "High plains" where you loose another 500 feet to grab the trail that comes up and over "Old Army Pass" from there it was the usual 1,200 feet of non-stop sandy crawl to the rocks just to the west of the base of Langley. We then did a 200 foot boulder scramble up to the north and picked our way from there all the way East to the summit.

Returning we went to Old Army and looked down, the snow was enough to make it slightly too risky to do the snow post holing, so we climbed back up to New Army and made our way through the wet lands that seperated Long Lake and the base of Cirque Peak - we all get some seriously wet feet.

I'm thinking that next time I go up, I will start at the other trialhead and go over Cotton Wood Pass, then turn northwest and just gain the ridgeline that covers all those sub-peaks (peaklets) and just approach Cirque that way and keep going all the way to Langley.

It was a great day

see map here, hope it comes out?

tinaballina · Post by **tinaballina** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 5:01 pm

patricks route is a bit more detailed....i am still liking mine.

jjpicts · Post by **jjpicts** » Thu Jul 01, 2010 5:42 pm

Lilbitmo,
Cottonwood pass is the way we went up Sat. We just traversed the ridge in the morning headed to Langley (you guys interrupted a roving snowball fight when we met on the way down). We hit Cirque on the way back. My GPS said about 25 miles and 6000 gain that way.