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80 Degrees, Mixed Snow, Rock and Ice Above the Arrowhead - Monday, July 10, 2000
Today, July 10th, at 4pm, we topped out on the Arrowhead. Two days of challenging climbing finally got us to the top. Today started pretty lousy, with low clouds and not much visibility. It cleared up a bit and we had a pretty good, warm day. From the surrounding peaks, and what I recall of some of their heights from our map which is in Base Camp, we figured that our Arrowhead Camp was at 5850 meters. Definitely the hardest climbing was yesterday, from Camp I to our Arrowhead Camp, with mixed snow, rock and shitty ice. Yesterday, July 9th, started with a long, gentle slope. Xiao Yang came with us up to here to see us off, then, cliffs and the base of the Arrowhead. We had to rappel down 30 feet to a small ridge where I placed my ice axes in the snow and then hit them with my pack and almost sent one down 800 meters. We started up, three of us tied to a 60-meter rope, climbing alpine-style, Walter in the lead. We simul-climbed, the grade kept getting steeper and steeper—probably the steepest section on the Arrowhead was 80 degrees. We placed one to three pieces of protection between us at all times. Most of the sections on the Arrowhead that we climbed, though not frighteningly steep, often had vertical drop offs on one or both sides, making for precarious and gingerly manuevers. No more power, will continue later.
— Jon Otto, MountainZone.com Correspondent |
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