Original Plan: Murchison
Reality: Snow storm in forecast from both directions
Back up Plan: Louise Falls/Tokkumn/Johnston trifecta
Reality: Louise Falls and excitement for climbing the other 2 on Thursday:)
We were the first to Louise falls, and after a quick approach and two pitches headed up towards the pillar. Earlier this year I had approached the pillar from the left side and walked behind it to climb the right side of the right pillar. This time however, I got to the left side of 2 pillars and could not get behind them anymore to get to the area of least resistance. Instead we found ourselves a nice hole between this “new, but very dry” pillar and the old now extremely huge right hand pillar and squeeeezed ourselves out to gain the left side of the old pillar. Untraveled terrain made the climb a little harder then in the past but super fun. We worked together with 2 Portland climbers who shared the stance behind the pillar with us so that we wouldn’t knock any ice on them. Made for a nice social day! The bit of time waiting allowed us to watch a mini pillar grow in one of my foot steps. From a small drip to a free standing pillar…pretty cool!
A great butt slide down from the base of Louise Falls had us hightailing it to the car to resume our trifecta plan. Upon arriving at Marble Canyon however, we found Tokkumn with already 2 lines on it and 4 people in the hole. That’s okay…we’ll be back on Thursday for our turn!