Re: TR: Cloudripper 6/13/2015
Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:26 pm
Nothing to be ashamed of at all here, like you said the important part is just getting out to the mountains! It definitely was a long day, and glad you got to the top of "Vagabond" at the very least. We were hoping to get up there as well but were speeding through our descent to try to avoid the incoming weather.cthenn wrote:Well...thanks again for the report and sending me your GPS track, but unfortunately we didn't quite make it to Cloudripper. We settled on bagging "Vagabond Peak", which I believe is the unofficial name for the peak just before Cloudripper. It was our first big, high-elevation climb of the year, and we were definitely not acclimatized to the elevation yet (nor in good hiking shape!). It took us 4.5 hours(!!) just to get to Vagabond, and when I looked over at Cloudripper, my heart sank. Realizing we'd have to go down 400', then climb up 500', THEN back down 500' and up 400' just to get back to where we were standing, I said f*** that! It turned out to be the right choice, as it was a VERY long day, and we were getting pretty sloppy by the time we got back to the trailhead. Last thing I wanted was to roll an ankle or wrench my knee at the start of the summer hiking season.
Oh well...maybe we'll come back some day, and next time I'll be more mentally prepared to have to go up and over another peak just to get to where we want to go. It was disappointing, because this would have probably been one of the easiest 13,500-foot peaks to get to. Nothing was steep or technical at all, and it should have been a relatively easy day. Still, we got well up over 13,000', and did get a minor peak, so wasn't all bad. Besides, nothing beats getting out into the mountains!
