..er..ah...a GREAT day on Mt Goode
A Good(e) Day on Mt Goode’s North Buttress (8-9-08 )
We had hope to give Mt Goode’s North Buttress a go back around Memorial weekend, but the crummy weather told us to go play somewhere else. Luckily the weather this past weekend was absolutely perfect and it made for an ideal day to climb this potentially freezing north facing buttress.
Marty and I left the South Lake TH around 6:30am and headed out on the normal trail towards Bishop Pass. We left the trail just past Long Lake and went SW cross-country towards the big moraine field in front of Mt Goode. We pretty much followed the SUPERTOPO approach description and got to the base of the snow field at ~9am.
Once at the snow field we were surprised to turn around and see 2 gals who showed up right after us. We met Megan and Sara (sp?) from the Mammoth area who were also planning on climbing the North Buttress. Who’d ever think of seeing multiple parties on the North Buttress?
To get up the short snow field, we hopped from sun cup to sun cup as much as possible, but needed to use a couple of rocks to help chop steps to cross a few section of the frozen snow. We got to the starting belay station and Marty took off leading the 1st pitch (5.8 ) at 9:30. While following the 1st pitch, I got some photos of Sara leading the lower section of the pitch
I was surprised by how quickly Marty lead/traversed the 2nd pitch (5.9because when I got to the exposed arête just past the fixed pin (ol’ Bugaboo pin) it sure got my attention and took me a bit of time to figure out the airy face moves on the arête and avoid swinging into the gapping jaws of the rotten chimney. Luckily after 1 or 2 moves I was back on solid holds.
I got to pull the rope up the easy 3rd pitch (class 4) and up through loose terrain and being extra careful with climbers below us. Marty stemmed up the 4th pitch (5.9) without a hitch. On pitch 5 (low class 5), I stretched our 70M rope to the limit to reach the next half-baked belay station. A short pitch #6 got us up some moderate terrain and through the tunnel-thru and to a super comfortable belay ledge. Finally Marty had the honors of leading the last pitch (pitch #7, 5.8 ) with its classic mantle on to the very summit of Mt Goode. We topped out at 2:45 and were rewarded with great views in all directions, WoHoo!
After getting some snacks, photos, signing the register, surveying the locale Sierras from this good(e) vantage point, we headed down the SE talus slopes and back over the main trail. We got back to the South Lake parking area at 5:30pm (C2C in 11 hours) and then headed down to Las Casitas for a celebration dinner
Notes; we used a standard alpine rack, a Petzl Fuse 9.4 X 70M rope, and pretty much followed Mountain Projects topo
Mountain Project Topo
Here’s link to some of my photos (still adding captions):
Good(e) photos
Overall, a good(e)…er.. ah… GREAT day in the Sierras with GREAT company.
Cheers,
RickG
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