We were able to climb this on the Traverse on the Third day from Yang Yang Lakes to White Rock Lakes. It is about 1000 feet of elevation gain from where you cross from the LeConte Glacier to drop west then south to the South Cascade Glacier heading toward the White Rock Lakes, two hours from this pass. It took us about 3 hours to make the summit and back to our packs we left at Pass. We are not very fast either. Snow is high this year so we have no idea what a typical year would affect this climb we made on the west facing side of Old Guard. We did use two nuts, couple of slings and two very short raps on way down.
Norman - Aug 8, 2011 12:02 am - Hasn't voted
Ptarmigan TraverseWe were able to climb this on the Traverse on the Third day from Yang Yang Lakes to White Rock Lakes. It is about 1000 feet of elevation gain from where you cross from the LeConte Glacier to drop west then south to the South Cascade Glacier heading toward the White Rock Lakes, two hours from this pass. It took us about 3 hours to make the summit and back to our packs we left at Pass. We are not very fast either. Snow is high this year so we have no idea what a typical year would affect this climb we made on the west facing side of Old Guard. We did use two nuts, couple of slings and two very short raps on way down.