Turret Peak

Sometime early in the night Jim decided that a rock was ill placed below his sleeping pad. I looked over with some horror as he started to swing the ice tool we’d brought in an attempt to excavate the rock or add extra ventilation to the tent. Eventually, he determined the rock was larger than our sleeping platform and quarried dirt from another spot to smooth out the rock’s bumps.

With alpineglow on the high peaks of the divide we set off over snow fields and morraine piles to the Dinwoody Glacier.

Turning left we headed under the north face of Mount Warren en route to Elsie Col.

Ice axes and crampons were deployed for the snow climb up to the col. During the climb we looked for the 4th class gully that supposedly led to the summit, but couldn’t ID it positively. Instead, we’d figured climbing the harder Southwest Ridge would present easier navigation. Still we couldn’t quite figure out why this climb was reported as being 10 hours long if it led directly to the higher southern summit.

At the saddle we found newly arrived sun and warmed up while waiting for the whole party to arrive. Then we traversed around some gendarmes via 3rd and 4th class scrambling.

More 4th class scrambling brought us to a large ledge were we dropped the snow and ice gear. We moved left towards the obvious snow gully, then started up a dry gully that split from it immediately. As soon as possible we exited right to get closer to the ridge and soon found terrain we’d want to belay. This first pitch was easy 5th class, but cold this morning. I was glad Dominic and Jim were willing to led all the pitches since they both had rock shoes vs my approach shoes.

Our first pitch stopped just below a rightward traverse to a short overhang. The climbing above then cut left on the or near the crest of the ridge so to reduce rope drag that became pitch 2. While following up this second pitch some distant thunder sounded across the valley. Sarah immediately warned that she could feel her hair buzzing. Thankfully, it quickly went away and the consensus was to continue climbing hoping the storm had moved on.

Pitch three looked short and blocky, but somewhat overhanging. Jim started up it and found a loose chockstone that appeared dangerous. After warning the rest of us, he managed to get around it but reached the ridge crest to find all the rocks buzzing wildly.

While he searched for a rappel anchor above, I started to construct one for our now full-on retreat. Graupel started to fall and rise (wind currents were blowing the stuff every direction). Jim quickly came down then we pulled the rope and setup a long double rope rappel down the gully.

The rest of us waited on the cold ledge, attempting to stay warm under the graupel storm.

I sent everyone else down the rappel first, then removed the unweighted backup cam and rapped off the slung pothole that had held everyone else. Once down we setup one more shorter rappel down the 4th class gully that was now wet and much more dangerous.

After gathering up our boots and ice axes, we descended snow and loose talus down from Elsie Col.

The sky began to clear somewhat on our retreat, but no way were we going back right now.

After an afternoon’s rest and dinner we planned for a slightly earlier start and hoped to move quicker now that we knew the beginning of the climb well. From his highpoint, Jim had thought the climbing above looked much easier and hopefully only another pitch would separate us from the summit.

Tuesday morning we start a bit earlier and make quicker time to Elsie Col.

From the col we scramble up to the large ledge and drop our boots and ice/snow gear.

This morning is less windy, but cooler. With a little fresh graupel I’m even less enthused about taking the sharp end of the rope so Dominic does the leading through pitch 3.

Jim isn’t feeling very well but takes the mostly 4th class pitch 4 that’s a bit of a rope stretcher. We scramble up hoping to reach the summit shortly but find we’ve got a technical ridge separating us. I setup a belay in a small notch while Jim climbs a slight overhang and runs the rope out across a knife-edge ridge to the middle summit of Turret. He radio’s back that “I’ve reached {garbled} summit”. We all wonder if he said “a summit” or “the summit”.

Following the ridge I see Jim perched on the middle summit with the obviously taller north summit still ahead. He continues to lead, this time another 4th class pitch down to a notch.

Once both Jim and Dominic are at the final notch, Dominic leads up the stiff 4th class/5.0 summit.

I’m carefully watching the weather and hoping the clouds don’t develop into anything, as it’ll take us a while to retreat across this technical ridge. I also find myself relaying commands between Dominic (on the summit) and Sarah and Jim down in the notch below both of us. I do a belayed downclimb to the notch, then tie in behind Teresa to simul-climb up to the summit, being the last to arrive. A quick picture then I start the rap first, having only spent about 3 minutes on top.

I had left most of the protection in during my downclimb from the middle summit, so I tried to quickly reascend while putting back the few pieces of gear that I’d removed. Once we were all mostly on top of the middle summit, Dominic led out across the knife-edge pitch and put in some extra gear as grab loops to help everyone downclimb the slight overhang. Going last I was able to remove all the gear and downclimb the overhang free so we didn’t have to leave any gear.

We did something similar to repeat the 4th pitch, Jim led down on top belay, placing a bit of gear then the others rappelled down. Following last I removed the gear while being belayed from below.

The last 3 rappels proceeded as expected, only without the excitement of thunder or graupel today.

We returned to camp late but very satisfied with our accomplishment today. Tomorrow we’d try for Pinnacle Ridge.

Complete Turret Peak photos

Wind River 2009 posts:
Approach
Turret Peak
Bonney Pass
Sphinx and Woodrow Wilson
Twin Peaks
Departure