Sphinx and Woodrow Wilson

“Most Wind River climbing accidents seem attributable to two phenomena: loose rock and lightening.”
-Joe Kelsey in “Climbing and Hiking in the Wind River Mountains”

After moving camp to Titcomb Basin over the continental divide we debated about what to climb next. Given good weather our choices were down to the north ridge of Mount Sacagawea or the northwest ridge of The Sphinx (followed possibly by Mount Woodrow Wilson). The morning sky was largely clear when we started just before dawn.

After hiking over the lateral moraine of the Sphinx glacier we walked up the glacier itself following a hogsback of snow to the Woodrow Wilson-Sphinx saddle.

The rock on the ridge leading up to the Sphinx looked very broken, and the first part appeared to “go” without a rope.

Once the others arrived we agreed to scramble up until the harder climbing began (the guide book claimed 3 class 5 pitches). Dominic and I decided to swing leads and he carried a full rack and we each packed a rope.

By traversing a little to climber’s left we ventured off the most direct route but kept finding class 4 terrain that we were all comfortable scrambling unroped.

Pretty soon I realized we’d reach the summit without roping up for any pitches.

Everyone was comfortable downclimbing the terrain without belays or rappels so we quickly descended back to the saddle.

The morning was still early so we decided to cross the Sphinx Glacier to have a look at the South Couloir route up Mount Woodrow Wilson.

The lower section of the couloir was melted out and the guidebooks said it was a rubble gully then with a better ascent being the west couloir. So we continued to traverse around the mountain to view that gully. The west couloir had a section melted out in the middle and the snow looked steeper so the group voted to try the south couloir regardless.

I started to lead up the loose rock at the entrance of the couloir and immediately started to whine to my audience below about the horrible quality of the climbing. I was worried about bringing a large group (4) into this couloir with such loose rock and figured the rappels would be a mess. I was told to continue on by the comments below and sucked it up.

Sarah followed the first pitch and claimed I was over-reacting and that I needed to do more climbing of 13ers in Colorado’s San Juans to truly appreciate looseness. She and Teresa started to scramble up ahead while I belayed Dominic.

The reached a mix of snow and ice and stopped. When I arrived I decided to start belayed climbing again since the snow was mostly rotten and didn’t inspire much confidence. Rock pro in the side walls of the couloir provided protection and anchors were mostly old rappel slings.

For a couple pitches I continued upwards, armed with the one second ice tool in our whole group. Every so often the snow would provide solid sticks, but mostly it was rotten sugar that required trenching to my thighs in one spot. A shovel might have been appropriate gear for the conditions. The crux was a steeper section of WI2 that had and awful hollow sound. Front pointing in dull aluminum crampons didn’t work so well, so I had to kick large platform steps, nearly destroying the column. The last person up probably had much less to work with after the passage of 3 others.

For the last bit of the couloir the snow was a little better and I decided we could simul-climb to the notch. Dominic took over belaying duties and brought up the others.

Dominic also took over the rock lead, but found only a short stretch of 5.0 before he called off-belay and brought each of us up for the remaining scramble to the summit. Looks like we weren’t going to get a lot of quality rock climbing in today.

The clouds were a little worrisome, so we certainly didn’t stay long, just enough to check in with Jim on the radio (he’d climbed the Twin Peaks that morning). We downclimbed back to the top of Dominic’s pitch where a nice rappel anchor already existed and started down the couloir.

After the first single rope rappel we hit the series of existing rappel anchors that were setup for doubled 50m ropes. The old webbing was a little suspect, so we backed up each station with and unweighted strand that the first 3 had as backup. After so proving its worth, the final climber to rappel would remove the backup and continue down.

On about the 3rd rappel I was heading down first when the dark clouds finally unleashed a graupel storm. Being in a couloir, the pellets of snow were funneled right down our descent path and it felt like rappelling down a waterfall of snow. The two ropes were getting buried, and in pulling out the visible parts to throw down below me the ropes got massively tangled. Graupel is slidding past me in a rush while I’m stuck on a steep snow slope untangling a Gordian knot and thinking things couldn’t get much worse.

A very, very close thunder blast proved me wrong. The whole mountain seemed to shake and Sarah later mentioned that she could feel the electricity in the rock she was leaning on at the anchor above. Down in the valley Jim was watching us through a tiny telescope and had seen the lightening strike the summit. He radioed to make sure we were okay.

Strangely, by the time I reached the next anchor the sun had come out. Not that we felt any less urgency to get off this peak.

The second to last rappel took me through part of the really loose bottom of the couloir, and while descending I knocked a bunch of unstable rock down. That’s probably when my fairly new climbing rope suffered a core shot.

Thankfully none of the ropes stuck today and once we were back on the glacier we rushed down to the relative safety of camp.

The sun had come out in force by then and we lounged around drying out and discussing what to do tomorrow. Even with good weather we agreed to do something easier and Jim’s description of Twin Peaks decided our next objective.

Complete Photo Album

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