Date: June 8-9, 2010

Team: Peter McCorkell, Kate Ronkainen, Benjamin Gadbaw, Charles Muzio, Fred Slater

TR by Peter McCorkell: 4 others and I went up Prusik Peak on Monday and Tuesday via the West Ridge route. We were lucky to have some beautiful weather for most of the trip and it made for a great climb. We left the TH at 12:50pm and reached Snow Lakes just after 5pm. The snow started at before Nada Lake, but didn’t really require gaiters until we got out on the beach around Snow Lakes.

There was a pretty good boot track up from Snow Lakes to Lake Viviane, just make sure you don’t start heading up from the lake until you’re at the inlet to the lake. We took off from the lake a little sooner and went up and down an unnecessary 100ft or so. We reached camp at 8pm.

At 8am the next day we left camp, skirted Lake Viviane and ascended to Prusik Pass. As far as the climb goes, both Nelson and Beckey had good descriptions, and the Beckey book has a great topo. I think the key is to find the left facing dihedral in the first pitch. After scrambling a well worn and obvious crack we hopped a couple boulders to the left and belayed from there where you can see the dihedral.

One rope length up and left took us up to the bottom of the 5.7 friction slab. An old rusty piton protected the two or three friction moves until easier gear was found.

A snowy traverse took us to the bottom of the last pitch. Once gaining the large ledge, our leaders traversed right, went up to another ledge and then back left to tackle the awkward off-width crack just below the chimney at the top of the pitch. Apparently, the other party behind us never went back left and must have kept going around right, a route that seemed a little bit quicker then heading up the awkward crack. We hit he summit at about 3:30pm.

We did one double rope rap from the top of the friction slab pitch and another single rap from the there to the snow on the north side. There were other slings and rings halfway down our first rap if you’ve only got one rope.

On the deproach we saw some sweet wildlife and were super excited about it.

Gear Notes: Single rack

Approach Notes: The sultan bakery has huge and delicious breakfast!

More Photos: Picasa

All TRs: Climbing