Anyway, here are a couple google earth screenshots of the route we ended up doing. It looked mighty intimidating from the ground but was manageable once you got on it. We basically followed the obvious weaknesses up the cliffs until we got to the easier sections up high. It was class 3-5, with a few hundred (at least that is what it felt like) of sustained and fairly exposed class 4. The class 5 moves were mostly relegated to the few areas that felt somewhat less exposed. But its all on amazingly solid conglomerate rock. Once you got through these initial difficulties it got a lot easier though, with an enjoyable alpine tundra walk and a goat trail traverse that avoided some unnecessary altitude gain. We then descended the "standard" north ridge route and found what is the normal ascent trail. Has anyone else around here done this? We both felt like it was much more enjoyable that the north ridge route, containing little loose rock and great scrambling. If folks are interested we can put a trip report together.
FYI, we saw no sign of any previous folks having been on the ridge/face. There was no climbers trail to be found, no cairns, and both of us have searched in vain online to find any info about it. I even searched through LOJ and found nothing. The only mention anywhere of even getting into that basin we found was a mention that you could use the basin as alternate approach for the north ridge.
Keep in mind that the screenshots below are estimates since I didn't have my GPS or SPOT on while we were on route.
- North is towards the top of the image
- Mil1resize.jpg (279.3 KiB) Viewed 619 times
- View from the SE
- Mil2resize.jpg (300.78 KiB) Viewed 619 times
