July 20, 2022
- Start/End: Edge of Gannett Peak’s terminal moraine
- Route to Summit: Glacier Trail to Gooseneck Couloir
- Distance: ~ 6 miles (and 5,800 feet of vertical gain/loss)
Today was the day I would summit Gannett Peak… or so I hoped! After barely any sleep – just a 20 minute evening nap – our wake-up call arrived. We had one hour to get dressed for the ascent, get something in our bellies, and depart camp.
Our NOLS instructors boiled up water for us for some hot drinks, and I hurriedly ate the rest of my leftover dinner of curried lentils under the beam of my headlamp before shoving a bunch of snacks into my hip pouches of my pack.
My pack already had some warm layers, gloves, a climbing harness and carabiners, helmet, ice axe, crampons all packed in there too. And soon it was 11 pm and the time had come for us to move out.
A dark beginning
We departed camp in a single file line heading through the boulder fields of the terminal moraine in the pitch black darkness. The moon wasn’t yet out, and we were often we were jumping from boulder to boulder, and it felt as if we were moving way too fast for the conditions.
This opinion was confirmed when the person in the lead made two minor wrong turns and we had to backtrack. The last thing I wanted to do was turn an ankle less than a mile from camp.
Nonetheless, I kept pushing. I didn’t want to lose sight of the person in front of me in the dark and I understood the need to move briskly through this section. Our goal was to get up above the Gooseneck Couloir before sunrise so we’d have time to get down before the conditions got to warm and snow field too soft.
Eventually we reached the first glacier and everyone had to stop to put on their campons as the instructors divided us into two climbing teams. We were making good time according to Judd (our lead NOLS instructor), and hopefully we’d stay on pace now that the more technical movement was about to begin.
I was placed into the first group and we smoothly zig-zagged up the glacier. About halfway up though, one of my crampons started to come loose and slipping off the toe of my shoe. I called the group to a quick stop to tighten it up again, and silently chided myself for not tying it tighter the first time.
I wasn’t the only one with a crampon issue though. Prashant was in the second team and one of his crampons came so loose that he almost lost it (and his boot!) in the process of ascending the glacier!
Near the top of the glacier, we reached an area where we crossed beside a stream of water flowing down the mountain. This was the last chance to grab some water for the climb, and I guzzled one of my bottles, then replenished it with a full liter of glacier melt. And that’s when the nearly full moon finally appeared.
After a quick break we were back on boulders and rocks again sans crampons, but it wasn’t long before we had to don them once again to head up the Gooseneck Couloir. This time around I checked and double-checked their tightness. I didn’t wanted any mistakes. The upcoming slope was even steeper than the glacier we’d just ascended and even required us to anchor in with snow pickets as we ascended.
As each student passed the snow picket, we had to pause for them to clip into the other side of it before unclipping from their current position. Each of us tried to perform this task quickly, but there were enough of us on the line that it felt like were barely taking a dozen steps forward before stopping for the next person in line to perform the same task.
At the top of the couloir, we stopped for a breather on some rocks to celebrate making it this far up. The horizon was not turning red and orange to our east. I love this moment in the pre-dawn hours when it’s still mostly dark out, but you know the sun is coming.
My tent mate Emily was literally shaking with nerves during our break and she had tears in her eyes. She was physically strong enough to do all the tasks we’d been asked to perform thus far, but she was so scared of heights that she wasn’t sure she could continue. So each time our two climbing teams converged, I tried to bolster her and encourage her. Just focus on the next step ahead. Don’t think about what’s below you.
We all knew from our yesterday’s route briefing that we’d ascend the glacier, then the couloir, and then follow the ridgeline up to the summit. But what we couldn’t see from that vantage point below is how much exposed rock we’d be scrambling up for the next hour above Gooseneck Couloir.
As we continued our ascent, the views from the slopes of Gannett Peak were simple sublime. I wanted to stop and take photos, but I never had much time to pull out my phone to capture my surroundings. We needed to keep moving.
About ten minutes before 6 am, a bright red orb peeked over the horizon and I could no longer resist stopping. I had to capture this moment and document it because there was little change my tired brain would ever remember how stunningly beautiful this scenery was.
After the sunrise, all that was left was the final ridge walk to the summit, but the steep slopes were covered with snow so we needed to rope up again for safety and put on our crampons (for a third time) just to traverse it.
I was running on adrenaline and hyper-focused as we made our final approach toward the rock outcropping at the summit of Gannett Peak. And finally, around 7:40 am – more than 8 1/2 hours after we left camp – our entire group made it safely to our destination.
Gannett Peak would be my 45th state high point, and it was undoubtedly one of the more challenging ones. Yet despite all my internally complaining and grumpiness about the way we were hiking in and operating in camp, I was 100% happy with my choice to climb this peak as part of an NOLS alumni trip. The trip had been a success and even though every one here was still a novice mountaineer, we’d worked well together as a team.
We spent the next 30 minutes on the summit celebrating and taking photos of each other, appreciating the views, and fueling up on snacks for our descent. Shortly after 8 am, it was time to get moving again. We had a long, long way back down to camp yet. And the longer we stayed up there, the longer it would be before we could get some real rest.
From the summit, the instructors shuffled our teams for the descent. I was now on the trailing rope team with Emily, a brother-sister duo named Bea and Carlos, and one other student.
Our team moved well together, but I was feeling the fatigue of the day now and knew I couldn’t afford to lose focus now. We made our way across the ridge back through the snow, but it was noticeably softer and I found myself postholing 12-16 inches in places.
Then it was back to the rock scramble again, which was so much harder on my knees. Why was going down always harder than climbing up??
The entire way back to the Gooseneck Couloir, I expected the hazardous gulley to be super gnarly and scary. We’d come up it in the dark, where it’s steepness was camouflaged by the pitch black. But, much to my surprise it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected. Descending Mt. Hood this past May had been far more terrifying.
Once we were below the couloir and back to boulder hopping again, my fatigue really set in. We were off rope again, so I busied myself with talking to Bea just to keep myself alert.
But when I turned to look back at her, I somehow missed a step and ended up tripping. I reached my hand out to catch myself on a boulder and my palm took the brunt of the fall. Pain shot through my hand. It wasn’t broken, but my palm was so bruised by the impact that it hurt to even use a trekking pole.
Then we were back on the rope one final time to descend the glacier. The route down seemed to take forever!
As the slope became a little more mellow and transitioned to a snow field, Evan took us off rope and told us we were free to glissade down to the flat area below us once we took our crampons off. Oh, what an exhilarating joy it was to just sit down and let gravity do the work. It felt so liberating to just slide down on our butts like we were at a ski resort instead of having to watch every step.
At the bottom of the snow field, I was super hopped up on adrenaline from my speedy slide, and I suddenly realized I was starving. We ate our last real meal more than 12 hours ago and had been pushing hard since then.
I’d only had a handful of snacks on the way up and at the summit, so I dug into my hip pocket pouch for some nuts to fuel me back up. That’s when I realized I no longer had my bag of salty snacks. I’d seen them at the summit, but couldn’t find them now. I must have either (a) tucked them inside my pack’s main pouch – in which case they were surely at the bottom of the pack now; or (b) I’d lost them on the descent.
I still had some sugary snacks my hip pouch though. And those worked briefly to recharge my energy, but as soon as the sugar rush was over, I was crashing hard. I was just so exhausted from the lack of sleep and physical fatigue of the day that everything was a chore.
Boulder scrambling around the lakes in the terminal moraine nearly broke me. It felt like utterly impossible challenge. I found myself pondering every leap or step. My executive function was so ridiculously diminished that it was difficult to make even the simplest decisions – like where to go next.
Somehow though, I made it through the maze of rocks and our group made it back to camp around 3 pm. It had been 16 exhilarating and grueling hours, but we were finally done!!
After dropping our packs at our tents, everyone tiredly collapsed in our cooking area for some celebratory sliced cheese and fancy crackers. I sat there in a daze – simultaneously starving and too exhausted to eat. Yet after a few bite, the snack did wonders. I got a small burst of energy and felt as it my brain was clicking back on again.
We still had dinner to make, and Prashant, Emily and I collectively decided that it would have to be something super easy. None of us had the mental focus or energy to chop up ingredients or do any real cooking. So we dug through our provisions and came up with a dinner of ramen soup and cheese quesadillas. Then it was off to bed at 5 pm, where I would sleep for the next 14 hours straight!
