Journeys: Beehive Peak - Day 2

I woke up to warm sun on my face meaning I had slept longer than intended. We would get a later start than desired, but at least we would not have to climb in the bitter dawn cold at 10,000 feet. I was feeling worked from yesterday's climb and tried to shake the stiffness out of my arms and legs while eating a breakfast of bagels and trail mix. The decision to climb the 5.8 face route was easily made. I could tell my body was in protest of anymore man eating off width climbing.

The route started in a positive left facing corner. The guide book indicated a belay stance at 95 feet. I found a huge ledge that seemed to be 50 or 60 feet off the ground. I called down to Luke and asked how high he thought I had climbed. "60 feet!" he shouted back up. I pressed on and soon came to the end of the rope never seeing a belay stance at "95 feet". Instead I was at a terrible stance at 160 feet that was not fit for three people. Additionally, the gear placements were poor and I had to get creative by slinging a block high above the belay stance with a long cordlette.

As I belayed Luke and Julie, I snuck glances further up the route to find key features the guidebook described. It seemed like we were a little too far to the right, but still on course to meet up with a roof that we would pass on the right. Well, I hoped it was the right roof. It was the largest of three or four in the general vicinity. The more I looked up at the route the more confused I got.

Luke and Julie hung in like champs occupying the belay that was really fit for only one person. I continued up good face climbing towards the largest roof directly above us. I pulled through a steep move and popped out on a large sloping ledge. Looking straight up towards the roof I saw harder than 5.8, and potentially unprotected, rock. I sniffed around and found an easy traverse to the left on the ledge, which brought me to a dirty and grassy corner directly under the roof. I paused to look back down the face and knew immediately that we had climbed too far to the right. There was a much more natural line to the left that would have brought us straight up without the 15 foot traverse.

Speaking of that 15 foot traverse...it was coming back to haunt me already. As I started up the dirty corner to the roof the rope drag continually tried to pull me off the route. At first it felt like I was climbing with a 25 pound weight clipped to my harness, but as I was making crucial moves through the right side of the roof the weight increased to 100 pounds. I was making animalistic snarling and grunting noises, trying to pull gobs of rope up with my left hand just so I could move my feet up. The beastly audio soon transitioned to human F-bombs dropped mercilessly on my poor route finding.

"That's me!" Luke hollered up from the belay signaling that I had reached the end of the rope. Grrrrreat! I thought. I was not far above the roof and nowhere close to any good protection. I called down that I might be a minute and started searching for anything that would accept gear. A small cam went into a crack behind a block that was held into the face by what looked like two inches of moss. A second cam went in a few feet higher in a weird slot behind a hollow flake. Feeling dejected I put Luke and Julie on belay and told them to start climbing.

When Luke and Julie arrived at the crappy belay I hurriedly climbed up and to the left 30 feet to a ledge with a small pine tree on it. I was able to place bomber anchors then quickly belayed the others up for a much needed break and rack reorganization. From this good ledge it was two pitches of 4+ class climbing to the summit. We quickly cruised up only placing gear for one more belay stance.

Julie climbing on the final pitch of 4th class rock.

It was our second time on the summit in two days and this time we remembered to break the camera out for photos. More smoke blew in from the southwest creating an beautiful scene with the best God's Light I had seen all summer. Luke took advantage with some spiritual poses on the highest summit block. We retraced our descent from yesterday getting caught in a very light snow at the top of the 4th of July Couloir.

"This is how you pose on the summit guys."

Luke's spiritual pose.

We were soon back at our camp on the knoll where it was only slightly warmer. We could see rain falling further down the basin and hoped that it would cease before we got to it. We packed up our camp and began the three and a half downhill trod back to the trail head. We avoided any rain and arrived tired, but stoked at our cars. It had been a great weekend of alpine rock climbing with just enough micro disasters to keep things interesting.