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Basic Alpine Climb - Kangaroo Temple/North Face

Great early season climb of KT

Jill Uthoff Jill Uthoff
May 28, 2018
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Snow was hard in the morning getting to the notch. The route up KT was pretty straight forward and mostly dry. We started the first belay up high (up a scramble, to a really great big ledge) so leaders with 60m ropes could make it to the bolts at what we called the the end of the first pitch, super easy climbing with A TON of rope drag. Use doubles for most placements. Pitch 2 is crazy short with where we ended P1. Pitch 3 with the blind corner is super fun, and very exposed. Like the beta said, not a great climb for the timid. After P3, Most groups scrambled to top.  

First time ever for the whole group (4 teams) on KT, super fun time.We left the hairpin at 6AM, headed for the notch. The snow was hard so we did very little post-holing, but it got slick as the route started to get steeper. I had the majority of the group put on crampons and take out axes as we headed to the pass. It was pretty hard snow, you could kick steps, but they were shallow and it would have significantly slowed the group if we didn't have them (one of the leaders and myself didn't have crampons. We were fine, but it was a bit sketchy). We made it to the notch/high ledge and the first group started climbing around 9:15. All groups made it to the summit at 12:45. We headed back down around 1:30. We did 4 single rope rappels back to the bottom of the gully, packed up and headed out. The snow had significantly softened (as expected) so we were able to plunge step down the snow slope and the majority of the way out. Got to the cars at 4:55pm. Had a super strong group, so it made it really fun.