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Trip Report    

Basic Alpine Climb - Silver Star Mountain/Silver Star Creek

Route conditions, weather, and group-fitness all played a role in providing an insufficient level of suffering.

Ian Dickson Ian Dickson
June 10, 2018
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Unfortunately, route conditions were such that we found very few opportunities for true suffering.  The climbers trail on the way in was littered with cairns and survey tape, for instance, making it very difficult to get lost or travel on unpleasant terrain.  Snow conditions in the upper bowls provided for safe, fast travel and perfect glissading, which really limited the opportunities as well.

Timeline:

  • 5:15am left cars
  • 11:30am summit
  • 4:15pm return

Equipment Notes:

  • ice axe, crampons 
  • setup a hand-line for security on the 4th class down-climb

Details:

The day started out on a wrong-note right away as everyone showed up on time,  well prepared with positive attitudes.  The weather also was a problem, as with a 50% chance of rain, I was hoping to begin hiking in at least a drizzle.  Instead, we had clear calm conditions.   Disappointing.

I charged off into the woods hoping to get totally lost.  However the navigation skills of the participants and the ubiquity of reasonable navigation markers such as cairns and surveyors tape, made this very challenging.

I was able to divert the team through a pointless and time-consuming boulder field.  Which raised my spirits somewhat.

Further-on we encountered what looked to be some seriously heinous bushwhacking.  However the members at the head of the group found a way through the troubles that was far too easy for my liking.  I remedied this  somewhat on the way down by leading the team myself.  This allowed for a nice section of very tedious and unpleasant slide-alder wrestling.   Alas, there was far too little of it.

Snow conditions also proved challenging with only occasional post-holing, safe and fast kick-stepping, and on the way down pointlessly perfect glissading.  

For the leader looking for more type II "fun" on this route I would suggest: a) a poorer forecast, 50% chance of rain is just too little on this route to get truly drenched, b) careful choice of companions: try to find poorly-conditioned ones with repugnant, or even obnoxious, personalities, c) more unpleasant route conditions: waiting a few weeks for plant-growth to make this a brush-choked tunnel-of-hell with unpleasant scree and boulder hopping on the upper mountain would be preferable.

ian.