Search trip reports
Placeholder Routes & Places

Trip Report    

Basic Glacier Climb - Mount Hinman/Hinman Glacier

Great two days spent climbing Hinman and La Bohn Peaks in the beautiful Necklace Valley.

Rodica Manole Rodica Manole
July 15, 2019
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Necklace Valley Trail is in great conditions. Stinging nettles claimed (in some two weeks ago trip reports) to be present around mile 4 are gone. It was obvious that someone did "clean-up" the trail and cut most of the overgrown vegetation. Trail was muddy or had some running water on it in some places above Jade Lake but there was nothing hard to negotiate. No snow encountered until we got on the steep slope  to La Bohn Gap (the upper part, 400 ft or so). Crampons and ice axes were mandatory given hard snow pack conditions. We camped in the beautiful and melted out La Bohn Lakes area. The scramble up La Bohn Peak was a straight forward rock scramble and Hinman climb itself  was mainly a high end rock scramble with very few unavoidable snow slopes. The steepest snow slope / traverse was encountered right before the summit ridge and crampons +ice axes were used but all participants (including basic students) were comfortable climbing it without a rope. On our way out we used the waterfall route (instead of steep La Bohn Gap snow slope), which is a steep climbers trail on the (climbers) right side of the waterfall. It was wet in places and a few times veggie belays were necessary.

    Bugs were present but not as bad as expected thanks to breezy conditions.

    Given Hinman glacier conditions (not offering glacier travel opportunities), all 4 students received alpine (not glacier) credit.

Party of 8 successfully climbed Hinman (Saturday-Sunday) with car camp at Necklace Valley TH on Friday night. After a 7:45 hours approach (finished climbing the steep La Bohn Gap snow slope) we setup camp close to the bigger La Bohn Lake. After having lunch and a short rest, 6 of us decided to go and scramble La Bohn Peak before dinner time. Sunday am we had a 3:45 AM start for Hinman and in 3 hours we were on the summit. Had good weather, windy at times, and had gorgeous views all the way up (just the right amount of clouds  for  photography). After we left the summit we ended up in the whiteout  until we got back closer to the camp and then had a beautiful sunny but not too hot rest of the day. Overall it took us ~5 hours camp-summit- camp. Packed up camp and started the hike out by 10:40. Decided to avoid down climbing the steep hard snow slope from La Bohn Gap and went for the (not hard to find) waterfall climbers trail instead. Most of the group made it back at the cars in 7 hours.

Almost 30 miles RT  and ~7,500 ft elevation gain (for those who opted for La Bohn Peak as well) . Sore feet but happy souls at the end. Necklace Valley is indeed a hidden gem.