Basic Rock Climb - Ingalls Peak/South Ridge

We slept at the trailhead after driving up the washboard gravel road and started up the Ingalls Lake Trail in twilight at 5:20am.  We were a party of five, a mentored leader, a rope leader, a primary leader and two participants.  The dawn broke to a warm sunny day.  We stopped at Ingalls Lake and filtered water, then worked our way up the ‘pick our own’ slabs and scree route to the base of the climb.

We roped up as two teams; a team of three, with two ropes simul-belaying the two followers, and a team of two.  We were the first party on the rock and did not see another team until after we summited.  We linked pitches one and two and pitches three and four.  We needed the full 70 meters of our ropes and encountered some drag on pitches three and four.  We carried single racks, doubled up on .5”-2” cams.  Both teams climbed the 5.6 crack.  It all went off smoothly.  The clouds rolled in and we had a few sprinkles at the top. 

After tagging the summit we rappelled down using single rope rappels on pitches four and three and a single rope for pitches two and one:  The rope was tied off at the top of pitch two and it was tied off in the middle at the top of pitch one.  The team used the rope as a prussic backed up handline to downclimb pitch two and a single strand rappel down pitch one.  The last leader threw the rope down from pitch two and down climbed the pitch, then rigged the rope for a two strand rappel down pitch one.

We had cooler temperatures hiking back to the trailhead with threatening clouds that passed through without spilling their contents.  Disappointed, one of our team went for a plunge in Lake Ingalls.  We arrived back at the trailhead twelve hours after our departure.