Basic Rock Climb - Ingalls Peak/South Ridge

We arrived at DeRoux Campground Friday evening. 

In the morning, everyone was ready on time and we arrived at the trailhead at 5am.   Rajan and Erika, who we'd just met, kept a good pace and were fun to hike with.

Approaching the climb, we hiked around the backside (West) of Dogtooth Crags and scrambled to a nice bench at the base of the climb (8:45).It appears that some may climb the front side of Dogtooth Crags as a first pitch.  We started climbing at 9am.

The rock texture was not what I expected.  While all the rock we traveled on during the approach had great friction, the climb itself felt slippery.  Still, it was a very pleasant couple pitches and a nice summit.

As you come over the final part of the technical climbing onto the upper shelf, there is a false summit that appears at the top of the ridgeline.  Scramble/traverse to the left side around to the North for the true summit.

All were on summit at 10:45.

After a nice summit lunch, we started heading down at 11am. I rappelled first to begin getting the 2nd rappel ready.

We did 3 rappels. 1st: single rope rappel, 2nd: double length rappel to the packs, and 3rd: single rope down the initial scramble to the trail. We reached the packs on the bench at 12:20 and were on trail by 12:30.

Since the transition had already taken place at the base of the 1st pitch, we were able to start hiking back without an additional delay.

It was a simple hike back and we reached the cars at 3:15pm.  We were the only ones on Ingalls Peak the entire day but we saw over 50 people on the hiking trail.

It was a great hike and fun climb with fun people.