The Bookends: NW Ridge of Sir Donald, lost and rained out in the Ghost, and East Ridge of Choss Hell

On either side of Neale and I's time in the Bugs we climbed the NE Ridge of Mt. Sir Donald on the way in, then went to the Ghost Valley to get lost and do a little rappelling in the rain, then we decided that since the East Ridge of Mt. Temple was an uber-classic, we should climb it.

On the way up to Sir Donald we saw a sobbing and lonely Joel hiking back to the car.  I had met Joel a few times the previous summer.  He had hooked up with some guys that decided to bail on the mountain, and didn't feel like soloing it alone (due to idiocies in climbing lingo, that's not redundant).  So he joined our team, and climbed solo with me and Neale (and that's not contradictory).

Joel.

The ridge is pretty cool.  Sustained but reasonably easy
on good, juggy rock, we climbed the whole thing unroped
in our approach shoes, though we had a rope and a small rack.

HANDSOME fuckin' guys on the summit.

Joel rapping off.

Then we went to the Bugs.  We sent that shit.  But you knew that.

The weather forecast in the Bugs was going bad, and I was tired, so we hiked out.  It poured.  So we visited Matt and Charlie (Charlie is a girl) and went to the Ghost.  

We spent some time getting lost.  But the weather was nice.

Then we'd get to the climbs, and it would start to rain.
This is rapping from 2 pitches up - the highest we ever made it.

So we'd had enough.  Matt had climbed the East Ridge of Temple before, and is an asshole, so he told us we should do it.  So we got up early, parked in the wrong spot, wandered around in the bushes, walked back to the car, re-parked, and tried again.

Low on the ridge.  Early on we realized it wasn't that good,
but I wasn't excited about downclimbing, so we just kept
going up.

The Big Step.  This is the only steep climbing
on the route, and is the crux (5.7).  The rock is
actually okay, but it wasn't very reassuring, and
it was steep.

All in all, the mountain is a tottering pile of shit and should be
avoided.

Nice view, though.

"We're gonna fucking die up here."

Neale found an old triathlon magazine and a pile of human shit
in the bivy sites.

Then we went somewhere near "the black towers" and got
off-route and soloed this flowing chimney.

We agreed it was the worst climbing we'd ever done.

See the bail webbing up there?  I bet it tells a
gruesome story.

It rained on the other side of the valley.

This chimney got us out.  We roped up right here.

Putting on crampons once we hit the ridge.

I was slow.  Neale had to wait.  Why was I slow?  I don't
really know.  Just tired, I guess.

Neale gets into the spirit. 

Summit!

The surf down scree off the summit was the best part.

The descent is LONG.

But pretty.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the staff at Blogger for dramatically improving the interface since the last time I posted.  I think they finally fired everyone's kids and hired actual software engineers.