ropes left on Sharkstooth approach

smellygregman wrote:That's a good reminder for the shelter. Ours was for the rain, rather than lightning. With the huge number of spires around the valley and our low position, we would have had to be very unlucky indeed for the lightning to be an issue (not the case for the guys high on the lightning rod that is the Sharkstooth, however)

I used to believe that until the time I backpacked to an alpine lake in a Cirque on the other side of the Divide. I had to race a Thunderstorm and just beat it to the edge of the lake.

I was very satisfied that I beat the storm and was standing at the edge of the lake enjoying the storm, when a lightning bolt hit no more that 30-40 vertical feet up the Cirque wall. There must of been a steam explosion because large boulders were exploded into the air.

smellygregman wrote:Sorry for the very late reply to this, but I might have some insight. I climbed Sharkstooth from that side on Aug 14th. There were two young guys from Austin, TX that did the approach with us, and started the first pitch just behind us. It was their first alpine climb, and seemed a little out of their element (one leader, QDs instead of slings), but had good attitudes. My partner and I hung out on the summit for a few, then got a stuck rope on the final rap that took some time to retrieve. Once we hiked back to the base, we could see the leader had just set up a belay on maybe the second to last pitch, and yelled to him to take heed of the weather that was moving in rapidly, and to give some beta on the rap stations. Before we got halfway through the Gash, the sky opened up and dumped on us, with lightning striking the valley walls. I was extremely worried for their safety (we were sheltered and waiting it out in a boulder cave). I checked news reports for a couple of days after, but didn't hear anything and assumed they managed to get off ok. The approach had worked them pretty badly, so they may have just been eager to get the hell out of there and sacrificed the gear to speed the hike out. I'm guessing that even ditching that gear, they were probably looking at close to a 24hr push. I hope the best for them, I'm sure that they have some good stories to tell in any case, and probably aren't sweating the lost gear.

Do you remember what color ropes they were using?

Jim Fox wrote: Do you remember what color ropes they were using?

Man, it seems like forever ago. From the one pic I found with them in it, it looks like there might be a green rope on one of the packs. For some reason I feel like the other rope was a really light color, maybe even white... but again it was awhile ago, so I could be completely wrong.

smellygregman wrote: Man, it seems like forever ago. From the one pic I found with them in it, it looks like there might be a green rope on one of the packs. For some reason I feel like the other rope was a really light color, maybe even white... but again it was awhile ago, so I could be completely wrong.

The two ropes we saw were both green, one a lighter green, so maybe they were left by the guys from TX

I think that it's a pretty safe assumption, I dug through the photos again and am sure that at least one rope was green, no sign of the second one.
We were the only two parties through the gash the whole day. There was at least one party on the petit, but from sky pond side. Also, we did the climb through the gash on the right side for the approach (looking toward Sharkstooth), but took the climbers trail on the other side (skiers right) of the gash for the return. There weren't any ropes on either trail. We went at a pretty leisurely ~15hr c2c pace, but those guys were at least several hrs behind us and probably very fatigued. A good example of how one person's fun outing can be another's epic. I just hope they look back on it and convince themselves that it was actually fun (it usually takes me a few days).

smellygregman wrote:I think that it's a pretty safe assumption, I dug through the photos again and am sure that at least one rope was green, no sign of the second one. We were the only two parties through the gash the whole day. There was at least one party on the petit, but from sky pond side. Also, we did the climb through the gash on the right side for the approach (looking toward Sharkstooth), but took the climbers trail on the other side (skiers right) of the gash for the return. There weren't any ropes on either trail. We went at a pretty leisurely ~15hr c2c pace, but those guys were at least several hrs behind us and probably very fatigued. A good example of how one person's fun outing can be another's epic. I just hope they look back on it and convince themselves that it was actually fun (it usually takes me a few days).

Yeah, that climb up the gash was pretty brutal and we had perfect weather. Took us much longer than I anticipated...