The Incredible Hulk, now?

Curious if anyone knows how accessible the hulk would be right now? Obviously it would be snow from the car to the wall but I’m guessing the wall would be almost totally dry right now as it’s over a month without any precip. It’s unseasonably warm this weekend so I wanted to get up there if I can before I move off the west coast in a few weeks. Any access info would be awesome. Thanks in advance!

I was in Bridgeport a couple days ago and it was still very snowy there.  So I’m pretty sure you are  right that it will be snow the whole way up there. Climbing wise, I bet the wall is snow free.  The crux will be temps.  Bridgeport has a range from mid teens to a high of 50 this weekend.  Assume the Hulk will be around 15 degrees colder without any wind chill effects.  So over all I’d say that is on the chilly side but not necessarily unclimbable.  Those conditions would be reasonable if you were in Patagonia in a chilly but clear weather window.  

If you had an accident or things were to go sideways it could turn very serious and very epic up there quickly.  So I’d say the requisite skills for winter alpine climbing would be a must.  Margins for error would be a lot lower than climbing there in the summer.

I climbed the Hulk last March  in a warm weather window.  We did Beeline as it is one of the first routes in the sun which was nice.  Red Dihedral would be the other obvious choice but I’d expect to have to mostly aid climb the corner as it is left facing (in the shade) and will be very cold.  We chose to rap Venturi so we wouldn’t have to climb with boots/crampons/axes.  This involves some funky traversing at the end to reach the anchors.  Not totally sure I’d recommend it.

Overall I’d say it is fairly serious objective this time of year when the temps are so low.

Mikey Schaefer wrote:

I was in Bridgeport a couple days ago and it was still very snowy there.  So I’m pretty sure you are  right that it will be snow the whole way up there. Climbing wise, I bet the wall is snow free.  The crux will be temps.  Bridgeport has a range from mid teens to a high of 50 this weekend.  Assume the Hulk will be around 15 degrees colder without any wind chill effects.  So over all I’d say that is on the chilly side but not necessarily unclimbable.  Those conditions would be reasonable if you were in Patagonia in a chilly but clear weather window.  

If you had an accident or things were to go sideways it could turn very serious and very epic up there quickly.  So I’d say the requisite skills for winter alpine climbing would be a must.  Margins for error would be a lot lower than climbing there in the summer.

I climbed the Hulk last March  in a warm weather window.  We did Beeline as it is one of the first routes in the sun which was nice.  Red Dihedral would be the other obvious choice but I’d expect to have to mostly aid climb the corner as it is left facing (in the shade) and will be very cold.  We chose to rap Venturi so we wouldn’t have to climb with boots/crampons/axes.  This involves some funky traversing at the end to reach the anchors.  Not totally sure I’d recommend it.

Overall I’d say it is fairly serious objective this time of year when the temps are so low.

That’s great word, thanks Mikey. I just went up Whitney’s EB a few days ago and it was very enjoyable in the sun. I could certainly see it turning foul quickly in full shade with some wind though. I appreciate the insight!

Here is a trip report from Chris McNamara on the first known winter ascent of the Hulk in 2016: supertopo.com/tr/Incredible…

I just looked at a couple pics and don’t think beeline will be in the sun till around noon or a bit later this time of year.   Then probably back in the shade around 5.  Not a lot of time in the sun. The only good thing about that is it means you don’t have to wake up early!  We started climbing around 1 once it had warmed up a bit.

Nice pic Schuyler! That doesn’t look like it was taken from a commercial jet?  

And a bit less snow than I expected.  Wind must have blown all the snow down to Bridgeport.  Probably very quick approach and descent right now on skis.