Mammoth 2024
Mammoth Trip, 2024
September 07
Gong Show and Iris Slab
4 km and 240 m elevation gain in 4:40 hours. And a bit of driving.
We hoped to acclimatize on our first day by top-roping on Iris Slab, just as Stella and I had intended the year before. Just as we arrived outside the gate, a group of climbers got out of their car and prepared to do the same thing. For us that would have been too crowded, so we settled for Plan B.
Plan B was to hike out of Mosquito Flat in Little Lakes Valley. But this was the first Saturday after Labor Day, and it was impossible to find parking anywhere at all. This was very frustrating! We beat a retreat and drove back down the hill.
Plan C was no plan at all, actually, just an idea. We went to Gong Show where last year Stella and I had a trad gear class with Jo. We showed Bill how to use cams and nuts, and we practiced one handed clove hitches with either hand, gate in either direction. We showed Bill the routes we had climbed last year - and the 5.8 lead route looked tantalizingly easy with the two easily stick-clip accessible bolts, but we'd left all our other gear in the car.
With still a little time left, we drove back to Iris Slab where we could see the other group was no longer on the wall. We just hiked up to the base to take a look. The other group was just leaving as we arrived. We all examined the cliff, and dug our fingers into the cracks, wondering how it would climb, if we ever got a chance to actually do it.
