It was a blustery morning as we started up at 6am, walking around Deluge Lake and back up the pass just north of it. I had planned to reach Cache 2 just below the Zodiac Ridge today, which would set us up nicely for the Zodiac Traverse the following day.
Easy class 3 along the crest led to the summits of Palomino Point and Mt. Valhalla a short distance from eachother.
An initially easy descent from Valhalla led to a jumble of pinnacles which we easily bypassed on the right (west) on class 3 terrain, then as the ridge hooked east we briefly hooked back and up west to summit the small Rainstorm Peak.
A short and easy section of ridge connected Rainstorm to Sleet peak.
From Sleet, the sketchy section of the day was visible. Even though it was only a little more than half a mile, this next section from Sleet to Hail would take about an hour. The nice granite we had been on prior would immediately deteriorate into sedimentary shale which often crumbled at the slightest touch and often sent rockslides careening down gullies. This section, which I dubbed the "Messy Ridge Traverse" contained a small highpoint in the middle, the namesake Messy Ridge. This little peak marked roughly the halfway point in terms of effort across the Messy Ridge Traverse, even though it was just a quarter of the way across distance wise.
We descended along a sandy ledge (class 4) which ran along the north side of Sleet to the next notch, then began the "northern bypass," a series of narrow sandy ledges which hugged the northern sides of the next few pinnacles. There were a few chunks of frozen snow on these ledges, but they were melted out enough that we were able to chimney between snow and rock at times. The northern bypass eventually brought us to the northwest side of Messy Ridge's twin summits. We scrambled up the southern summit which was the slightly higher one.
From the summit of Messy Ridge, we could see the next section of jumbled ridges and bad rock. This section, the "Southern Bypass," utilized a series of ledges and gullies on the opposite side of the ridge. We slowly eased ourselves into it, spreading out to keep from knocking rocks on eachother. I delicately lowered myself down a rapidly decomposing class 4-5 chimney (crux) onto a series of more horizontal ledges which continued east and then followed them back onto the ridge where they joined the following notch.
From there, most of sketchiness was behind us. We continued along the ridge crest up and over a couple more bumps, arriving at the spot where Hail Peak's west ridge started up. A couple 4th class/easy 5th moves just right (south) of the ridge brought us onto it, followed by easier terrain to the summit of Hail.
I was so happy after getting through the Messy Ridge Traverse, having heard of a couple stories from other about it's sketchiness. All remaining terrain for the day would be relatively straightforward.
The connecting ridge to Silverthorne was easy class 2. We put on our slogging hats and grinded up the talus, taking about an hour to reach Silverthorne's broad rocky summit.
From Silverthorne, we descended briefly east along its summit plateau, aiming for an obvious lowpoint before the plateau rose again further east. From there we continued descending south down a steep class 2-3 gully, eventually heading in a more southeast direction towards the northern end of the Zodiac Ridge. Upon reaching it, we did an quick scramble up and down the west side of Aires, the northernmost and easiest tower on the Zodiac Traverse.
After Aires, we descended to the saddle between Aires and Sagittarius. This would be our stopping point for the day, as accessing the terrain ahead would require rope and gear which we had cached at Cache 2. We continued descending another 800 ft of elevation south, first on talus and then on grassy ledges, to reach Cache 2.
It was only early afternoon and I felt great. We located the cache which I had set up under a large boulder, a glacial erratic, sitting smack in the middle of a beautiful alpine meadow with a backdrop of the Zodiac Ridge. We spent the rest of the day casually setting up camp and lounging around the meadow, going over our gear checklist for the Zodiac Traverse the following day, and studying up on those intimidating-looking towers stretching across our eastern skyline.
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