Mount Humphreys 13,992′ – East Arete
Rock Climbing– Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 12:30
Distance: 13.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 6500′
Crux: Class 5.5
Pitches: 4
Protection: Small rack, alpine slings, 55 meter rope
Companions: Levi Cover
Trailhead: Buttermilk Road- no services
I had slowly but systematically ticking away the main summits of the Bishop skyline- Mount Tom, Basin, Four Gables and most recently Mount Emerson this past spring. The last major summit left was the crown jewel- Mount Humphreys. At just under 14,000′, it is one of 15 Sierra Club Emblem Peaks. The standard route climbs the west side via a long approach with a short section of fourth class. But I had been eyeing the far more classic East Arete. Rated 5.4, it was first climbed by Norman Clyde in 1935 after several failed attempts, and follows an intermittently narrow ridge of rock to a final exhilarating technical pitch to the summit. Despite the easy rating, the climb is notoriously long, climbing over 6,000′ from the high desert of the Eastern Sierra and a rough road just getting to the trailhead. I knew this would be a tough one to find a partner for, and was pretty excited when Levi took up my offer to climb it Labor Day weekend. He was kind enough to pick me up in Mammoth to give Holly the car for the day, and the two of us drove south, passing the Buttermilk Boulders on a progressively rougher road. We were nearing the limits of Levi’s comfort level with his car as we hit the Horton Lakes turnoff, the furthest up the road I had personally been up the Buttermilks Road. He pushed on a bit further to find a spot for us to camp for the night, and found that the road dramatically improved as it curved south beneath Basin Mountain, going from loose rock to packed dirt. We made it a little over a mile further, going over one dry creek crossing before finding a murky stream crossing of an uncertain depth. There was an abandoned dirt road just before, and we pulled off and made camp for the night, Levi sleeping in the back of his car while I slept on a cot under the stars. We set our alarms for 5 AM, no hint of light on the horizon this late in the summer. We got ready by headlamp and left just after 6 AM, dawn just beginning to break as we set out. In the light, it seemed the creek crossing would have been shallow enough for Levi’s car, although just beyond was the crux of the road, a series of much larger rocks embedded in the road that would have likely required a higher clearance.
Satisfied that we stopped at the best spot, we continued along the road, passing through an aspen grove with a great but occupied campsite and up the road towards its end and official start of the approach. Levi’s sunglasses self destructed as we neared the round-about end of the dirt road, and as he set off repairing them with some steri-strips from my pack, I eyed the approach ahead. The summit of Mount Humphreys and the majority of the East Ridge was partially obscured by Peaklet 12,237′, but we needed to follow the trail from the end of the road and aim for the bench that would lead us to the saddle between Humphreys and the Peaklet. We started on the trail, lost in conversation, until we found ourselves tracking too far to the north, the trail likely headed to Longley Lake and not the climbers trail that we were expecting. Luckily, cross country at this elevation was easy enough, dancing around scrub and sage brush along the base of some granite cliff bands and formations to a steep weakness. When we reached the upper bench we took a short break, as I thought the saddle and official start of the route was still another 1,000′ of elevation gain.
In reality it was closer to 700′ to the saddle, and it was 9:00 AM when we reached the notch below Peaklet 12,237′ and start of the East Arete, taking 3 hours from where we had parked. We took another short break to put on harnesses, and I put on a comfortable pair of climbing shoes, preferring them for scrambling and the low fifth class climbing that was to come.
A short stretch of talus hopping put us on the ridgeline proper, nothing exceeding class 3 with good exposure to the north but plenty of ledges to the south. Despite looking very deliberately for it and staying fairly true to the ridgeline, we never did find the iconic knife edge to recreate the photo of Peter Croft walking across, although there were still a number of spots that made for good pictures.
When we hit the notch below Peak 13,151′, we cut low left across the face, then scrambled up class 3 to the summit of the unnamed peak, an easy bonus tag for the day. From the summit, it seemed as if we could see the majority of the remainder of the route, although in reality the upper portion was still out of view.
The ridgeline narrowed considerably here, and after scrambling a bit further I called for the rope- the climbing was easy but a fall would be very consequential. Levi built a quick anchor and I started out, thoroughly enjoying the quality rock with exposure on both sides and low fifth class moves sprinkled in. I moved past a boulder balanced along the ridgeline and hit the first rappel station, rappelling a short 5.7 crack which would be the crux of the route if soloing without a rope. I had read it was sandbagged as a 5.7, the crack flared and sloped, with key feet completely hidden under an overhang- probably no problem going up, but very tricky as an onsight downclimb.
The two of us finished the rappel and I coiled the route, the ridge becoming far less exposed as we scrambled down the ridgeline to a deep notch with a pyramid of rock between us on the upper ridgeline. Traversing left of the pyramid of rock (which allowed us to skip the 5.6 downclimb) brought us to a higher notch, and based on the Supertopo, where we expected the headwall to be. I will say that this next section we did incorrectly, so I will provide the beta on what we did, along with what we should have done with some hindsight bias. The rock just above the notch was quite steep, and we incorrectly thought that this was the headwall on the topo after the notch with the pyramidal subpeak. In actuality, it was another 400-500′ up the ridgeline, and there was an easy class 2-3 gully to regain the ridge just past this steep section. But we missed the gully, looking for a 5.5 crack- of which there were plenty of options. There were a series of cracks near the end of the ramp that seemed promising, and after sizing them up to be about 5.5 from the base, we flaked the rope and I started up on lead.
The lower 40-50′ were certainly in the 5.5 range, and I felt confident I was on route. But these cracks led to a mini roof- very climbable but definitely harder than 5.5. I looked left and saw a rappel station at the top of the chimney and headed that way, thinking I was back on track. But the rock quality above this deteriorated quickly, and I climbed a short 5.8 seam with a flared crack for pro to regain the ridgeline. Back on the ridge, it was back to scrambling, but the rope drag from the lower pieces made simulclimbing difficult. It wasn’t long before I reached the actual headwall, a 70′ vertical step up along the ridgeline, but at this point I had no idea where I was based on the Supertopo. I guess correctly that I needed to traverse left of the headwall to gain some clean cracks- the actual 5.5 cracks for the start of the technical section of the route, and clipped into a higher rappel station to bring up Levi.
At this point I was still unsure of where we were based on the topo so we stayed roped up, more due to the unknown than the difficult climbing or exposure. A bit further up, I recognized the hand traverse around a perched boulder to at least place us back on the topo. However, I messed this up too, staying too low after the traverse instead of regaining the ridgeline leading us into some of the loosest rock of the entire climb. After working around a few very loose gullies we were back on the ridge, widening dramatically to a small sandy plateau. We followed a climbers trail along the plateau, through a tunnel to a notch, the summit now fully in view above Married Man’s Notch.
An easy talus traverse brought us to the notch and we looked up at the final pitch of the climb. Breaking up the rope once more, I started up the 5.4 summit pitch, far and away the most enjoyable pitch of the entire route with limitless protection options and clean straightforward jamming. I passed a low rappel station and continued a bit higher to the summit rocks, before slinging a horn and bring up Levi.
It was after 1:30 PM when we reached the summit, a bit longer than I had expected but still a decent time considering the length and complexity of the route. I had enough service to Facetime Avery and Holly from the summit, and after a brief phone call, we had a late lunch and enjoyed the outstanding views to the Palisades, Evolution region, Humphreys Basin and peaks around Mammoth to the north.
After splitting his customary celebratory summit pickle, we started back down to the lower rappel station. I bounce tested the anchor a few times, the cord looking fairly new, and rappelled back down to Married Men’s Notch, my 55m just long enough with a bit of a swing to get into the notch proper. Back in the notch, Levi wanted to climb the spire on the opposite side, supposedly named Married Man’s Point as a consolation prize for all of the married men who couldn’t justify the final technical pitch with a family at home. The highest of the spires was some tricky class 3 above a notch, but with solid holds where needed. He would tell me later that when reading about it after, the unofficial Married Men’s Point was likely the lower spire closer to the notch. Oh well. We regained the notch to the sandy plateau, heading back through the tunnel to the hand traverse near the boulder, the spot I had been dreading the most for the return. I decided to try and keep on the ridgeline a bit longer and found a nice downclimb just before the boulder with some huge knobs jutting out of the granite to keep things easy. We were able to scramble all the way back to the rappel station at the top of the actual headwall. After cutting some of the older webbing and adding a fresh strand of our own, we each rappelled down.
Levi continued along the ridgeline which took us to the class 2-3 gully that we had missed on the ascent, bypassing all of the unnecessary technical climbing at the start of the upper ridgeline and getting us back to our cached gear and start of the descent gully. As we were packing up our climbing gear, Levi’s helmet rolled down the slope, heading down far out of sight in the only side gully that cliffed out below. Hoping that it went over the cliffs to the snowfield at the base, we started down the sandy descent, just loose enough in places to boot ski and plunge step quickly down to the snow field below. Unfortunately Levi’s helmet had gotten hung up out of sight, our own casualty to the long day of climbing.
After emptying out our boots of sand we hit the moraine and large boulder field at the toe of the snow. We traversed smaller talus for a bit before reaching a grassy notch. Following the stream coming off the snowfield looked like it would lead to thrashing through willows, so we stayed high, filtering water in the stream coming from the unnamed lake at 11,000′. Back in sagebrush, we aimed for our ascent gully just above the road and found a nice use trail along the south side of the broad sandy drainage with a series of rock spires that Levi couldn’t help but scramble up.
This use trail fizzled out and we headed cross country using our GPS to aim for the roundabout and road back to the car. It was just after 6:30 when we reached the car, the outing taking 12.5 hours, a little better than the 13 hours I had budgeted. After gas and a quick bit to eat in Bishop Levi drove me back to Mammoth, smoke rolling in from the Garnet Fire which would foil any additional plans for the rest of the holiday weekend.
