Matterhorn Peak 12,301′
Rock Climbing– California
Total Time: 12:30
Distance: 14.9 miles
Elevation Gain: 5500′
Crux: 5.7
Pitches: 6
Protection: Singles 0.4 to BD #3, many slings, 55m rope
Companions: Cory B
Trailhead: Twin Lakes, full services
I was ticking off a number of alpine classics in the High Sierra, and after climbing the Mendenhall Couloir on Laurel Mountain with Holly and the East Buttress of Mount Whitney with Jesse, I now had my sights set on the North Arete of Matterhorn Peak, my third technical alpine route in less than a month. This time, I would be climbing with Cory, who I had convinced to make the long drive from Fresno for a single day ascent. It would be a long day, and we started early, meeting in Bridgeport before 4:30 AM, driving to the marina at the end of Twin Lakes and starting out before 5 AM. The Horse Creek Trail is hidden in the back of an RV Park, and we wandered through the camp, illuminated by Christmas lights strung between RVs and trees to the hum of several generators running. We found the trailhead easily enough and started up the gentle switchbacks in darkness, making good time up to the meadows at ~8100′ where we took our first break, daybreak illuminating the Sawtooths, the first time either of us had been in this subrange of the Sierra.
Beyond the meadow, the trail began to slowly deteriorate, and we would briefly lose it and push through head high brush or cross fields of talus, but never for long. There was a surprising amount of smoke in the air as we climbed higher- a small fire had started one valley to the south the day before, although the air would largely clear by the time we reached the North Arete.
As the trail crossed a section of red talus, it climbed more steeply up to a shallow col at 9500′. We left the main trail here, picking up a reasonable use trail up a shallow ridge to the southwest and a small lake just over 9800′.
There were a handful of campers at the lake although we would have the route to ourselves for the holiday weekend, with one party getting lost on the ascent the day before, and another party of five bailing after 2 pitches. We paused to filter water for the climb before continuing along up the narrow valley, the North Arete of Matterhorn Peak at the head. We scrambled onto a shallow slabby ridge to our left, following it onto the moraine all the way to the glacier. Although it had initially looked like we would be able to avoid the glacier entirely, we did need to cross a short, nearly flat section at the base to gain the higher talus and scree above.
This late in the season, the glacier was so deeply suncupped that crampons or any additional traction would have been dead weight, and we quickly reached the upper edge of the glacier, the start of the route now only a few hundred feet above. Unfortunately, this last section was by far the most tedious trying to ascend sand and loose rock, often sliding down a half step for every step forward. I found better footing and more solid rock away from the glacier’s edge on the left wall of the gully, following braided use trails to the base of the north arete. The start of the climb is not particularly obvious, a fractured ramp located about 200′ up from the prow of the arete and a bit past a large buttress splitting the lower face. I referenced a photo of the route from Mountainproject and found the correct ramp, mostly third class to start with a small 5.6 bulge above.
The wind was whipping through the notch above, and I could barely feel my hands as I started up on lead on the first pitch, easily working around the bulge to easier ground above. It was basically walking across the ledge to one more low fifth class move through a notch formed by a leaning boulder. Despite having only placed two pieces, I was now feeling some good rope drag moving around the notch, and found the first of two bail stations left by the party, backing it up with a cam for a quick anchor to bring up Cory.
Cory swung onto lead for the second pitch, another short 5.6 headwall followed by more third and fourth class, leading to the arete proper and the second bail anchor. We knew the first two pitches were essentially approach pitches and hoped the climbing would improve higher up. I started up the third pitch, weaving around flakes and boulders up to a 5.4 mantle where I placed my first piece.
Although not difficult, the mantle move was onto loose scree, and I imagined this was where the party before decided to bail. This led me to a ramp and around a corner, again with significant rope drag from the wandery and scrambly nature of the route. Another pitch, another one move wonder. The fourth pitch did look more promising, with Cory heading up a nice hand crack to the right of the belay leading to a wider crack above. This was the first pitch with any real sustained climbing, fairly consistent 5.6 up to the belay and back to the arete proper.
The right side of the arete was the upper pitches of the Double Dihedral Route 5.8, but our route crossed the arete back into the sun, more third class followed by low fifth class move around a chokestone to the start of the final crux pitch. All three of my leads had been one move wonder pitches with Cory getting the only real sustained climbing on pitch four, so he offered me the lead up the final corner. A rock to the left of the dihedral was so incredibly featured you could basically climb it directly and use the corner for protection, and I hadn’t realized that I was at the wider crux (thank you #4), until I was essentially past it.
The upper third of the pitch can be either continued by climbing a chimney up to the summit ridgeline, or by rejoining the arete proper. Since we had done essentially no climbing on the arete proper I elected for the latter, following a ramp out right back onto the arete with a few exciting moves directly up the prow, the last feeling a bit harder than 5.7 (I think I was supposed to move around the final boulders to the right). I slung a boulder and brought up Cory, the summit about 300′ horizontal to the south.
The first stretch of the summit ridge was quite exposed, and we pitched out one last section with an exposed traverse around a gendarme before the terrain fizzled to second class. We took a break just below the summit out of the wind before tagging the highpoint and taking the obligatory summit shots, the smoke having created a thin haze across the High Sierra.
With a long descent ahead of us, we dropped down the ridgeline to the southeast. I had read one could drop down the southeast slopes to the Horse Creek Trail directly, avoiding the loose rock and glacier on the return. This initially worked out well as we boot skied the sand down to the saddle between Matterhorn Peak and Twin Peaks.
While I expected to find a decent trail at the saddle, there was barely a use trail to follow, and what there was we would often quickly loose in loose talus of the patches of lingering snow. Our pace on the descent was much slower than I expected because of this, and it wasn’t until we were nearly at the turnoff for our ascent route that we were able to follow any real trail consistently.
Once on more reasonable trail our pace improved, dropping into Horse Creek Meadows and down to the long set of switchbacks above Twin Lakes.
We hit the car after about 12.5 hours on the move, more or less what I had expected although we both agreed we probably should have just descended the standard route rather than dropping directly to the almost nonexistent upper Horse Creek Trail. We parted ways at Twin Lakes, Cory heading up and over Sonora Pass, while I headed back south for a final night in Mammoth.