My first foray into mountaineering! During an evening of drinks and catching up, Rahul invited me to join him on a mountaineering trip in mid-May. There was no way I could refuse.

Rahul and I set out from San Francisco around 0500 on a Friday morning. With no traffic, we were soon at Yosemite. We took the Tioga Pass, which yielded lovely Yosemite high country scenes. Once we hit Mono Lake, we turned north up the 395 to stop by Bridgeport for our wilderness permits, before finally reaching Twin Lakes Resort. There, we parked our car and set off for the trailhead around 1300.

Tent

We followed followed the trail up decent switchbacks, before reach a fork and taking the trail that follows Horse Creek Trail. The path levelled out, and we walked along some nice wooded areas along the creek. As we started to gain elevation again, we saw rock and snow, bare before us. Before we knew it, we had our crampons strapped and ice axes in hand. We trekked across some flat land, searching for the correct path up the upcoming ridge. We were supposed to take the right fork of Horse Creek, but with the entire creek under snow, it was hard to find. Thus, we took the easiest route up, a wide, gently (enough) sloped bowl. Even that was tough; I hadn’t yet learned how much to trust my crampons, so I had plenty of adrenaline pumping as I pushed myself up that bowl. By the time we reached the top, it was nearly 1700 (Rahul had difficulties with his crampons all afternoon), the wind was howling, and the sky was white. We quickly searched for a camping site and settled on a decently sheltered area. Then, we bunkered down, ate, and passed out.

Valley

Matterhorn

Peaks

Panorama

Valley

We woke up to our alarms at 0400…and we heard the wind still howling. Exercising prudence, we decided to cancel the summit attempt. We slept in, then headed further up the ridge to explore anyway. We reached the top of a small hill, where we found a wonderful campsite and views of Matterhorn Peak and the Incredible Hulk. To see the peak so close and to realize it was completely out of grasp really hurt. The peak was beautiful though. We could make out many crampon tracks, as well as skiing tracks (I should really get into backcountry skiing!). The tracks led up to the left, cresting over a lip, before reaching the base of the peak. We would’ve taken East Coulour up and then scrambled up the South-East side. Alas, clouds and snow were swirling around the peak. The summit would have to wait for another trip.

After taking in the view for a bit, we headed back down. We glissaded a bit, which was very fun. I was initially afraid of freaking out and sliding down the entire steep ridge, but the ice axe was pretty easy to use. Also, walking down hill wasn’t as horrible as I was daydreaming about, although I am still not as confident as I would like. We packed up camp, headed down the big bowl, and took the quick, easy stroll back down to our car. Along the way, we stopped and stared back at the mountains, now nearly in complete white-out conditions, wind and snow howling. We’ll be coming back.