California Institute of Technology

Caltech Alpine Club's year in review

See pictures from the large club trips to Mt. Whitney and Mt. Shasta, late winter 2009.

Year in review, 2008/2009

Click an image to see a higher resolution version (it will always open in the same window, so you do not need to close this window)

Some of these were shown at the slideshow/BBQ in early October 2009. We had about 40 participants, making it one of the largest Alpine Club events ever.

This year's theme seemed to be Mt. Russell. There were probably half a dozen independent trips to climb it. It's a fantastic peak.

Photos are arranged by season, but otherwise in a rather random order (partly based on when they were received, and partly alphabetical by photographer).

Summer and Fall, 2008

In addition to usual California trips, Nick Stadie and Pratyush Tiwary fooled around in the Himalaya a bit. There were at least a few trips to the Cascades (Stephen and Sean, and Dan). In late Fall (actually, it was December), the Hamik and Garrett (and Garrett's brother Tim) launched an assault in Pico de Orizaba in Mexico after practicing on Mt. Russell in nasty conditions.

For pure rock climbing, Greg Huey was the dominant force in the club, arranging trips not only bi-weekly, but sometimes tri-weekly. SoCal and Red Rocks were the major destinations.

Winter, 2008/2009

In SoCal, the winter was characterized by unrelenting storms in February that kept dumping snow in the local mountains. Backcountry skiing on Mt. Baldy was good, and the rumour is that a few club members went skiing on weekdays...

Once again, the club held it's annual Winter Mountaineering Trips. There was a practice trip to Mt. Baldy and then the usual trip to Mt. Whitney (everyone doing it in two days). We wanted to climb Shasta, but the only difficult route was the Casaval Ridge, which the leaders had never done. We went for it anyway, and it worked out well. There are additional pictures from these trips are at the very bottom of the page.

There was a brief weekend trip to boulder around Bishop and climb at Lee Vining. JoHanna and Morgan organized a subsidized avalanche course with SMI in Bishop.

And on the less dangerous side, we again screened the Banff Mountain Film Festival in March, with about 300 people in attendance.

Summer (and late Spring and early Fall), 2009

There was a lot of activity, mainly in SoCal, the Sierras and Yosemite (and a quick trip or too to Rainier). There were several small informal club trips, going to mountains like Williamson, Middle Palisade and Cloudripper. Overseas trips included Pratyush going back to the Himalaya, this time with Garret and Hamik. Hamik climbed a bit in Chamonix, and Stephan, who's time in Pasadena was up, climbed once again in his native Switzerland.

There was at least one new iron man, and the club's leaders (Stephen and Sean) both got married (not to each other). Sean left Caltech for good, trading off sunshine for Vancouver, BC. Mike and JoHanna both got married (to each other).

In August, Brett crushed the existing record for hiking the JMT with support. He did this unsupported. Over 200 miles, over 60,000' gain, in about 3.5 days. Not bad for the previous Alpine Club president.

Greg Huey continued to lead the charge for rock climbing trips, and the list is now very active with many people leading informal trips every week, in addition to the regular Tuesday night climbing at indoor gyms.

The school year was kicked off with a great slideshow (where many of these pictures are from) and BBQ. With about 30 or 40 people in attendance, it was a great turnout.

Daina's Mt. Lowe story

The Club's Winter Mountaineering Trips

Practice trip to Mt. Baldy

We had 28 people this year! Sean and Justus covered topics like crampon use, ropework, and basic snow mountaineering skills. This was in late February, after having to cancel a few dates due to the perpetual snowstorms that SoCal received in February.

There are also pictures on Erik's Picasa account, Mary Laura's Picasa account, and Stephan's Picasa account

Mt. Whitney

Most years, we camp at the trailhead Thursday night, then climb to Lower Boy Scout Lake for Friday, go up to Iceberg Lake on Saturday, and summit and return on Sunday. This year, due to a forecasted storm that was to come in on Saturday night, we had to be a bit faster, so we made it all the way to Iceberg Lake by Friday night, putting us in position to summit on Saturday. The mountain was crowded this year -- many other groups! We had 11 people, plus Sean and Stefan who joined us later (and Justin, who ran into us; and Fu Hai and his team of 5). March 20 - 21 (and we camped at the trailhead Thur March 19).

Below are some pictures taken by Martin and Stephen; click the picture for a larger version. Stephen has a photoalbum online as well, and there are pictures on Martin's picasa account and on Stephan's picasa account

Mt. Shasta

After a bit of debate, we decided to tackle Mt. Shasta's Casaval ridge as our second winter Sierra trip in 2009. This ridge is considered the premier mountaineering route on the mountain (though perhaps not quite the hardest route), and is usually attempted in winter. Although Stephen and Sean had led the club to Shasta in 2006, that was a summer trip; no one in the group had ever done the Casaval Ridge before, so there was some uncertainty as to how difficult the trip would be. From reading internet trip reports, it seemed that many parties don't stick to the upper ridge, but we weren't going to wimp out...

Things went well, and a good number of us made it to the summit. Friday night (April 3) we drove to Sacramento, camped in the backyard of Eli's parents, enjoyed a wonderful home-cooked breakfast in the morning, and arrived in the City of Mt. Shasta around noon on Saturday. The hike in to Horse Camp was easy and short (maybe 1 hour of hiking), and we camped here instead of camping higher on the ridge since this was the last point where our ascent and descent routes were together. We woke about 2 AM Sunday morning and climbed throughout the day. Everyone was back at camp around 4 PM (a few of us came down the ridge, most came down Avalanche gulch, and we had two ski descents of different chutes into Avalanche Gulch).

Pictures below are due to Annelen and Martin. Click the image to see a larger size.