Sat, Sep 30, 2017
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Sean had contacted me a few weeks ago to see if I might be interested in
doing Tharps Rock in SEKI NP, a class 5 summit I'd failed on two previous
attempts. After some thought, I suggested we might do it on a weekend in
conjunction with Wren
Peak, an obscure summit overlooking Kings Canyon at the western end of the
Monarch Divide. He readily agreed and I soon had Matthew and a few others
interested in joining. Matthew and I had first considered Wren when we had
made an excursion to its eastern neighbor, Eagle Peaks. At the time we decided
it was too far (about 1.8mi) and we were already in for a long day.
Both summits have
been neglected by the climbing community. They had appeared in the
earlier editions of the Climbers Guide to the High Sierra, those
edited by Hervey Voge and Andy Smatko. When Steve Roper's version came out in
1972 they were both dropped, never to appear later in Secor's editions. There
is very little information available on the peaks, particularly Wren. From
Smatko's guidebook, we knew the first ascent was in 1970. If anyone had
visited it since then, it does not show up in an online search. Much of this is
due to the difficultly of access. There used to
be a trail forking off the Deer Cove Trail to Happy Gap, about 2.5mi northeast
of Wren Peak, the route used for the first ascent. Matthew and I had
used this abandoned trail for our effort to Eagle Peaks, but it was badly
overgrown and nearly obliterated. That would be much too hard. An easier, but
still difficult route would rise from Kings Canyon and SR180 from the south,
only about 3mi distance but climbing nearly 6,000ft in elevation. A fire had
burned over parts of this cross-country route in 2015 which we hoped would
have stripped off much of the heavy brush (poison oak, buckthorn, manzanita,
etc) that might make it yet more difficult. It was this route that we planned
for, meeting up at a large turnout on the highway for a 7a start.
The route turned out to be better than any of us had expected. There was some
poison oak, but it wasn't too much and most of it was at the lower elevations
in the beginning. Interestingly, there were several bunches of the stuff at
the 6,000-foot level, some 500ft higher than I'd ever seen it growing before.
The hardest parts were all in the beginning where the route
is steepest as it
climbs out of the river gorge. We had to circumvent the poison oak we found
here, making the route a bit more circuitous than it would otherwise be. After
the first 1/3mi, the ridgeline turned from east to north at
the 4,700-foot level. Most of the poison oak ended here but there were
lots of
dry grasses
gone to seed that would get inside the boots and socks of those without
gaiters (which turned out to be most of us). We would use the time at our
regroup points to clean these out periodically.
Matthew and I
were well out ahead for most of the hike, but would stop every 1,000-1,500ft of
gain to give the others a chance to catch up.
Scott and Iris were
usually the next to arrive, followed by Matt and eventually Sean and
Asaka. Sean seems to have misread
the weather reports, finding it warmer than he had expected and carrying
insufficient water supplies. He was sweating a good deal in the first half
of the route, but wisely chose to go slower for the second half, reducing his
sweating and helping to conserve his supplies.
Most of the route was standard class 2 with occasional class 3 moves here and
there. The brush was already starting to regrow at a healthy rate two years
after the fire, but there wasn't enough yet to create walls of the stuff, and
we almost always found less brushy routes through it. The charred snags would
stripe most of our clothes with black streaks, but these were a small price to
pay for the easier travel the fire had provided.
There was some rock scrambling on
generally decent rock, but some sections were loose and not worth much. Higher
up, after we'd finished our third and last regrouping, there was a section of
rock along
the ridge without grass or brush that provided a little fun
scrambling. We
bypassed a section of this on the ascent, but found
that didn't really save any time and on the way back we would simply stick to
the ridge.
It was five hours before we reached the
open summit with
surprisingly far-reaching views. In addition to the expected views
east
and
west along the Kings River drainage, we could see Mt. Goddard to
the north, the Kaweahs to
the south and nearly the entire
stretch of the Great Western
Divide. There were other neat views, too, including Buck Rock, the Obelisk,
Tehipite Dome, Kettle Dome, Grand Dike and so much more. A film cannister
register we found was from
a 1990 party
(none of the names were recognizable),
not the 1970 party we had hoped to find. This group appears to be a collection
of botanists from various universities and government agencies, not your usual
peakbaggers. We looked under a great many summit rocks but found no other
registers. We would leave one of our own before we left. There was much
discussion about continuing to Eagle Peaks, calculations
as to how long different legs would take and such, but in the end only Scott
decided to continue the adventure (no surprise there). We
bade him goodbye and good luck before
starting down
ourselves around 1:30p.
Once again Matthew and I were out in front, making pretty
swift progress down the dirt and grass slopes, a little slower through the
rock and poison oak areas, but managing to get down in less than 1/2
the time it took for the ascent. The others would be more than two hours
behind, but shortly
before 6p we had everyone safely down (save for Scott who successfully made it
to Eagle Peaks and then back to the Deer Cove TH by 7:30p). Sean and Asaka went
down to the river to rinse off and wash in Technu. We were late getting to the
cafe at Grant Grove before they closed at 7p, but with the store still open I
was able to procure a Hard Mikes which was almost as good the burger I had
hoped to have with it. Good times...
Continued...
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