Freel Peak and Sugarloaf

[lizolas]

Freel Peak and Sugarloaf

March 23-24, 2019

Online dating can be a great way to meet hiking and climbing partners. It can also be a great way to meet people who are less than ideal hiking and climbing partners. This one seemed to be the first, but ended up feeling like the latter. After one date at the climbing gym, Austin and I planned a trip to do a ski/snowshoe of something in the Tahoe area. We decided on Freel Peak as something that would be a long enough day to be challenging, but shouldn’t have much in the way of hazardous terrain. Since we had another day in the weekend, we planned to climb at Sugarloaf on Sunday.

Freel Peak (10,886’) has been on my to-do list ever since I first created a hiking to-do list of prominent peaks and county highpoints. It’s #37 of 42 on the list of California peaks over 10,000’ with at least 500m of prominence and the ninth highest county high point (El Dorado County). That list has sort of been put on the back burner now as I would rather work on more technical skills; many of the peaks on that list are accessible by class 1 trails from highways at high elevation and are not really a huge challenge. The approach to Freel gets a bit longer in the winter when some roads are closed/unplowed but is still a walkup. Our approach from the south starting from 89 was going to be 6.5 miles each way.

Breakfast of Champions

After my previous trips having gone as slowly as 1 mph average, I was concerned that our 8 am start time might be an underestimation of how slowly I was going to go on snowshoes compared to Austin on skis. I figured the worst that would happen was A Long Day, and I was fine with getting back to the car in the dark. As we left the car, I realized I hadn’t actually downloaded the area on Gaia. The map it showed wasn’t high enough resolution to determine where we were in relation to the peak or the trails leading to the peak. It turned out that the path Austin was following wasn’t shown on Gaia at all anyway. I spent most of the morning feeling like I had no clue where I was going, regretting not having clarified our route and put a CalTopo GPX file on my phone for it.

Near the creek through snowy trees

For almost 4 miles we followed ski and snowmobile tracks on what would be the usual trail. Those 4 miles took us just under 2 hours. After that, we needed to start heading uphill. We had differing opinions on how that should happen, and being the doormat I am, of course my way was not the way we took. To be fair, part of the difference was due to our footwear. On skis it’s easier to cut across the side of a hill; on snowshoes it’s easier to just walk up the crest of a ridge or the bottom of a drainage. Austin pointed out a drainage between two “ridges” (really they were more like long hills, not narrow at all) and said that’s what we were aiming for. I thought, “great, that looks easy to ascend.” He then started heading straight up the side of one of the ridges, and following him was nearly impossible for me in some places. “I’m not great at routefinding,” seemed an odd reason when he’d pointed out the route and then ignored the easiest way to get up it. Not that I’m the best routefinder by any means, but I’m usually pretty good at finding the least-effort way up the terrain right in front of me.

Sometimes I wonder if the only way to learn lessons is the hard way. It’s like I was watching myself all over again when, while I stopped for a snack, Austin proudly said he never ate until the summit. That’s all well and good until your summit takes longer to reach than your glycogen stores last. If I haven’t managed any other personal growth as a hiker, I’ve at least learned very well that starving yourself is not an indication of fitness - your body still needs calories to move.

Our ascent rate was somewhat hampered by the conditions. While for the most part the wind and snow weren’t enough to make us miserable, there was never a point on the approach when we could clearly see the peak. A clear view of Freel and the surrounding peaks would have made it much more obvious which route to take, but I suppose if I ever want to consider myself a real alpeener I need to learn to navigate without visibility. Fortunately on this hike, the ascent has lots of room for choosing your own adventure. We eventually crossed onto the other side of the drainage and kept walking on whatever seemed the lowest angle, heading toward the saddle we couldn’t see but knew was somewhere ahead of us. The saddle is at 10,500’, just 300 vertical feet below the summit, and I thought surely we would see the peak from there. No, we still headed up blindly into nothing but white.

The best view we got of the saddle (also the last picture I took before my phone died)

A few minutes into this final section, Austin slipped on ice (my lack of slipping was due to wearing crampon-type snowshoes, not due to any superior skill). I suggested we change into crampons at that point since the windblown ridge didn’t have deep snow anymore, and we were likely to run into more such ice. I thought the ridge was going to go on a lot longer than it did. At 1:15 we found ourselves at the summit marked with some human-made rock windbreaks. They didn’t help much. My phone died as soon as I tried to take a picture of the summit and I didn’t succeed in getting it to stay on again until partway down the descent. After a brief stop for summit Oreos, Austin got his skis on and we started down. I felt kind of bad for how slowly he had to go while I kept catching up to him.

The customary Summit Oreo

Down the hill on the flatter portion, he disappeared and I gave up on catching him before stopping to trade my crampons for snowshoes and see if my phone would turn on. It did, but Strava lost that portion of the hike. He had stopped to wait for me a bit farther on. We continued on this flat section until the terrain suddenly got steeper again. I kept my snowshoes on, half to see what would happen and half because I have the idea that if you’re going to change footwear, it better be either to save your life or to save you a lot more time than it takes to switch. I did go more slowly down the steeper part with snowshoes, but not a whole lot more slowly. The snow was soft and I was sliding a bit but not falling.

Coming down out of the worst of the visibility and back to the flatter trail walking

At the bottom of the hill we were near the area where we’d departed from the trail on the way in. There was some disagreement about where the path had been. Austin thought it was on the same side of the creek that we were on. I was 100% sure that I remembered it being on the other side, since we’d just passed our tracks across the creek and we decided not to cross there, and eventually pulled out Strava to confirm we were no longer on our approach trail. I found our tracks on the other side and we continued out that way.

Mildly interesting icicles over a creek

On the hike in, I’d said that the worst part of a day like this isn’t the climbing uphill, it’s the gentle walk back out where you’re ready to be done but still have several more miles of trail to go. This turned out to be how we felt on the way out. Austin seemed tired and I was hungry, so I proposed a snack break. Right up until the point that he was lying on the ground saying he wanted to take a nap, he was still proud of himself for not eating til the summit. Or anything on or after the summit except an Oreo. I tried again to convince him that food makes hiking less miserable, and he did eat some granola bars while I ate my afternoon snack of champions.

Also the afternoon snack of champions.

After that I think we both felt better, and continued the remaining 3 miles to the car, arriving at 4:45. We had dinner in South Lake Tahoe and drove to the Echo Lake Sno-Park for the night, the closest one to our Sugarloaf climbing destination for the next morning.

Despite the forecast saying there would be lows of 25-30 when we woke up it was 14 degrees, and everything was wet and frozen. I think Lani is right, unfortunately, and you really need an insulated van for this sort of thing. Keeping the windows cracked and sunroof open helped the last time, but maybe with 2 people there’s too much moisture to properly vent.

Starting off the morning so cold, I wasn’t convinced we were going to want to go climbing. We decided to hike up there and check out the conditions anyway, and found it sunny and pleasant at the lower elevation. It turned out that I hadn’t read Mountain Project very closely. Most of the lower-graded sport routes listed in the “Sugarloaf Area” were bolted slabs on smaller boulders away from the main formation, and most of the trad climbing in the grade range I wanted to start with was wide and/or awkward climbing. For the first climb of the day, Austin led Farley, a 5.9 lieback. Having been told that “It’s just [grade]” is a perfectly acceptable thing to say when someone is scared on a lead, I was tempted to ask why he was sewing it up when it was “only 5.9” after he placed 4 pieces in about 6 feet. After that he realized he was nearly out of gear in addition to having forgotten to bring anchor materials with him, but got to the top and built an anchor with nothing to spare.

I really wanted my toprope attempt at it to prove that I should lead it. Unfortunately it didn’t go that way. I think I need to get a little bit more back into things before I start taking on even harder routes than I’ve done before. I did send it (cleaning all the gear without leaving it to hang on the rope), but just barely, and not by enough to believe I could lead it that day. We moved on to a 10d, which he had sent before, but this time was either in worse shape or overthinking not unsending it, and he fell a few times at the crux. When I toproped it, I had to cheat to get past the very wet, slimy beginning moves. After that things didn’t go much better, and I fell every few moves because, despite all the encouragement that there were great finger locks, I have no idea how to climb thin cracks. I also had to cheat to get past the crux (which involves a pinky jam and smearing feet).

Finally convinced that I really was as terrible a climber as I’d advertised myself to be, Austin suggested we to Scheister, a 3- or 4-pitch 5.7. I didn’t want to lead the first awkward chimney pitch, so he did that. I followed it and very much regretted taking a backpack. I fell - on toprope - which he seemed to find hilarious and think I should find humiliating. Little did he know that that’s not even my worst fall; I’ve fallen toproping 5.7 without a backpack as an excuse, I just didn’t see all the holds near me.

By this point he’d really sucked all the fun out of climbing for me. There was nothing I could do that would be acceptable by his standards. I needed to be climbing as hard as he was, or as hard as he’d been climbing 3 years into it, or something. My gym grade relative to my outdoor grade should be the same as his. Having already established that I’m not comfortable with liebacks, he offered nothing but “it’s only 5.6” as I struggled to lead the next pitch, climbing back down to the ledge just above the belay several times before finally committing to it. When he reached me at the next anchor, there was no acknowledgment of how much effort I’d put in, only comments about how the crack wasn’t wet at all where he started (I apparently started the lieback lower than necessary) and he didn’t know what had taken me so long. He also noted that I hadn’t placed much gear after the lieback. It felt like 4th class that didn’t really need protection or more rope drag.

The third pitch was one move of easy slab made awkward by the roof I kept hitting my head on, followed by 5.easy liebacks and a gully with a handcrack and stemming to get to the ledge before the “tunnel-through” to the top. Again I placed only 2 pieces after the bolt on the slab section. I was told I should do the last portion if I “wanted redemption [from my pitch 1 toprope fall].” I declined. Backpack or no backpack, I don’t know how to climb chimneys well enough to want to lead one, even if it’s supposed to be very secure with the right technique.

Summit views

I’d just about had enough of his shit when, on the “walkoff” (3rd-4th class scramble), he asked “How are you so bad at this?” His entire attitude toward me was as though I’d previously made claims of being some great, accomplished alpinist. I’ve never in my life claimed to be more than marginally competent at climbing. I’ve never in my life claimed to be anything but bad at downclimbing, which he recalled right after he asked how I could be so bad at downclimbing. Most of his stories with friends involved phrases like “I made my friend lead” or “I dragged my friends up.” I got the impression that he often pushed people into doing things they weren’t comfortable with, but didn’t actually consider their abilities or what would be a reasonable way for them to expand their comfort zone and was more interested in making them do difficult things so he could then show off by doing it with ease. That’s something I don’t want in a climbing partner, and by the end of the day I was sure I’d never climb with him again.

The descent took us past a 10b thin crack he’d been meaning to try, so we stopped there. For someone shitting on my inability to climb very hard, he sure didn’t climb very hard either, relative to his claimed 10+/11- ability. He fell at the second piece he placed, then hung at almost every piece through the traverse since he’d already lost the possibility of a send. Of course, I couldn’t have led that route at all (I couldn’t get off the ground on a toprope attempt and had to cheat again), but I felt vindicated by how low his outdoor grade was compared to his gym grade when compared to reality, not just his all-time highest grade climbed. I wasn’t upset at all with my climbing. I wished I’d been with someone who could have either kept their mouth shut, or recognized that the effort I was putting into climbing was full effort, regardless of the grade. I have complete confidence that my performance that day was largely due to it being the first time climbing outside in 6 months, not overall failure as a climber.

Lessons Learned:

• Don’t go climbing with software engineers.