Mount Abbott

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By: Gary Craig

It is with great joy that I announce to the world that this weekend, Linda McDermott qualified for SPS Emblem status on Mt. Abbot.

Congratulations Linda!

Our group consisted of Linda, Mitch Miller, Paul Sue, Richard Whitcomb, Ron Bartell, and myself (Gary Craig). We packed in early Saturday to Treasure Lakes in the Little Lakes valley, and at noon Mitch, Richard, and I trudged off, up the Hourglass to snag Mt. Dade -- we needed it, and the others relaxed in camp. After summiting, Richard had a nasty slide of about 100' or so while descending the snow in the Hourglass, which had hardened up some in the late afternoon. He managed to arrest before hitting the rocks, and was luckily only shaken and bruised. This was enough to convince Richard to remain in camp on Sunday, forgoing Abbot.

The remaining five of us headed for the North Couloir route on Abbot at 6:45 Sunday morning. The snow at the bottom of the couloir was sufficiently hard when we got to it (despite direct sun for a few hours) that we used crampons for a short bit before reaching the rock on the lower right side of the couloir. No problems here; we scrambled up (cl 3) to Abbot's north ridge, and then south along the ridge to the summit, which we reached about 11:30. Celebratory brownies were passed around, followed by the obligatory "summit hero" photos. The return to camp went smoothly, and we were packing up the tents to head out by 3PM.

The weather was cool and breezy all weekend. It was mostly clear, except for some lenticular clouds on Sunday afternoon. No rain. A fine weekend.