Hamilton Mt, west half of south face (fail)

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Chip Down
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Joined: November 8th, 2014, 8:41 pm

Hamilton Mt, west half of south face (fail)

Post by Chip Down » May 20th, 2017, 7:22 pm

A few months ago I climbed up the east ridge of Hamilton. When approaching the east ridge via a traverse under the south face, I observed a few promising routes, but passed them by on the way to my destination. Today I went back to investigate.

There's really not much benefit to posting a blow-by-blow. Suffice to say it was a miserable bushwhack. Even so, it would have been worth continuing if not for the poison oak. It doesn't usually turn me back, but when the terrain is steep enough that the PO is right in front of your face, and a minor slip can result in a roll in the PO, it just isn't worth it anymore. Possibly the first time I've aborted a route due to PO. I tried several options, but they were all the same.

Dropped down and bushwhacked back west in gentler terrain, and regained the trail. Haven't been up the standard route on Hamilton in many years, so went on up. Fun. Didn't bother spending any time at the top, but did follow the trail just a little to the north to check out the top of the eastern route I did a few months ago. Horribly brushy. You'd be crazy to do that route without heavy snow coverage. On the way down I saw hundreds of hikers. That's not an exaggeration. The was a time when I stepped off trail to let them pass, and they kept coming, like a parade, or like clowns out of a beatle. Loud. Rude. Trailhogs. Even on the drive down the road from the TH to SR14, hikers were in the middle of the road, completely oblivious.

A couple interesting finds off the beaten track: the Hamilton summit USGS benchmark, and an engraved memorial stone.
Attachments
20170520_085720.jpg
This is the scope of my attempt. Pretty much tried every way to get up that. At the left and right of frame are cliffs way beyond what any "hiker" could climb.

Couldn't get in a position to capture all this in one pic, so had to figure out how to use panorama mode. Hence the even-worse-than-usual quality.
20170520_084420.jpg
The rugged central south face of Hamilton, from a perspective rarely enjoyed. Today's failure was to the left; the winter success was to the right.
20170520_114422.jpg
20170520_122348.jpg
Something went wrong with this. It was sour and funky, and smelled like a barnyard. Kidding; it's supposed to be like that.

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