I hadn't done much in the Sierra lately, and the season was drawing to a close. I figured I could check out some fall color and bag an SPS peak and get some exercise and pics with the new camera and hike with Iris - winning all around. Iris was a little nervous about the scope of this peak, but it didn't look like TOO big of an objective. We did figure we needed an early start - especially with the shorter days this time of year. We packed up most of our stuff the night before, including ice axes and crampons since you never know...
2023-10-22 The 5 am alarm was definitely earlier than I wanted. I got up and worked on tea and breakfast as well as getting the gear into the truck and looking up (briefly) in the hope of seeing an Orionid meteor (no). We headed out about 6 and it was getting light by the time we left the S Lake trailhead around 6:50. We could just see the first bit of sun hitting the high peaks across the lake as we headed up the trail. It was still chilly but hiking uphill and wearing gloves and hoods and or buffs and hats helped keep us warm. Unfortunately we were a little late for fall color - there was some, but most of the aspen leaves up here at almost 10,000 feet had fallen off.
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We took the Treasure Lakes trail and then left it before it cut back across the stream and started off trail up the slope. We took a better route up than we did on the challenge on the way to Cheba Spire earlier in the year. Then we went over the ridge and dropped down towards the creek. There was a lot less snow, but still some snow patches. These were mostly old hard snow, but there was some fresh snow too, mostly on top of the old snow or up high in the shade. The creek was also a lot lower than earlier in the year. This made following it uphill a lot easier. We filled up with water just before the last lake (we were taking a break, so I did it then rather than waiting for the lake a few hundred feet higher), unfortunately Iris had started with a full water bladder so didn't need to fill - but had carried all that extra weight up to here.
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Then we headed up past the last lake and around a few snowfields and up the talus towards Ski Mountaineers Peak - it was almost on the way to Mount Thompson, and Iris had not climbed it yet, although I had on day 4 of the 2012 Sierra Challenge. We were not moving very fast by now - not too surprising as we were at about 13000 feet and Iris especially had not been up high in ages. There was a little bit of scrambling over some big blocks to get to the 13,280 foot summit and we were glad to enjoy the views, take a short break, and eat a bagel and summit brownie.
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Next up was the main event - Mount Thompson. Supposedly a class 3 scramble. We headed down the ridge towards the notch between the 2 peaks and soon it became apparent things were more than 3rd class - at least along the ridge. Iris dropped down on the east side and found a notch to get past a sub-ridge and back to the route up Mt Thompson. I was still on the ridge far above and stowed my camera before some low 5th class downclimbing back to her. Then we worked our way up the ridge. It often looked pretty sketchy up ahead but there was a 3rd class or easier way somewhere - often in a shallow trough up the ridge. We also mostly dodged a few patches of fresh snow in the shade. We saw a few cairns but not really enough to help us navigate. We crawled through one little hole and later detoured around one gendarme on the west side, but mostly we were on the ridge or the east side. At the end we followed another ramp/trough up and left (east) onto the summit plateau. The 13,494 foot summit was marked near the north end of the plateau but there was a clearly higher series of towers a little south of that. We found the register there. Iris did some summit dances and we ate another bagel and brownie. The wind was cold and we were wearing nearly all our clothes up here and didn't take much off on the descent. The views in all directions were most excellent with some moody low clouds and perhaps wildfire smoke in the valleys to the south.
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The descent went a little more smoothly, but it was still slow going for the steepest parts. We also were able to cut east from the notch since we didn't need to go back to Ski Mountaineers Pk. There was less wind down lower, but still enough to keep it cold and at one point I had to dig out my warmer insulated gloves since the fingertips had holes in the leather ones I was wearing and my fingertips were getting really cold. By now the sun was getting low and it set before we got up to the ridge. On the descent it got dark enough to need headlamps and was fully dark by the time we hit the trail. Our speed could pick up a bit, but not by a whole lot. As usual the trail on the descent seemed a lot longer than it had in the morning. Iris in particular was feeling the effects of not getting much mountain time in the previous months. We did manage to almost catch a group of backpackers ahead of us though.
It was a nice day out - although a little colder than necessary and definitely a bigger day than Iris needed. We didn't use our ice axes or crampons, but were glad to have all the clothes we brought (even if I never did wear my windbreaker).
my Strava page for Mount Thompson and Ski Mountaineer Pk