Saturday, July 21, 2007

Climb the Pfeifferhorn

On Thursday I climbed the Pfierfferhorn, an 11237 foot peak in the central Wasatch mountains.  After getting a typical non-Alpine start at 10 o'clock I started up the trail towards Red Alpine Lake about five miles away.  Two hours later I arrived at this beautiful little lake set in a small glacial valley.  Filling up with water I began the slog up to the ridge line that would connect me with the final climb to the summit.  Once I got to the final little bit of ridge before the summit I got a little freaked out because the scrambling that layed before me looked quite exposed and too be honest scared me a little bit; especially because I was all alone.  So I sat down on a rock and took in the view while I thought about what I was going to do.  Shortly a group of Canadian tourists came along and I hooked up with them and we all scrambled through the large boulders on the ridge and up the steep slope to the summit, where we all took in some magnificent views.  I was pretty happy that Andrew, Sara, and Cameron from Toronto showed up because I might have chickened out otherwise.  Later we scrambled down the hill and about an hour and a half later arrived back at the trail head.  It was truely a great day in the mountains, the craziest thing was that this guy Cameron did the entire thing in flip flops!
 
 
*Note I didn't take the pictures, they are from SummitPost.com*
 
Red Alpine Lake looking towards Little Cottonwood Canyon
Pfeifferhorn
A look at the summit from the east
West Face, looks kinda like the Matterhorn huh?
Jagged ridge on the way to the summit.
Lone Peak from Pfeifferhorn
A look at Lone Peak from the summit of Pfierfferhorn
Pfeifferhorn east face
Route up to the summit, notice the nasty boulders on the ridge.

1 comment:

bryanbgood said...

wow, it looks like you had a great time Ben! Way to get out there and do it!