Boston and Sahale 7-17-09
It was 3:30 in the afternoon and Sonny was gone. Boston Peak is the high point
in an important cirque, but the peak has an awful reputation for looseness and
poor quality rock. In fack the rock is quite shattered, but as opposed to loose
it is more.....how to say?.....grabby! We had stuck a rope when Melon and I had
done the peak 13 years earlier. Aaron really "wanted" the mountain. What a funny
way to put it? As if we could own it. As we have been saying the last year or
so..."The mountain doesn't care.""The canyon doesn't care."
On the way over toward the base of the final peak, Aaron was asking me
questions. I couldn't hear him. I was trying to "get into the mode," on the
knife edge approach. I finally snapped at him with a "WHAT?" He quieted down and
allowed me to get comfortable with the passage. He led the 1.25 pitches of steep
low class 5 and we were on the ridge, 150 feet of knife edge from the summit.
You can see pictures of Aaron coming over to the top.
The summit has the nicest register I have ever seen. A large and fine leather
bound book. It was placed in 1966 and was only on page 46. We were the 2nd party
of the year. Inside was a who's who of alpine climbing. It was neat to have our
names alongside the luminaries. Everyone responds to the fine book by writing in
fine penmanship and the book is sprinkled with fine art work too. It is like to
use obscenity or to not be neat would be criminal.
We carefully executed the 3 single rope raps off the south face and found that
we had time to sprint up Sahale, summiting at 8:30 PM. A fast trot down the
Quein Sabe Glacier had us eating dinner in fading light, which in the
neighborhood was close to 10 PM, that time of year. To bed soon after. The famed
west ridge of Forbidden was on the docket for early the next morning. The mid
felt empty now that Sonny was gone.
http://picasaweb.google.com/aramv14/...ndSahale71709#
