Dorodo Needle and Klawatti 7-12-09

[RAM]

Day 2 started with that reddish sky that warns of unsettled weather. Dorado
Needle, hidden behind the bulk of Eldorado, had intrigued for years. The glacier
(McCalister) was tricky, but the 5.4 knife edge seemed easy. Aaron squeezed it
into one pitch and all followed quickly, noting that in such places the rope is
not of much function. The joke being that it is for body retrieval. Here the
follower must not fall either!

The clouds came up from the valley and engulfed us just as we got back on the
glacier, from the summit, at 10:30 AM. Having our footprints to follow through
the maze of crevasses while in a cloud was.....ah....helpful! We headed over to
the base of Klawatti Peak, an island of rock, in a sea of snow and ice. The
usual camping spot was still under snow and the pass was windy. We moved over to
the south side and set up the tarps on the snow and hunkered down through a
midday storm. When it cleared just a bit at 4 PM, we grabbed our weather window
and sprinted for the summit. The orange and gray skies, with more clouds flowing
up the valleys, motivated us off the peak and back to camp in time for a
whiteout.

It would be more than 22 hours before we would have any real viability and then
on the side of a different mountain. It rained and sleeted through the evening,
night and the whole of the next morning. Our snow floor turned to ice under us
and the bit of angle had us sliding out of the shelter regularly. The body
stiffened, but the company was good.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aramv14/...Klawatti71209#