To the bridge

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Solid 17.5hr day with Brennan Lane

Slesse Peak -> Fraser Tower West Ridge -> Mt Parkes -> Stumpy Hill -> Crossover Peak -> Mt MacFarlane -> Mt Pierce.
5.6 crux and lots and lots of 4th and 5th class scrambling.

Trip report (it's long, fair warning)

A little backstory - Brennan and I did Slesse separately last year, and I asked if he'd be interested in this traverse - obviously he was stoked on it.

We started from the Slesse trailhead at 4:30am. I brought 3L and 1L extra water bladders and filled it up to stash at the base of Slesse. Was super key since there was no water up high... even tho I had to pack mule 4kg of water up the approach trail 😅

Got stung by a wasp on the approach - ouch!

Made exceptional time up the approach trail (1:10 total time after water fill-up and 2:55 total time to viewpoint). Took a short break and then pressed on to the gullies. Got to the cave bivy at 3:55 total time.

Got harnesses and helmets on and then scooted up the system of ramps and gullies to get to the 30m 5.6 section. We roped up and simul-climbed up. We hit the summit at 5:05 total time (4 hrs fast than my group did last year - goes to show how much faster a group of 2 is than 4!). Chilled on the summit for about 20 mins, then I scooted over to check out the other flattop summit, only to be swarmed by flies eek!

We broke out the 30m RAD Line and tied it to the 30m half/twin did 2x 30m rappells. I made an oopsie and didn't untie the knot, so Brennan just scrambled up and untied the knot, then down-climbed. I'm glad he is more confident than me on rock!

Scrambled down the gullies. Did a short 15m rappell unnecessarily in a spot where Brennan downclimbed (could have taken a literal staircase to the left of it. Oh well). Just downclimbed the rest.

About 1 hr 40 mins after leaving the summit, we were back at our gear cache and packed up to leave for Parkes.

The technical crux for this was figuring out how to descend off of Fraser Tower. We scrambled to different points but couldn't see an obvious way down. I ended up rappelling a short section down to Brennan, and then we scrambled down to a point we knew we could get to the ground from. 2x 30m raps and some forfeited gear (sling and biner) got us to the ground perfectly. It had been 3.5 hrs since leaving the summit of Slesse... now beginning to worry about the speed of our traverse 9 hrs in.

But, we picked up the pace in the easy terrain and soon were on Parkes in 40 mins.

Descending Parkes and ascending Crossover was a mini crux. Down some gullies off Parkes and down the ridge dropped us into a bowl, and we made our way to a Gulley to take us up to Crossover Ridge. I scooted back to tag Stumpy Hill, and then we continued towards Crossover. A short but tricky mid-5th section got us up to Crossover Peak.

Crossover was a very interesting summit with a series of towers to traverse over and around until the true summit (~11.5hrs in), around 1 hr 45 mins from Parkes to summit of Crossover.

We stayed on the West aspect of Crossover, following a series of ramps and ledges to bypass the imposing towers. Finally, we dropped off of Crossover and began our last haul to MacFarlane.

About 1 hr 40mins from Crossover we summitted MacFarlane, at 13.25 hrs total time.

The lake was our prize for the day and we boogied down to it as fast as we could. A dip refreshed us, and we then started towards Pierce (somewhat reluctantly).

PSA: Mt Pierce is a $hitty hike. Bushwhacking and just very plain. A regretful summit. Oh well, we tagged it anyway. 1 hr 20 mins from MacFarlane, at 15.5 hrs total time

We descended to our stash and took off down the trail, aiming for 9:30 to get picked up by Jasmine ❤️

On the way down, we heard a bark and got absolutely filled with adrenaline and started making lots of noise. Turns out it was actually a dog and a hiker (coming up super super late). He told us he saw a momma and baby 🐻 🐻 and to beware. We made lots of noise and slowed our pace... thankfully, I replaced my headlamp batteries and had it on full blast...

Just as Brennan said, "I bet that guy was just pulling our leg," I spotted a pair of eyes staring at us 200m uphill from us. We called her, and she CHUFFED at us. Time. To. Move. (Slowly). Thankfully, the momma didn't follow, and we crossed the bridge.

The rest of the trail took eons to get down. We were physically and mentally depleted and so paranoid of running into another bear. Thankfully, we didn't, and we got to Jas around 9:50pm.

Gear:
30m RAD Line
30m 7.9mm half/twin rope
Rack of superlight offset nuts
3 cams (.4, .5, .75)
4 alpine draws
Several locking biners.
2x bail grenades (5mm and 6mm)
180cm sling and 240cm sling (sacrificed 240cm sling 😭)
Alpine harness
Helmet

Distance 22 pack - thanks Ashley for letting me borrow it and test it out! Hurts the shoulders after 17.5 hrs and with a heavy load tho... sad!

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Greg Fast-Luesink

Slesse to Pierce Traverse

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