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On Sunday, I woke
early to attempt Whorl Mountain. I could tell
from yesterday's experience crossing Twin Peaks Pass
that there was no way Dave would join me on what
looked to the uninitiated like a suicidal climb up a
sheer mountain face. Dave wasn't even sure that
he would make it back over Twin Peaks Pass, and was
kicking around the idea of hiking all the way out to
the Tioga Road on Tuolumne Meadows or hiking the five
miles down Horse Creek Canyon to Twin Lakes. I
knew that we could easily get back over the pass, so I
tried to dissuade him from these plans and told him we
would just stick together and take it slow and easy.
In the meantime, I was going to bag Whorl solo and let
him sleep in for awhile.
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Stanton
Sunrise.
The first rays of the day dance off the summit of
Stanton Peak. |
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The
Three Chutes.
From Horse Creek Pass, I was back on familiar ground
from my 2001 trip. I hiked along the sandy bench
southward below the SE face of Whorl. There are
three chutes on this face that lead to the summit
ridge. To keep the difficulty to a minimum,
start in the furthest left chute, then traverse into
the middle chute, then the righthand chute, where you
will find a chockstone guarding the summit ridge.
A detailed description of these chutes can be found in
my
2001 trip report and on
summitpost.com. |
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Mount Hoffman. The views open up nicely
as you climb up to the chutes. Here the sunrise
illuminates Mount Hoffman and Tuolumne Peak. |
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The First Traverse. I climbed the left
chute until about 100 feet below the headwall at the
top. From there, I cut through a perfect notch
into the middle chute. This photo was taken in
the middle chute, looking back at the notch I just
passed through. |
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Up
the Middle Chute.
The middle chute is where I made my error in 2001.
On that trip, I crossed into the righthand (chockstone)
chute just below this finger shaped rock, which was too
early to find safe passage through. It was here
that I ran into the hairy traverse that turned me
back. This time, I
climbed up almost to the top of the middle chute,
where I found an easy ledge leading over to the chockstone chute.
Click on the photo for an annotated description of
the proper route. |
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The Chockstone. Having found the easier
way into the rightmost chute, I was soon at the base
of the chockstone. This cool feature requires
you to climb underneath it, then climb upwards in the
dark through a tiny cave. You eventually emerge on top of
this jumble of rocks, where you can easily scramble up
to the knife edge ridge connecting Whorl's main and
south summits.
Click on the photo for an annotated description of
the proper route up the chockstone. |
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The "Sidewalk". Even cooler than the
chockstone is the unbelievable "sidewalk" that runs
from near the top of the chockstone across the west
face, and then through a perfect seam in the mountain,
to deposit you right at the base of the summit rocks.
It is a sandy ledge about 3 feet across, with a drop
to the left of at least 1,000 feet into Matterhorn
Canyon if you decide to fall off of it. Without this unique feature, one would have a
difficult and seriously exposed climb to get back over
to the east face and then the summit. |
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