Saturday, June 7, 2014

Mt. Langley hike

Mt. Langley trail
Trail head for Mt. Langley 14,026' (4,275 m) starts from Horseshoe Meadow one of my favorite place for acclimatization since its 10,000'. Igor agreed to join me, but have no idea what to expect at high elevation, it was his first 14'er. We camped at Horseshoe campground and start hiking at 6:30. First part of the trail is relatively flat and uneventful until New Army pass, where we encounter first snow and lost trail. Little bit of cross country straight up hill and we got back to trail. Last part was fully covered by snow, but easy passable.
New Army Pass
Plato was snow free and next snow was 0.5 km from the top where we have to climb small section of class 3, Igor was worry about going back, but luckily on the way back we found another way and totally avoided this steep section. We made it to the top around 1:30 pm. View from the top, especially to the north toward Mt. Whitney was magnificent.
Looking north from Mt. Langley
Lone Pine from Mt. Langley
Lakes from New Army Pass
We was hoping to cut some distance by descending via Old Army Pass, but it was still under snow and looked too scary to try it even with ice axe and crampons, which we did not have. So, climbed 100 m up to New Army Pass and came back the same way. Back at the car by 7:30 pm. Total distance 33 km, time 13 hours.
GPS track: GPS track in KMZ format

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