Vestal and Arrow on the approach.
The steep Elk Creek trail.
Vestal from near camp. Wham Ridge is the ridge on the right edge of the face.
The Trinities from camp.
Wham Ridge from camp looking very steep!
Prepping for Wham Ridge.
Sunrise on Arrow.
Starting up mellow slabs with Vestal Lake below.
Sunrise creeps down on Wham Ridge.
Emily, Dave, and Hoot early on.
Hoot seeks his final centennial peak in CO and he picked a great route to finish on!
Early climbing on Wham.
Getting steeper
Nice clouds behind Arrow. The route on Arrow is generally the ramp to the right.
Hoot and Emily gearing up for a roped pitch.
Hoot leads our pitch 1.
Emily follows
Dave follows. Dave and I took a more direct line to avoid a tricky traverse.
Hoot leads pitch 2, which was exposed 4th class.
Hoot leading
Dave tops out on pitch 2.
Hoot leads the traditional 5.4 crux.
Emily on the crux pitch.
Dave on another short section that we elected to take a belay on. I took a harder line out of view to the left that felt like 5.5~5.6ish. Turns out we could have traversed out on the face and avoided this.
Hoot on some steep class 4 nearing the top.
Emily pulls through a chimney near the top.
The summit finally in view as we crest a false summit.
Hoot descending from the false summit.
Hoot nears the summit
Hoot tops out!
Jagged
Pigeon
Roach describes a class 2+ descent of the south face. I would call it more like loose, junky, hard 3rd class!
Lots of ledge hopping on the descent of the south face.
Hoot and Emily descent the "Dues Collector" slope from the Arrow/Vestal saddle. Glad we didn't go up this!
Wham Ridge in profile from Arrow.
Hoot and I headed up Arrow for desert! By the end of the day, I was pretty much scrambled out.
Typical 3rd class terrain on Arrow with lots of intricate routefinding near the top.
The Trinities and Vestal from Arrow.
Eolus/Pigeon group from Arrow.
Jagged/Windom/Sunlight group
Hoot leads the way down Arrow, an aptly named summit!
Another fine view of West Trinity and Vestal's Wham Ridge.
The Trinities await the next day, a fine ridge traverse.
Sunrise on Vestal.
San Juan glory
Trinity looking very intimidating from West Trinity. The route avoids the scary knife edge by traversing well below on ledges to the south.
West Trinity descent
The crux 4th class chimney on Trinity, which took me a bit to find.
The route bends around quite a few corners to avoid a nasty false summit. You then pick a line up this face.
A couple of rogue cairns led me to the ridge too early. This is why you don't get on the ridge after the 4th class chimney! The route avoids this nasty false summit.
Arrow, Vestal, and West Trinity from Trinity.
Classic view south to Balsam Lake with Peak 6 above it.
The final peak is East Trinity, which looks very foreboding. The route is up the gully in the center of the face.
Looks pretty steep!
Looks like there's a route up there somewhere!
A cool arch near the summit of East Trinity, which I ended up passing through!
Descent of slabs down the north ridge of East Trinity, not as steep as it looks.
West Trinity
Vestal and Arrow from a beautiful unnamed lake below West Trinity.
A special spot!
Trinity towers above the unnamed lake.
Parting shot of Vestal and Arrow.
