Evolution Traverse, Part 2: Foundations

At its simplest, the Evolution Traverse is a ridgeline, a geologic feature. In addition, however, the "climb" is also an accumulation of experiences and stories and history. The Evolution Traverse is not special that way. In fact, most climbs of its size and significance have a much longer, richer history. What sets the Evolution Traverse apart is its relatively short history. The early history, the pre-history, if you will, is well documented in Peter Croft's book "The Good, the Great, and the Awesome." In short, in 1999 the author connected the dots along this ridgeline, based on some of his own reconnaissance and prior travels in the area. His chosen style, in fact his claim to world-wide-climber-fame, was a single day, free solo effort.

Traversing means being creative.  And looking down on the world.

The ensuing years have brought repeated successful ascents by a variety of climbers. Most, if not all, of these subsequent ascents were undertaken with some variation of Croft's free solo strategy. Some of the down-climbing sections were rappelled, but the prevailing wisdom has been that free-soloing is the way to complete this beast. Using a rope adds security but takes time.

Here's a brief, hopefully to-be-expanded, list of the known history of the complete Evolution Traverse. Information gathered from magazines, internet, rumors, first-hand knowledge, and summit registers. Entries limited to full, complete traverses, as described in Peter's book. Can we fill in the many gaps in this timeline?

• 1999 Peter Croft
• 2002 Matt Samet 
• 2002 Dan Pattitucci and David Melkonian
• 2006 Jason L. and Ben
• 200? Jake W. (multiple rumors suggest a Car To Car effort!)
• 2008 Alex Honnold
• 2009 Ian C-B and Tony S
• 2010 Jim Donini, George Lowe  and Ben L.
• 2010 Ryan Huetter and Josh
• 2010 Vic L.
• 2010 Someone with a foreign name in the registers the whole way.
• 2011 Mike C.
• 2011 Michelle P. (first woman)
• 2011 Ian M.
• 2011 Jed and Alex
• 2012 Ben H., Shay H., Konstantin S.  First Winter Ascent

Each of these complete traverses is a story in itself.  Not to mention the failed attempts, the unrecorded and unspoken completions, and the dreams of traverse aspirants. 

Yours Truly.  On the clock.  "Unsportsmanlike Conduct, 15 yards"

Each climber has his or her own story that brings them to the Traverse.  For Alex and I, here's a bit of our story.  I am a full-time, year-round mountain guide based here in Bishop.  I have lived in the Eastern Sierra for 9 years, maturing as a climber and guide here in the shadow of the Evolution peaks.  When I moved here, Croft's book was brand new and the Evolution traverse was the pinnacle of one's Sierra aspirations.  Possibly it hadn't been repeated at the time.  The route has since been somewhat demystified, but that intimidation, the historical importance of the route, has loomed large in my mind.  My climbing abilities and competence have grown in both an organic and structured fashion.  A combination of influences and motivations and life-lessons has combined to leave me leave me thoroughly mediocre across the board when it comes to mountain travel.  I ski, rock climb, alpine climb, and travel.  I have done river expeditions, bicycle trips, been involved in thriving and decroding relationships, and visit my distant family for weeks at a time.  I train as a mountain guide, as an athlete, and as a mountain traveler.  I work in the mountains full-time now, but that wasn't always the case.  I can hang with the best in most mountain situations, but I'm not setting any records in any arena.  With regards to the skills required for the Evolution Traverse, I can walk a long, long time.  As fast as walking can go.  And I have what's been described as "well above average rope skills".

Alex skiing, after slogging, all in sheepy terrain. Whew

Alex is a Phd neuroscientist, turned rock climber and wildlife biologist.  She is a fireball of motivation and a natural athlete.  She has traveled the world, climbing in each hemisphere.  She took 2 years off of work to climb once.  She can also hang in any mountain travel arena.  Don't second-guess her assessment of gully travel, she's not wrong.  She's capable and willing, heck, she's  psyched, to be miserably cold and dirty and hungry.  She has snowboarded off huge volcanoes, kite-skied in Patagonia and followed a meat-head ski tourist on some of the most boring slog-ski trips in the Eastern Sierra.  Her kite-skiing endeavor, for the record, was her first time on skis as an adult.  Her child-hood ski story would fit handily into a few pages of the family scrapbook.  As a rock climber, she is strong.  Like, way strong.  Physical.  In the high-stakes game of one-upsmanship, one-upsmanship of the "what will we leave behind" variety, don't call her bluff.  She's not bluffing.  She is very nice to me.  I think she's beautiful.  Unlike many mountain athletes, she strives for balance: A balance that she could, if she wants to, sustain for her entire life.  This fireball won't burn out nor fade away. 

Our powers combined this past winter when we teamed up for said slog ski tours.  We have since climbed together in Red Rocks, Tahquitz, Joshua Tree, and of course, the High Sierra.  We have also pursued our own missions this summer.  Myself, like a bazillion days of awesome alpine guiding.  For Alex, she chases sheep.  Mostly via spreadsheets lately, but sometimes she goes out into sheepy (read, loose and unappealing to humans) terrain to listen to radio beeps and pick up shit.  She also motivates a motley crew of civilized climbing partners to send big agendas and then drink nice wine.  I don't really fit there, what with my cheesy teen-pop music and crappy beer tastes.

Said Lone Pine Peak Trip

Winchell.  Shake down "cruise"

Our Evolution Traverse aspirations really congealed with a July ascent of Lone Pine Peak's North Ridge.  We agreed on when to use the rope and when to not.  We moved at similar paces.  We both dug that ridge style.  We signed up and set aside some dates. 

We had our own ideas about how this thing should be tackled.  Neither of us are free-soloists.  We wanted the security the rope would provide.  That meant we'd take more time.  With free-soloists (and those using a rope just for rappels) taking about 16 hours on the ridge, the extra time some belaying would require would push us into multiple days.  Since, in our experience, roped travel on this sort of terrain takes about twice as much time as free-soloing, we estimated just over 30 hours of climbing time.  Check my math, that sound right?  That's a long time moving.  We would have to sleep at some point.  Then, question is, do we do one night out and do two 15-16 hour days?  All with camping gear and climbing gear on our backs?  Man, that sounded miserable.  How about 3 days, 2 nights?  Nice civilized 10 hour days on the go, watching the sun set and rise from camp... man, sounds like a good time.  That's what we decided to try.  We would hike in one day, climb 3 days with 2 nights on the ridge, have another night at our "base camp", and hike out on the 5th day.  Awesome.

Climbing with camping gear is hard.  Heavy backpacks really matter.  So we brainstormed together to get those packs as light as possible.  And then, like good boyscouts, we gave our "system" a try.  We crammed a day of climbing and a night on the ground into the approach for one of my work trips.  We "traversed" Mt. Winchell in the Palisades as part of my approach to meet a client back there.  Worked out awesome, and we got to try our system. We had some adjustments to make, but we thought it would work.  Like our experience on Lone Pine Peak, our Winchell climb gave us the confidence we needed to proceed.

All that was left then was to stay acclimated, stay healthy, and have good weather.  We had 2 out of 3.  As our long-set-aside dates approached, the forecast morphed into a round of thunderstorms.  We seem to get those here.  This summer, we've had big cycles once every 3 weeks or so. Those intervening 3 weeks are awesome, but the 4 or 5 days thunderstorm cycles can be burly.  This session was forecast to overlap with the first 2 days of our 5 day window.  The back end of our window was fine.  Following our 5 day allotment, we each had built a cushion day, and then had big agendas starting day 2, Post-Evolution.  Watching the weather, debating, discussing, consulting the Norwegians, all led to postponing the trip one day.  I mean, who needs a "cushion"?  We'd be sleeping on a sliver of foam, why not extend the austerity to our rest allotment too?  So, we had intended to walk in on a Saturday, but we pushed it back to Sunday.

That's the background, really.  If you are super interested in what we packed and how to better measure your preparedness for something like this, let me know.  I go back and forth on creating a blog post or info page for the Traverse.  What are we supposed to do?  The body of information available will increase with more and more completions.  That will (and has already, for sure!) make this route more attainable.  But it will also reduce the adventure component.  Hmmmm, the big questions.  For now, stand by for more of our story!

All this is thanks to:
Evolve
Sierra Mountain Guides (and awesome clients!)
and Sage To Summit