Trip Report - Checkered Demon

Checkered Demon (Peak 13,121) lies directly south of Mount Humphreys and west of Bishop, CA. The north face of this peak has two steep snow couloirs, the Checkered Demon Couloir (1,400 ft.) and Kindergarten Couloir (800 ft.). These two climbs are accessed via a cross country trace that begins at a trail head at the end of 4x4 road that traverses the Buttermilks.


Friday (5/25)

• We left Redlands around 5:30pm and drove to Bishop. From Bishop we headed west along CA-168 and then turned off onto a 4x4 road (Dutch Johns Meadow Rd. or Buttermilks Rd.?).
• We arrived at the trail head around 12:30am to strong winds and falling snow. After a few minutes of scouting out our options we parked and quickly set up a couple tents to catch a few hours of sleep.

Sleeping at the trail head

Saturday (5/26)

• The group started waking up around 5:30am, a little later than the planned 4:30am but we were all glad for the extra sleep and the chance for the temps to rise a bit (it was really cold). Breaking down the tents and getting packed took a while; we had all brought extra gear in case of bad conditions, and so some reorganizing needed to happen.
• We started up the trail (elev. ~9100) at around 7:30am. The first section was on an established trail that headed up towards Mt. Humphreys. We found ourselves hiking against a steady wind and falling snow (these conditions persisted at varying degrees throughout the rest of the day).
• After a short distance, we left the trail and angled south toward a low saddle on the ridge. After getting on top of the rise, we could see up the valley toward our objective.

• The group hiked cross country toward the base of the climb. We found a few cairns down in the valley around the stream, but spent most of the time choosing our own way up. The conditions worsened around mid-morning with heavier snow and stronger winds as we climbed a bulge about two-thirds of the way up to the base of the climb.

South Fork of McGee Creek
(Check out that rock in the background!)

• At around 1:00pm, we arrived at the base of Kindergarten Couloir and Checkered Demon.

The Kindergarten Couloir of Checkered Demon

• At the base of the couloir, three members of our group roped up to practice climbing together as a rope team. Because I had already put on my crampons and had my tools out, I started up the route first. The conditions in the couloir varied from deep, soft spin drift to relatively hard alpine ice. 

Looking up Kindergarten Couloir

Looking down Kindergarten Couloir

• As I climbed, I alternated between slow and steady switch-backing and front-pointing straight up the couloir. I was feeling good and made pretty good time. Unfortunately, one of the members of the three-man rope team wasn't feeling it and had to turn back. But after untying, the other two continued on up. 
• I topped out (elev. 12,400) around 3:00pm and waited for the others. 

At the top (check out the summit in the background)

• The other guys came up shortly after me; we took a minute to take some pictures, eat, and then started our descent. The last 100 ft. or so of the climb had been pretty steep, so we decided to start the descent by going down a nearby band of rocks. The rocks were crazy loose and the freshly fallen snow made them slick. Every step was suspect, and I slipped more than once making my way down. I worked my way over to the snow as quickly as possible. On the snow I tried walking down the switch backs that we had used coming up, but the hard snow/ice made that sketchy as well. So I faced into the wall and kick stepped my way down the route.

Looking up at my kick steps. It was awesome!

• After getting down, I was able to get a couple good pictures of the other guys finishing up the route and rest for a few minutes.

Finishing up the down climb.

• Our hike back out went by quickly, and we were back to the trail head before 7:00pm. 
• There was some concern about running out of gas on the way back to Bishop, so there was a lot of coasting in neutral along the 4x4 road and the paved road. But we got into town (and a gas station without incident). The rest of the drive back home went by quickly. (I fell asleep in the back and didn't wake up until we arrived in Redlands around 1:00am Sunday morning.)  

All in all it was a great trip! It was a great opportunity to get some time in the hills at a decent elevation before going up to Whitney in a couple weeks. Even though it was cold, snowy and windy all day, it was a lot of fun and a good chance to use my new ice tools! The day and a half long trip format worked out really well, and I'm looking forward to repeating it on similar objectives in the Sierras.