Climbing Primus Peak turns out to be, for Roy and me - old guys - a real marathon!
We hike up Thunder Creek to McAllister Camp and find a nice spot. Our plan is to climb the steep, heavily timbered ridge to the moraine below Primus. Then, depending on how things look, we hope to climb directly to the Primus-Tricouni Col and then go up the ridge to the summit of Primus. We are up very early and head up finding evidence of a scratch trail most of the way but realize that finding our way through a couple of cliff bands will present challenges on the way down... especially if it is dark. We finally top out at the moraine below Primus and Tricouni around 11:30 am with a long way to go. We move across the moraine getting out on the ice alongside the small lake to grt to the waterfall below the col. We have a tough time climbing on slick rock up alongside the waterfall on the direct route but we make it. Not intending to come down this way though, if we can help it!
Once at the col it turns out to be a piece of cake to run the ridge to the summit. Here we relax for a bit and are pleasantly surprised to get a cell signal and call home. At 2 pm we start down knowing that we will be getting back to camp well after dark. And, not wanting any more of the waterfall, we skirt around to the north to avoid the waterfall which takes extra time. We are less than half way down the ridge when it is headlight time. We are having real difficulty figuring out the route slowing us even more. We are probing our way through the top cliff band and having real problems deciding which way to go. So Roy investigates one way and I look at the alternate when I hear Roy holler, "I fell and I lost my headlamp!" This could be serious.
"Are you OK?"
"I'm really hurting and I can't find my headlamp!"
Now I am really starting to worry so I get out on a ledge where I seem to be above where I hear Roy and start to rig my 60-foot rope to rappel.
"I found my headlamp!"
I see his light about 30 feet below me.
"I'm really sore but I didn't break anything."
This takes the pressure off and I retrieve my rope
and head down a gully to the right that should get me down to Roy. We are soon reunited and Roy, though bruised up a bit seems good to go and we start down again. Now we really loose the route but at about midnight we are down off the really steep part.
We are both so tired we are just like a couple of zombies staggering through the brush and ferns, over logs and turning away when we come to the rushing water of McAllister Creek. We should be heading downstream, I think, but hopefully Roy knows where he is going. Another hour of this struggle and suddenly I recognize, "Roy we crawled over this same log a half hour ago! We're going in circles!" We halt and sit down to figure this thing out. Roy pulls out his map and compass and we decide that we mainly need to go east and using the compass we keep that heading and within 20 minutes we spot our camp. I had been worried for a while there that we weren't going to survive this little adventure.
