Matthes Crest Traverse - 5.7

Fun climb. It's very unique as I've never been on a knife-edge ridge. Went to the South summit and rapped down between the North and South summits due to weather. Seeing a large lightening bolt strike T-Meadows just in back of someone belaying on the North Summit was enough motivation to call it a day. Single 60m rap plus 30-35 feet of 5.easy. We simu-climbed but if I did this again, I'd rope up for the 1st pitch and the downclimb after the South Summit and short rope maybe 4 small sections in between. Everything else, I'd put the rope away. Rope drag was a drag. Whoever said it takes 4-5 hrs is nuts or incredibly fast.

The first half is a lot of scrambling, most of the good climbing and exposure comes after the north summit. I think it took me around 6 hours car to car.

it was cloudy in the morning as we approached the climb but the sky did not look too threatening so we decided to go for it. While we were simul-climbing the knife-edge a thunderstorm was approaching from the valley. Lightning was striking only a couple miles away as we got to the notch.

As I reached the pinnacle just beyond the notch my hair was standing on end and the rocks were buzzing and crackling like a transformer. It began sleeting on us and we were certain we would be struck by lightning if we finished the traverse. I set a sling around a round flake in a hurry and we rapped down as fast as we could.

The rappel from the notch was probably intended for a 70m rope but we had a 60m so each rappel went straight of the ends of the rope. At the last rappel we traversed about 60 feet completely exposed across a slab to a tree.

I was never happier to be back on terra firma at the end of that adventure.

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Didn't manage to get the whole traverse completed, weather chased us off. Bailed just before the notch.