Mount Langley

[Silky Smooth]

Doug T. is always telling people to take short-cuts or a different way lol doesn't surprise me one bit. With all the problems with all the extra trails and cairns, inyo nf and sequoia made a big effort some years back, hence the giant cairns near the base of summit and leading up. They cleaned up a lot of the extra cairned paths. If you want something truly different try some of Doug Robinson climbs on langley from tuttle creek. Pretty southern sierra rock and a beautiful setting.

[Wandering Daisy]

I have climbed Langley via the NE Chute and descended the East Slope, from Tuttle Creek. We base camped at about 11,300 just east of a large flat east of the 3200 contour. I like the Tuttle Creek approach; we also climbed Corcoran and LeConte. Absolutely no problem getting a permit for Tuttle Creek. Several routes for Lone Pine Peak are also accessed from the Tuttle Creek Ashram.

The chute is at the upper part of the climb. There is a lot of miserable scree before you get to the chute. The NE Chute had a lot of loose rock, and was downright dangerous when we did it. It is a bit of a miserable climb. The descent route, East Slope is a more pleasant climb. The sun warms the upper snow while the chute is in the shade, and the melted snow lets loose of rocks which fall down the narrow chute, bouncing from one wall to the next. Descending the curving west ridge was tricky. If you stay on the ridge at some point you have to downclimb a cliff (class 3). Once to the saddle on the East Slope route, it is an easy (although rocky) descent.

NEChute4.JPG

D_B_TuttleP.jpg

[Gogd]

I have climbed Langley via the NE Chute and descended the East Slope, from Tuttle Creek...

@ Wandering Daisy
When you refer to the East Slope and saddle, I assume you are talking about the route up to Diaz Pass? Or are you referring to the Couloir north of Diaz Pass?

We did the Tuttle Creek/Diaz Pass variation two times on skis/crampons, once in January and once in March. It was basically a long slog! The snow probably helped up high, but snow on the trail lower down made finding the route through all of the thicket a real pain. On the March trip we opted to return via Cottonwood Pass and hitching some rides back to the car, as the weather put the snow in unsafe conditions for a ski descent into Tuttle Creek basin.

Langley 1985-01.jpg

Above: Circa 1985. Camped at the base of the final approach to Langley. Cooking dinner, during a ground effect blizzard @ 13,500’ late January, air temp: -6°F (day time) wind speed: ~45mph. The stove employed here is a MSR Firefly. If I recall, the tent was a The North Face VE series dome tent (orange on right side of image). The tent was much harder to pitch in that wind than getting the stove started. I am in my red Helly Hansen anorak and blue pant hard shell, with one of my companions in a dark parka, looking like the Grim Reaper. The sundowner wind abated at late dusk. The next day was bluebird sunny, but very cold. The initial descent from Diaz Pass required us to hug the north side of the ravine, by foot, to avoid a snow pillow that accumulated during the prior day's sundowner. About 300' below the pass it was safer to ski. The snow on this descent was wonderful!
Ed

[Wandering Daisy]

The HST map calls it Tuttle Pass. My mistake- by East Slope I mean south slope. We stayed close to the top of the curving ridge between the top of the peak and Tuttle Pass and at one point had to drop down the south slope. That was the harder part. The second photo on my post shows Tuttle Pass north side.

[Wandering Daisy]

Here is a full description of the NE Chute Route. Two photos were shown previously.

Detailed Route Description, NE Chute Mt Langley

From our camp, we worked our way up the slabs and grassy ledges to the southwest side of the alluvial fan radiating from the northeast gully (class 2). We then climbed up the edge of the fan staying close to the east facing cliffs and entered the chute on easy low angle snow. The chute gradually becomes steeper. Where there was no snow, it was mainly steep scree and loose boulders. It was miserable and endless; worse than the north chute to Corcoran It really is a chute with steep rock walls on either side. As the sun warms the cute, large boulders came crashing down. For safety we mainly climbed next to the rock walls, first on the northwest (right) wall.

About half way up a buttress splits the chute; we went left (southeast) and stayed close to the left wall. We climbed until we were on the East Ridge (cairn here). Then we scrambled on the south side of the ridge over blocks (easy Class 3) until we encountered a sun-cupped snow field that we crossed to gain the summit plateau.

What appeared on the topo map as an easy descent to Tuttle Pass turned out to be quite complex. We followed the summit plateau adjacent to the north face in an arc west then northwest down gentle sloping sand to about 4,060 meters, where it abruptly steepened. At 4,000 meters we entered a very steep chute and descended (about 500 feet) until it ended in a impassable cliff. On the right hand side directly at the drop-off we had to climb a very blocky exposed 10 feet of 4th class rock onto the right hand rib to enter the adjacent chute. It took another 20 feet traverse and descent a chimney (Class 4) to drop into this chute. (If ascending this route, you probably would want to rope up). We then descended this chute (about 300 feet) until the main chute ended in a 50-foot sheer cliff.

To the left was a small chimney that accessed the gully to the left (the original gully that we could not get down higher up). I down climbed the face adjacent to the chimney, and Dave and Brian down-climbed the chimney (about 3 difficult moves). The climbing was difficult 4th class, but thankfully not terribly exposed. We then descended angling right around the buttress that separated the main chute from our little chimney, and traversed on blocks, essentially staying level until we hit Tuttle Pass exactly at its top. From the base of the pass it was easy going over snow and sand. The route is well cairned.

Map.jpg

[JosiahSpurr]

. . . I've posted on HST in the past, and just found this discussion thread in "13'ers and 14'ers." I've climbed Langley from x3153 (that's 10,344 feet, marked on the Mt. Langley topo) which was relatively easy compared with getting to x3153 from Owens Valley. This year (and the next, and the next...), I'm planning to establish a new route that will have two parts: (a.) From Owens Valley (the Granite View Rd. area) to x3153 that will (I hope) stay on the ridge north of Diaz Creek the whole way, (b.) The second half from x3153 to Langley. (For more info, see "High Above the Fray," which was recently added to the Langley routes on SummitPost.) The attached photo shows the route from the lower left corner (dark patch covered with small trees) to upper right corner (Langley). From left to right: (1.) bottom of Diaz Crk. (2.) rounded, snow-capped Wooleyback, (3.) massive pine forest that goes from the middle of Diaz to: (4.) peak x3153 where the main ridge splits coming down, or where the ridge I plan on taking merges with an equally long ridge down to Tuttle Crk. (5.) two humps on the main ridge of Class 2, (6.) the notch where the old Tuttle Crk. trail meets the ridge (some years the snow blown through the notch forms a "glacier" that never melts), (7.) a long Class 2 stretch on the ridge that ends at: (8.) the base of the Langley escarpment. So, in 2022 I went around to the main trail from New Army pass. For this new route, I hope to make a straight shot to the top. The two cruxes will be staying on the ridge to x3153, and, that straight shot to 14,025.

Please note: This route (High Above the Fray) avoids the risk of avalanche and falls on snow & ice, because it's 100% ridge from start to finish. So, you're not going to die from that. Conversely, this route could be extremely dangerous for the climber who: (a.) doesn't have "mountain goat legs," (plus the ability to recover or fall gracefully if a step forward fails to hold body weight+pack), and (b.) isn't intimately familiar with the entire region between Diaz & Tuttle Creeks (as for myself, I rent an office nearby and have been exploring John Muir Wilderness off-trail for nearly two decades). The wildcard, for me, will be the degree of Class 5 climbing and the frequency of having to drop pack, climb, and haul pack up. Best of luck- mountain safety is mostly lots of experience plus a level head to avoid stressful worry or panic. *