Habrich - Best Approach?

[imnotnate]

Hey Y'all,

Now that the gondola's in full swing, what's the best way to approach Habrich? Is it via the gondola and then Al's Habrich trail, or would one still be better off driving up the Shannon creek FSR and pushing a mountain bike?

Or taking the Gondola and walking up another way? Jeremy Frimer said in the Escape Velocity post to NOT take Al's Habrich trail to approach Habrich, and some of the info on the forum here is pretty out of date now, so just tryin' to put the pieces together...

Cheers
Nate

[tobyfk]

Gondola then follow the Sky Pilot approach trail to where there is a firepit, directly under Habrich's south face. Then take the trail to the left (north) that heads straight toward Habrich. Somewhere up there is a junction where you can go right to L of E and left to the col below the old west ridge route and new Jeremy Frimer route. I believe the trail to the col has been improved recently.

We were on top of Sky Pilot yesterday. From there it is very clear why you should not (as JF wrote) use the "Al's Habrich ridge trail" to access Habrich ... it's a very long ridge with much ascent and descent.

[imnotnate]

Nice, thanks Toby. Any rough estimates on time to Habrich from top of the Gondola? Couple hrs maybe?

[tobyfk]

Not sure. My friend did some fancy Strava stuff yesterday but that was for Sky Pilot. I would guess less than an hour to the firepit from the gondola. When I did Life on Earth two years ago it seemed to take about another hour to the base of the route, but, as I wrote, I believe the trail is better now. I have never been to the col under the west ridge routes but I suspect that it is faster to access than the base of L of E. So maybe two hours is the maximum estimate to the base of any Habrich route?

[imnotnate]

We did life on earth yesterday using the above approach beta, it was totally straightforward and took us about an hour and a half from the top of the gondola to the base of the route.

Sidenote, wow we're lucky to have that alpine in our backyard... if you haven't done life on earth and it appeals to you at all... get after it!

Nate

[tobyfk]

Did you rap the route? If so, any problems with that?

[imnotnate]

Yup, we rapped the route (2 ropes req'd), quick, very simple since you just came up that way, all clean pulls.