evolution traverse

INTRO

The Evolution Traverse traverses the 8-mile ridge that hooks around the Evolution Basin, staying on the crest for virtually the entire distance. Peter Croft was the first to complete the Traverse in its entirety, in 1999 (this was his third attempt, the first being in 1997 with Galen Rowell). In his guidebook The Good, The Great, and The Awesome, Peter Croft notes: "This is the best traverse I have done. It's nice and long, it has a distinct beginning and end, and the rock is much better than any of the other big traverses I've encountered....I began at the first hint of dawn and spent all day on this great spine of granite, coming closer than ever before to the ideal traverse. To climb for miles and never leave the skyline." 

Every summer I seem to find myself down in California/Sierra for a couple of weeks, seeking out good rock. And every time I think about doing the Evolution Traverse, yet finding a partner for it has been a crux. Finally, in July 2017, I met Casey Andrews, who was also psyched to do the Traverse. So we got our permit, packed up, and headed in. We spent one day hiking in, the next two days on the Evolution Traverse (with a bivy on the ridge), and the last day hiking out. It was a phenomenal trip that had it all: spectacular position and views, heads-up route-finding, sections of great alpine climbing, athletic challenge, and awesome partner.

When researching the Evolution Traverse, I gleaned beta from google and from Croft's guidebook. As several of these sources mention, there is no way to give a "pitch-by-pitch, foot-by-foot" description of the route, and indeed part of the challenge of the Evolution Traverse is figuring it out as you go. But as my contribution to the beta pool for this route, here are two potentially-useful sources of route information: (1) An annotated map of the route printable at 8.5x11 size and (2) A table showing our times on the Traverse to give a sense of how long it took a reasonably-fast onsight party to complete the traverse in a 2-day style.

STATS

RANDOM NOTES ON STYLE/GEAR

• Soloing/Belaying/Simulclimbing: We soloed almost all of the route, roping up only for rappels (we made 10 of them over the course of the Traverse, 7 of which were between Darwin and Peak 13,332) and for three short (<20 ft) cruxy sections (located on the ridge to Mendel, 13,332, and Huxley) where we made a quick belay. We did not do any simulclimbing whatsoever, but instead put on rock shoes for three longer sections that had more sustained 5th class (the section of knife-edge ridge between Darwin, the first half of Warlow's NE Ridge, and the first half of Huxley). It is a pain to simulclimb on a ridge, and soloing made climbing more enjoyable and faster.

• Rope: We brought a 60m 8mm rope. On several occasions on the route, we encountered a difficult area of downclimbing; sometimes we would try to downclimb, sometimes we would backtrack along the ridge looking for an easier option, and sometimes (if there was a rap station already there), we would rappel. We rappelled a total of 10 times (7 of these times were between Darwin and Peak 13,332). Many of these rappels were 20-30m, so we were glad to have the full 60m length of rope. Given that we only belayed for a few short sections, we could have gotten away with a thinner rope I suppose, but I personally would not bring a shorter rope unless you plan to downclimb more or spend time scoping out different ways on the ridge.

• Rack: We brought a single set of cams from BD 0.4 to 3, 6 alpine draws, 2 long draws, and a handful of stoppers. We only used the gear on three occasions, for the three short (<20 ft) cruxy sections where we made a quick belay. And even then we only used a couple at a time. Next time I would bring fewer cams (maybe only a 0.75, 1, and 2) and fewer alpine draws (maybe just 3).

• Tat & leaver biners: We brought some extra tat, a few leaver biners, and the handful of stoppers in case we needed to fortify any of the rap stations. We found all of the rap stations to be in good shape with reasonably new tat on them, so we never needed to use any of our tat. Next time I would probably still bring a bit of tat and leaver biners, but not the stoppers, as almost all of the stations were on nice horns or boulders.

• Approach shoes vs. Climbing shoes: We wore approach shoes for most of the traverse. We wore rock shoes (and were glad to have them) for three locations: the section of knife-edge ridge between Darwin, the first half of Warlow's NE Ridge, and the first half of Huxley. Rock shoes made it much more comfortable to solo these sections, avoiding the pain of ridge simulclimbing.

• Timing/Snow: Mainly just because it was when I was in the area and not due to any preference or planning on timing, we did the Traverse in early July during a higher than usual snow year. So there was some snow on the approach and on the ridge. It was never more than just an annoyance for travel, but the big benefit was that we were able to find a bivy site on the ridge near a snowpatch and melt snow for water (with a Jetboil), avoiding a 500' descent to the lake below Haeckel. The temperatures were warm enough and most gullies clear enough that we felt no need for crampons or ice axes.

• Number of days: We devoted 4 days to the trip: one day approaching Darwin Bench (~8 hours hiking), 2 days on the Evolution Traverse with a bivy midway (2 full days, 13-15 hours each), and one day hiking back out to car (~6.5 hours). This was a reasonable way to break down the trip, and I would not have wanted more or less days.

PHOTOS

The rest of this page contains photos from the Traverse, broken down by section. What a great trip. Enjoy!

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