[contour5]

Sibley Pass

Walked up Sibley Creek and camped on the pass. I stopped at the head of the valley where the trail makes a big U-turn and starts up toward the lookout. Sat down on a rock next to the trail and sipped some water, trying to cool off.

Columbine

I was startled by a series of loud thumping noises coming from somewhere above me on the steep heather slope. Bear? Climbers, pounding their way down the hill? I stood, and looked uphill. A rock, exactly the size and shape of a car tire came whizzing past about 2 feet away from my head. I felt the wind from it on my face. It was spinning so fast that it was making a whirring, buzzing sound exactly like a table saw blade. It was probably going about a hundred miles an hour...

Sibley Peak Rocks!

Mountains don't care. What can you do? I stepped off the trail, and turned directly up the path of the rockfall. It was pretty tough going in trail runners. The steep vegetation was fiendishly slippery. I actually self arrested, face down in the veg, using my hands and feet a couple of times. Considered giving up based on my deeply stupid choice of footwear, but I pushed on and finally made it up to the pass.

Camp

tent1

HLP

North

tent2

Lots of snow North of the Pass. I ended up boot skiing down most of the heather slope in a crouch, steering with my elbows. The trail runners will probably make good gardening shoes, if I ever decide to try it.

[zephyr]

[Randito]

Yeah, I was climbing the Southwest face of the Tooth when some climbers on the standard South face knocked some large rocks loose. The buzzing sound is something else.

[HitTheTrail]

[ngie]

Yikes.. I haven’t had that close of a call, but I ran into similar heading up Black Peak (a watermelon sized boulder missed me by about 10’ doing 50+mph). Glad you are ok — could have been a LOT worse 💚.

[Malachai Constant]

I guess I have been lucky with rocks, on Red (Snoqualmie) someone kicked loose a Orange sized rock the took a crazy course down and hit square on top of my helmet but no injury. In the Palisades in California we were on a Mountain Rescue practice on snow someone put a hand on a Volkswagen sixes rock which went sailing down a gully hit another rock split in two and headed for the party who all managed to abide getting hit. On the DC route on Rainier we made the mistake of climbing in August the park above kicked loose rocks which sailed past our heads and sounded like incoming bullets, nie wieder!

[Eric Hansen]

We were hiking up the Spencer Trail at Lees Ferry, AZ (redrock country where Grand Canyon, and raft parties "begin") several years ago when noise above alerted us to a cloud of rock dust and a couch sized boulder airborne and bouncing down the slope towards us about 200' above us. I was just about to shove my wife behind a sheltering boulder (and jump in after her) when the noise, and slide stopped. It all comes down eventually.

[rbuzby]

If you keep your tent on the west edge of Sibley pass, it's not in the park, so no permit needed, right? The "you have to show up in person" to pick up the permit thing, is really a buzzkill for those of us that like to hit the trail at 6 am. I think my next trip in a couple weeks is going to be one of those "camp 1 yard from the park boundary" trips. I want to be on the trail at 7, not in MM. The loud thumping sounds.......yup. I thought my buzzing rock might be a large elk running toward us. It wasnt. Just a rock that would splatter your face if it hit you.