Mt Index Climb

An early summer attempt of Mt Index via the Hourglass Gully route. Dan and I made it up to the lower gully but chose to turn around due to somewhat dangerous conditions and lack of time/proper gear to navigate a moat at the crux of the gully. This video is more of an overview of the climb, to give beta/insight on the conditions you may face during an early summer attempt.

[@bobk1845]

I did this with another fellow in the summer of 1985. Awfully tiring, especially the bushwhacking up the east ridge as you pointed out. At 8:00 this is what Beckey calls the "obvious gully". This was before there was a civilized trail to the lake so it was also the dangerous hike to start with. Thank you for such nice video.

[@mr.wallace1074]

Who doesn't love bushwhacking? Devil's club always a favorite. Grab on one once, remember forever!

[@stevencrouch3654]

We did this about 40 years ago. We didn’t like the looks of that gully so we continued a long rising traverse to the left until reaching the ridge. Dropped over to gigantic boulder fields below the summit. An easy scramble to the top. We bivyed on a huge flat boulder and we were back at the car about noon. The only place we used the rope was descending those rock bands on the lower ridge.

[@drewyager4020]

Love those thick gloves for the Busch

[@ryanpenrod1859]

Yeah that looks sketchy as hell, people have fallen through and gotten sucked under snow like that around this very area. Good call.
edit; please take your tape with you when returning, it's annoying to see when you're trying to routefind on your own.

[@gavinfredrichs9057]

What dates did you attempt the summit? I am seriously considering attempting to summit this weekend with a good amount of snow allowing me to walk over the bushwhacking sections and beautiful clear weather on the radar. . .

[@davidmacfarlane4263]

I've tried to summit Index from both the east and SW approaches.
Didn't succeed. Index is a mountain that wants to kill ya.