"Had a 4 am start from camp. (Attended ACC section camp to the Lyells). Forgot helmet in the morning and then couldn't find backpack when retrieving helmet from basecamp. Lost an hour and was very frustrating. Saw bear tracks on the way to Lyell glacier. 3 lemons. But we continued anyway. Made it to the Lyell 3-4 col at 9 am. The climb was essentially ice bouldering on WI2-3 the whole way. The rock step was very scary and chossy. IT was like Janga blocks the whole way up the rock pitch. Climbed it as quickly as possible as did not want to spend any extra time in there at all as was scared the whole part of the gully would collapse. Belayed second up on ice screws. Traversed over to Lyell 5 after summitting Lyell 4. Was tricky finding the route on the rock ridge to the snow. Once on the snow however, it was very quick travelling. Great excellent blue bird day so it made it for quite an exciting day and forgiving given that we were slow to ascend Lyell 4. Very fast up Lyell 5 once across the rock ridge." — dkmountainman • Aug 9, 2012