Solo Climb of Thunderbolt Peak via Southwest Chute #1 | July 2021

For my climb of Thunderbolt Peak, I hiked 6 hours (roughly 16km) from South Lake to Thunderbolt pass. The first few hours where quite easy as the Bishop trail gains elevation quite gradually and the incredible views of the different lakes you pass along the way makes it even more enjoyable. But shortly after passing Bishop Pass you start hiking off trail and the terrain becomes quite rough and you do a lot of boulder hopping, which can be fun but at above 3000m its better to slow down a bit. Once I arrived at Thunderbolt pass, I decided to set up bivy amongst the boulders since from there I had easy access to Thunderbolt Peaks's Southwest Chute #1. The sunset was gorgeous, a bit windy late night but nothing too bad.
The next morning I started my summit push via the Southwest Chute #1 which starts with hiking up lose rocks with the occasional class 3 scrambles until you arrive to a wall with some class 4 moves. The last section is an exposed traverse that takes you to the summit block (Rated 5c/5.9) . Although on paper everything sounds very straight forward, I was very close to summitting a peak right to the left, luckily I stopped before committing to some exposed and bouldery moves and made a short rappel to regain the route to the Thunderbolt Peak summit block. And so after 3 and a half hours I was standing at the summit of Thunderbolt Peak (4268 m /14003 ft). The descend was a bit tricky due to the lose rocks, but it went quite was since I did two rappels with my 40 meter rope. Once back at Thunderbolt pass, I packed up my things and started hiking back to my car which took me about 6 to 7 hours. This was without a doubt an amazing adventure, I just wished I would've packed my hiking pants.
Social Media
If you want to keep following my adventures checkout my Instagram:
/ andresvou
Get access to all of the music I used in this video:
www.epidemicso...
Camera Equipment
Vlogging: Gopro Hero 9
Photography and b-roll: Fujifilm X-T4 with 16-24mm lense
Inspirations
These are some of the channels that inspired me to start making these videos. I highly recommend you check them out :)
Marco & Alice: / @avventuriamocitutti
Mediocre Amateur: / @mediocreamateur
Nikolai Schirmer: / @nikolai_schirmer
Kraig Adams:
/ kadamsmedia

[@aacc2622]

Great video!

[@V14111]

Nice video! 👏👏👏, always waiting for a new one!!

[@alexmoore4791]

Congrats on the summit! Great video! Please leave the drone at home next time

[@cameronstoneadams1183]

drone police..watchout. @alex might call the report hotline.

[@stephlikestohike]

so awesome!! congrats on your summit!!

[@AndresVourakis]

Thank you Stephanie! :) I'm missing the Sierras already!

[@nora6524]

That was awesome! Did you ever find your gopro?

[@AndresVourakis]

Thank you! And I actually did. I left my trekking pole near the start of a steep section and my GoPro ended up falling all the way down and landed right next to it.

[@petr-podrouzek]

Fantastic ! :-)

[@AndresVourakis]

Much appreciated :)