Brief report:
The North Couloir Direct was pretty melted out on Saturday, September 18, 2004. The ice was 95% water ice but dirty from rockfall. My partner (Javier Gonzalez) and I only climbed the first 2 pitches above the bergshrund. We left the Los Angeles area on Friday afternoon, 9/17/04. Got to the trailhead (elev ~ 9000 ft) by 10:30pm. We got our gear and packs ready and went off to sleep by 11:15pm. We set our wake-up call at 4:00am. Coming directly from sea level, I only managed to sleep a couple of hours. By 4:40am, we were walking in. We reached Longley Reservoir (elev ~ 10,700 ft) at 6:20am. Filled our water bottles and started up the moraine. We geared up at the base of the small, north glacier there and by 8:30am I was belaying Javier up the bergshrund. Javier led the 1st pitch up the left side of the bergshrund. The right side had an intimidating, overhanging iced cornice. All the while there were golf-sized rocks coming down the couloir every other minute (in retrospect now, we shouldn't have climbed the couloir with the rock fall conditions it had in the first place). I led the 2nd pitch. Just about a minute after Javier clipped in at the 2 ice screw belay I set up, a 1-foot sized rock just missed me by a mere 6 feet from my right shoulder. That's when we got the hell down out of there. Because we had brought two 8.5mm by 60 meter ropes, we only had 2 rappels back down below the bergshrund. This was my first time actually rappeling off Abalakov V-threads that we made. Our altimeter read 12,660 feet at the top of the 2nd pitch. I'll go back again and attempt Mt. Humphreys North Couloir Direct when conditions are better. We drove down to Bishop where we pigged out at "Los Amigos" mexican restaurant. Great food there, by the way.
Additional info about climbing Mount Humphreys can be found here.