Category Archives: Central Cascades

Slippery Slab Tower

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Having missed visiting the Cascades in the summer of 2008, I was eager to make a trip or two into the range this summer.  sunday, Robert and i took the day to climb Slippery Slab tower, a relatively unknown little spire in the central Cascades near Stevens Pass.  We left his house at 6am for the drive out.  Robert was kind enough to offer me his cabin in Cashmere for a few days after our hike so I followed him in my rental car.  After the climb, I’d just continue driving 40 minutes or so through Leavenworth and into Cashmere.

Robert set a brisk pace up the trail.  We hiked a little under two miles to an intersection with the Pacific Crest trail and a lake (whose name now escapes me), turned right, and began the longer traversing hike to get to a pass above Trap Lake.  From there, we could follow climber’s trails to the tower.

We had a perfect day for this hike.  The forest and meadow greens were deep, and the sky’s blue was radiant.  At a luxurious meadow, we had our first view of the tower.  It was a typical Cascades view:  a small dark spire sitting on a burly glacial ridge.  It was good to finally have a view; I had been doubting if this trail was correct.  I studied the trailhead map for maybe 5 seconds but it felt like we were traveling along in the wrong direction.

The climber’s path took us along the ridge, through tight scrub pine bands and finally on to easy snow that led us to the base of the tower.

Robert took the first pitch and elected to start at the base of the tower instead of the higher and easier start.  This was easy enough, though I did remind him that I was climbing in boots instead of rock shoes and hadn’t climbed in about a year.

He passed over a small roof and was out of sight.  The rope moved slowly up, indicating that maybe the terrain wasn’t so easy.  Then, I heard a loud whirring and buzzing sound above me.  Thinking for an instant that it was a giant hummingbird, I looked up to see a large spinning rock come flying past me.  This actually shocked me quite a bit.  I felt foolishly cavalier for being so ill prepared than I should be.  Having no helmet was dumb – for the two of us.

Finally, I followed up, having to get creative with my boots.  The rock was great below the roof, but was covered in lichen above.  It reminded me of a sunny Johannesburg.  The steepness relented and I emerged into some trees to meet Robert.

I decided to lead the second pitch, a solid leaning dihedral.  The pitch was easy and fun, leading up to a belay station at another pine tree.  I decided to continue on up a steeper wall to the ridge crest.  From there, I turned left and we were at the top.

Back below the tower, along a small convex snowy shelf, Robert got in some bouldering on some large glacial rocks while I climbed to a high spot and took pictures.  We said goodbye back at the cars and I continued on to Cashmere.

Prussik Peak

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I slept like a rock and awoke to Robert pulling on the mosquito netting of the bivy sack he let me borrow.  It was 6:30 and the sky was gray with clouds.  We packed up and meandered our way down to Mesa Lake, regained part of the ridge, and descended again before finding a trail that we could follow.  We were now hiking along the “Lost World Plateau”, completely devoid of people (that would change as soon as we descended from Prusik Peak).

A long traverse along the right side of Shield Lake brought us to the final slopes that led us to the top of Prusik Pass.  I felt like I had a lot of energy yesterday, but this morning I felt like I was dragging a bit.  At the pass, we turned right and boulder hopped up to a spot just below the west ridge where we ditched our packs and got the gear ready for a climb of the west ridge, which loomed directly in front of us.  It looked totally inviting; I was looking forward to climbing rather than more slogging.  There was still no one else in sight as we headed off.  I realized that I’d left my helmet back at the camp.

I headed off for the first pitch and scrambled up a lot of 4th class before encountering easy 5th class climbing in the middle of the face.  Eventually, Robert started following somewhere along a long, low-angled crack right on the left side of the ridge.  This crack led up to a short strenuous move over a block that led around the corner to a nice belay spot.  The rope drag was getting bad so I threw a sling around a block and brought Robert up.

Robert started the second pitch.  This was one of the 5.7 cruxes – a committing but easy face move.  Robert scrambled over more exposed ridge to a wide ledge where he belayed me up.

I led off next, a steep pitch consisting of high quality mid-5th class climbing.  The first section is a crack in a corner that leads up to a foot-wide ledge.  One can continue climbing straight up, which would lead to an offwidth crack.  Instead, I opted to move right to a vertical flake system which led to a belay station just below the summit.  From here, the rope drag increased again.  I saw several options.  We could descend just a little and walk a thin ledge to the offwidth, or we could solo (or spot the leader) up a chimney just below the summit.  I decided to bring Robert up to show him the options.  Having climbed the route before, he saw a third:  a prominent “chicken head” which could be used to scamper up a very exposed final section of easy ridge which led to the summit.  We chose this option – top notch!

We climbed the route pretty fast and spent a relatively long time lounging around on the summit before finally beginning the descent.  We’d looked at the Temple Ridge traverse but both quickly admitted that we didn’t “smell the summit”.  I’m glad we didn’t; just hanging it out and taking it easy was much more appealing.

Returning to camp, I discovered that the leather netting in my helmet had been chewed up.  Not sure who the culprit was.  Either a marmot or a goat.  Ah well, that helmet served me well over the years.  It was the first I’d bought and I guess I can retire it now.  There were also suddenly a lot of people wanting to climb Prusik Peak.

We descended down passing Gnome Lake where I snapped the classic view of Prusik Peak, undeniably one of the great views in the state of Washington.  Beyond this we made our way down to the creek along a paradise of smooth granite.  We took a long break here, lying in the sun.

We started the long hike down making one last significant stop at Vivian Lake where we ate for the last time.  A ranger passed along the trail below us but didn’t ask us for our permits.  The rest of the hike out in the Enchantments was genuinely enchanting, truly one of the unique spots in Washington.  Waterfalls cascaded from high granite perches, the sky was a deep blue, and the occasional mountain goat punctuated the perfect balance of the area. Below “Trauma Ridge” though, the hike becomes a long long slog through the forest.  We put on the iPods to pass the miles more quickly.  At least we weren’t hiking out in darkness or anything.  I couldn’t believe how quickly we were losing elevation and we still had such a long way to go.  It was pretty interesting seeing the aqueduct from Snow Lakes to Nada Lake in action.  It’s a massive jet of water that forms a huge rainbow.  Check out this shot:

We arrived back at the car just before 7pm.  We then headed to the hamburger joint in Cashmere, Rusty’s, and returned with the food to Robert’s cabin where we kicked back, ate, and drank.  Great trip, homes!

Total trip stats:  20 Miles, 8500 Feet of Elevation

Enchantments Tour

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For one of the last trips of the year, I had my hopes on the east ridge of Inspiration Peak, Robert set his sights on Early Morning Spire.  Thanks to the weather, Robert threw out the suggestion of “The Enchantments”.  Oh yeah, I’d never been there, no like.  Can you believe it?  So, it was settled, we planned to go climb “The Mole”, and Prusik Peak, and maybe even Temple Ridge.  I met Robert in Cashmere around 7:15 in the morning and we drove out to the ever popular Snow Creek trailhead prepared to go in “ninja style” with our day trip story.  Our plan:  Hike up to the Edwardian Plateau via the Toketie Creek trail, climb the Mole, sleep somewhere around Mesa Lake, hike to Prusik Pass the next day, climb Prusik Peak via the west ridge, see what else we were up for and then head out.

The first part of the Snow Creek trail always seems to go fast.  “Wow, we’re already past Snow Creek Wall.”  Maybe the high altitude of Colorado made me appreciate the oxygen, or maybe it was the large quantity of Thai food serving as fuel, but I was feeling good.  Somewhere around a campsite that was just before a set of switchbacks (around 3200 feet), we left the trail and crossed Snow Creek aiming for the left side of a prominent talus patch to the south of Toketie Creek.  We crossed some semi-sketchy bouncy downed tree crossings across the creek, or above a dangerous pit of strewn broken trees.  Eventually, we were in the talus field, consisting of mostly very large boulders.  We eventually found cairns and followed them as best we could until we found a dusty trail that went up and up and up always exposed to the hot sun.

After the trail finally relented some, we took a break, consulted the map, and then figured out the next part of the trail:  a wide, steep slope of granite, a little brush and burned trees from the Rat Creek Fires.  After we crested this slope, we were finally in the high country around Toketie Lake.  We’d already lost and found the trail about ten times on the way up, and we probably lost and found it ten more times before arriving at Toketie Pass, just south and a little west of the Edwardian Plateau.  There’s a tarn here created from snow melt where we decided to camp.

We packed up for a quick trip to the Mole, one of those rare summits that would be fun to tick off.  The hike up to the plateau went quick, more hopping over boulders and a rough trail.  Up on the plateau the trail vanished as we traveled through larch forest, then to a burn zone, and then to a small sandy desert.  The Mole was just over the western edge.  Getting to it was a bit of a pain…a steep sandy descent and a slippery sandy gully between it and the Duolith.  I kinda wish we would have started the climb lower down, some of the cracks looked good, but we found the official started and roped up.  Robert took the first pitch and headed off.  This first pitch was good, with a solid fun 5.7 section right off the bat.  Robert then traversed around a tree and up over some boulders, along a ledge, then up a small set of cracks.  He belayed from there.

I think we may have gotten off route here and Robert opted to head out again in order to “make it right”.  After realizing that a squeeze between the wall and a large boulder wouldn’t go, he down climbed about fifteen feet to a deep notch with an overhanging crack.  Having already used some pro that would have been perfect for the crack, he opted for a balancy traverse that gained the notch above the crack.  I followed, climbing the crack directly, finding it harder than 5.7, I’d call it 5.9.  Above this, a steep flake system requiring liebacks led to where Robert was belaying on the ridge.  I led out from here placing like two pieces on easy terrain that led to the summit.  On top of the Mole, the Icicle looked far away, a totally miserable way to approach the Mole – I’m sure no one is dumb enough to approach from that direction.

We headed back down to our camp.  This spot was great.  The tarn had been warmed by the sun so cleanin’ up wasn’t a miserably cold experience.  Also, there are tons of places to sleep on either dirt or granite.  We picked the dirt for the extra layer of soft comfort it provided.  The moon wasn’t out tonight, or was just hanging out behind a ridge somewhere, and the stars were out in spades.

McClellan’s Butte

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The weather wasn’t terribly cooperative this weekend, but that may have been a good thing. I’d wanted to climb the north ridge of Forbidden Peak and so and planned to that this weekend. I know I would have come back from that trip utterly exhausted since I’ve grown soft living in China and wasn’t in good physical shape. Plus, the Cascade River Road was closed at Eldorado Creek – another 6 miles to hike! So, instead of jsut doing good ole Mount Si, we (Kevin, Ari, and me) opted to climb McClellan’s Butte, which was the very first climb I did with Michael at the end of 2002, man that seems like so long ago. I guess it was – 4.5 years.

Well, there’s not too much to report about this trip. I was slower than both Kevin and Ari and they enjoyed racing up ahead and taunting me as they’d wait for me, looking down the trail at my panting form doggedly plodding up the mountain. We made our way up to the final ridge and were greeted by a welcomed blast of cool air and a sweeping view down the valley. The final scramble lay in front of us which was an easy scamper. We lounged around on top for about an hour, nearly falling asleep on some smooth slabs down the ridge northeast from the summit. The hike out was pretty uneventful except that my new hiking boots were hinting that they were going to be pain to break in. This proved to be true the following week.

The Tooth- South Face, II, 5.4

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Daniel’s idea:

After work, drive up to Snoqualmie Pass, hike in to the Tooth, climb it, sleep on the summit, rappel down the following morning and go into work.

Dang that sounded cool to me.  That’s almost like a free weekend.  We headed out around 4:30 or 5:00 on Wednesday, stopped for some food at Subway in North Bend (saving part of the sandwich for the summit), and continued up to Snoqualmie Pass.  From the parking lot, we hiked up the trail on snow.  Well, I hiked; Daniel brought his skis and skinned up.  Now, it was way back in November on Sperry Peak when I was last on snow and that was a postholing Hell.  This Snoqualmie Spring snow was perfect, well-consolidated, and sturdy.  I think I punched through once, and only then up to the thigh of one leg.  Pshaw.

We made quick time up the valley, passed an open slope, where beyond we turned leftward past a waterfall and made a steep ascending and curving climb to Great Scott Basin.  Within approximately an hour and a half we were near the Tooth.  The snow climb beyond the small tower which Michael and I dubbed “Baby Tooth” was straight forward.  At the very end, however, we did encounter a descent bergeschrund that required careful negotiation to safely squeak up and through in order to reach the small pass.  A few minutes later we were at the base of the Tooth.

I’d never led the Tooth before so Daniel gave me the first pitch.  One long simul pitch later we were on the summit.  The climb itself was good easy fun, solid the whole way, consisting of easy climbing with sprinkled 5.4ish cruxes here and there.  The summit was surprisingly warm – mid to low 50′s, I suppose, with no wind.  After enjoying the second half of our subway sandwiches and some evening photography, we bedded down on two good bivy ledges and stared up at the stars.  Occasionally, I would turn my head slightly and look down on the cars travelling on I-90 far below.

I fell asleep fast and awoke sometime in the early morning hours to a bright three quarters moon hanging in the southern sky.  Sometime later, at 5am I heard Daniel moving about.  We lazed around and leisurely had a small breakfast and took more pictures and video.

We made one rappel off the summit and then decided to explore around the area.  Daniel led back up looking around for the “Catwalk”.  With no immediate pro available, we decided to just rappel all the way down and solo up “Baby Tooth” for some more photo opportunities.

Daniel skied out.  I glissaded and plunge stepped my way out.  We were back to work around 9:30.

The photos here were taken by Daniel.

Sperry Peak

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Robert and I made a climb of Sperry Peak in what I call “off season”.  For some reason, I’ve lost some interest in mountaineering in the late Fall, Winter, and early Spring.  Maybe that’s because I enjoy high summer so much more.  There are more difficulties in the winter – wet, cold, less daylight, and so on.  Basically, I catch up on my other activities in the winter and enjoy the outdoors when nature really intended it for us climbers to enjoy.

Due to very slick snow, we had to park about two miles below the usual trailhead.  We brought snowshoes along for the basin below Headless Pass.  Our intention was to climb the south ridge.  We were hoping it would be dry from all the warm, clear weather that the mountains had been exposed to for the previous five days.

There were a few tricky stream crossings before breaking out of the trees.  We picked a turn around time of two o’clock so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crossings in the pitch black.  Basically the entire theme of the trip was “step on the snow and fall in the hole!”  We must have punched through the snow a hundred times between the two of us.  Robert, I have to confess, did a much better job of preserving his dignity than I did.  Somewhere in the basin, I punched through to my chest.  It took me five minutes to dig my left foot out.  Landmarks slowly passed by.  I recall looking back on a small waterfall that I swore we’d passed about an hour before, yet it still looked within two minutes of me.  The frustration continued as we persevered up the slope to Headlee Pass.

I wanted to turn around numerous times, but I did manage to stay focused and trudge my way up.  The holes continued to suck me in and often I had to escape by simply rolling out and sliding off the slick lip of the cavity.  A small bergeshrund had formed near the top of the pass.  About 5 feet above the ‘shrund, the slick snow caused me to skid again and I slowly and pathetically slid back down to the ‘shrund, erasing my past few minutes progress.  As I began the ascent again, a hole claimed one of my trekking poles – the bottom third of the retractable pole pulled out leaving the locking mechanism behind.  It was now useless.  So, leaving both poles behind for the return trip, I pulled out my ice axe for a relative increase in stability.

At the top of the pass, the sun greeted us.  After a short drop to the other side, we were drenched in sunlight and the snow became even wetter.  By this time, our feet were sloshing inside our boots.  A few more tedious slopes saw us at the base of the second half of the route.  We’d skipped the lower part of the climb by not climbing directly from Headlee Pass.

We decided to drop everything and blast up to the top.  I was surprised at how big the rack was the Robert brought.  He headed up in one long simul pitch to the summit.  The beginning featured a short near vertical step, probably the crux of the route.  Higher on the ridge was some playful exposure over the east slopes, but for the most part, the route was 3rd class.  A little after 2pm, our turn around time, we were on the top.

I was actually surprised that we made it, given how many times I’d wanted to turn around and how painfully slow we were in approaching the peak.  I credit Robert with the tenacity to keep going.  We had about two hours to get down before the sun went down.  We decided to descend straight down the east face and traverse back across to the lower part of the south ridge where we’d rappel down to our packs.  We plunged stepped down steep snow, grabbing on to trees for leverage.  Sometimes we sped the descent by grabbing trees and swinging down, sometimes we slowed ourselves by catching the trees before tumbling down.  We descended quickly to a bench of snow where we’d begin traversing.  Right before we got there, I fell into another hole up to my shoulders this time.  The traverse, however, was relatively easy.  I almost could see us eating up time by wading through deep snow, but thankfully, we only had to deal with knee deep slow for the most part.  Our snowshoes were with our packs back at the spot where we roped up too.  Throwing the rope around a stunted pine, we rappelled back to the packs and began the frustrating slog out.

If I was frustrated on the way up, I was agitated and irrational on the way down.  I descended into hollering and cursing the snow and the holes, vowing not to come out again until May or June (OK, at least until the snow is well consolidated).  We ended up crossing the stream crossings in near dark, but the crossings were easy.  Robert lost a pole that he threw across the creek.  We arrived back at the car around 6:30PM in total darkness.  As I write this and reflect back on the day, I’m shocked to find myself thinking it was pretty fun.  Thanks for the suggestion, Robert.