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Sahale Peak,Boston Basin Loop

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This is the story of Ken and Dan’s annual trip to the Pacific Northwest for some mountaineering in the Cascade Range.  We wanted to spend the first night in Boston Basin, climb Forbidden Peak the next day, then move camp upwards to the Sahale-Boston Col, climb Sharkfin Tower and Sahale the next day and head out via Sahale Arm back to the car.  I picked up Ken on the earlier flight; Dan hadn’t been able to go standby on that flight but threw his gear on that plane.  I had the privilege of hauling his one super heavy duffel bag; I buckled as I picked it up and tried to haul it off.  Dan showed up a later on a delayed flight and we didn’t get to bed until 1am or so, unfortunately.  The next day we woke up early and drove out under grey clouds to the Marblemount ranger station.  We thought that because it was early on Friday, we’d not have a problem getting a pass.  Well, there were no passes for Boston Basin.  And, to top that, the Cascade Pass Road was closed at the Eldorado parking lot thanks to the heavy fall rains last year. So, we instead got permits for Sahale Arm then Boston Basin.  That would work; we’d just do the trip in reverse.  At the parking lot, we encountered some rangers, one of them seemed an interesting mix of German and American Indian and we later joked about asking to look at our permit with a very dry “Papers please.”

We started up the road, an extra 3+ miles, around 11am, a little despondent that we had this extra burden.  Three and a half miles on an easy road sounds pretty straightforward, and it was.  It was really hot though and I think this extra mileage and elevation really tipped the scales of exhaustion when we pulled into camp the first night.  Two miles up the road we still wondered why the road was closed.  Soon enough though, we saw the numerous holes in the road, sections that were collapsed, and the big machinery that fixes all of it.  In some ways though, it was pretty cool hiking up the road because we were able to pay attention to new scenery that we’re accustom to zipping past on the way in or out.

After a short break at the picnic area at the Cascade Pass parking lot, we put our packs back on and started the climb (again) to Cascade Pass.  The trail to the pass is pleasant and loaded with numerous switchbacks.  I went ahead in front of Ken and Dan intent on getting some video footage as they approached the pass.  By the time I got to the pass, the weather had changed a bit.  It was a lot colder at the pass and a lot of new clouds had moved in.  After a second break, we headed up the last third of the first day – the hike up Sahale Arm to Sahale Arm camp.  The hike up Sahale Arm was awesome – lots of heather and flowers, we saw marmots and ptarmigans, and great views down to Doubtful Lake and up to Johannesburg Peak.  The upper reaches of Sahale, however, were completely engulfed in clouds.

As we climbed into the clouds, the mist started slowly dampening our packs and clothes.  We intently watched our altimeters and we went up the easy talus.  At this point, visibility had literally dropped to 30 feet (I measured).  We got to an obvious ridge at 7600 feet and we knew the camps were nearby.  I scouted to the left and found the public toilet.  Then I scouted to the right and found the first camp, which was occupied.  I yelled, “Hi guys!” to the occupants who answered (turned out to be Rob and Ben who we would share the summit with the next day) and gave me vague directions to where other camps were.  The three of us then headed up to search for a place to sleep.  We spread out and dropped our packs and roamed around.  It was easy to get out of view of each other.  We explored a large rocky area that only revealed a semi level section of snow.  In the mist, I thought I could see another section of rock and I let Ken and Dan know I’d go explore there and I’d either yell that I found something or I’d meet them at the snow platform at the top of the last rocky section.  This new rocky outcropping looked far away but I took a mere 10-15 steps and was suddenly there; distances were completely out of proportion in the mist!  After a couple of minutes, I found a spot and hollered to Ken and Dan who followed my voice down.  We set up camp, ate, and then crashed for ten hours!  It was an exhausting day.

The next day, we tentively opened the fly to see what the day would reveal.  It was clear!  Well, for the most part.  There was lots of blue sky but there were also a whole lot of clouds.  The north Cascade valley was engulfed in a large cloud, Johannesburg moved in and out of clouds, and beyond Sahale Arm, near Forbidden, seemed to be covered in clouds.  But, it was clear above and behind us and we could see the summit of Sahale Peak.  We took our time getting ready and then packed up and headed up with heavy packs.  We wanted to get over Sahale Peak this day and down to Boston Basin.  If we had the time, energy, and weather, we’d also try to climb Sharkfin Tower.  We followed easy snow to the base of the summit tower.  We decided that since we were wearing full packs, we’d rope up for the one pitch to the top.  In normal weather with a light pack or nothing, this would be a thrilling scramble to the top.  I thought maybe I’d go straight up the face and then link up with the lefthand ridge.  This turned out to not be the best choice (there were no good places to protect) and I had to make some delicate moves to get over to the ridge.  Once we got going though, the ridge went quickly and easily.  On the top, we met up with Ben and Rob and we posed for lots of pictures.

By the time we were ready to rappel down the north side of Sahale, the clouds moved in and engulfed the summit.  Sadly, they didn’t leave for the rest of the trip.  On the other side of the summit, the scene wasn’t very cheery – cloudy and misty with unseen exposure over the right side and steep snow on the left.  We roped up and carefully made our way down.  The going wasn’t too bad fortunately.  There was a section where we had to downclimb on polished slabs with our crampons on.  At the base of the slabs, we were able to make a short scramble down to the edge of the glacier.  A short jump put us on our way.  The way through the glacier was straightforward, albeit foggy.

We made quick progress down.  Suddenly, views of Boston Basin started opening up.  We exited the base of the cloud cover and were able to clearly see down into the basin.  This was a relief; we wouldn’t have to search the entire area for the campsites.  The cloud covered went all the way over to Forbidden Peak and hid the summit from us.  Johannesburg, however, was clear.

We made a stop for some food then another to get some glacial water.  Ken then caught a glimpse of someone in the distance walking – that had to be the upper Boston Basin camps.  Cool – we weren’t that far away.  We had to negotiate a couple of steep grassy sections.  Dan’s heavy boots served him well at this point.  Ken and I were a little more unsure in our light leather boots.  We pulled into camp in the afternoon.  Most of the established campsites were still under snow we were told.  We were able to find a nice flat spot though and set our camp up there.  We spent the rest of the day gazing up towards Forbidden that at most revealed the base of the couloir that gave access to the West Ridge.  It looked pretty steep and narrow from our vista.  Most of the time, though, we couldn’t see very far up the slopes of Forbidden.  180 degrees behind us, though, the real view was always available to behold.  Johannesburg looked absolutely gargantuan and terrifying.  We had a leisurely dinner and plenty of time for picture taking.  We set our watches for 4:30 and turned in.

When 4:30 came around, I really didn’t want to stir.  Ken was pretty anxious and got up to look.  “Socked in”, he said.  No!  Well, at least we can sleep a little longer; let’s try again in about two and a half hours.  At 7am we got up again.  I looked out and it was completely socked in.  What luck.  The night before, the rangers had come by checking permits.  We asked for the latest forecast and the confirmed our thoughts – that July 4th would be the best climbing day.  Not so.  It looked like we were out of luck.  Dejected, we lugubriously packed our things up and headed down.  There’s not to much to report on the hike out.  It was pleasant enough and the mist lasted for a lot of elevation.  These clouds certainly weren’t going anywhere today.  We had a couple of fun stream crossings.  We moved quickly; we were suddenly at the avalanche debris that Ken and I had experienced a couple of years before.  This time though, the passage was much more straightforward.  We also figured out where we’d gone wrong in the past.  We dreaded the long road hike out but it turned out to be pretty easy.  Though we didn’t get to climb Forbidden, the trip was still a lot of fun.  We had great views (the ones that chose to reveal themselves) and the experience of going up and over Sahale was really alpine.  I also greatly enjoyed the downtime where we took in the views from our lunch perch on the Quien Sabe glacier and the locale of Sahale Arm and Boston Basin.  We’ll have to return some day for Forbidden.

All Wilmans Spires, Wilmans Peak, Columbia Peak

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It was hard to decide what to do this sunny weekend.  Robert and I eventually decided on the Glacier Basin area above Monte Cristo.  I was actually a little skeptical about the prospects; I’d been wanting to get into the North Cascades for a while.  The best way to get to the urban ghost town sprawl of Monte Cristo is by bike and we made quick time down the road, which was bumpy in a couple of spots.  We stashed the bikes, crossed the creek, and made our way through the ghost town.  Apparently, there was a population of some thousands back in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s.  There wasn’t much left of many of the buildings.  Some of the markers stood over naught but ruins or even less.  Up the trail, I was pleased to see that we’d be passing by a large set of falls.  Being a big fan of waterfalls, I wasn’t dissappointed at all at how many cascades there were.

Our orignal plan was a little vague but consisted of something like Monte Cristo to Cadet to Foggy.  However, with my question of “Is East Wilmans really worth the climb”?  That started a new idea germinating.  “Yes!” retorted Robert.  We slowly started concocting the plan to climb all three of the spires and then move on to Wilmans Peak and then perhaps Monte Cristo and beyond.  OK, so we started up the pleasant snowfield to reach the base of the spire.  I’d imagine this would be much more tedious in the late summer when the snow was melted and the climber would have to negotiate talus and scree.

When we arrived at the top, we noticed other climbers on East Wilmans Spire.  So, we decided to tackle the other two spires first.  We had to do a good bit of ‘shwacking through thick evergreens to get on to a rough ledge system that led around the back side of the other spires.  At one point, we had to downclimb loose terrain under a wet roof.  The base featured a gully that reminded me of the “Paths of the Dead” in Lord of the Rings.  This certainly couldn’t be the 3rd class section that Beckey described.  At any rate, it looked way to steep to try.  Turns out this would take you directly to the notch between the two, but we pressed on – probably the smart thing to do.  Still, on the other side of a buttress we encountered more bushwacking and steep 4th and 5th class climbing.  At one point, because of the steep and loose rock, we backed down and went around another small outcropping to more manageable 5th class soloing.  However, at one section, I had Robert put me on belay.  As I climbed passed him, I found a short passage through brush to snow that revealed that we were on the opposite side of the spires.  Soon enough, we were at the base of the north spire and I lobbied to climb the south buttress (a new route?) instead of from the notch that Beckey mentions in his book.  It turned out this route was a lot of fun:  mostly 3rd class with some fun and easy bouldering problems near the top.

I don’t recall if we rappelled or downclimbed the route back to the notch, but the route on the south spire, the north arete, I suppose, looked spectacular from here.  The first pitch was a broken 4th class (actually 5th) section on the edge of the face that led to an obvious belay stance.  The second and last pitch was 5th class and featured “a hard move”.  Hmm.  We roped up at the notch and Robert headed off.  At the belay ledge, I heard him yell, “I’m going to continue up!”  Later, when I heard, “On belay!”, I started up and found that the first section, while still easy, was the toughest.  The second pitch was fantastic:  easy and solid cruising on low 5th class rock.  If there were like seven or eight pitches like this, the south spire would be super popular.  There was no “hard move” that either of us could find.  The top, unfortunately was quite loose and we delicately climbed to the highest point.  With a mix of rappelling and downclimbing we made it down to the belay ledge where rappel anchors were.  Apparently, they were designed to rappel of the west side.  We moved it a little so that we could avoid all the ugly scrambling and bushwacking to get up here; we opted to rappel the east.  This would put us right at the base of East Wilmans Spire.  We had to rebuild the anchor at one point in order to pull the rope.  After two more rappels on loose terrain, we were back at the packs.

We waited for quite a while at the base of East Wilmans Spire for another party to descend.  After about an hour, at 7pm, we decided to quit patiently waiting and head up.  Because we still weren’t sure about camp, we decided to climb fast.  We did the climb in two pitches and were back down in 30 minutes.  East Wilmans was a fun climb, very easy but worth it.  Our next job, however, was to get to campsites somewhere up on the ridge leading to Wilmans Peak.  We wanted to get up on the ridge but were stymied by difficult rock (“snookered” as Robert would say).  At one point, Robert considered roping up for a short but scary section that could put us up on the ridge.  It was a lot harder looking than anything we’d done today and also we had full packs so we smartly decided to go back and walk down to the little glacier.  Sure enough, beyond the glacier, we were able to get up on the ridge, but not after a long section of tough 4th and 5th class climbing.  At one point, I requested another belay.  Beyond that, I scrambled through some more scrub trees to a snowfield that led to perfect campsites.  We were done for the day, no arguments!

We enjoyed an excellent sunset.  There were rain clouds beyond Columbia Peak to the south (where Michael was earlier this day on Merchant Peak) but they appeared that they would not interfere with our plans.  I fell in to a long uninterrupted sleep within minutes of turning in.

We awoke to a brilliant cloudless day.  We set off for Wilmans Peak.  I expected us to at least have to traverse a few gendarmes, but it turned out we slept right under the main summit of Wilmans Peak.  However, beyond that, we were indeed “snookered”.  Traversing over to Monte Cristo directly was out of the question; we were separated by large and steep gendarmes.  So, the trip now transmuted into a climb of Columbia Peak from the 76 glacier.  OK, so now we only had to get to the 76 glacier which lay directly below us, with nasty cliffs and gullies between us and it.

We started looking for a good place to start the descent.  Apparently, there was this “Broadway Ledge” which is ostensibly used for such purposes.  But, I don’t believe it after seeing it:  a narrow and exposed ledge that is covered in loose scree.  No thanks.  We found an old rappel station and used that to make our first rappel into a scary and loose gully.  At this point, I took very few pictures and video footage since I was most concerned with getting out.  The stressful gully featured steep snow, loose steep rocks, and a few rappels, some of them overhanging.  “Enough of this!”, I thought.  “How much would I pay right now to be magically teleported out of here?” is a game that I sometimes play when the situation turns exhausting or stressful.  It at least passed the time.

On the glacier, life became simple again.  We trudged up the glacier with the intent on climbing Columbia Peak.  Our plans, however, changed to abandon aspirations of a link-up with Monte Cristo but instead a loop hike out over Poodle Dog Pass and out the Silver Lake trail.  This sounded pretty good to me, always a fan of the loop hike.  We got to a high point on the glacier and stashed our packs.  The climb up was always interesting:  mostly 3rd class with a little 4th class and one short section of 5th class thrown in.  Near the top, we had an exposed loose dirt traverse to get to some steep snow with deep ice axe placements that finally got us to the top.

The hike out via Poodle Dog Pass was pleasant, as I recall, though I was a bit tired.  I didn’t bring a sun hat or anything so I had to wear my clunky helmet the entire day to prevent my head from being baked in the unrelenting sun.  Moving towards Poodle Dog Pass, the views of the 76 basin started opening up.  This valley is full of waterfalls all over.  We actually took a water break at the top of one of the falls that fed directly in to the glaciel valley below.  This was one of the most scenic rest stops I’d ever been at, I’d thought.  We drank our fill from the melting snow water then headed back up, looking for the trail that would send us on our way down past Silver Lake.

A little more tree scrambling and ‘shwacking finally got us up on the ridge framing the southwestern section of the valley.  Not soon after, we’d found the trail.  It was sometimes a challenge keeping up with the trail in and out of the snow, but we managed.  The remainder of the hike out featured a brand new trail, so said Robert who’d taken the older trail some years ago.  This one ended up leading us past Sunday Falls, a fantastic way to cap the hiking part of the trip.  What remained was the enjoyable 4-mile coast back to the car.

Dragontail Peak

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To sneak in and nab Dragontail in a day was the plan.  The dreary forcast called for yet another weekend of unsettled weather.  Leavenworth looked reasonable at “partly cloudy” on Saturday and torrents on Sunday.  Why not try a grade IV climb in a day…we’ve got to do something alpine this weekend!  Getting a close look at Dragontail from Colchuck Lake, I’d forgotten how immense it’s north face was.  We’re going all the way up there up that route?  Awesome!

Michael and I decided that a car camp and avoiding an early morning two hour drive would be best so we set out from west of the Cascades in cloudy weather around 9:15pm.  On arriving in Leavenworth, I noticed the stars and clear skies above us.  We both were quite sleepy when we pulled into the campsite that Michael, Aidan, and I had used on Memorial Day 2003.  We threw bivy sacks and sleeping bags down on the ground and slept soundly for 5-6 hours.  I opened my eyes early in the morning and took a gander at the brightly lit surroundings.  Oh no!  We’ve overslept again!  I yelled at Michael to wake up to which he replied in a pathetically tired voice, “No, it’s only 4:53, we can sleep for seven more minutes.”  OK.  Michael actually reported that it was light around 4 in the morning.  What a great time of the year.  We readied our things in the early morning chill and then took the short mile drive to the trailhead.  We started hiking around 5:45.

We made quick progress up the trail.  It seemed like no time at all had passed when we’d arrived at the first bridge and then at the turnoff to Colchuck Lake.  All the previous times that I’d been here were in early May and they left an indelible memory.  After all the falls through snow holes, the slips, the soaked boots, well everything having to do with wet snow, I was thoroughly enjoying the dry trail.  Soon enough we were at the lake and then making our way up the Colchuck Glacier and patches of moriane to the base of the climb.  The distance and elevation from the lake to the climb did not appear far, but, as usual, it was.

We continued on past campsites, some of which were occupied, and arrived at the base of the glacier. The snow was quite hard and sparkling and we took the time to put on crampons so we wouldn’t have to spend extra energy teetering one way or another trying to keep our balance. We were now in the sun which beamed down on us intensely. It was nice for a change and we happily put on our sunscreen. From where we were, it was nearly 1100 feet to the base of the climb, although it certainly didn’t look like it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73r1zA0RES0

There was a small bergeschrund at the base of the wall that gave access to a short and semi-steep snowfield that led to the base of the rock. Here, we decided to keep our crampons on since the terrain looked reasonably easy (3rd and 4th class) and would soon lead us to another snowfield. Dry tooling seemed pretty easy, definitely easier and much less stressful than what was to come – the steep snow traverse. Normally, this is just a continuation of 3rd and 4th class rock that we were on. Now, it was a traverse hard and steep snow with a scary cliff at the base of it. Because it was a rightward traverse, our right legs, especially the calves, became very sore supporting us. There were a few places to stop and rest, but by the nature of the scary terrain, we wanted to move through it quickly. I found this part of the climb easily the scariest and probably would have liked to have been roped up here. Actually, I felt very secure, but on the off chance of a slip, things could have turned ugly. Michael continued up snow on one section but I opted to get off the snow as soon as possible and enjoy the solid granite. Finally, we were at the base of the first 5th class pitch. We stopped to put on our shoes and get some lunch.  By now, clouds had moved in to block out the sun.  It looked liked the weather would hold though.

I led up the first pitch which was rated at 5.7. The beginning was problematic because the normally easy way was covered in snow, and I was done with climbing on hard snow (and I had my shoes). So, I decided to go straight up an open book and try to traverse over. This turned out to be quite difficult and I needed to back down, well beyond 5.7 (and there’s only one 5.7 crux at the top). So, I backed down, looked right, looked left, and opted to put both feet on the snow with solid handholds. That worked and I was on my way, although after a long delay. The climbing was easy for the most part, mostly low 5th class. There were series of corners and open books and I generally tended to stay on the left side where the rock was smoother, but with less lichen. The climbing was good. I could see the distinct leaning tower that marked the end of the first pitch very close to me as I approached the final crux, which was a burly short chimney that required a semi-strenuous lieback. Then, I passed the tree with the rap sling on it as some route descriptions mentioned and I was on the broad ledge that led around the leaning tower to the crux 5.8-5.9 pitch. I was expecting a reasonable belay station over there with slings and all – there were none. I had to build my own. Not a problem, but I was just surprised.

The next pitch was the crux and Michael opted to go straight up the thin crack system.  There was a corner option as well to the left that’s rated 5.8/5.9 that looked easier except when you got to the top, where the corner starts to arc over towards the climber and the footholds look really thin.  The small crack was pretty tricky.  Handjams were a little scarce for me and I ended up following the pitch using “gym” techniques by leaning way out and counter-balancing to get my feet higher to easier footholds (the lower part is more difficult).  At the top of the crack, after a delicate shift to the right to a blockier section, I followed up a great hand crack corner.  I found it awkward to use both foot and hand jams at the same time so I hand jammed my way up while keeping my feet placed out on small face holds.

I headed out for pitch three which turned out to be my favorite of the climb.  It was rated 5.7 and felt like a joyous cruise up super solid granite on fun terrain where a solid hold was just where you needed it.  The first part was definitely the trickiest – a slick open book.  This section protected well, but my pasted feet tended to slip while placing gear.  Once I got a single piece in, I just opted to inelegantly heave my way to the top where the fun part started.  The next long section was a fun corner that also featured nice views down to the glacier below.  We could see little tiny ant men making their way up to the col.  I wondered if they could see us.

I brought Michael up to a confined belay stance at a small and stunted evergreen.  As he arrived at the top, he asked, “Do you feel any raindrops?”  “No.”  But before many minutes a little groppel started falling.  Fortunately, the little bean bag balls bounced off the rock and collected on the level ground and wasn’t causing a problem.  Michael led off on pitch 4 that was easy except for a short awkward chimney to squeak through.  Beyond that, we began the long pitches of simul-climbing.  We were relieved to be above the hardest climbing, but the falling snow was a little unnerving.  We realized that we needed to just press on quickly and go up an over the peak; retreating back down the route would be hard and tedious.

I characterize the climbing on the upper pitches as relatively solid, although we had to take care on our holds.  The climbing gets more loose the further away from the ridge crest we got, so we strived to stay right on the crest.  It seemed like each pitch had short easy crux sections of 5.2-5.6.

We wisely decided to stop and put on our shells.  The snowfall increased and eventually developed into flake.  The flakes, unlike the groppel, would fall and melt directly on the face, quickly making the climb wet.  At one point, Michael was leading and yelled down for me to put him on belay.  I paid the rope out slowly, which unfortunately meant that the section was hard.  I then went on belay and followed up.  At this point, I had on no gloves and the snow was coming down really hard.  I saw the difficulty in front of me:  a sloping wet and mossy slab with a narrow crack on the left.  The crack, as it turned out, was too shallow for any protection and Michael had essentially soloed it.  I don’t think I would have tried that myself.  There was a fixed pin in the crack but it wasn’t clipped and when I grabbed it, it pulled right out.  I delicately made my way up, at one point nearly losing it; I was thankful for the belay.  The snow was dumping on me now and my hands had a layer of snow on them and lots was falling down my open sleeves.  I pressed on and at the top wrung the snow out and tightened down my jacket.  At the belay, I continued on.  The snow abated and eventually stopped, probably about an hour after starting.  The sun, while it didn’t come out, shined through enough the high clouds to warm us up and help dry out the rock.  A gentle wind also lent a helping hand.  The rock became dry pretty quickly actually.

At this point I was just ready to be on the top in case the clouds decided to open up again.  However, we were back to our usual joking mode and the climbing again became enjoyable and less stressful.  Michael led out one final pitch below the summit block that led us through a steep and difficult overhanging crack.  The crack was filled with ice.  At this point, I didn’t care about being a purist and unabashedly grabbed on the gear to get myself to a better stance.  Off to the right about 50 feet was easier terrain.  Shucks, we could have gone that way.  Oh well, no matter.  At the top of this pitch was a section of snow.  We could see the summit of the peak right in front of us.  Because of time and snow, we opted to put on our boots and gaiters and take the standard route around the left side of the summit block and on up 3rd class slopes to the summit instead of the direct 5.7 finish to the summit.  The snow traverse was fun and exposed and I paused a bit to get some video footage.  We rounded the corner and scrambled our way a short distance to the top.  Wow, it felt good to have the tough climbing behind us.  We enjoyed sitting on the summit for 30 minutes or so.  The clouds started descending again though and Stuart passed out of view.

The descent off the back side of Dragontail was a breeze and we enjoyed a beautifully long glissade on perfect snow.  Aasgard Pass was a little more problematic, more scree and harder snow.  At one point, I got out of control on my glissade and smacked into Michael.  We both had to self arrest.  After that, I opted to plunge step my way down.  Michael, though, enjoyed the glissade-arrest-glissade-arrest approach and he got way out in front of me.  That gave him the opportunity to go up Colchuck Glacier a hundred feet or so and retreive our hiking poles that we’d stashed.

We had a pleasant hike out.  Finally, I felt in shape enough to not feel utterly exhausted and sick at the end of the climb, so I actually enjoyed the hike out.  However, I did end up lying down on the bare rock at Mountaineers Creek while it gently drizzled on me.  Michael decided to join in on the sleep and as he passed by he woke me up startling me – ok, I guess I was really tired after all.  We also passed some interesting folks who asked lots and lots of questions about rock climbing.  Michael was pleasant with them and answered their queries, while I just quietly sat back and enjoyed the rest; I wasn’t really lively enough to talk much.  I had forgotten to bring my headlamp on the climb (as my Colorado friends would say, “Well, it wouldn’t be a real trip if Theron didn’t forget something!”), however, we hiked out fast enough to arrive just in time before the sun set.  I was really excited to have Dragontail under my belt, especially such a cool route!

Trip statistics:  12 miles, 6000 feet, 15 hours

Mount Stuart-Stuart Glacier Couloir

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The weather in the North Cascades deteriorated so we headed to the Alpine Lakes for slightly unsettled weather which was apparently perfect for the Stuart Glacier Couloir route (I guess it was).  We got a deliberately late start on Saturday, leaving the Seattle area a little after noon.  After various errands and stopping for food, we drove to the Mountaineer Creek trailhead and hit the trail around 4pm.  We estimated it would take about four hours to get to high camp at the base of Mount Stuart at 5400 feet.  We brought a 60m 8.5mm rope and a fairly large rack of gear for the rock portion (we would double the 60m rope).  Michael opted for two ice tools and I decided to stick with a standard mountaineer’s axe and a single ice tool.  We made great time to Colchuck Lake turnoff, maybe an hour, and continued on to the first nice viewpoint of Mount Stuart where we took our first break, drank some water, and shot some video footage and some photos.

The next part of the hike in got a little trickier and took a lot longer.  We continued to make good time on the trail to Stuart Lake.  We needed to break off the main trail though and head for the opposite valley, which is the most convenient place to camp and climb Stuart from.  We found a major switchback and decided to break off the trail there.  At the northern fork of Mountaineers Creek we searched for a crossing of the creek.  We didn’t find anything too easy and eventually settled on a dry upward sloping log that we had to straddle and scoot across, avoiding sitting on the pointy broken limb stumps.  It was a pretty tricky crossing.  On the other side, we wondered if we’d waited too long to leave the main trail (we had), because we had a lot of uphill and then subsequent downhill on obnoxious snowy talus to get to the southern fork of Mountaineers Creek, where a trail, or at least a snowy boot path, was reputed to be.  As we were slogging our way through the talus, we heard Dan Smith calling our names!  That was great…good to see Dan and his party, who had just climbed Argonaut Peak in a very long day, and to have them guide us down to the creek.

At the creek, we had easier going for a while but got back into plenty of snowy sections where rotten holes underneath sent us falling into snow up to our thighs and waist.  We were beyond our allotted four hours but still had a reasonable amount of light.  Eventually, we finally arrived at the top of the steep slopes to the broad and snowy meadow at 5400 feet.  Our first priority was to replenish our water.  I thought I heard some up ahead but when I got up there, I could no longer hear it.  I suppose I was hearing a reflection of the creek behind us.  So, while I was setting up camp and getting the cooking supplies ready, Michael retraced his steps to fetch water.  We enjoyed a freeze dried meal (actually, I wasn’t too keen on mine this time) and the near full moon that illuminated the northeastern side of Mount Stuart.  We set the alarm for 3:30am and went to bed.

We got up at 5am…ah well.  The dim morning light revealed that the upper slopes of Stuart was now engulfed in clouds.  Drat!  That always bothers me but Michael wasn’t too worried about it.  So, we started the slog.  This route has a lot of snow climbing, step kicking, and so on in it.  So, get used to it!  However, I must admit that with the long snow slopes and the windy cloudy weather, I was not into the climb.  But I kept going.  Our first objective was to walk past the Sherpa Glacier, the Ice Cliff Glacier, and the North Ridge and ascend to the Stuart Glacier.  At the Stuart Glacier, we ascended again, making our way to the eerie couloir, whose base we could only see; the rest faded away in the clouds.  At the base of the couloir, we had already climbed 2300 feet of snow!  The couloir and the big upper snowfield constituted another 1200 feet of snow climbing!

Michael started up the couloir by crossing over the bergshrund.  Looking down the big fissure, I could see how big and how much space was down in there.  A ways up the couloir, I took the lead and continued up all the way to the base of the snowfield.  The two sections of ice weren’t problematic at all although the ice was getting quite sloppy.  Little mini fountains would pop out when I swung my pick into the ice.  The ice section is short and not that steep and we soloed all of it.  The exposure increased as we went higher and higher.  From the upper snowfield, the exposure is at it’s max; it’s a long straight shot down the couloir back to the Stuart Glacier.  The upper couloir had wet spring snow that packed on to our crampons in balls as thick as 6 inches so we were forced to take off our crampons and step kick the rest of the way.  The good news was that the weather was clearing.  We could see blue sky above us and swiftly moving clouds.  OK, there would be wind.

Sure enough, the wind greeted us at the top of the west ridge.  Still, I think I’d rather have the wind and sun rather than damp and cloudy conditions.  At this point, I realized there was no escape on this route, well no practical escape.  It would be very tedious and stressful to retrace that 3500 feet of snow.  The best way down was to continue up.  Of course, I didn’t want to go down.  The sun had given me more confidence.  We took the customary break, ate food, and got ready for rock climbing portion of the climb.  The first pitch was basically horizontal along the ridge, pretty easy going, I suppose it was 4th class.  We were wearing our stiff boots, I had my plastic boots.  I was actually a little worried about the rock climbing portion because of my boots.  We traveled along the south side of the peak, in the sun.  The second pitch led up along 5.0 terrain to the intimidating section where we had to move along thin exposed ledges of the north face…long way down to the Stuart Glacier.  Michael led the entirety of the upper pitches and headed out along a snowy exposed ledge scarcely wider than two feet.  The climbing wasn’t too hard, though rated 5th class.  Fortunately, the snow was reasonably firm and our boot placements felt solids.

At the base of the second pitch of the north face, we suspected that we could have retreated a bit to a small notch to get up on to the ridge.  It looked a little awkward, but it might work.  Instead, we pressed on ahead.  The first move was a tricky 5th class, strenuous move around a bulging rock that led to a steep snow chute allowed rock hand holds.  The rope tugged tight and I waited a moment for the belay and then started up.  The move was indeed strenuous and pretty hard (especially wearing all that gear).  I then started up the chute and discovered that Michael had just put me on belay…we actually simulclimbed that hard move.  Back up on the ridge, we enjoyed more sun and it looked like we had a couple more easy pitches before we began the two 5.6 pitches.  We traversed under the south face in sun for and then started up an easy 5th class pitch, then another up a steep face.  The final pitch was a 5.6 crack system.  I noticed Michael on his belly pulling himself up on a section of it…hmmm.  He was soon out of sight but after some minutes, the rope didn’t come tight.  I heard him yell “On Belay” and I started climbing, but the rope still didn’t come tight.  I yelled “Take!” several times, the rope slowly came in and I started up the hard crack.  In boots, this was a bear, and easily the hardest part.  It was doable with fairly good handholds, but virtually nothing for feet and it was nearly vertical.  As I pulled myself up, the rope didn’t come tight again.  So I yelled “Take!”  One of the ropes (we had the rope doubled) came a little tight, the other didn’t move.  So, I continued up to easier terrain, after the most strenuous moves of the climb, holding on just long enough to pull myself up and find tiny ledges where I could somehow hook my boots and help myself up.  I was finally on terrain easy enough that I was able to reel in the rope.  As I climbed higher, I noticed what had happened:  The rope had somehow pinched against two boulders.  I could not release it; I don’t know how it got in there.  After some finagling and digging out of pebbles and stones, I was able to free the rope.  Michael looked exhausted and said that he had spent lots of energy trying to haul in the rope.

I led ahead on easy terrain to the summit, a nice small perch with a little snow around.  The rope got snagged again and Michael got more irritated.  Over the north face was a near vertical drop to the base and I delicately handled my camera over the edge.  After a short but relaxing break on the windy summit, we headed down.  We had to descend the Sherpa Glacier.  The route to it looked a lot easier than what we’d just come up.  I suppose it was easier, but it wasn’t any less tedious.  The snow was rotten on the south side and we had to cautiously avoid falling through snow into unseen holes.  We stayed on rocks and dirt where we could.  Finally, at the Sherpa Glacier, we started a comfortable plunge step down.  The snow got a little hard near the base but we were still able to manage.  The hard crust of the snow though started to bruise our shins!  Finally, back at camp we hastily packed up – we had to make it over that scary creek crossing before the sun went down or we’d spend another night out.  But first, we had to take the time to wring out our waterlogged socks.  The spring snow was merciless and it didn’t help that my gaiters were torn, allowing the snow to seep in with each steep.  Putting the cold wet boots back on was most unpleasant.  We made a hasty retreat.

The hike out was a fast one.  It didn’t end too quickly but we moved like men on a mission.  We decided to try to follow the trail that Dan and his party had made on their way out.  Maybe they found a better crossing.  Down low, with the mixing of snow and long sections of dirt or logs, the trail became hard to follow.  We did a pretty good job of tracking the trail though and found the major creek crossing just as the light was starting to go down.  Michael had soaked himself in a small creek crossing behind us, so we were doubly motivated to move quickly.  Thanks to Dan and his party for leaving the footsteps behind.  Sure enough, the creek crossing was much simpler and we didn’t have to gain or lose any elevation.  Back on the main trail, we had a drink right out of the stream to give us a little boost for the long hike out.  By now, we had our headlamps on.  The long march was underway and we arrived back at the car, the only one remaining, at quarter past eleven.  Ug, I felt ill again from so much effort.  This time, a gas station frozen burrito and a coke was my medicine.  We took turns driving back to Seattle, though Michael got the raw deal – I slept all the way to Snoqualmie Pass.  Thanks, Michael, I owe you one!

The Brothers

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It is done; Robert and I have climbed the Brothers, completing the Traverse between the two from south to north.  Robert had been talking about climbing the Brothers for as long as I’ve known him (since moving to Seattle).  It’s awesome to have it done.  As the first big overnight trip of the year, I met Robert at his house in Ballard where we shoved all the gear into his l’il car.  Part of the fun and annoyances, some would say, is that the Olympics are best accessed via ferry.  I suppose that contributes to their “look but don’t touch” reputation.  However, since I never ride the ferries, I thought this was pretty fun.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we ambled about the ferry checking out the views of Seattle and the slowly approaching Olympics.  At one point we saw a gull drop a fish out of its mouth that was quickly scooped up in the talons of a bald eagle.  The gull wasn’t pleased and started harassing the eagle.  The eagle didn’t seem to care at all.

In Bremerton, we picked up a little food and ate in the car as we headed towards the Lena Lake trailhead.  I was delighted to see how high the snow level was.  It appeared that we’d have a long hike before we’d have to start slogging through wet spring snow.  At the trailhead were hoards of people, obviously this is a popular trail.  I don’t know, maybe twenty cars were parked along the road.  My pack felt a little bigger than it needed to be.  I likened it to it being an early season trip and I had to perhaps relearn some packing techniques.  My weeklong trip on the Ptarmigan Traverse wasn’t too much bigger than this one.  Of course, we carried snowshoes (we didn’t use them once) and that added a lot to the weight.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnCnRp7KvU

The trail to Lena Lake is very well-maintained.  We saw lots of people on the trail.  In fact, up to Lena Lake was the most people I believe I’ve encountered on any one trail in Washington to date.  The trail gains elevation slowly and comfortably.  Robert nearly stepped on a garter snake that skittered across the trail.  There was one spot where you get a great look, albeit through the trees, at Mount Washington.  Another long switchback was interesting because you cross the Lena Creek drainage.  As you approach, you can hear Lena Creek below you, but crossing the drainage to the west side, you never step over water.  Is Lena Creek partially underground?  I reckon so.  Suddenly we were at the lake which was alive with activity.  There were several folks camped all around.  We stopped and took our first rest at a nice bluff overlooking the lake.  Robert had a snack but I did my usual shutterbug thing.  Not having food here would cost me later.

We headed up into the “Valley of the Silent Men” which still featured a fantastic trail.  This was the highlight of hike in.  The silent men gazed down on us…underneath were  Fangornesque features:  moss covered boulders and fallen logs, small grottos filled by small waterfalls.  It’s a pretty enchanted place and I stopped frequently for photographic opportunities.  About two miles up the valley, we started encountering snow.  Robert had gotten decently in front of me.  I was taking lots of pictures but more importantly was running low on energy.  In the back of my mind, I thought to myself, “the season of trail slogging has begun!”  So, I had a little snack while we put on gaiters and I perked back up almost instantaneously.  A little searching around revealed the place to cross the creek and head up to the southern side of the Brothers – a branch of Lena Creek confluence from the west.

The hike up this valley started in snow but thankfully there was a long section without snow.  Eventually, the slopes opened up into a snow-covered meadow (actually, it’s probably brush in summer) that featured a distinct large waterfall coming of the south walls of the Brothers.  We pressed on, both slowly getting ready to call it a day and rest.  We were at about 3500 feet.  I thought there was no way that we’d make it nearly 2000 feet above today to camp at “Lunch Rocks”.  We persisted on through a dense section of timber, gaining lots of elevation here as there was very little snow.  It was steep and loose with pine needles to be obnoxious enough to cause me to seek out snow.  Blocked at a small cliff, I suggested we traverse left and get into the snow gully and head up.  Robert was more optimistic and thought he could find campsites at the top of the cliff.  We went our separate ways briefly.  I sapling rappelled my way down into the gully and headed up, glad to see that the snow was reasonably firm.  Robert and I met up about 100 feet above.  No campsites.

“OK, let’s try that gravel pile up there about 200 vertical feet.”
“OK”.

No campsites again.

“Well, let’s go look at that section of small trees there about 150 feet up.”

Well, that didn’t look too comfortable.  So finally, we decided to at least eat some dinner at these rocks next to a cataract.  With some warm food in us we figured we’d have the energy to make it up to Lunch Rocks which were about 500 feet above us to our best judgment.

Again, I was feeling pretty tired before dinner and afterwards, I had the energy to go on a little more.  We enjoyed a nip of rum as well from the bottle.  A little more slogging up and the slopes started to open up with views of the Olympics to the southwest. As we arrived on top of the small ridge, we began seeking campsites.  Each successive potential spot wasn’t perfectly level.  Everything, of course, was now covered in snow.  Eventually, we gave up the search and opted to break out the shovel and dig two end-to-end spots for our bivy sacks.  We dug and smoothed out our temporary homes as the sun faded and the lights of Pyuallup (we surmised) ignited.  We were a little too far to the southwest to see the lights of Seattle.  I had my short sleeping pad with me and was a little worried about getting too cold during the night so I opted to sleep on my jacket, pants, and backpack.  Turned out it didn’t help much; we both didn’t sleep terribly well.  I recall trying to scrunch up in to a tight position many times in a vain attempt to put as much of my body as possible on the sleeping pad (too many times I woke up with a chilled butt).

The morning came suddenly though as Robert tormented me to get up.  Obviously, it was good to get going soon and take advantage of hard crampon snow, but I still didn’t want to move (can be lazy in the morning).  After a bowl of oatmeal (I still don’t like the stuff), we were off.  Mixed gentle and steep slopes of 30-45 degrees with occasional rock patches led us high on the slopes of the mountain.  Robert used his mystical no crampon technique for a long time but I felt crampons were necessary.  Our idea was to find a notch in the ridge to climb down into the Great Basin, approach and climb the North Peak first, then traverse to the South Peak for an straightforward descent.  However, we didn’t move nearly east enough and ended up high on the ridge of the South Peak.  OK, so we were going to traverse from South to North.

To get up on the ridge, we needed to climb a short vertical but solid pitch of rock (5.4).  Robert opted to dry tool it.  Not me though.  I took off my crampons and headed up.  The climbing was easy except that I had my giant camera *and* video camera in front of me.  Well, a little tweaking and attention to super solid footholds got me to the top.  We swung around to the north side of the peak and the traverse came into view.  Wow! – it did not look easy at all, but most thrilling and alpine in character.  I followed Robert to the summit.

We didn’t waste any time.  I tried scarfing down a nasty energy bar clone but could only get through about half of it.  We flaked the rope and Robert led down.  Once belayed down, we began simul-climbing.  It turned out Robert was able to nicely protect the route with nuts in the solid basalt rock.  The downclimbing was steep but not too hard at all.  The snow was soft (and softening) enough to kick bucket steps in.  I cleaned a second nut and headed down another 80 feet.  Robert then called out:

“Are you at the second nut?”
“No just passed it.”
“Put it back in and belay this next section.  This might be the end of the line.”

Well, instead of climbing back up that far, I searched (I thought vainly for a while) until I found a small horn to put a sling around.  It wasn’t the biggest horn but it was solid.  It turned out that Robert was downclimbing a steep scary 30 foot section that had difficulties further compounded by an icy sloping rock at the base (there wasn’t much but air beyond that).  He made it down and I nervously followed.  For the most part we were directly on the ridge.  I was belaying on the east side and the route soon led me over to the west side.  As I peeped over the sharp knife ridge, my breath nearly stopped as I saw I had a short but super exposed traverse to the more difficult section.  It was pretty scary getting onto the west side, but once there, my ice axe placement was so good that it was safe from a big pendulum fall.  I popped back over the east side and began downclimbing the crux.  The rock was quite unnerving because I thought I was faced with another potential big fall but Robert had protected it perfectly with a nice chockstone under the icy rock.  He had used his ice axe to wedge in the rock and lower himself down.  I could not find a good placement at all.  So, I got up on my feet and used the rock arete and its nubbings to balance my way around and down.  Whew!  We met up at an exposed perch where I took a seat to belay Robert over the next section, the true knife edge.

Robert headed off to the west side (we were blocked by a vertical tower in front of us and air on the east side).  Turns out the west side was quite passable, that was a relief.  We began another simul-climb.  The route led under a large roof, more of a cave.  Another steep and longer traverse of mixed nature lay past the cave (see the labeled image) which led directly to the distinct knife edge section of the climb.  The knife edge was a lot of fun, maybe 100 feet long and very exposed!  We both crossed it with a nervous squat.  Beyond the knife edge, we passed the large gendarme on the eastside to the final difficulty:  steep downclimbing that led to easy 45 degree snow slopes of the North Peak.

Looking back as we climbed the gentler slopes of the North Peak, the traverse route looked quite impressive.  Good to have it done!  Again, we didn’t stay on top very long.  We headed down the east couloir which was soft and made for good down climbing, plunge stepping, and glissading.  We set off numerous top layer avalanches (they weren’t significant, just continuous) and then began the slog across the Great Basin to a very prominent notch in the ridge.

Again, I was losing power.  This trip, more than any other, I was acutely aware of my need for food and how, almost instantaneously, I reaped the benefits of more energy.  We grabbed a little bite to eat before heading up.  At the top of the little col we began heading our way back east.  At this point, Robert did set off a significant slab avalanche that thundered down and around a corner.

Getting back to camp was pretty difficult and I think it would be much harder for someone to find this route in the opposite direction.  We crossed steep snow, scrambled our way along cliffs, rappelled using branches down steep snow many times.  Finally, back at camp, we wrung out our drenched socks (the dirt water poured forth freely) and packed up.  I ate my lunch here, a peanut butter and honey sandwich that tasted like cardboard in my parched mouth.  Water only helped nominally.  Fortunately, glissades got us down into the valley very quickly although we were both nearly rubbed raw!  The hike out was uneventful but pleasant enough.  Near Lena Lake my backpack really started grinding into my shoulders.  In anticipation of catching the 9:15pm ferry in Bremerton, we picked up the pace and zipped down.  We made great time back to Bremerton where we arrived at 9pm with plenty of time to catch the ferry.

Then, when were fourth in line to buy tickets, we were turned away.  The next ferry was at 11:40 pm.

So we made the drive around the Puget Sound and back to home.  Awesome trip!  I was exhausted for a couple of days after this one; it was a bit beyond my current fitness level.  Thanks to Robert for the great suggestion, company, and courageous leading.

Read Robert’s route description here.