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North Cascades: People, Places, and Stories

The video “North Cascades: People, Places, and Stories” is now available. Doug and crew did a superb job.  Some of my footage of Fred Beckey is featured (first six minutes of the video).

Sharkfin Tower

Still wanting to do a climb in North Cascades National Park, I solicited Daniel for a midweek climb of the North Ridge of Forbidden Peak.  I want to have climbed all three ridges on the mountain.  Then of course, I’d have to come back and climb the wild and enticing Northwest rib.  I thought the chances might be low that he could pull it off in such short notice, but either way, I’d be happy:  If the trip fell through, I’d just stay in Robert’s cabin, extending my trip and building more trails.  But, Daniel made it happen.

I was a little late in arriving the next day, and we wasted a bit of time hunting down the rope from a co-worker, but we arrived at the Boston Basin trailhead around 3pm, enough time for the relatively modest hike in.  the trail was hot and the usual July biting flies were out, serving to push us onward and upward to our camp, somewhere beyond Sharkfin Col on the Boston Glacier.

I have been to Boston Basin many times but never to Sharkfin col, the key to accessing the North Ridge route and, unfortunately, upon arriving in the high basin, I realized that our lack of planning might cost us, or so it would seem.  Locating the col is tough; from below, there seems to be multiple possibilities, and all are unsavory.  So, we moved right, looking for a break in the imposing cliffs.  We found one, almost immediately underneath Sharkfin Tower.  We hopped over the bergeschrund, climbed some low fifth class rock, and continued up to the base of the tower.  The rock pitch wasn’t very hard, so we were skeptical that this was the route to Sharkfin Col.  The view from the snowfield at the base of the tower confirmed it – the col was much farther below to the west.  It was getting late at this point so we wondered what to do.  Daniel suggested a climb of Sharkfin Tower instead of Forbidden.  It didn’t take much persuasion; I’ve been stymied once on each ridge I’ve climbed.  Maybe this was fate.  Plus, I could use the extra time back in Seattle.  OK, let’s do it!

But then, we had an even better idea:  climb now, during the sunset, bivy at the base, and hike out in the morning.

We found a good bivy site, then headed up Sharkfin Tower for our sunset climb.  The climb is great, I really can’t say enough about it.  The only problem is it’s so short!  There are only three pitches and all are easy.  We soloed the first, a rather exposed but easy traverse to the base of the ridge.  The second pitch is the money pitch – right up the edge of the ridge on solid granite.  We just simuled through the third pitch to the summit just as the sky turned a deep orange.

The final rappel was by headlamp, but we were back to the bivy sites less than two hours later.  After a late dinner (the sun went down around 9:30pm) we turned in, probably around 11pm.

I slept like a log on the edge of the cliff, much like Frodo and Sam in “Return of the King”.  Daniel woke me up in the morning around 6:30.  Apparently, he’d been up for a while taking pictures.  It wasn’t until he had to say, “Uh, turn around and have a look”, that I realized just how fortunate we were.  Iw as delighted to see the ocean clouds down in Boston Basin.  I always enjoy being above the clouds.

Daniel patiently waited on me while I prepared my things.  We made two rappels down to the Quien Sabe Glacier.  Below the glacier, we began feeling raindrops.  The rain was quite gentle at first, then stopped.  A second gentle shower visted us, then stopped.  It wasn’t until the third time that the rain we realized how fortunate we were that we didn’t find Sharkfin Col.  The clouds opened up.  I quickly pulled out my rain jacket, but Daniel, who only had a soft shell just endured the driving rain.  My shell ended up making very little difference actually (and I am half wondering about the place that I ordered in from in the US…have they been importing fake goods from China?)  It rained the whole way down and the wet brush caused the moisture to penetrate every dry spot.  We were utterly soaked when we got back to the car.  Good thing we weren’t on the North Ridge.  To quote Daniel’s pithy comment:  “What a wonderfully successful failure!”

Black Peak

At the last minute, Ari and I decided to leave for Rainy Pass to car camp and then day climb the northeast ridge of Black Peak the next day. OK, that’s an efficient way to do it. Let’s go! We left around 9:30 PM Friday bound for Rainy Pass. However, we were tired enough that we stopped driving at Diablo Lake and pulled into the overlook, parked, and dragged our sleeping bags over to the edge of the overlook. Except for a couple of derelict cars and a few deer, the area was empty. We awoke to a nice sunrise over the emerald lake. We jumped in the car and made quick down to Rainy Pass. The mosquitos were out again and even I opted to put on some bug juice.

Getting to Heather Pass took no time at all. I was surprised at how quickly we got up the trail. In front of us, outlined against the blue sky and across a long talus field, was Black Peak. We could see Lewis Lake and some waterfalls in front of us, but Wing Lake was still out of view. The talus field was tedious, but manageable. Lewis Lake is vividly turquoise and I enjoyed traversing low around the right side of the lake. The trail didn’t start ascending until some yards after it crossed the source. I was beginning to think we were on the wrong path. The trail climbed steeply but comfortably up to Wing Lake. I was feeling tired and out of shape again, but I managed. One problem was that these new boots were starting to repeatedly bruise my ankles again. It’s like a little hammer tapping on my ankle every time I took a step. I got out some extra socks and jammed them down in the shoes to isolate my ankles from constant rubbing. It helped, somewhat.

Wing Lake was surprisingly frozen! We took a rest here, got some food, and reapplied sunscreen (to everywhere except the calves where we were both burned at the end of the day). To get to the ridge required a tedious climb up talus and snow. It’s quite a long slog. Once there, we had good views west and north. Some tricky 4th class traversing got us to a spot where we’d rope up. Ari wanted some practice leading so he got the rack and then took off.

The climbing was good, but not great. The rock was mostly solid, but there were definitely sections of steep loose blocks where extra care was needed. This climb reminded me some of Triumph. It was similar rock, maybe not quite as solid and not as thrilling. There’s a great “sidewalk in the sky” with lots of exposure that leads to a nice belay where you can take a comfortable break. Beyond that, it’s more of the same – easy 4th and 5th class climbing to a false summit which reminded me of a much smaller and easier version of Bugaboo Spire. We traversed along to the real summit and cut back up a gully to arrive at the top. The view of Goode was inspiring but the valley looked deep. Just getting up to the glacier looked to be a piece of work.

The hike out was a total pain. The descent off the summit wasn’t too bad, but required a lot of concentration descending the steep 4th class. Getting down to the ridge was just a matter of scouting out the route, looking for the most promising scree ledges and gullies, and then confirming your choices with an occassional cairn. The descent from the col was down steep scree then snow, which promptly dumped into my boots since they were wide open due to the socks jammed between my ankles and the sides of the boots. I cursed the snow as I made my way back to the scree. I emptied my boots and put on my gaiters. I boot skied down the rest of the snow almost all the way to the lake. The remainder of the hike out was awful as the socks seemed to be doing less and less. It reminded me of the painful descent off Slesse, that time being my knees. I hobbled my way down questioning my sanity for going on this climb. At the same time, the mosquitos were biting. So, I hiked and slapped. I was a lot slower on the hike out and Ari got far in front of me. He had the car waiting at the trailhead (not allowed to park directly at the trailhead) as I finally arrived. Thanks! We made it just in time for Good Food! My spirit perked back up.