Click here to view the embedded video.

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!”

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.

We returned in early July, this time accompanied by Daniel’s brother Mark and Ari Lazier.  We planned on doing it in a day so decided to at least bivy on the picnic tables at the Cascade Pass parking lot.  I don’t recall exactly when we got up, but we hit the trail in nice daylight around 5:30 in the morning.  I’ve learned to be thankful for nice trails and the trail up to Boston Basin certainly qualifies as “nice trail” and we made quick time up the 3rd class tunnel, past the various stream crossings, the avalanche debris, and so on.  We were in the alpine slopes of Boston Basin in around two hours or so, maybe a little less.  One of the niceties of the east ridge is that you don’t have to deal with anything like the couloir on the way to the route.  At the base of the route, we roped up and I volunteered to take the first pitch.  I figured that I’d lead the first few pitches and Daniel would finish off the last few.  Well, I ended up leading the whole thing which was fine with me.

The climb is consistently 5th class, unlike the west ridge.  In fact, this route is not just “a little harder” than the west ridge, it’s a good bit harder.  Last year, I think we climbed the west ridge in 30 minutes or so, basically two simul pitches.  The east ridge is more serious and sustained.  None of the pitches are really “hard”, but they require care.  Being riddled with gendarmes, the climb is subject to rope drag and I wore my shoulders out by hauling in two lines on each belay.

There’s a nice section of knife-edged ridge mid-way along the route.  It was easily climbed by hand-traversing on the south side of the ridge.  Both Ari and Mark, despite being super strong rock climbers, were relatively new to alpine climbing and were raving pitch after pitch.  The east ridge was a perfect intro.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Somewhere after the knife edge pitch was the second crux of the climb – a vertical wall on the north side of another gendarme on the ridge that leads to a small notch.  At the notch, I was back on the ridge proper and climbed the gendarme, then descended – more rope drag.  The short wall crux wasn’t as technical as the true crux near the end of the climb, but it’s a good bit more exposed.

There’s the option to climb a gendarme right before the crux and then rappel down to the crux belay.  We had some rain hit us on the middle of the ridge with more weather threatening and since the gendarme climb was only twenty feet or so, we bypassed it on the right to the base of the crux.  I offered the lead to Daniel, but he was happy just to let me keep going.  OK, no problem.  The pitch is a Cascade classic – it’s technical and easy to protect.  I pulled up on small crimpers to a huge horn that I was able to throw a sling around.  I pulled up one more move and realized I was at the 5.8 move – an overhanging section of wall with small features.  To the left was a perfect finger crack which took a small nut beautifully.  The protection was perfect and I pulled through the short moves to a jug where I let my feet catch some air high above the northeast face.  What a great feeling.  I think Daniel said that was his favorite pitch out in the mountains.  That saying somethin’.

All that remained now was a simul-pitch of 5.2 ridge.  Some more weather moved in and the clouds dropped around Eldorado and Boston, but Forbidden remained clear, although, I was now leading in swirling mist that only added to the awesome alpine ambience.  The summit was ours and we hung out and ate for a bit before heading down the east ledges.  We made 6 rappels, if I recall and then headed across the ledges.  We broke up into two rope teams.  I headed out first and placed gear as we simul-climbed.  Daniel unclipped the gear and left it for the second team who re-clipped and then cleaned.  Happy to be back at the ridged, we put on our hiking boots and headed down the slopes to Boston Basin.  We got back to the cars after dark, didn’t see anyone else all day.

Well, the stream crossing is a piece of cake now.  There’s a tree that lies across the entire creek with branches sticking out that serve as a makeshift banister.  We enjoyed a minute or two of level hiking then suddenly the trail ascended unrelentingly through the forest.  I’d forgotten how steep this trail is.  In fact, I’d forgotten how relatively difficult the approach to Eldorado is.  It’s certainly a lot harder than Boston Basin.  I’m sure our fitness and the hot sun weren’t helping.  In the talus field, it felt that I couldn’t escape from the sun beating down on me, draining my energy.  Finally at the stream crossing we had a brief reprieve where we had a quick lunch.  Higher up, it was odd to see a couple other parties on the trail as well.  Seems like we never see anyone else on the trail.  I had to remind myself that Eldorado is very popular.  The hike up to the Inspiration Glacier was uneventful, but the views were outrageous.  We both were dragging by the time we were taking the last steps to reach the large flat plateau on the glacier south of Eldorado Peak.

We talked briefly with a party camping on the edge of the Inspiration Glacier, the same spot that I had camped with Ken three years before.  We’d heard of good campsites in the rocks along the base of the east ridge and decided to head there.  There were two other tents on a rock outcropping below the east ridge but we pushed higher up and found a nice spot within short sight of the summit.  Unfortunately, neither us had the energy at the moment to go for the summit.  Also, the rest we needed meant that we probably wouldn’t have enough decent light to make a summit attempt, at least one where we’d have good views.  So we both hung out and ate.  I kinda figured that we’d just do Eldorado tomorrow and head out – we were both complaining about our knees too.  Dang!

A good night sleep saw us ready to attempt the peak.  Actually, we slept quite late.  Being the longest weekend of the year, we slept a good three hours past sunrise (I think we got up a little before 7am).  We headed up, not bothering to rope up and eventually arrived at the base of the summit ridge.  There were two parties up there and we decided to wait for them to descend.  Seemed like we waited a long time, but it didn’t matter; we had plenty of time.  We wandered around to a rock outcropping at the end of a short snow finger on the north side where we had good views down into Marble Creek cirque.  Early Morning Spire and Dorado Needle both looked inviting, although we were treating the trip with too much leisure to go for Dorado Needle.  While we were waiting, a yellow plane buzzed by – Scurlock was in the ‘hood!  I took some video of the plane flying by.  Eventually, we got our chance at the summit ridge.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The summit ridge was a piece of cake and I had video camera in hand, filming the entire way up.  It was a nice day, a little windy, but clear.  I got great cell phone reception but for some reason I couldn’t get any rings.  Oh well.  We headed back to camp and took a long nap in the sun.  I didn’t mind being a little lazy on this trip.  We headed back around 11:30.  As soon as we hit the talus field, the sun was really doing its work on me again.  Ug, I felt so drained.  My knees were really starting to hurt too.  Dang, this wasn’t a good auspice for the following week, when we would tentatively be out in the wild for a full week (we postponed the trip and I’ve been wearing a knee brace, which has helped a lot).  Because of my knee, Aidan hiked out much faster than me, but waited for me now and then.  We both arrived back at the creek together where Aidan suggested a quick plunge.  Why not.  We sat down in the middle of the frigid creek and leaned back dunking ourselves in.  Cold and refreshing.

The trail, which is well-defined, enters old growth forest after about 400 vertical feet and continues up very steeply for about 2000 feet.  Right in the middle of a conversation, somewhere deep in the forest, Aidan let out a yelp that indicated a yellow jacket sting!  He scampered upward as I hung in the back cautiously; fortunately, I wasn’t stung.  The lash came on his left calf and we took a short break for Benedryl and water.  After more slogging in the steep forest, Aidan got stung again!  He took off upward with even more resolve.  I fled the scene off trail to the left but wasn’t so fortunate this time, getting a sting on my right forearm.  Aidan, I think, took four more stings here.  Man, poor guy.  Michael escaped again.  Of course, he got taken to the woodshed last year with about fourteen stings on the flanks of Wiley Ridge approaching Mount Challenger.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The trail finally levels off a bit in the forest at a swampy area and the hiking becomes more sustainable.  We arrived at a wooded col, still with no views of the mountain, where we descended for a while and began climbing up to point 5,791 where we had the first real views of Snowking Mountain.  They were impressive to say the least.

From this high point, it became apparent that we’d follow the ridge the entire way and not drop to Cyclone Lake and ascend the glacier, which was what the map suggested would be easiest.  We could, in fact, see a trail following the wooded ridge from point to point until the final ridge climb to the summit of Snowking.  This was already a pretty tiring ascent and I knew we wouldn’t enjoy retracing our steps as we lost lots of elevation on our way to the next point along the ridge.

Regardless of the disheartening elevation difficulties, the surroundings are impressive.  There’s a neat granite dike (or something) cutting through the ridge which formed a neat trough of rock and lots of neat outcroppings.  Also, we had an entertaining different perspective on the North Cascade peaks.  On top of all that, the views down in to the lakes to the west were probably the most impressive I have ever seen.  One of the lakes, Snowking Lake, was so turquoise that it looked fake.  Another, labeled “5442″ on the map, was very clear and the deepest blue in the middle that I’ve ever seen.  This is a place to come and camp and just relax!

After more ridge points, we arrived at a small basin just east of Cyclone Lake.  Here, there were lots of white granite talus boulders strewn around.  We stashed our packs, except for one which carried food and water and Michael’s fleece.  Our next ridge point would be the summit.  This ridge is a fun little scrambling playground and would be the home of some excellent climbing if it were between 40 and 70 degrees steeper.  There’s all sorts of fantastic splitter cracks and flakes that we had fun pretending to climb up (”Whoa, check out this perfect hand jam!”).  Michael did find a little 30 foot 5.6.  I can’t remember what he christened it.

Michael and Aidan were consistently in front of me.  This time, it wasn’t due to my videography or photography.  I was just plain tired and couldn’t keep up with their pace.  I guess I was about consistently 5 minutes behind them.  My legs just didn’t want to move that fast today.  Well, after calculating the total mileage and elevation, I don’t feel so bad, but I still wasn’t in as good shape as I was last year.  The views were impressive in all directions.  To the west, toward the Buckindy Crags, was a plethora of white granite slabs.  To the right, the awesome alpine lakes looked like jewels tucked away in the trees.  And behind us, we could see all the way from Baker, to the Pickets, to Cascade Pass, and the entire Ptarmigan Traverse.  The summit pyramid was an easy scramble.  I chose the easy way; Michael and Aidan took a 4th class route from the glacier.  On the summit we lounged around, partaking of horseplay and talk.  We ended up lying down.  Eventually, the conversation ended and I dozed off sleeping solid (even dreaming!).  Twenty minutes later, the chill woke Aidan up and we realized we needed to start heading down if we wanted to make it out without headlamps.  It was 4:05pm when we headed down.

We worried about yellow jackets on the way down.  Sure enough, they had their way with us even before the previous spot.  This time, just beyond the wooded col, I endured two more stings and Aidan got it twice.  I was behind the fellas again and I heard them yell, “Bee!!!” to warn me.  Well, it didn’t do me any good really…bee where?  I tried to be as quiet as possible; no good.  I heard a distinct Michael scream as well.  Though he wasn’t stung this time, he is wont to holler at the little beasts threats.  During the steep descent, we planned to stay as close together as possible and move quickly downward along the treacherous terrain.  We had memorized the elevation of where the attacks occurred.  We also had the hint of my trekking pole, which Aidan abandoned at the major sting site (3880 feet, I think).  When we saw it, we ran down frantically.  “Go go!!!  There’s one on me!”, I shouted.  “AAaaahhh!!!”, screamed Michael.  We made it safely through that gauntlet, but got tagged twice a hundred feet below.  Did they follow us?  We were standing around congratulating ourselves when Michael let out a scream that indicated a stinger had hit the mark.  “Go go!!!”  I felt another sting on my right arm as we bounded down.  Curse these vermin!!!  That was the end of it though.

At least we descended very quickly and arrived at the road literally one second before I said, “Guys, I think we should hit the road soon.”  The slog down the road was easy enough and it was certainly a pleasure to walk on near level ground again despite it being nearly dark.  We did have to use one headlamp to cross the big cleft in the road where we’d parked the cars.

Awesome trip, guys, despite the stings.  This was the most scenic trip of the year, I thought.

Stats:

• 17 miles roundtrip
• 8700 feet of elevation
• 12 yellow jacket stings

1.Liberty Bell – The Beckey Route
2.Concord Tower – The Cave Route
3.Lexington Tower – North Face
4.South Early Winter Spire – Southwest Buttress

I finally took a trip to Washington Pass this year.  After climbing Slesse, making trips to the Pickets, numerous Cascade Pass trips, and more typical Cascade climbing, I actually saw with my own eyes the Liberty Bell group.  I had never even been past the Ross Lake trailhead.  OK, enough about my surprise at how long it took me to make a visit.  Robert and I planned to climb several of the classic moderate routes.  We planned to make the short hike of about an hour to an hour and a half each morning and camp somewhere down in the valley.  We left my house around 7AM after searching a while for my escaped cat.

We hit the trail around 10:45 AM with our eyes set on the Beckey Route of Liberty Bell.  This is one of the most popular routes in the group.  It’s rated 5.7 and is about 5-7 pitches, I think.  On the hike up, I thought how nice it was to be doing some easy climbing for once – no long, painful approach featuring stream crossings, bushwacking, exposed scrambling, rappelling.  We felt like we were living the equivalent of a life in a big touring RV.  At an hour, we were at the base of the loose gully.  Well, so much for the RV, the gully, while short, was a typical Cascadian couloir of loose rock and dirt.  At the notch, we scurried along a ledge to the base of the climb.  “You wanna lead?”, asked Robert.  “Yeah sure.”  I was feeling pretty good and was happy to lead out and get moving.  We decided to simul-climb the route.  I led up on the comfortable warm granite enjoying the moderate nature of the climb.  At the chimney pitch, a chockstone divided the route between choices of left or right.  For some reason, I chose right which was at least a 5.8 move.  I instantly knew the correct was was the left, but I continued up.  After all, there were slings that protected the move.  I clipped one and made an awkward chimney move to get on top of the chockstone.  Then, I placed another piece, unclipped the sling to prevent Robert having to go that way and continued up. 

To me, the chimney was the crux of the climb.  It’s easy, but at least sustained.  At the top of the chimney, I recognized the description of the beginning of the third pitch.  Robert still hadn’t started climbing but would be doing so soon.  This next section of the climb was easy, featuring one tough move up a short crack.  I did spend a good amount of time deciding how to protect the move and ultimately settling on a cammed hex.  Beyond this, a fun, easy, and exposed traverse brought me up to more moderate ground to near the end of the route.  “Hmm, the 5.7 crux is somewhere up here.”  I hadn’t bothered looking at the topo lately and didn’t feel the need to since I could see the summit.  I made a thin bouldering move up a short blank face (turns out this was the crux) and continued up along more easy ground.

Below the summit, I assumed I saw the crux although there was obviously a 5.0 way which was more direct to the summit.  “Hmm…weird,” I thought.  Well, I continued on up fun flakes on the left.  After one long simul pitch I was on the top and belayed up Robert.  “Hey, that was a fun ending you added on”, he said.  I asked if that was the crux and he informed me that, no, it was actually the blank face.  Ah, ok.  Well, a fun route!

Downclimbing and rappels saw us back at the notch where we set off for the Cave Route on Concord Tower (5.8).  Robert set out off the lead.  The crux pitch is the first one.  We were a little worried because there was signs that someone had bailed off the route.  The first part of the climb is a fun traverse to an awkward move to reach a short dihedral.  Here, someone left a sling and a cam!  Well, Robert clipped it and kept going.  Robert reported it was quite fun…and solid!  The dihedral looked a little intimidating too, but also turned out to be reasonable and fun.  I followed up and found this to be the case.  It’s a great opening pitch.  Robert decided to continue up and ended up traversing under a long roof.  I followed up and found it distinctly easier but just as fun.  I thought maybe this large roof was the cave.  No, Robert was belaying in the cave.  It’s actually a long tunnel (great place to bivy!).  I took over the lead, walked through the tunnel, and emerged onto warm granite slopes.  Exposed at first, this pitch becomes quite easy, mostly an easy friction climb to the summit. 

We had a 50 meter rope and our rappels were short in a couple of places on the descent.  Back at the notch, we retrieved our packs and headed down to Lexington Tower’s North Face route.

Lexington Tower’s north face route was my least favorite.  The route is 5.7 and is determined by the very first move.  The move is quite awkward.  It’s not too hard though, just goofy and nothing aesthetic.  The remainder of the route was quite moderate.  I think we finished the climb in one more simul pitch.  The descent was a little problematic, our rope got caught more than once.

By now, it was pushing 7pm, I think and we decided to head down and drive to Winthrop for some food.  Wow, real food tonight, no freeze-dried.  Well, not really.  We arrived in Winthrop at 9pm, just after all the food establishments closed.  A sympathetic waitress however, scrounged up some grub for us in the form of a Caesar salad and some frozen tiramisu.  Tasty.  We then headed for a “secret spot” that Robert had used a few times in the past.  It turns out we were in the wrong spot, but it worked.  It was an old road forgotten by man covered in weeds.  We slept in a dark spot that ended up being not far from the road.  Cars zoomed by periodically and startled us.  It was also quite warm this night and sleeping in my 30 degree bag had me waking up covered in sweat.

Oh well, it worked.  We woke up and ate a crude breakfast and headed back to the trailhead.  We ate a little more at the trailhead, divvied up the gear, and headed out.  Our goal this time was the Southwest Buttress on South Early Winter Spire.  If we had the time and energy, we thought we’d do the easy route on North Early Winter Spire, thereby climbing all of the major spires this weekend.  The Southwest Buttress route is a grade III so we expected to be done sometime in the mid to late afternoon.  Getting to the route featured a minor problem solved by a clever rappel rig.  At the base of the route, I anchored in to bomber trees and Robert headed off for the 5.8 crack.  The crack felt pretty easy, the hardest part being right at the beginning.  All it takes is balance and cool nerves, but you get the sensation that the crack wants to spit you out.  A few moves up and the climbing becomes easier.  It was a little wide for me to jam effectively so I ended up smearing up the face.

Robert was sitting at a beautiful belay station at the base of the second pitch.  I decided to lead out and also to string the next two pitches together.  The first part was up another crack, rated 5.4, I think.  At the top, I had to climb hard to the right so I placed a sling high on a tree as a directional to reduce rope drag.  The third pitch is rated 5.6+ and Beckey calls it “nervous”.  5.6+ Old School!  Well, I hadn’t read that but that was quite the accurate description.  The climb is an exposed face climb with sparse protection.  I protected at every opportunity that I could, but they were quite spread out which gave it a nice spicy (nervous) flair.  The final move was definitely the scariest for me.  Standing with a single foot on a small nub and both hands gripping on tiny nubs, I realized I was at least 15 feet above my last piece and had to move laterally another 10 feet along very thing rock to a crack with a sturdy looking little tree growing out.  Well, I knew I couldn’t easily downclimb, plus, I just had one more move to make…don’t give up!  I stretched my right leg way out to a small nub.  Unfortunately, the part of my shoe that I needed to smear had a hole in it!  It held though and I felt my heart in my throat as I put my weight on it and made the quick move to the thank-God hold in the crack.  Whew!  I slung the tree, clipped, and climbed up to the belay.

Robert led the next pitch, the “Bear Hug”!  Easy pitch.  Protect with a 3.5 cam in the right crack and go!  The climbing is easy and Robert cranked through it in 30 seconds.  I followed in the same style.  Easy and fun stuff!  Easy ground got us to another exposed pitch which I led.  Being 5.4 though, it was a cruise.  This was a long pitch that led us to the “Rabbit Ears”, one more pitch to go to the summit.  Robert led out for the last pitch, crossing over the miserable looking gully and climbed up the fun 5.2 crack.  Interesting that this was 5.2 and the previous pitch was 5.4.  While this was an easy pitch, I thought it was a little more technical than the previous pitch and though it deserved the 5.4 rating.  No matter, we were at the top.

We took a nice rest on the top.  Looking over at the route on North Early Winter Spire, we saw lots of sandy moves.  The gully certainly didn’t sweeten the deal either.  The heck with it!  We decided to head out and drive to “Good Food” for some burgers and shakes.  This was a fun trip.  I really enjoyed an easier weekend that didn’t feature a typical brutal Cascade approach.  Oh yeah, Georgia (my cat), was taking a nap in the backyard when we drove up to my house in the evening.