Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

After a quiet night out on the ridge, I slowly pushed my head out of the bag to see that the sun was coming up.  I sat up a little to see Aidan waking up as well.  I grabbed the camera and took a couple of shots.  Only a few seconds later, the sun popped over the mountains and started heating up our alpine pad.  After a leisurely breakfast, we strapped on the ‘pons and headed down the snow slopes.  At a small crevasse, we started turning up the steep snow.  There were tracks to follow.  Not that it made much difference, but at least we didn’t have to put in the complete effort of kicking new steps.  The snow was easy and was great to get us back on the ridge in a short amount of time.  From here, it was 3rd and 4th class ridge running on the crest for a half mile at least.

At another gendarme, the climbing steepened and the exposure increased.  We opted to rope up here and simul-climb to the base of the West Ridge of Forbidden.   Beyond 80 feet of the difficulties, most of the climbing was again 4th class.  I was leading and, trying to stay on the ridge crest, I led us up and over another gendarme.  The downclimbing was quite tricky and I slowed down quite a bit to find the best route and to protect well for my buds.  I kept thinking that it wouldn’t get any harder, but it did.  But, I could see the base of the ridge where we needed to be, so I persisted.  In retrospect, it would have been easier to just retreat and find an easier way down (both Robert and Aidan eagerly pointed out there was one!).  Oh well, we all got down safely after a couple of alpine 5.8 downclimb moves.

Some easy scrambling got us to the base of the West Ridge where folks had left packs, boots, and the like.  Aidan opted to take the next lead on the understanding that I’d get to take the second!  He zipped up the mountain making very fast progress.  After a little more than 15 minutes, we were nearly halfway up where he stopped and we swung the lead.  We were just below the 5.6 move and there was another party just above it.  “You’re a southern gentleman, Theron.  They’ll let you pass.”, quipped Aidan.  Yeah, ok.  So, I headed off.  Now, apparently there were a couple of pins that I was supposed to see, but instead, the step was so fun and I thought it would look neat on film that my only thought was, “Hey Robert, get some footage of this!”.  I climbed up a steep traversing crack to the left, placed a solid cam, and pulled around the corner where I saw a big rappel anchor.  The other party had gone on the move again, apparently it was a guided party.  The guide would go about 50-100 feet and then belay the clients in.  I tried to find a place to pass, but I couldn’t really.  When I caught up to them again, there was another party descending and we were simply forced to hang out on the ridge for a while.  Finally, we were on the move again, but I still couldn’t pass.  Then, the party opted to go up to what looked like the true summit.  Robert then hollered, “Hey, go left!”  So, I traversed around the steep false summit to the spot where all the pictures are taken, just below the true summit.  A couple of easy moves saw us at the true summit.

Our descent decision was down the east ledges.  That way we’d get a full tour of Forbidden and could also avoid the crowds on the West Ridge.  I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about the east ledges descent route, that’s it’s really scary and exposed and so on.  Then again, I’ve also heard that it’s not that bad.  So, after doing it, my opinion is it’s no big deal at all.  I had the benefit of being with two people who had already descended this way.  But still, it’s pretty straightforward.  We had to make five, maybe six, rappels straight down.  We had a 50m rope and the first rappel sent us straight to the next rappel station.  However, all of them after that required a little downclimbing.  Robert hypothesized that they must have been recently reset because the beta we had talked about a 50m rope being enough.  No matter, the downclimbing was always only 4th class.  At the base of the last rappel, we headed straight across crossing various ribs.  About 100 feet below the solitary gendarme, we headed up alongside a prominent gully.  There was no reason to get in the gully; it was much cleaner climbing above it.  At the top, we were finally back on walkable terrain where we put up our gear, harnesses, and rope.

The descent back to the upper camps was time consuming but easy.  We did have to retrace our steps once when we boot skiied too far down and got cliffed out.  Downclimbing another steep ridge saw us to more snow where we were able to boot ski down to the basin.  After lots of traversing and descending on slabs, we arrived back at the stream under the waterfall where we had breaked the day before.  We rested here for a long time, our friends the horseflies were back in force.  Aidan and I dunked our feet and heads in the water -- what a relief!  Everyone then put on mp3 players and hiked down.  The hike down at first was pleasant and I gawked at the views of Johannesburg directly in front of us.  Man, I can’t believe I was on that thing last year!  Boston Basin is truly one of the most beautiful spots in the Cascades.  It was a treat to see it in full sunlight.  However, down lower, I’d be cursing that sunlight!  The black flies came back again and started harassing us.  On top of that, it was so abysmally hot! I wondered if I’d ever been this hot before.  It was nearly impossible to stop though as the flies would swarm and nearly eat us alive.  Thankfully, this approach is an “easy” Cascades approach and we were back at the car after not much time.  But, changing clothes and sorting gear was hell with those damn black flies not giving us a moment of peace.  What a great trip this was…I couldn’t think of that at the time though.  It didn’t come soon enough that we were in the car with the windows open trying to get every last fly out!

Since I’ve wanted to climb Forbidden Peak for so long, it was only fitting to do it the best way:  the Torment-Forbidden Traverse.  This was a classic alpine climb and gave Robert, Aidan, and I all we wanted – a beautiful alpine setting, a challenging and committing ridge, and fun moderate climbing.  We left Seattle around 6:45 or so and hit the trail a little after 10.  It was pretty cool when we started, but it wouldn’t last.  These late July afternoons are HOT, as Michael and I discovered one year ago on Johannesburg.  We blasted up the trail though.  The avalanche crossing is getting substantially easier by the year and it hardly cost us any extra time.  Deep in the forest, the black flies starting hitting us pretty hard.  Aidan and I both got stung by some sort of wasp.  “It was probably a stick,” suggested Robert.  A stick?  Well, after Michael’s lesson in the Pickets, we broke out the Benedryl to deal with the swelling.

At an hour and forty five minutes we were at the upper camps in Boston Basin.  The black flies had left us but the horseflies picked up where they left off.  We took a comfortable break on a slab next to a waterfall where we drank our fill and killed maybe 50 horseflies.  We then traversed around a prominent rib coming off the ridge at it’s bass where we arrived at another section of slabs and waterfalls.  Third class climbing got us easily to the base of the western part of the Taboo Glacier.  At first, the crossing looked easy and we jumped on the glacier without crampons.  However, higher up, it looked like access to the peak was blocked by a massive bergeshrund.  At the far end though, we were able to jump on 4th class slabs that gave us access to the glacier above the shrund.  From there we went back in the opposite side to the prominent notch where we’d start the climb.

Probably the hardest rock pitch was the very first one, the first 20 15 feet of getting out of the notch.  It was probably much easier in normal snow years when the notch had snow in it…maybe not.  Anyway, Robert led out over the steep crack up to the normal place where we roped up.  The first pitch climbed an easy dihedral up to the south ridge.  For the most part, we were just to the left of the ridge and the climbing never got harder than 5.0.  Most of it was 4th class and we did the whole thing in one pitch.  Robert went a little far up to the east ridge and got into some loose rock and had to downclimb.  From here though, it was easy to just drop our packs and scamper up to the summit where we shook hands, took a short rest, and surveyed the rest of the route.

The next goal was to get to the next notch at the beginning of the ridge.  We had to make some careful downclimbs down the south face and traverse along ledges to the notch.  I arrived at the notch and surveyed the next section; it looked tough.  Well, to follow the ridge directly would be some unreasonably hard climbing.  There was snow about 60 feet below, but separated by a large moat from the cliff.  Aidan looked a little green after checking out our options.  Robert decided to rappel down to the snow and had to make some awkward moves to push himself onto the snow.  Aidan and followed and we helped each other across the moat.  At this point, the only option was to follow the snow along the moat down some semi-hero slopes to where we could regain the rock.  From there, it looked like more easy, if not loose, 5th class climbing.  Robert opted to lead out again and slowly made his way down the snow.  Aidan and I followed, Aidan being tied in about 15 feet in front of me.  For the most part, the downclimbing was easy, just awkward and loose in spots, but it did eat up lots of time.  Robert did a great job of picking the best route to get on the rock.  Finally, we were off again on the rock.  This time we were traversing left around another huge gendarme.  When Robert crossed the crest, he yelled, “Bivies!”.  Alright!  We now could rest; it was about 8:30pm.  

The bivy location was awesome – nice and cozy on a moderate cliff with great views of the remainder of the traverse.  They were just big enough to hold three people.  There’s room for a fourth about 30 feet below on some sloping slabs.  The steep snow traverse was just beyond the bivies.  From there, we could see that we’d be back on the crest of the ridge.  Enough of worrying about tomorrow though, we sat back and enjoyed the views, the food, and the company and turned in shortly after sunset.

We made our way across slabs then a long section of tedious boulders before ascending steeply to Stump Hollow.  At this point the Chopping Block was right in front of us.  I would have done it had Michael and Aidan been in to it.  Aidan insisted “no”.  He was probably right and both Michael and I conceded.  We decided not to get greedy.  The trip was already hugely successful; we’d just hike out today.

Stump Hollow is a dry and barren area consisting of not much more than slabs and heather.  We were lucky enough, however, to find some melting snow which we thirstily drank.  I should mention at this point that we only had half of our water bottles.  I can’t remember exactly where (I think Mount Fury), but my nozzle on my camel back had popped off and vanished in the rocks.  Later, when descending Mount Fury, I must have inadverdently placed Michael’s water bottle somewhere that I did not notice.  When we needed it; it was nowhere to be found.  So, I hiked out with no water but instead took advantage of streams like the one we found in Stump Hollow.  They were few and far between in this area though.  We entered the trees above the Barrier and eventually found a trail.  We were most thankful.  The Barrier frankly looks impossible to get through at this point; I wouldn’t even bother trying.  Instead, we continued to drop down to the magic number of 3400 feet where we’d start looking for a way down.  We did get off the trail during one section and spent some minutes bushwhacking around.  After a suggestion to get back on the Barrier crest, we headed up and found the trail again.  We continued to follow it down, thankful to be in the trees away from the sweltering sun, although it was still super hot in the forest.  We stopped to took a break and everyone stripped off their shirts to dry out.  We were soaked!  We ate the remainder of our food, mine anyway was finished.  Not long after we started we saw some flagging, then some more over the edge, apparently descending.  Our altimeters were reading high, we later discovered, about 300-400 feet.  They reported 3760 or so.  We decided to chance it and descend.  We rationalized that the flags were placed on the ascent and decided to try it out.  Except for one spot where we lost the trail and later regained it, it was quite followable.  When I say that, I mean “followable” in terms of the Barrier’s reputation and the Pickets in general.  The pine needled slopes were so steep that we opted to put on crampons for the majority of it.  All in all, it wasn’t too bad.  Near the bottom of the valley “U”, we took off crampons and made our way to the thundering sound of Terror Creek, still following a trail.  I was actually quite suprised (and delighted) about how quickly we got down to Terror Creek.

At the creek, we dropped packs and rested.  Aidan ran over to the creek for water as Michael and I chatted.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aidan fall in.  By the time, I was able to make my way around a fallen log to get to him, he’d already gone under, re-emerged, and pulled himself out absolutely soaked.  He cursed himself for picking the spot with the rapids to fetch water when there was a nice placid pool to the left.  At least he didn’t rushed down stream where fallen logs and boulders were waiting, but he was utterly drenched.  While Aidan dried out, I dunked my head a few times in the pool.  Aaaah!!!  So refreshing!  My enthusiasm finally was too much for Michael and, though he is loath to get himself wet, dunked his head satisfyingly into  the water as well.  We slung on our packs (Michael had fashioned garbage sack socks for Aidan) and made our way across the giant fallen tree to the other side where no trail and lots of devil’s club was awaiting us.  The coolness of Terror Creek gave way to more hot sweat as we thrashed through the brush looking for signs of a trail.  There were only faint hints.  Aidan led us up through a section with me following.  Not after too long, another scream of pain came from Michael and, knowing what it was, we all ran through the devils club and other brush nearly tripping down a steep embankment before stopping.  Michael was stung again and we all lay in the brush catching our breath.  We dragged ourselves back up the slopes looking for a reputed climbers trail.  No luck.  We traveled for a while seeing nothing, Michael was low, Aidan was in the middle, and I was high.  After a few minutes, I shouted, “Trail!” and the others excited came up.  We followed the thin climbers trail through muddy gullies and more steep pine needles making our towards Goodell Creek.  We lost the trail a few times and spread out again and rediscovered it.  I was up in front again and the trail suddenly started looking like what I remembered when Michael and I inadverdently followed it partially a year before (we’d missed the turn up to Terror Basin).  Sure enough, I arrived at the flat campsite area where the trail turnoff was.  We were finally at the end of all unknowns and on our way out.

The Goodell Trail seemed to go quickly.  We’d been begging for a long time, “can we just have some simple hiking!?” and finally we could enjoy simple walking.  Aidan and I took the opportunity to jump into Goodell Creek when the trail came within a few feet of the trail.  Michael went on up ahead with my mp3 player (he’d forgotten his).  The water was really cold but it felt so good.  The only downside was the current was pretty strong and the creek bed was “baby head” rocks that were difficult to walk on.  There wasn’t much complaining from us though.  The remainder of the hike out was uneventful except for two events:  One, getting a good look at the massive rock slide on the opposite side of the creek that occurred after the torrential fall and early winter raining.  The other occurred when we rounded another near the creek bank.  There was a section of the shore roped off with odd red flags.  There was someone lying down under a blanket with a wide-eyed stare on him.  Being a bit weirded out, Aidan and I snuck away whispering to ourselves, “Did you see that?  What the heck was that?”  Very strange.  A diverted trail near the end deposited us into Goodell campground which is near where we left Michael’s car.  There were other similar strange folk sitting quietly around these flags.  At least they let us pass in peace.

We met back up with Michael at the car and drove quickly back to Ross Lake trailhead to pick up my car.  Along the way we shouted, hooted, and hollered in our excitement having completed the trip!  Man, what a fantastic feeling.  At the Ross Lake parking lot, I discovered that my car’s battery was mysteriously dead.  I have no idea how this happened.  I didn’t have my lights on and none of the lights were toggled on.  It’s still a mystery.  I approached some other climbers at the other end of the parking lot to ask them for a jump.  It turned out to be the party of five, then four, then three!  Well, that was good luck.  It turned out that’d seen us descending the steep face on Mount Fury.  We, likewise, had seen them ascending east glacier route on Mount Fury.  After my car was started we all headed down to a burger joint in Marblemount.  Michael and Aidan though were set on Mexican by the time we arrived so we just got a snack instead.  I got a blackberry milkshake which hit the spot.  Later on, at this expensive place in Burlington called “El Cazador”, we got our Mexican food.  Unfortunately, it was some of the worst I’d ever had.  Bah, no matter!  Just sitting there enjoying each others company and reminiscing about the trip was enough.  Trip of a lifetime, fellas!

Michael has given this trip the just respect it deserves in a well thought-out and unique web page.  This is way beyond the typical trip report.  Check it out here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Traversing the slabs was awesome.  There were lots of uninterrupted water streams running down the polished slabs that gave the area a distinct zebra effect.  Further beyond we pass by large ice blocks that had recently broken off from the glacier above, some as big as coolers, others were as big as cars.  We got on to the glacier and continued to traverse to the buttress.  There was a distinct snowfield near the bottom of the buttress that we dubbed “the kitty”.  Our plan was to get on to the buttress below it and traverse underneath quickly, then cut back up the face above it.

We had to retrace our steps and downclimb the glacier a bit due to some unreasonably steep ice.  The climb back up to the buttress stepping point was again steep but thankfully made easier by large cups in the snow.  We placed an ice screw to belay Michael from.  It seemed like forever before I was allowed to move (I was in the back), but at least we all got on to the buttress safely.  We quickly switched into rock shoes and packed our boots as compactly as possible.  Aidan took off for the first two pitches.  These two pitches covered enormous amounts of easy ground.  We quickly made our way under and around the kitty snowfield.  The climbing started to become more challenging near the end of the second pitch.  It was also very solid thus adding to the enjoyment.  I took off for the next two pitches.  From here on it, it was all 5th class terrain until we got high on the north buttress where the long thin snowfield cuts laterally below the false summit.  I felt really good leading however on my second lead, I ended up picking a poor route, ignoring an obvious dihedral.  I thought it would go, but the face started to blank out on me and steepen.  Before too long, I was fuddling around not making any progress when Aidan and Michael shouted up that I should either lower off or downclimb.  Well, I wasn’t about to lower off if I could but I certainly didn’t want to continue up.  So, I made a careful downclimb then got into the dihedral which was fun 5.6 climbing.  It felt a little acrobatic to me, but Aidan and Michael made short work of it as I brought them up.  I had made it to the buttress crest.

At this point, Michael took over and led us up increasingly hard terrain.  Some of the books say there is a 3rd class route on this north buttress, but I no longer believe it.  Even if you could find a 3rd class route (you’d have to be an elite routefinder to do so), the exposure is still fierce the whole way.  After long sections of nice white gneiss, the route was starting to darken slowly with lichen and become a little more loose.  Michael led a hard and scary traverse move that he rated 5.8 (much scarier with a full pack).  I was able to bypass it by continuing to lieback a corner up the ridge.

Steep terrain continued on Michael’s second lead.  We left the crest of the buttress and moved back on to the face before ending at an awkward stance before a chimney.  Aidan led up through the chimney.  He soon reached the snowfield that led upward to the false summit.  We didn’t need to touch the snow, but it was nice to know we’d be on 2nd and 3rd class terrain for a while.  Michael and I followed up the fun chimney.

We followed the easy terrain up to a large level area where we took of our packs and casually walked around.  The huge face below had me not desiring any more rock climbing.  It was afternoon by now.  We had been on the buttress for a long time.  It was hard to tell which way to go from here, but Michael spotted a cairn off to the left.  We scrambled around to the left over exposed terrain to an obviously belay station.  Above it was a flaky chimney.  It was my turn to lead so I headed up.  More horns to sling…my favorite.

At the top of the fun chimney, I began traversing and slightly trending upward.  When the rope drag became too difficult, I stopped, slung a horn, and brought Aidan and Michael up.  Michael was anxious to lead again so we let him go.  He ended up leading us up one of the best pitches of the route – A long, continually solid and fun off-width crack.  At the top of this awesome pitch, we arrived at the big blocks underneath the false summit.  The true summit was directly in front of us as well.  But there was no bypassing of the false summit on the left, we had to go up and over it.  There was no point in bypassing on the right since it was a long and gentle slope.

Michael led off again on another fantastic pitch.  Was this one the best?  Hard to say, but it was awesome.  Aidan likened it to Mathis Crest in the Sierras, something I’d like to do someday.  The pitch was basically another solid and fun one, this time a hand traverse of sorts.  Still, at the top of the false summit, I was glad the rock climbing was done.  We down-climbed some 4th class terrain to get on the “standard” west ridge route.  We then dropped our packs and scampered up 3rd and 4th class terrain to the top.  Awesome!  We got climbed all of the mountains we set out to climb.  It was great being on top of the last big mountain with such excellent gentlemen as well.

We couldn’t stay on top long though as the sun was already threatening to drop soon.  We scrambled back down to our packs then down a little further then back up onto the main part of the ridge (I suppose this actually terminates in the false summit) and down to the rappel point.  We threaded the rope through and Michael headed down.  Unfortunately, the rope didn’t reach the entire way (it was a 50m rope) and we had to spend more time devising another rappel that got us down to the horrid gully between Mount Terror and The Rake.

At this point, I’d like to recommend that folks not even bother climbing Mount Terror via the “easy” west ridge route.  The hike in is so long and the climb consists of a wretchedly loose gully and then a relatively loose scramble up to the top.  If you’re going to take the time, do the north buttress.  If you’re not up for the north buttress, do West McMillan Spire instead.  Anyway, back to the story, we delicately made our way down the gully knocking all sorts of rocks down.  About a third of the way down, the route is blocked by a huge chockstone which must be miserable to pass in the opposite direction (another reason to not to climb that route).  We took the rope out AGAIN and rappelled as far as possible down the gully, then slipped and slid our way into Crescent Creek basin.  The late afternoon light was now bathing the basin in orange so we knew our campsite tonight would be on the glacial slabs of Crescent Creek Basin.  The actually campsite was to be near the Chopping Block, not too far away, but too far for today.

Before our last meal of the trip (sniff), Aidan decided to dunk himself in the glacial pool next to our camp.  I’d already put in my feet and hands to wash up and I knew I wanted no part of it.  He quickly waded into the center then slowly sat down as he went into these hilarious convulsions…I still laugh to this day recalling the funny episode.  We enjoyed our last meal (oh man, that mashed potatoe, broccoli, and cheese dish was excellent!) and then turned in.  I teased Michael and Aidan as we went to sleep with each of my shooting star sightings.