Tag Archives: Northeast Ridge

Bugaboos – Bugaboo Spire

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We awoke to the annoying beeping of a wristwatch alarm at 4:30 AM and were hiking by a little after 5:00.  I had scouted the beginning of the route the night before and led us through the various tents to the trail that led past the lake to the base of the Crescent Glacier below the Bugaboo-Crescent col.  We didn’t hear the two climbers who were in front of us, but we were able to see their headlamps approaching the col.  We also passed a second party in the camp, who would be climbing with us most of the day, eating the last morsels of oatmeal.  This time, we were able to follow a trail in the darkness.  We did lose the trail a couple of times, but we passed the two lakes, crossed under some cliffs to the base of the glacier without much incident.  Still in darkness we started crossing the glacier, which began being covered in a thin layer of mud.  The glacier wasn’t very steep and we didn’t bother putting on crampons.  We had to walk carefully and deliberately, but it was easy enough to not slip while hiking up the ice.  I did encounter one slick spot near an icy crevasse.  I moved to the left to find more gritty ice and crossed there.  We could see the other party at the base of the glacier as we began soloing up the steep 5th class ledges and slabs to the col.

We could see the first party above us, scurrying around at the base of the route.  On arriving, we found out they were still trying to find the beginning of the route.  Pointing out to them where it was, they were on their way.  They promised to be quick, which they were.  Aidan then began our climb with the lead, grunting his way up but doing so in great form.  I had always looked forward to just seeing this view of the northeast ridge, but actually standing beneath me had begun to put me in a careful mood.  The first pitch also set the mood.  I began the first couple of moves hesitantly.  Before I was even 15 feet off the ground, I felt like I didn’t have my best mindset or my best skills available to me.  Aidan hollered down, “You’ve got to commit to the lieback!”  I am not a fan of liebacks, never have been.  I found myself trying to avoid doing the lieback moves.  With Aidan’s instruction, I committed to the lieback and started moving up.  I found myself not concentrating as I should, and before I could say anything, my right foot slip, the lieback fell apart and I took a fairly long follower’s fall, puncturing my middle and ring fingers on my right hand and bashing my left knee.  OK, this was not a good start and I found myself in a spooked mindset for most of the climb.  It wasn’t until the fifth pitch that I felt confident enough to take over the lead.

The second part of the first pitch was a hollow flake that required lieback moves the entire way up.  At least I was concentrated more and made the moves without problems, but nervously.  Many other climbers think the crux of the route is the traverse move near the top of the first pitch.  I did not find this hard at all.  I guess this shows me that if I want to be a complete rock-climber, I need to get more comfortable with liebacks.  OK, maybe it’s time to do laps on Godzilla back at Index.

I refused the second pitch as well, which was a good bit easier, but still steep and challenging.  The route climbs up a dike of granite flakes forming numerous short cracks.  Unlike the first pitch, there is plenty of opportunity for good protection.  The third pitch begins with a fifteen foot down-climb from the top of the dike to a depression which leads steeply up and rightward across the face to gain the true ridge.  This pitch is sensational.  Nicely exposed and with thin holds, but at every place that you’d want them.

The third pitch leads to a comfortable belay at the base of the fourth pitch, which is a long skyward reaching corner that leads off steeply and slowly eases in angle. This pitch starts off with an awkward, but not hard, move and then follows the corner for sustained but pleasant climbing up the corner. There are several sections of liebacks, but nothing as hard or as sustained as the first pitch. At the top of the fourth pitch, a 5.6 pitch up another steep, but shorter, crack system led to blockier ground and a long, low-angled chimney. Aidan again asked if I wanted to take the lead. I opted to this time, thinking it would help me clear my head. It did. We simul-climbed a bit and then I brought Aidan up to another good belay somewhere within the chimney and then headed out again.

Aidan took the next pitch, which, if I recall, was a steep face climb with good protection. At this point the pitches started blending together. I don’t recall if it was the same pitch or the next one that we encountered another 5.7 section that was supposed to be a little burly. It wasn’t. The move was short, over a small bulge – nothing as challenging as the opening pitch. At this point, we were nearing the north summit. A steep gendarme blocked the way and we opted to make a difficult and constricted rappel down the east side to easier ground where we could traverse back on to the ridge. We then followed a knife edge to the summit. Beyond, on the traverse to the true summit, the south summit, was more fun knife edge walking. At one point the exposure over the east side is completely sheer – a straight drop down to the Crescent Glacier. In front of us were easy slabs below the north summit, which we traversed around to a large wall. We then headed up the north side of the south summit, following solid finger cracks.

I was relieved to be on the summit. I was definitely ready for the climb to be over. I remarked to Aidan that I thought this was harder than Slesse and that the opening pitch was harder than any pitch on Slesse. Aidan thought me crazy and wisely pointed out that it was due to the mental state. That was true; evaluating the two climbs pitch for pitch, Slesse is a much longer and sustained climb, with more difficult pitches. But, truthfully, I didn’t feel it. But, I did my best to keep my head in the moment. Leading those few pitches helped a lot, but not as much as having such an excellent climbing partner.

The climbers below us, Carl and Tom, soon appeared and we enjoyed our short summit moments together. Then we decided to stick together as we began the descent of Bugaboo Spire. We had read so much about the difficulty and complexity of the descent and Carl backed the story up. I suppose this helped prepare us for the descent, because it didn’t feel nearly as hard, to me, as it was made out to be. It was complex, granted, but not bad at all. The part where we had to pay the most care was locating the rappels. The second, right before the famous gendarme was fairly tricky – a committing and extremely exposed rappel over the east side. From about 3/4ths the length of the rappel is a large notch where the third rappel is. Getting to it requires an easy but exposed traverse while still on rappel.

Beyond the rappel, more exposed knife edges finally led to terrain where we could unrope and down-climb. There’s plenty of 5th class down-climbing but it slowly relents to easy 3rd and 4th class terrain. After hearing the horror stories of the descent, I had likened the descent to the awful on on Slesse. Because of that, this one seemed easy and soon enough we were back at the col. We waited a bit for another party to rappel down the col before beginning our loose descent. It’s almost impossible not to knock rocks down the chute; all it take is vibrations to get rocks moving. Each party absolutely has to wait for others to descend, otherwise it’s quite likely that someone will get hit. At the base of the bergeschrund, we quickly put on our crampons and headed down the ice.

While we were on Bugaboo, Colin and Ross were out climbing the Beckey-Choiunard route on South Howser Tower. They hadn’t returned by the time we got back. Aidan was getting a little worried about them but only a few minutes after dark, after we’d turned in, they showed up. Aidan and I were both very tired, but Colin bounced around camp and chatted as if he’d had a rest day. Ross, on the other hand, hit the hay. Earlier, before going to bed, Aidan and I talked with the campground custodian. He mentioned that weather was most likely moving in tomorrow. Both Aidan and I did not have the desire to do another big rock climb, and were a relieved at the justification of hiking out due to a storm.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, the wind started picking up. We hadn’t bothered securing the Beta Light with lines, but each corner had a large rock to hold it in place. That didn’t stop the wind from loosing two of the corners of the tent in the middle of the night. It sounded like a near explosion and we were suddenly awake with the tent ends flapping in our faces. We jumped up immediately and secured the tent, finding extra large rocks to secure the corners and went back to bed. I slept well, though I recall waking several times to the roaring of the wind. Aidan, on the other hand, admitted to barely sleeping a wink. Instead, he’d periodically grab the pole next to us, holding it in place for fear of it being knocked over again.

We lounged in the noisy tent the following morning before getting up. Colin and Ross decided to not go for another climb as well and we all decided to hike out together. We took our time getting ready. I headed out before everyone else because I tend to hike a little slower on the descent, not to mention that Colin and Ross are very fast. Soon enough, they caught up with me and we hiked together for a while. After a bit, I got tired of the speed, let the others get ahead and took out my mp3 player. I enjoyed the tunes all the way down and stopped several times for more pictures, ones that I couldn’t get on the hike in because of the low light.

It was a long long drive back, but more rap and hip-hop entertained me. We arrived back in Tacoma around 11pm and Aidan’s mom treated us to some excellent grilled chicken pasta, salad, and fresh peaches. Feeling like a refreshed flower, I opted to drive home since the traffic would be much better this time of night than the following morning. All-in-all, despite the exhaustion, this was a fantastic and memorable trip. Thanks for coming along, Aidan. It was a great way to end the summer.

Mount Triumph

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Waiting at the baggage claim after my trip from Colorado, Michael, who, along with Kris, was doing me the big favor of picking me up at the airport, asked right away if I was interested in going to Mount Triumph for the weekend. Never mind the sleep deprivation and the various household tasks left unfinished from the week before and the new ones that had undoubtedly arrived. So, I emphatically said, “Yeah!” Triumph was the first peak that really struck me in the North Cascades. When I first moved to the Seattle area, I remember wandering around a bookstore and picking up a “Selected Climbs in the Cascades” book. I opened by mere chance to the photo of the northeast ridge of Triumph in winter. “Whoa! That’s here!!?!” (I was pretty ignorant of the Cascades)  And since then I’ve really wanted to do Triumph. Sleep or no sleep, chores or no chores, responsibilities or not, I was going!

So, I drove out to Michael’s place at 6am and we were on the road by 6:20. Then, I realized that I’d misread his email and was assuming he’d bring his little betamid tent. Not the case so we went back to my house and picked up my bivy sack and caught the 520 to 405 and beyond. We only lost about 35 minutes or so. It turned out we would have plenty of time so that was good. The road to the Thornton Lakes trailhead was rough for Washington but no problems for passenger cars. After talking with jovial Jose, we hit the trail, making good time along the flat trail. It looked like someone had driven through with a tractor and cut down the brush on either side of the trail in about a 6 foot swath. No complaints here. Abruptly, the trail turned northwards and began switchbacking up. Now came the grueling forest ascent. The ascent was quite long and we were tempted by blue skies through the trees more than once, thinking that we were near the crest. But then the trail would turn away and continue climbing higher and higher. Eventually, we emerged with views of Thornton Lakes and Mount Triumph through the trees. Past the trees, we had great views into this compact little basin. Triumph’s summit was clearly visible up the steep notch that we had to climb to. Ahead of us lay a steep descent of 500 feet or more to the first Thornton Lake which was a deep blue color, most inviting. We arrived on it’s banks after two and a half hours from the car.

A trail continued around the west side of the lake and we followed it. We neglected to study the details of the route and continued following a trail between the first and second lakes. It turns out the we should have crossed the creek and followed the creek immediately up to the second lake on it’s right side, but since we couldn’t find a trail, we assumed we were wrong. So we retraced our steps and continued up the trail to the second lake. Well, this trail dead ends at a cliff that’s hard to see around above the second lake. We committed to this route and followed it over easy but lake-exposed terrain until descending to the talus around the lake. Then we took a break, ate, and replenished water. I was tempted for a swim but didn’t want to take that much time. I figured I’d have a swim on the way out assuming that it would be as sunny and hot as it was today. We began heading up the tedious and steep slopes to the notch before the glacier on the east side of Triumph. Doggedly we continued on until we were greeted with a great view of the Pickets and Mount Triumph! It felt great to be done with all of that previous toil. At least now we were in the fun area.  I zipped around very excited to get such good views of the Pickets and Triumph.  The glacier looked like a reasonable crossing as well and it added to the alpine mystique of the area.

We donned crampons and readied our ice axes.  Part of the snowfield was melted out and we’d be forced to cross a section of talus.  Before that though, we came to a steep drift that formed near the notch.  I belayed Michael over and down the near vertical step to easier terrain and then followed.  It was easy enough but was a little wet and slick.  Beyond this I led us lower onto the glacier where the snow easily avoided anything resembling a crevasse.  We then began the short ascent up to the base of the northeast ridge.  We switchbacked up and jumped over to a level rock area where we could take off our crampons and climb up to the notch in the ridge.  We went straight up the sloping ledges which was a little off route.  Some exposed low 5th class put us on the scree ramp that led up to the notch.  We passed a party here who was just descending the northeast ridge.  They’d been on it all day.

The top of the notch wasn’t wide at all and a large snow bank made it even smaller.  From here, we decided to put on rock shoes and climb the solid ridge up a pitch and a half or so to where our bivy location was reported to be.  We simul-climbed the entire way up.  Part of the pitch was a fun 5.5 lieback, easy in rock shoes but distinctly alpine in character with our full packs and the outrageous views in all directions.  At the top of this steep section of the ridge, we emerged onto the bivy spot.  This is a perfect spot, the first sleeping location is dirt and is protected by the higher ridge above and small shrubs all around.  I could barely contain my excitement just to be in such a spectacular spot.  We had completely unobstructed views at the Pickets.  To the north, we could pick out Mount Blum and a nice angle on Mount Shuksan.  After an enjoyable meal (it took Michael a while to soften and heat up his freeze dried meal), I bounded around looking for great photo ops.  I didn’t have to look hard.  In the meantime, we used the dripping from a small snow bank to collect water.  Michael turned in a little before dark but I stayed up taking sunset pictures.

Without a bivy sack, I used my balaclava to keep my head warm.  I remember falling asleep really quickly.  Then I remember something like raindrops on my sleeping back, and Michael was yelling something like, “Oh no!  It’s raining!”  He had a bivy sack but had the wits to collect the shell jackets and drape them over my bag.  I don’t remember if I helped out but I was back asleep pretty quickly.  Then Michael woke me up and I realized the sun had risen, although it was behind a layer of maritime clouds.  The dark rock of Mt. Triumph loomed above and I was ready to start the climb.  We began at around 6:15-6:30. 

I took the first lead of simul-climbing heading to the left side of the ridge up an easy small gully back to the top of the ridge proper where the fun climbing again.  For most of the climb we were on the ridge crest.  The climbing was easy but definitely 5th class and exposed.  I placed very few pieces of protection.  Soon enough I arrived at a hugely exposed section of ridge.  I had to climb up about 15 feet on a little tower that allowed us to continue the ridge on a thin and massively exposed knife edge.  The climbing was easy again but standing up and moving on the ridge took a lot of nerve.  I crouched on most of it!  Not far ahead, I saw what appeared to be the crux of the climb – a steep right-trending crack up on the face.  I went a little beyond the exposed ridge, found a good, but small, place to stop and let Michael take over the lead.  We’d easily climbed nearly half of the ridge already and we hadn’t been going much longer than 30 or 45 minutes.  The next section was a fun friction climb up to the crux.  Continuing to simul-climb, Michael headed up.  He set a belay for me to follow.  Pictures I’d seen of people on the crux showed them in the crack but I found it much simpler and thrilling to use the crack only for my left hand and stayed out on the exposed face.  A couple of distinctly 5.6-5.7 moves had me back on easier ground. 

I then took over the lead.  We continued simul-climbing the ridge and I eventually came to the Great Notch.  Looking around, I could see that the left side of the ridge was much to steep, practically vertical.  But the right side looked great – it was steep but nice and blocky.  I let Michael catch up and he belayed me up the first section of the steep ridge.  Steep ledges eventually put us back on the ridge.  At this point, the terrain became easier and easier.  We walked 3rd class terrain and made a couple of easy 4th class moves near the top and were there.  We had the whole mountain to ourselves.  What a view it was.  The clouds were really cool though they obstructed the tops of the higher peaks now.  I couldn’t complain, especially after the superb sunset and weather from the day before.  So long as it didn’t rain.

We had arrived on the summit under and hour and a half after setting out.  So, we took our time up here snapping pictures and surmising about different mountains and valleys.  We simul-climbed down where we could and rappelled the rest.  I was more comfortable with rappelling since you really didn’t have to think about where your feet needed to go.  It was less stressful.  We did have a few dicey moments when it started raining and we were down-climbing 5th class sections to get to easier terrain and a rappel station.  Taking care saw us down safely.  Eventually, we were back at the camp.

The climb down the rest of the route and back to the car was pretty uneventful but most enjoyable.  We took a more direct path across the glacier.  We were also able to take advantage of an excellent boot glissade down the snowfield in the notch that led to the second Thornton Lake.  As we traversed it’s shore, the sun came out and really cooked us.  It was very humid and the bright sun really rubbed it in.  Clouds gave us a reprieve the majority of the time.  This time we stayed on the east side of the lake.  Crossing the talus was tedious but much easier than the false trail leading us to the cliffs.  We then followed the creek down to the spot where we had crossed the day before, only to turn around, and we were back on the main trail.  The rest of the hike out was a bit of trail pounding.  It was all enjoyable though.  In the back of my head I thought back to how awesome of a climb this was.  Truly one of the best.