My July weekends were spent exploring the Vesper/Sperry area near Monte
Cristo, and revisiting some of my old alpine projects in the Cascades, with varying
levels of success.
North Face of Vesper
We traversed across to another pass between Vesper and a peak to its North,
and from here got our first view of the face (above). We were looking at it head on, and
it looked intimidating! A nice view down to Copper Lake, and the high alpine
cirque that the North face of Vesper drops into adds character and a feeling of
remoteness to this not-very-remote climb. After wondering how anything that
intimidating looking could be just 4th and low 5th class, we decended some steep
snow to the base of the huge 4th class gully that breaches the lower face. Up
close the gully is revealed for what it is - a moderate angle, somewhat loose
mountaineering route. We climbed this lower section in two long pitches from the
glacier - we were using a 70m 9.4 mm single lead
line, so your mileage may vary. Protection placements are not abundant in
this huge breach, and the climbing steepens at the top enough to make one
gratefully yard on small bushes to exit the gully onto the more broken central
face.
From here, scrambling takes one to a large ledge system, either directly
below the huge open book (which is the normal route when dry), or slightly
higher and to the right. Dennis lead a full 70m low 5th class slab pitch with
sparse protection to a belay on a small ledge. The clouds rolled in, obscuring
the summit and at times decreasing visibility to a hundred feet. Now really
beginning to enjoy the climb, the clouds and the alpine feel, I lead another
full rope length along some low angle crack systems, placing pro occaisionally.
The climbing was easy, the rock as solid as you will ever find, the setting
magical. From a belay of 5 mediochre pieces, I brought Dennis up and he passed
and lead one final 70m pitch to the summit ridge.
A short scramble to the summit block, and we met approximately 12 people from
a group that had come up the normal route. The clouds never parted completely,
obscuring what otherwise would have been a great view on a perfect day. Dennis
and I headed out relatively quickly - I have never been one to hang out on
summits too long - and made our way back down the the car, already anticipating
when we would be back for Sperry.
I recommend this (the regular Northwest route) to everyone who climbs in the
Cascades; it can be climbed at almost any ability level. Bring an ice axe and
crampons for the approach, and rock shoes for the slabs makes things confident
and easy. You will encounter around 6-7 50m pitches of 4th and low 5th class
climbing. Climb only if there is no immediate threat of precipitation, as the
slabs would become very hard if wet, and retreat would be tedious and possibly
dangerous. The rack can be mostly mid-larger pieces, though you might want small
aliens and tri-cams for the initial slab pitch if you climb up from the center
of the slab. Once past the initial slab pitch (around mid-height), the route
follows cracks which could be climbed easily soaking wet. The decent is a
breeze.
From Bridge Creek the trail winds a relatively flat 7-8 miles to the base of
Goode's northeast side. I had been here before, it was nothing really new, but I
still took a wrong turn after Grizzly Creek that cost Maurice and I an hour of
worthless thrashing in the brush. Finally we got to the Bridge Creek ford that I
remembered vivily from the last time Dennis and I had crossed 2 years earlier.
By now it was 5pm and the sky had grown ominously dark. We forded the creek on
Tevas and thrashed through the alder for the requisite 15 minutes before
breaking into the talus just downhill from the falls on the left side of the
basin. Maurice and I started climbing up the arduous 2000+ vertical approach to
the bivy sites below Goode Glacier, but by now the sky was black with cloud, and
a premature dusk was making Maurice mutter "look how dark it's gotten; we are
really in for it now!"
Maurice proceeeded to tell me the stories of both the times he had ridden out
thunderstorms at bivys, and the time that he was actually hit by lightning. He
didn't want to do that again! His dire premonitions, his recounting the
Vancouver forecast, and the rolling black clouds certainly painted a bleak
picture. Then the skies opened and it hailed. My Patagonia Pneumatic instantly
soaked through. Maurice had brought Gore-Tex. We sat on a small ledge above a
soaking wet slab and waited for the hail to stop.
We now realized our mistake, too late, again. We had only allowed three days
for the trip, round trip. What if the weather did not clear by morning? We would
be forced immediately to bail, in order to make the bus and ferry boat rides
back out to the van without spending the night in Stehekin. We didn't want to go
any higher up into the alpine, as Maurice didn't like the idea of thunderstorms
one bit (well, neither did I!). In order to climb the route and descend we would
need an early start, and so would have to make a decision whether to climb or go
down by first light. If we made the wrong decision it would mean a very
difficult retreat from a remote mountain, or missing a shot at climbing this
route, again.
It drizzled on and off all night. At times I could see the stars through the
clouds, but the clouds never broke at night and in the morning Logan and Goode
were still enshrouded in clouds. 5:30 am and the alarms went off. The fateful
decision at hand...what could we do? We had to play conservative with no margin
for error in our self-imposed schedules. All we could do was assess the
current conditions and make the call. The mountain was still in clouds,
the weather uncertain. I thought the forecast was for Sunday to be dry, but
Maurice had a different forecast, calling for unsettled weather through Sunday.
We didnt know the descent, and finding it in clouds would be hard. The route was
long, and we were not in the best position to hit it. And we had to make the
call. Now.
We slowly headed down at 6:15 am, knowing that we had to be at the trailhead
by 11 or 12 to have any hope of making our ferry out, or any ferry for that
matter. On one hand I was mad at myself for planning things so poorly - had we
an extra day in the schedule we could have waited some on the weather, done
things differently. Climbed later in the day, bivy on top. Whatever.
The rest of the story is a mixture of plodding and waiting for shuttles and
ferries, and second-guessing our call as the day became beautiful with a
cloudless sky. We missed the Lady Express out, and had to upgrade our tickets,
at 20$ a pop, to get on the Lady Cat, the last boat out. I still think it was
the right decision, but it makes me no more happy knowing I blew yet another
chance at this striking line on a striking peak.
You'd think I would have learned from my past mistakes, and planned for 3.5
or 4 days. Hopefully next time I think about trying this route, I'll read my own
trip reports and remember.
North Ridge of Stuart
Summer Locke climbing the final rock slabs of Mt Stuart's summit pyramid.
Without missing a beat, I had planned for the North Ridge of Stuart with
Summer Locke the weekend following my Goode trip. This would be yet another
chance at the elusive goal, and my 5th attempt on a route that by all rights
should have been mine! on try one or two had I actually given it much
thought. Summer got dibs on the route because she had
been there the last time, hiking all the way into the notch with me from
Esmerelda Basin, only to turn around and hike all the way back out on the same
day.
I was excited. The weather forecast was excellent. Nothing would deter us
this time. We had all the equipment
- 70m 9.4mm rope (check)
- crampons and ice axe (check)
- lightweight bivy gear (check)
- full rack including #3 and #4 camalots in case we wanted to try the
Gendarme (check)
- lots of water, 7 liters between us (check)
- real rainwear - no more Patagonia Pneumatic on alpine trips! (check)
we needed to outgun and outlast the Ridge. After my disappointment with Goode
the weekend before, I was going to try to prevent something similar from
happening on yet another one of these large projects. Still, despite our large
rack and extra clothing, we were practicing climbing light in the
alpine. We had no stove and minimal cold food. We had iodine, super light
bivy gear, lightweight crampons and biners and footwear and....
We (almost) kept to our schedule on the first day. Summer and I got an
uncommonly early start (for us) and were hiking in from the trailhead at
Esmerelda Basin by 8:30 am. It was still cool enough that we weren't sweat-pigs,
but late enough that the parking lot was completely packed. Our packs
felt heavy, but carrying 3 liters of water and a heavier rope and rack makes
things a little on the heavy side, and we were prepared for it mentally and
accepted it.
The approach went smoothly, but slowly, as we easily reached the lake, then
Staurt Pass, then the bench above Stuart Pass, then Goat Pass, then a long
traverse of Stuart Glacier. Last year this approach had taken us around 5 hours,
this year it was closer to 7 when we reached the base of the couloir. We soloed
across the moat on a frightening, soft snow bridge. This was perhaps the most
dangerous moment of the entire trip, but the second was to follow very shortly.
Summer had been slowing down all day, and by the time we had finished the
traverse across Stuart Glacier she was bonking hard. Most of the way up the
gully to the notch she asked that we just stop - she was too slow, needed food
and drink, to recharge, and did not feel comfortable soloing the 3rd and 4th
class ground. At first I tried to convince her that the climbing was easy, that
if we reached the notch before stopping it would make things much more
efficient. But she basically had reached some limit and said so simply and
effectively. I woke up. We stopped and rested in a small bivy platform and ate
and drank some water. Then we continued on, refreshed. The very next move I did
was mid-5th class in mountian boots, and Summer lie-backed up an even harder
section, sketchily palming the rock. She then insisted we rope up, a strong
argument now and I did not fight it. She led up the next section, just below the
notch, which involved several very awkward 5th class moves that would have been
scary unroped. I don't want to think about what might have happened mentally had
we tried to solo those moves with our packs and in our mountain boots (we had
switched to rock shoes), but it might have been ugly, and certainly dangerous.
As far as we could tell there was only one other party on the entire route,
in fact on this side of the mountain at all. We had the place to ourselves. It
was around 4:30 when Summer and I started leading from the notch. We were just
going to climb as fast as possible and put as much of the route below us as
possible. I know the entire ridge has been climbed in as fast as three hours, so
I was expecting alot of simul-climbable ground where we could move fast. I led a
70m pitch up from the notch, and Summer led another 70m pitch to the base of a
steep step, the instantly recognizable 5.7 technical crux of the route.
At first I was not sure if I wanted to lead the crux, though it was my turn
to lead. The 5.7 section is steep and goes directly through a narrow slot -
something that reminded me of a chimney, narrow, yucky, I hate chimneys! But I
decided to try it out. With a pack on, the steepness of the moves became
exaggerated, and I rehersed the sequence a few times, going up and down from a
rest, before I sank a yellow alien and committed to the moves. I led through the
initial steep section, onto the crest of the ridge that was tremendously exposed
and infrequently protectable. I led a full 70m, past some thin and very
interesting, exposed climbing, to a notch with a red belay sling. This was not
simul-climbing ground! It was more exposed than I had expected, and the rope
drag with the 70m rope was disconcerting. Summer came up, and led off on a long
pitch, where we simul-climbed about a total of 100m of 4th and low 5th. The
rope-drag was not as bad through this section, though still significant for the
leader.
Summer belayed at a comfortable spot and I started off, on what turned out to
be a short pitch, because as I crested the next tower the Genderme reared
directly before me, about 100m away. I had thought the route would be alot
longer to this point, not that I was complaining. I made a critical mistake here
that cost us some time...I did not descend down to the base of the beautiful
slab that leads to the Gendarme's final ridge approach, rather I stayed at the
top of the notch. It was rapidly getting dark, and we had finally caught the two
climbers above us, they were sitting at the base of the Gendarme.
Summer led up and conversed with the other party for some time, asking about
potential bivy sites up ahead. Finally, I lowered her back down to the belay
from the top of the slab and we settled on a small established bivy just below
the crest on the West side of the ridge below the slab. It was a one-person
site, completely soaked from melting snow, but it was the only real option so we
took it and settled in. There were mosquitoes even here, and Summer and I sought
refuge in our bivys on the cramped, wet site. We slept like rocks! The sunset
from this bivy were spectacular, with the views and the precariousness of the
ledge, perched so high up, with walls steeply falling to the glacier below.
It was a very warm night, Summer and I had brought sleeping bags and
polarguard jackets, but ended up not using the jackets at all. In the morning,
we woke up to calm, warm air at 6. The bugs were still active and trying to
bite. Remarkably, by 7, a cold wind had started to blow from the East, and the
bugs disappeared completely. Pop-Tarts for breakfast, and a half-liter of water
that we collected from a melting snow-patch. We kept our jackets on in the chill
air.
We were climbing by 8. Two more exposed pitches brought us to the base of the
Gendarme. We had brought the #3 and #4 camalots in case it looked doable, but
climbing the route with packs had taught us quickly what technical climbing in
alpine gear was like. The Gendarme would require some pack-hauling, which I have
heard some parties are willing to do, but I sure wasnt. So we rapelled and
crossed the gully instead, climbing a wet slab where we encountered the only
fixed gear on the enire route, two very nicely driven pitons. This section was
the only place on the route, also, where we encountered sloper holds. Summer led
a pitch after the gully to the base of the "loose third and fourth" section,
which was actually some of the most solid loose rock I've ever climbed. It puts the true
nature of the loose rock found in the Pickets into perspective.
We simulclimbed about 150m of this easier stuff, with some tolerable
rope-drag, until a pitch below the summit. Here the route breaks left up a
broken ramp, then turns right and climbs the final 30m to the summit. Summer led
the pitch, including a few scraping chimney moves, and we stood on top of Stuart
at 12:30.
My dream of climbing Stuart had finally been realized, and I had done it in
the fashion I had dreamt about - climbing the peak by the classic technical
route as my first ascent, rather than bagging an easy summit via one of the
Southeastern routes. It had taken me four years and five attempts to actually
get the ingredients right...far too long!
We didn't stay on the summit for long. Summer had not climbed in the Stuart
Range much before, but I was somewhat familiar with this descent and the trail
over Longs Pass, and knew we had alot of work left ahead of us. We started
descending almost immediately, easily finding the path around the false summit,
and opting to rap off a pillar to a point partially down the snowfield. After
some more downclimbing and traversing, we got to Stuart-Sherpa col, a spot I had
been before on an unsuccessful try on Sherpa Peak a few years before. I was
familiar with this descent, and we opted for it rather than the Cascadian
Couloir, because it has a well-defined, though steep, trail the entire way down
the mountain.
4000 feet vertical later we started the very slow pace back to the car, via
Longs Pass. It was a long push, where we stopped several times to give our very
fatigued bodies and feet a break. We made the car around 6:30, six hours after
standing on the summit of Stuart for the first time. The parking lot was empty.
We drove back to Cle Elum and drank margaritas and drank an enormous amount of
water.
Remote? Yes, it takes alot of work to get there and back, regardless
of which route you choose. We had the mountain to ourselves (we never saw the
other party after we summitted, they had descended the West side of the mountain
somehow). This is the type of place where being a little conservative will pay
off. Retreat from anywhere on this route would be a pain in the ass at the very
least. People will climb faster without packs, so the style that Dennis Goll and
Jeff Mau followed several years ago in which they camped at Staurt Pass and
fired the route and descent in a day is also recommended, if you have the
stamina. Whether you bivy like we did or fire it in a day, the ascent and
descent take a while, even in the best weather, practicing fast climbing
techniques. Although the ridge to the Gendarme is actually shorter than I
thought it would be, the ridge after the rappel is actually longer than I
thought it would be, so it all balances out.
Well, it's August 1st, and my July projects are officially laid to rest. I
will be back for Goode, sometime, hopefully with Dennis and Maurice. At the time
of this writing Dennis is getting busy to move to Ithaca, N.Y., far from the
cradle of American alpine climbing, so that his wife can pursue her law degree.
Goode will be reserved for him, when he finds his way back.
