I had this plan. Do the Ptarmigan traverse as a loop out of Stehekin: begin by climbing the NE buttress of Goode; link that with the N ridge of Forbidden. Then resupply at Cascade pass and proceed down the crest to Dome Peak, exiting out the south fork of Agnes Creek. You may notice that the title of the post has almost nothing to do with this plan. So it goes.
Low snow pack. Hot summer. Big fires. Lost gear. These were our enemies.
The Goode fire started just a few days before our trip began, and the park service officially closed climbing on Goode Mountain the night before we were to start. We still wanted to climb the North Ridge of Forbidden. Badly. And we wanted to leave the rest of our plans as intact as possible: Grace and I starting from Stehekin; Brian, Ethan, and Myléne starting from Bridge Creek Trailhead.
Thus the Loganberry traverse was born.
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| The west shore of lake Chelan, aflame. |
8/3/2015
We met at the PCT / N. Fork Bridge creek trail junction as planned around 16:00 and proceeded up the N. Fork trail until the Grizzly Creek ford. Just on the far side we headed up hill, ascending a forested rib toward Mt. Logan. One might describe this route as the complete southeast ridge of Logan. I would describe it as the most pleasant approach to the Douglas Glacier you're likely to find.
The blunt ridge crest is very easy travel. We did some weaving to avoid thickets, but mostly it was open forest or meadow, with very little brush, and lots and lots of blueberries!
We made camp around 4500' at a beautiful flat step in the ridge crest. Spectacular views of Goode. Soft heather. Shooting stars. Blinding moon by night.
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| Mt. Goode by moonlight |
8/4/2015
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| Grace and Brian threading cracks on the Douglas glacier |
In the morning we proceeded up the ridge crest to point 7810', then down its NW face to glacial slabs and ice remnants. From there we contoured at or near 6800', around various ribs and anemic disintegrating ice-fields, until we reached the toe of the Douglas Glacier. This is a steep, rather broken, piece of ice and it took us quite a while to wend our way through the cracks. One steep pitch of ice got us past most of the difficulties. One more difficult crack nearly blocked our way to the rock ridge leading to the summit area. I took a short fall crossing the soft snow bridge, but I had a solid tool placement in the far wall and only dropped a couple of feet before my arm caught me. We were all happy to have each brought a second ice tool.
The scramble up to the summit area was a little unpleasant. Loose, steep, exposed. But we all made it up without mishap, and while Ethan and Myléne had the energy to bound up the the false summit, Grace, Brian, and I set about finding a place to bivouac for night.
8/5/2015
After a beautiful hazy sunrise we all started scrambling up to the summit of Logan, which is a really nice solid point of rock for such a massive sprawling mountain. Ethan and I got there first to photograph the others making their way up. I realized a bit too late that I was going to need my wide angle lens. Hurried the change. Fumbled.
*Ping*
The sound of a very expensive artifact, glass and metal, bouncing of granite.
Silence.
The sound of said artifact falling a thousand feet. Too far to hear the next impact.
No one made a move to stop or catch it, which I think says good things about all our instincts: nothing, no matter how expensive, would be worth the risk.
Myléne asks all of us - the locals - if we're concerned about the double cloud deck that is sweeping in from the west, engulfing Forbidden and neighboring peaks. No, no, we assure her. That can't be real weather. Just a marine layer. We locals were quite mistaken; the rain started a few hours later.
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| The Boston glacier from Mt. Logan |
After packing up camp we proceeded south along the ridge crest leading to the Fremont glacier. One short rappel got us down to the firn. From there, we roped up and made a gradual descending traverse across the Fremont, and down into boulder fields and heather, where we eventually found the climbers path that serves the Fremont glacier route, which in turn led to the Thunder Basin trail just north of Park Creek Pass. We had decided that our best bet for gaining the Boston Glacier from Thunder Basin was a steep timbered rib, climbing out of the basin from 4400 to 5600'.
We followed the Thunder Basin trail northwest to the base of the rib, forded Thunder Creek, and started up. We were all throughly soaked by now from rain and wet brush, but spirits were high. Our intended camp, the 6000' saddle above, was only a few hours ahead.
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| Descending steep, wet forest in Thunder basin |
The forest was open and pleasant, but steep. It got steeper. 50 degrees. We put on helmets, half-jokingly discussed roping up, putting on crampons. We're threading between cliff bands, climbing forrest duff like it's runnels of ice on an alpine face. Then, in one of the steepest sections, one of Ethan's crampons drops to the ground in front of Brian's nose. He picks it up, looks at the empty space on the back of Ethan's pack. The space where two crampons should have been strapped.
"Where's the other one?"
The rain intensifies.
If you happen to find an old Grivel G10 somewhere in Thunder Basin, I can tell you who it belongs to.
After some discussion about whether we needed to rappel the forest, we all got out ice axes, which made the gloomy descent much more secure. Down in the basin once again, we set up camp in the dripping forest and reviewed our options. Missing a crampon, and with Park Creek burning, our only sensible choice was the trail out to highway 20. 18 miles of walking in the wrong direction; no car at the end of it. Certainly no climbing of Forbidden. But, we can accept setbacks. Hot soup in the Megalite is a rainy day tradition by now, and soggy smiles flash all around.
8/6/2015
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| Old growth, Thunder basin |
The next morning dawned beautiful and clear. Just a few thin tearing clouds on the peaks above. We all had mixed feelings about this. Nice not to be hiking out in the rain. Depressing that one lousy bit of metal, lost in the forest, was the only reason we wouldn't be climbing Forbidden that day.
Thunder Basin is gorgeous, the trail is soft and well graded. But 18 miles on any trail, in mountaineering boots with an alpine pack, is torture. We started sending regular OK messages on the SPOT beacon to let our friends in Seattle know that there was nothing wrong per-se, but that we were going to come out of the wilderness 100 road-miles from our car!
We reached Colonial Creek campground at around 18:00, got in touch with the campground ranger, who had the comms center call Jim. Who, bless his soul, drove all the way from Seattle to rescue us. There will be some very nice wine in the mail to you, sir, if it hasn't already reached you when you read this!
The "first ascent" of the Loganberry† traverse was complete.
†So named because we ate such a ludicrous number of delicious berries (blue, ras, salmon, service) while traversing the Logan massif.
8/7-8/8
The weather forecast for the coming days looked grim, so we all headed back to civilization to regroup. First Seattle, then to Grandview for Grace and I. We needed to retrieve our car from the ferry dock in Chelan, and visit with our baby girl.
The forecast took a sudden turn for the better, and we decided to head out again on the 9th, planning to do the Ptarmigan using the usual exit to Suiattle river road.
8/9/2015
Brian very kindly helped us setup the car shuttle, and dropped us all at Cascade pass. The recent rains had cleaned up the air, and we had a brilliant clear day. After listening to Brian rave about how good it was, we had decided that we needed to climb the east face of Mixup peak on our way over Cache col. But it was 16:00 by the time we reached the notch that accesses the face, and the moat crossing looked ugly. We decided to come back and do it the next morning. We found a phenomenal bivy site above and left of Cache col, and had a relaxed evening watching/photographing the sun set behind Johannesburg.
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| The sun sets behind Johannesburg Mountain |
8/10/2015
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| Obadiah negotiates the moat below Mixup, photo by Grace |
We got up around 04:00 and headed back to the base of Mixup. As we had feared, the moat proved challenging, but not terribly so. We scrambled through on the left side, and gained the incredibly loose gully floor. I started out trying to lead a pitch directly up the wall left of the huge boulder that blocked most of the gully, but quickly encountered slightly overhanging climbing on pretty loose holds. Seeing my hesitation, Myléne and Ethan decided to investigate up hill on the far side of the boulder. It turned out that one could easily chimney up to the top of it. From there the climbing was just slightly delicate low 5th for 15 or 20 meters before easing off.
Another 4th or low 5th class pitch got us out of the gully on the far side of the notch, much less than the 100 feet down that Beckey suggests, and then we were simul-climbing up to the shoulder. There was almost no gear to be had in this section and it might be advisable to climb up to the first rap station and then unrope. The climbing above is never very hard, but anywhere that the rock is fractured enough for gear, it is also too loose to trust. All this had me wondering if there is a more enjoyable way of accessing the face. The blocky terrain right of the east face chimney looked climbable at moderate class 5.
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| Myléne tops out on Mixup Peak |
We made one double rope rappel off the summit ridge, and then down climbed the east face to the SE shoulder. We then made three more single rope rappels to the gully, essentially just reversing the climbing route. Finally, a piton and nut anchor provided one more rappel into the moat where we had left our crampons.
By the time we were back at our Cache col camp it was well after noon. Our climb of mixup had taken a full 8 hours! Time to get moving on to Yang Yang lakes.
On our way down to Kool Aid Lake, Myléne made our headline wildlife sighting. A black bear had been wallowing in one of the only snow patches left in the basin, just left of our trail. By the time I saw it, he/she was pelting down slope at full gallop. Had to be going 30 mph, quite elegantly bounding across the talus that had us picking our way down with slow aching care. I'm glad it was running away from us!
It took surprisingly little time to reach the edge of the Middle Cascade glacier, but nevertheless it was late afternoon by the time we reached Spider-Formidable col, and quite dark by the time we setup camp at Yang Yang lakes.
It took surprisingly little time to reach the edge of the Middle Cascade glacier, but nevertheless it was late afternoon by the time we reached Spider-Formidable col, and quite dark by the time we setup camp at Yang Yang lakes.
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| Sunrise on the LeConte glacier, from Yang Yang lakes |
In the morning we headed up to LeConte pass, and onward toward the namesake glacier. Here, we had a difficult decision to make. The glacier looked... improbable. It might or might not go, and we were going to have to climb a lot of steep ice before reaching the problematic looking crevasse zone. The alternative was to try going around to the South Cascade glacier via an easy looking col SE of LeConte mountain. Both routes seemed like maybe-maybe-not propositions, and we'd only have one try. With the time we lost to weather and recovering from the Loganberry traverse, we had no slack left in the itinerary. We had to get to White rock Lakes today, or not at all.
In the end we opted for the bypass, as it just looked too temptingly easy on the map. In retrospect, I think Beckey says specifically that this route does not go, but we didn't notice that at the time.
For most of the way, it felt as though we'd made the right decision. Mostly we were just descending easy talus and heather slopes, with only a little scrambling here and there. The show stopper came at the very end. with only about 400' of descent left to go we came to an impasse. A horrible loose rubble slope above a nasty cliff band. I was still convinced that this would go, thought we'd be able to plunge step in the rubble, and use our axes for decent security. Perhaps fortunately, others in the party were less convinced. Grace belayed me out onto the slope where I tested my theories. Instead of reasonably secure plunge stepping in soft sand, I found about 4" of powder over hardpan. Everything under my boots just crumbled away leaving a surface something like 40-degree sandstone covered in ball bearings. My axe just sheared through the top surface, providing no security at all.
In the end we opted for the bypass, as it just looked too temptingly easy on the map. In retrospect, I think Beckey says specifically that this route does not go, but we didn't notice that at the time.
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| Stymied by fresh lateral moraine, 400' above the South Cascade glacier |
There might have been other options had we looked around more, but we didn't. It was still early enough in the day that I had hopes we might still try the glacier, so we hustled to get back over the col to icy side. But that was not to be. It was 16:00 by the time we were back on the east side of the crest, and we were all too tired to try. We discussed getting up early to try the glacier in the morning, but we figured it would be at least an 8 hour round trip if we failed, and that was time we couldn't afford. So we ambled somewhat dejectedly back to LeConte pass, where we found an idyllic camp in the mossy heather.
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| Ethan photographs a smoky sunset at LeConte pass |
8/12/2015
The next day we played tag with small thunderstorms all the way back to Kool Aid Lake, where we had another relaxed evening watching the sun set.
8/13/2015
Getting back to Cascade Pass trailhead was similarly uneventful, but once there we were going to have to try and hitch a ride. But not to worry. We had Ethan with us, our very own charismatic megafauna. Within ten minutes of reaching the trailhead, he found Brett, a super nice guy who drove Grace and I all the way back to the Downy Creek trailhead where our car was parked! We thanked him with a pair of our previously stashed trailhead beers, but that was hardly enough.
After that it was your typical end of trip gluttony. BBQ Caboose. Cascadian Farms. Seattle.
Thanks to everyone for making this trip such a fun general failure! Especially Jim for rescuing us; Brian for giving us a place to stay in Seattle, a truly lavish post-Loganberry breakfast, and dropping us at Cascade Pass; Brett for his kindness in giving us a lift to Downy Creek. But perhaps most importantly, Grace's parents, who cared so well for little Miriam while Grace and I were away.
More Photos!
Getting back to Cascade Pass trailhead was similarly uneventful, but once there we were going to have to try and hitch a ride. But not to worry. We had Ethan with us, our very own charismatic megafauna. Within ten minutes of reaching the trailhead, he found Brett, a super nice guy who drove Grace and I all the way back to the Downy Creek trailhead where our car was parked! We thanked him with a pair of our previously stashed trailhead beers, but that was hardly enough.
After that it was your typical end of trip gluttony. BBQ Caboose. Cascadian Farms. Seattle.
Thanks to everyone for making this trip such a fun general failure! Especially Jim for rescuing us; Brian for giving us a place to stay in Seattle, a truly lavish post-Loganberry breakfast, and dropping us at Cascade Pass; Brett for his kindness in giving us a lift to Downy Creek. But perhaps most importantly, Grace's parents, who cared so well for little Miriam while Grace and I were away.
More Photos!
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