Nursing our summit-fever wounds from our recent turn around on Rainier, we had our eyes set on the alpine again this weekend. Mary and I had been eyeing Sloan for three years. This is the time of year to do it (actually, it’s a bit late, but we have a long snow pack this year). When we saw absolutely perfect weather we knew it had to happen. Rarely do you see sunny, 55 degrees on the summit, zero wind, and a clear day. I had also seen a recent trip report from Chenmin. The glacier looked like it was in great shape. Their party unfortunately had to turn around because of snow on the heather ledges. We mulled this over and felt that the recent warm weather might have left a clear path. So, we went for it.
We met again and drove to the trailhead. After the previous weekend’s midnight start, we were stoked for a luxurious 8am departure from the city and then the thought of a super-late 4am wakeup the next morning. A lot of climbers attempt Sloan in a day. With relatively moderate statistics, that makes sense. Who wants to carry a heavy pack with overnight gear when you can instead just carry a day pack? I do. The camping is incredible and, if you’re going to have to get up super early why not also go backpacking with your friends?
Anyways, we met up and began the now familiar drive out to the Bedal Creek trailhead. We hit traffic on the Mountain Loop highway, as we always do, and stopped for about fifteen bathroom breaks (all were welcome), but all up made good time to the trailhead. The trailhead is at the end of Forest Service road 4096, and the road is rough. So rough that most of my friends don’t want to drive up it. But, a good high clearance vehicle can navigate it with no problem. Just expect a few paint scrapes from branches.
The trail is particularly overgrown this year. At least compared to last year. About fifty feet up there’s some new blow down just to remind you that this is, in fact, a good cascadian adventure. The blow downs let up as you get further up the trail, and the five (yes, five) brushy overgrown sections add some spice to the ~1.6 mile walk in.
At some point you have to go uphill to gain the Bedal / Sloan saddle. There is some pink flagging from a SAR mission several (many?) years ago. This flagging marks a bit of a way trail that travels through the steep, open forest. Follow the flagging on the way up, and try your best to remember the lay of the land for the way down. At ~4350′ the best path walks along a little ridge. Remember this for your way down. Last year we get sucked into some brush by following the fall line on the descent. The brush is much less pleasant. A break about halfway up this is where I realized that I had left my ice axe in the car. What a dingus! We decided that the weather looked okay, and that there would be little danger on the snow this year so we as a group decided to proceed. Still, what a dingus. I still cringe thinking about this mistake.
After about 1000′ of this no-nonsense trail, you encounter a boulder field below imposing cliffs of Bedal peak. I was reading the Cascade Alpine Guide of peaks in the area. Beckey doesn’t mention this now-common approach to Sloan. He instead mentions an approach off Bedal creek that continues up the trail, up the Bedal creek basin, and then eventually through some chimney moves up to the summit block. He also mentions the now standard Cougar creek approach (called the Sloan Peak Climber’s trail). What I found interesting was that in a little footnote he mentions an alternate approach to Bedal peak that goes up open forests and then up a Boulder field. I think that’s the approach that we used for Sloan peak. I just thought it was cool that there was such diversity to approaches.
Anyways, I digress. Uphill nonsense over, the approach crosses some incredible, hills-are-alive, meadows. Last year these were full of blueberries and were wet as heck. This year was a different story – no berries, no water, and hot. On the balance, I’ll take boots that don’t slosh over berries. But just barely. The approach briefly enters some open forest before you gain the Bedal / Sloan saddle, which is marked by a murky looking tarn. Also, there are some rocks in the tarn that look a little bit like a monster just below the surface. At least to me.
Here we changed into our boots for the rest of the approach, since the snow became consistent. Here is also where I experienced my first of several visits to the great number 2 experience. I haven’t yet been able to predict when my stomach will agree with me on a climb and when it won’t. This time it decidedly didn’t.
After our brief stop we made terrifically quick work of the rest of the approach to camp. Again, the mistakes we made last year, and the better conditions this year, paid off. We didn’t gain useless elevation. We didn’t have to route find across any sketchy slab. It was cruising to the camp at about 5900′ on the north ridge. On this approach is when we saw the only other climbers of the day. Two parties of two, and each gave us useful beta. They both informed us that the route was cruiser and our excitement only grew.
The Sloan peak north ridge camp is incredible. You have views of big mountains like Baker and Glacier, mountains with stark prominence like Bedal and Pugh, and enough luscious valleys to appreciate your now bug-free life. Last year camp was dry, and we found a few small sources of water. This year there was running water about fifty yards above camp.
We made quick work of our chores. Melissa and I both had fairly medium Mountain House meals. I was hitting the bottom of the barrel on my impulse purchase of on-sale Mountain House a few years ago. I’d been avoiding chicken breast and mashed potatoes for several years and wasn’t stoked to tear in to it. I was, however, hungry. Besides requiring assembly (what the hell, Mountain House?) the meal was actually pretty good. A little plain flavored, but I guess what can you expect from chicken breast and mashed potatoes? I can’t fault them, it was actually pretty cool to see two whole chicken breasts freeze dried in a bag. Okay, I take it all back. It was a perfectly fine meal. Melissa had the teriyaki chicken which, while tasty, is pretty sweet.
We took sunset photos for about two hours and then eventually made it to bed. Despite having plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep, I finally made it to sleep around 11pm. Five hours later, and a few midnight star gazing trips to deal with the water I drank on Saturday, the alarms went off and we got ready to go. We left at 5:15am, just before first light.
We followed some old tracks up the easy north ridge and roped up when we started traversing onto the glacier. The travel was incredibly easy. Within ten minutes we had passed where we got stuck on our previous attempt. The snow was great for walking in. The sun rose and the sky turned from pink to orange to blue. The sun lit the imposing face of Sloan.
As we gained the east ridge, we found some steep, exposed snow on the far side getting to the heather. This was one of two times on the trip I really wish that I had my ice axe. The snow was pretty soft, so travel was very easy and I used a picket to self belay just in case.
We were FINALLY at the heather benches part of the route and immediately found a nice happy little bootpath to follow. Following this trail was pretty easy. Until it wasn’t. There’s just enough snow to cover parts of the trail and force you onto some heather hopping moves. Remember, kids, heather is lava. This path is exposed, but doesn’t feel overly so. How often do you fall down while walking, especially if you’re paying attention? Every time the trail turned a corner we were rewarded with more incredible views.
We rounded enough corners and found what we assumed was the dirty gulley. Mary recognized it from photos (she’s really good at recognizing places from their photos) and up we went. The gulley was snow covered, and having forgotten my ice axe, I decided to scramble up the rocks on climber’s right. This went, but required a few moves with concentration-inducing exposure. Melissa followed me and said that she didn’t have fun here. See, exposed scrambling.
The dirty gulley leads to a notch in the ridge where there’s a fourth class step. And, boy, the route wasn’t obvious. We scrambled up the off width crack (seriously) and then to another thing that I didn’t think was the route. So I went left and was like “we should go on these exposed ledges.” Thankfully sanity prevailed and we went up what was a relatively easy few moves. Melissa was ahead and shouted “it’s trail!” so we knew we were on the right path.
More dirty scree brings another gulley with more kitty litter and loose rocks. There’s a decent trail through here and the route finding wasn’t terrible. A weird patch of snow forced us across a crappy, muddy step. This was probably the sketchiest part of the scramble so far.
We had been waiting for the bear hug move for ages and it was finally upon us. Photos don’t do it justice. It’s fun. It’s fine. It’s a bear hug. Hug the rock and go across and then scramble up to the summit. Everyone seems to talk about the bear hug move, but they don’t talk about the other mandatory exposure and weird scramble moves to get to the summit block. It was all fine, of course, but we agreed that the scramble on Sloan was pretty sandbagged.
Four hours and sixteen minutes after we left camp, we arrived on the summit. Mary was excited to find an old brass summit register. I was, too, but I was also excited to sit down and then visit another blue bag (see earlier, when I knew this trip was going to involve this kind of fun). We hung out for a while, ate some delicious pizza, and soaked in the views. I’ve used the word incredible several times to describe these views. That word alone isn’t enough to do it justice. Go. See for yourself. I implore you.
The summit register was brand new! A crew of folks from Saturday replaced it (thank you Josie L. and Tim E.!!!). I took the old register to give back to The Mountaineers. In the old register I found some familiar names, including Eve Jakubowski, who’s trip report was part of the inspiration for this trip.
After a not-so-brief summit laze, we decided it was time to turn around and head home. We ran into our first (and only) other people of the day when we saw a party of two at the base of the snow-covered dirty gulley. By the way, I descended in the moat and then snow this time, not wanting to repeat the exposed scramble.
We made it back to camp in a few hours (how the Mountaineers thinks you can get from summit to camp in 2 hours is beyond me). Of note, we saw several new crevasses that had just opened up overnight. And, on our way out, we think the snow dropped at least a foot. The alpine is melting FAST y’all.
I don’t really like walking out, and I don’t like talking about walking out. This is why I’m a skier. Downhill is fun on skis. Downhill through boulder fields, bushwhacking, and steep open slope isn’t. We did better on the descent this time. We had paid attention to the better ways to go up and down, and avoided many of our mistakes of last year. We were able to take 20 minutes off our time.
A few things we found really important:
I brought leftover snacks from Rainier and STILL have too much food. A wrap on Saturday, bagel with Everything but the Bagel seasoning on Sunday, and two slices of PCC pizza. On the way back you better believe we stopped at McDonalds for a big mac, fries, and a giant coke.
Our trip started the previous day as every summit attempt on the mountain does – at a ranger station, dropping off a permit, and nervously sorting through gear. We had the usual debate of deciding how many shovels to bring, just which stoves we needed, and how many snacks we should try to cram into our bags. (All of them. Always all of them.) We saddled up with 45#+ packs and headed up the comfortable glacier basin trail.
We had originally planned for a three-day climb. When the weather solidified with a storm system coming in Saturday, we made the decision to attempt the climb in two days. At elevation, and with route finding, a two day ascent is a long slog. Just getting to camp is a 7.6mi approach with 4300′ of gain, on snow. It sure is a pretty approach, though. The glacier basin trail is easy walking and affords occasional views of the alpine. The trail along the moraine is good, and, as you gain elevation you are afforded insane views of the foothills and Cascades.
It took us 8 hours to reach Camp Schurman. Here we received our briefing from ranger Kyle. Pit toilets are always better than blue bags, so we all made pit stops before making the final push to camp. We got to camp at around 5:30 or 6pm and settled into chores: building tent platforms, melting 20 liters of water, scarfing down food, and getting the pack ready for the morning.
I finally made it to bed a little after 8pm with alarms set for midnight. The promised winds began, and the wind hitting the tent woke me up about every hour. For the first few times this was fine, since I had plenty of time left to sleep. Then the final wind gust powered wake up came at 11:55pm. Knowing that I had to be up in just a few more minutes, I started the slow process of getting ready. I’m not quick to get ready in the best circumstances, and doing it at midnight after a small nap, in the cold and the dark isn’t any faster. The thought still leaves me exhausted and nauseated.
We started climbing around 1:40am and began the easy walk up the feature known as the corridor. This is the broad ramp that ascends from camp to about 11,400’. This is the most straightforward part of the climb and we made quick work of it. I followed a descent boot path of sorts, jumping out of it to avoid those awkwardly large steps that other climbers always seem to leave.
From here, the route traversed climbers right and we began route finding around seracs and crevasses. The seracs are enormous! While the predominant route walked on top of them, I didn’t like that falls here would be consequential. And, this involved stepping over a pretty wide crack. This type of terrain is exactly why I was interested in climbing Rainier, and this kind of decision making is why I was enthusiastic to climb it without a guide-maintained route.
We kept going, a little right and up. The route steepened, the snow remained firm, and we found several crevasses where the primary route had fallen out recently. The route isn’t as direct as a it was a week or two ago. This area went smoothly and we were able to make good progress.
At around 12,340’, we huddled up during break time. Some folks in our group weren’t doing well. The snow was firm, and the wind was picking up. The rangers had told us that the wind wouldn’t get better. We made the decision to turn around, primarily because of the altitude.
We later learned that few teams had successfully climbed the Emmons route on the 11th. For some teams it was altitude, like us. For others it was the winds. Some teams reported that the winds on the summit were so bad that they couldn’t even stand. One team reported that they found the bergschrund at 13,500′ but couldn’t find a way around it due to wind drifts. I don’t love that so few people reached the summit, but it does make the inevitable later review of the turnaround decision easier. Turn around decisions are personal and turning around in the mountains is always justified. But still, it’s easier when you don’t think you would have been successful because of external factors, too.
The descent was better than we had anticipated on the way up. We were nervous to descend some of the slopes, but the snow was perfect for crampons. The sun had softened the snow just enough that we were able to start kicking some steps, too.
A few years ago, I started the journey of structured training. It, along with losing weight, is starting to work! While carrying a pack isn’t easy, and we weren’t going fast, the all-day, conversational pace is now achievable. I felt fine. I had plenty of energy. Even when we got to camp, a whopping 8 hours after starting, I still had plenty of energy. Those who have climbed with me in the past will recognize that this is a pretty big difference.
We made it back to camp without issue. We ate some food, took a quick nap, and packed up to get out. We made quick work of the interglacier, then, now in trail runners, made quick work of the glacier basin trail.
I’m glad I brought my puffy! And I used almost all the (non-technical) gear I brought.
Wrap on Saturday, Mountain house for dinner, bagel with cream cheese (and everything-but-the-bagel seasoning), pizza for lunch. All worked really well.
The trail up to the bean creek basin was in good shape. We remained on trail through the basin and turned off so that we could scramble up the south / southwest face. The scrambling was serious type 1 fun.
Up and over Bean, we made our way towards Volcanic Neck. I’d wanted to go scramble Volcanic Neck since I was a scramble student. I’d heard that it was interesting and exposed and hard for a scramble. The exposure is notable in the scramble community. The route traverses on scree to the north side of the summit block. From here the route follows the path of least resistance to the top and then traverses along the ridge. There was some exposure in spots. The whole route felt manageable, if a little airy. A different experience from Bean.
Down we went. None of us had brought boots so we weren’t excited to go into the snow-filled basin on the north side of the Bean / Earl ridge. Combine that with one of us thinking we left our sunscreen on Bean, we went back up Bean to get to the ridge.
The ridge from Bean to Earl is easy traveling. There are a few steps that require route finding getting down from Earl, and in some other spots you need to route find loose scree vs. rocks on the ridge. Once the trail goes up, it becomes straightforward. I hadn’t realized how much higher Earl was than Bean peak. About halfway up it became quite apparent
We paused on the summit of Earl to eat snacks and sign the summit register. From here it was trail all the way out. We made it back to the cars, where snacks, beer, and camp chairs awaited. The day finished with the now common practice of fast-food-in-the-back-of-cars.
We found tracks and route descriptions, which proved to be pretty easy to follow. You go up a road for a bit. Eventually the road ends and you head up a drainage toward a saddle to gain the ridge on Arrowhead. Everything was easy except for following up the drainage. We found some skin tracks that led us to some crazy steep terrain in thick forest.
That terrain navigated, we eventually gained the ridge for Arrowhead and followed it for a while until the travel became too steep for us. Low clouds had come in, we had used up a bunch of time and emotional energy on the steep traverses, so we turned around. We skied incredible, smooth, stable, 35 to 40 degree slopes back to the road. A fun road ski brought us to the cars, where we imbibed cola, ate chips, and got ready for our drive home.
Today’s high is was 92 degrees and, since we live in Seattle, we felt every one of those 92 degrees without A/C. I have two things to look forward to for this coming winter – cooler temps, and a quicker drive. Arrowhead is only going to be about an hour from Wenatchee
We climbed a variety of sandstone – hard (for us) sport, trad, and top roped some crazy looking lines. New friends, new routes, and a ton of fun. I’ll be back.
The usual scramble route starts up the normal Little Si trail and heads uphill in the climber’s gulley by Repo wall. This leads to a way trail on the south east side of the peak. The way trail leads to an open book feature and then traverses uphill on some slabs toward the summit. This terrain is shaded and sheltered and takes a while to dry out.
We found the open book sopping wet. It was dripping. We could have gone swimming up the open book move. I had heard about a different route traversing left (south then toward the west side of the mountain). What we found was a faint trail toward some slab moves. These moves were dry, and we followed obvious breaks in the rock to a ledge. At one point you could traverse on some exposed grass and dirt and end up at the top of the open book move. I scooted over and saw that the normal route up above the open book was just as wet as the open book. We continued up climber’s left of the open book route. This led us to some obvious small gulleys with occasional class 3 moves to the summit.
I thought I knew Little Si pretty well but found new terrain here. Even a small piece of terrain takes a long time to master. This new-to-me route was really fun; I’ll be back.
We were a small party of three. This was Kat’s graduation scramble with the Mountaineers. Congratulations on graduating Kat!
I’m currently reading Breaking the Halo, by Katjarina Hurt. Breaking the Halo attempts to provide context and tools for outdoor travelers to make safer decisions in the backcountry. Traveling in the mountain environment carries risk of injury. This is a risk that has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I was lucky this season; my friends made it through without getting hurt. But I think that nobody got hurt was only because of luck and close calls. There are enough recreation days in the mountains in my community that it’s only a matter of time. It feels inevitable.
Some of the circumstances that can lead to unfortunate outcomes is for us (1) to not understand the risk in the decisions that are being made, or (2) to think there is undue risk and not speak up. The book describes six “halos” that we may encounter that contribute to decision making that is less than ideal, including falling into the risk traps that I just mentioned. One of those halos is the badge halo, which strikes me as particularly insidious. I understand a “badge” to be a token of accomplishment, and the badge halo shows up in two ways:
I was thinking about this badge as I watched us scramble into the unknown on Little Si. Was there additional confidence because I had been up this route a dozen times? Did we get tunnel vision attempting to get a graduation climb? I thought hard about what motivated us to go on this trip and my qualifications to lead it. There are other halos that can apply, but I think about this as an exercise against evaluating the badge halo.
We were successful getting to the top of this route. It was wet at times, and there were some exposed moves. It was terrain that was well within our capability. Some of the moves were wet. In one exposed spot my foot pivoted on the hold (it didn’t slip, but there just wasn’t nearly as much friction as I would have liked). Kat was elated to get to the top. I was elated to be out of exposed terrain. I suggested we high five like cool climber bros and bro-ettes. Congratulations went around. We were safely at the top. Were we skilled or were we lucky?
I consider the question of luck vs. skill frequently, especially when it comes to traveling in the mountains. The answer lies in shades of grey. We mitigate risk, we train, we practice the skills required to safely move on rock. Sometimes, though, we did not judge that risk properly. When that happens, it is only by grace that we are let through.
We departed North Bend at 6am and were heading up the trail by 8am. I pushed myself and both Olivia and AJ are fast, so we made it to the pass in 75 minutes and to the base of the route in 2:40 with a break to eat some snacks just above the lake. At the base of the route we meet a Mountaineers party of three – Hong, Lena, and Susan. We chatted briefly and they were off.
I took the first lead. After a few easy 5th class moves I found myself walking in scree. What? Susan’s group had gone straight up and left, but all the beta I had went right. Eventually I found a way that made sense, making some extraneous 5th class moves, and quickly ran into the end of my rope. As a party of 3 we had elected to bring a single 70m rope. Too short to make this pitch pleasant, it turns out.
I wanted a mental break from route finding so Olivia took the lead for the remainder of the pitch. She navigated up to the ridge and belayed us in. AJ and Olivia were tied into the ends of the rope, so I decided to stay in the middle. We set up for simulclimbing and AJ led out. To our surprise AJ found a fixed piton on some downsloping staircase steps. This made a good first piece in otherwise unprotectable terrain.
From here the route finding became much more straightforward and the climbing pleasant. Some 4th class and low 5th class terrain led to a knife edge ridge, which I opted to traverse on climber’s left. This led to a scary downclimb with foot holds that are way better than they look. Some more 4th and low 5th class terrain led to another knife edge traverse with even better feet. Another downclimb (easier this time) and you’re basically at the crux move.
As I mentioned in the intro, the crux move scared me. I’ve climbed harder grades, but not in the alpine and not with a pack. It didn’t scare me enough to stop trying to push my climbing grade in the gym and crag, but it was a good reminder to take it slow in the alpine.
That business dealt with, we scrambled up a few feet to the summit, took our photo, and began the descent along the South Ridge. Olivia and I had the descent route dialed and we made pretty good time. We jetted down the slabs, back to the trail, and then back out to the cars.
I’ve spent a lot of time on Ingalls peak this year. Going from wanting to climb it for the past several years to climbing it four times this summer is quite the difference. To me it’s a checkpoint of how far I’ve come. I’ve accumulated enough skills and experience to begin designing my own trips in this sort of terrain. I have so much further to go before I’m comfortable here and can claim to understand the most basic nuances.
This is motivating to continue training through the fall into next climbing season. It’s been a solid four months of alpine climbing of different flavors and textures. I’m so lucky to have attempted remote mountains on skis, revisited a favorite, pushed myself on glacier terrain, and transitioned in to rock. I’ve had some pretty spectacular failures this year and just use those as experience in the bank. This year is by no means over, but I’m already excited for next year! To be more precise, I’m excited by the image of what next year can be with a winter of dedicated work and practice.
The approach to Wallaby follows the “well defined trail” to Kangaroo pass. Well defined is true eventually, but before you get to the trail, you’ll have to do some boulder hopping and traveling in scree. Just remember that the trail mostly contours in the valley (rather than going uphill), and you should be fine.
We made it to Kangaroo Pass in 1:15 and took a quick snack, water, and shoe break. From here the route steepened as we started up the ridge.
I’m fascinated by how different rock affects movement. Granite looks to bend and curve and ripple. It’s not friable and exposes cool rounded corners, cracks, and little nubbins to step on. The lower ridge didn’t disappoint, and we found some fun class 3 moves in between trail walks.
A few hundred vertical feet later and the route travels up, across, and up scree. The last bit to the summit is reasonably steep and loose. The worse can be avoided by sticking close to the sides of the gulley.
We arrived to the 7995’ summit in 2:30 and were blown away by 360-degree views. We had the summit to ourselves, a nice break from the crowds of the previous two days.
After lazing on the summit for 30 minutes, the impending descent got to me and I we started on our way down. The loose scree wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected but was still steep and loose. Some careful scrambling down and we quickly found solid ground. Most of the way back to the pass we encountered our first people of the day, made some casual conversation, and continued on our way down.
We were able to find and follow the trail a bit more on the descent, but still found ourselves lost in some boulder fields. We eventually worked the problem and made it back to the cars without difficulty.
Melissa and I drove out to Washington Pass on Friday afternoon. I was under the delusion that we’d gotten out early enough to find a camp site at one of the established campgrounds. An exhaustive search later we found ourselves in the Cutthroat Lake trailhead, a bit disappointed to not have a place to call home for the weekend. Little did we know this would be a blessing in disguise – a little searching brought us to the perfect camp site: peek-a-boo views of Cutthroat peak, pretty close to water, and with privacy. We made camp, made dinner, and settled in for the night.
We awoke at 5:30 on Saturday morning, aiming to be on the trail by 7am. We left at 7:15 and made quick time on the approach. Various conservation groups have been working on standardizing the access trail from the Blue Lake trail, and we found an amazing climber’s trail to the approach. 90 minutes later we arrived at the base of the route to find a group roping up in front of us. Along the way, we came to another group of folks and I recognized Nathan Foster. Nathan helped teach the Self Rescue course I took and is generally a pleasant guy to be around. He was out with some friends from the Intense Basic course that he helps teach.
We waited around for about half an hour and then started up the route. The crux of the climb is about 40’ off the deck (if that), and I found myself a little sketched out. I had seen the group in front of me go left here, but that’s just thin hands and some steep smearing to not a great handhold. I tried to go left twice but scared myself both times. Right is reachy, and a bit off angle, but after I psyched myself up to it, I made the move. The climbing got much easier from there and I found myself at a good belay stance off a shoulder height tree and belayed Melissa up.
The next interesting feature is a 15’ chimney. I’d never climbed a chimney before, and it was super fun! It helps that this was easy climbing, so it was just fun movement on rock. This brought to the top of pitch 2, and when I started pulling rope I immediately realized the mistake of adding 90-degree bends in the rope (rope drag is terrible!). Luckily a party was descending and unclipped the top piece for me. This was immediately way better. Another quick belay and we were both through most of the 5th class climbing.
I didn’t even think to transition away from “rock climbing” mode into “scrambling” mode, so I pitched out the rest of the ascent. There was some substantial exposure, but the ascent was easy for the most part with a few low fifth class moves. Being on belay and setting protection gave me the freedom to pick more adventurous moves in some cases rather than just walking around an obvious scramble spot. Pros and cons, I guess. I got a little lost in the pitches described in the guidebook, so I ended up building a gear anchor (a gear anchor!) one pitch below the camel’s back. A couple pitches later (and one alpine whale move), we encountered the camel’s back, a wildly exposed traverse over the ridge. As I was belaying Melissa up to me a few drops of rain fell. I don’t know about you, but right before an exposed friction move is not when I want it to start raining. Thankfully it was just a few drops, and everything remained dry. You can go around it but going over it is so much fun. But, bless the person who put a bolt in the middle of the traverse.
Some more 4th class terrain found us at the base of the boulder problem for the true summit. The style of climbing changed immediately, and we found our way to the top after a couple fun, committing moves. 6 hours after we started up o_o.
Nathan’s group reached the summit right behind us. They had unroped and were scrambling many of the upper pitches I decided to pitch out. It was amazing to see Nathan and Mike coaching the less experienced members of their party. They were both so incredibly patient the entire way up and pushed one member of the party just gently enough so that they all had a wonderful time and reached the summit. We were near each other for much of the ascent, and it was fun to chat with those folks some.
The views were glorious! All day we had been gradually rising to better and better views. The summit was no different, but being a bit concerned about incoming rain we didn’t hang around for long and began to scramble the descent. Melissa and I don’t always find the easiest way to scramble down things, and we definitely found some adventurous steps on the way down, but had fun getting back to the rap stations. Nathan helped accelerate some of our route finding with extra beta (like the open book move getting back into the gulley … that did not look like scrambling terrain!). At the rap stations we teamed up and decided to join ropes – we had a rope, they had two, so three ropes for three raps would be most efficient. Unfortunately, here a traffic jam ensued. Several parties had scrambled past Nathan’s group on the first rap. Another party decided to join in on the rap train, and they found all of the climbers wanting to use the established ropes. More efficient for everyone, but Nathan’s group got a little stuck behind folks.
We all got off in good spirits. Melissa and I hung around for a little bit and then started the walk out. A little loose scree and then we were on good trail. Feeling good physically and high emotionally, we walked fast and ran out to the trailhead, 11:24 c2c.
This was an incredible day in the mountains. The climbing was good and easy. The environment stunning. My climbing partner amazing. It was a stretch of my overall skills and learned things. I’m so hooked and can’t wait to go back.
Melissa and I set out from my place at 5:10 Thursday morning. We made good time getting to the trailhead: the Teanaway road is in the best shape I’ve ever seen it; I don’t remember any potholes. We geared up and were on the trail by 7:10. The Ingalls pass trail is in great shape, and it took us 90 minutes to climb the 2000’ to the pass. Here you descend into the lake basin. I get giddy every time I see Stuart and get to walk through the larches, and this time was no exception.
We leapfrogged a bit with a party heading toward the North Ridge of Stuart on the approach. They gave us some beta to stay on slabs and boulders that go left of the 7200’ prominence south of Ingalls peak. This was a good tip, and we found little choss getting to the 7300’ saddle between South Ingalls and Ingalls peaks. Little, except I thought we should traverse some slab toward a gulley. A sketchy slab move led us to a kitty litter gulley that went up for 50 vertical feet. Don’t go that way.
I opted to bring us back behind the Dogs Tooth crag and start from there. We roped up at the beginning of a class 4 ramp. After safety checks I led out to the top of pitch 2 from here (less than 60m). We dropped packs along the way. I belayed Melissa up and then led out on the best pitch of this climb: the red slab. I led out on the 5.6 variation. For me the climbing seems like sustained 5.4 with some 5.6 moves, all on slick rock. The holds are good, and for the most part the crack eats cams and nuts. The pitch tops out with a thin left-leaning crack and some face moves to the top bolts. This was only my 4th trad lead, and I found myself a little stressed out on the pitch. I worked through the stress, remembered my breathing, and made it with little difficulty.
The final pitch is a few low-5th moves and some exposed but easy scrambling. From the top of the 3rd pitch, one crack goes left and another right. I though the left crack was correct. I was wrong. A couple moves in it got very thin with no protection. I downclimbed back to the Y and went right.
The top scramble is exposed but uneventful, and then were on the summit! Melissa brought some cake/cookie and a birthday balloon. She is so cool and thoughtful, and brightened an already amazing day!
We hung out on the summit for a little bit and ate lunch. When we got hot, we downclimbed the scramble, rappelled down and ended in the gully below the traditional 1st pitch. A single 70m rope is sufficient to rap the red slab bitch, barely. As other reports indicate, a 60m rope will not get you down.
We reversed the way we came, taking a few minutes to watch a family of mountain goats play on the shore of the lake. We had a little difficulty route finding back to the trail on the slabs, but otherwise it was cruiser all the way out. We filtered water at the stream by the Ingalls basin camp sites. Car-to-car in 12:24.
The next day, Friday August 23, 2019, I got to do it all again! Peter and Jason met me at my place at 4am and we drove out. The road remained in good shape. We were on the trail by 6:30am, to the pass in 90 minutes, and back to the base behind the Dogs Tooth crag. It was surreal to see my footprints from the day before. This time Jason and I swung leads, and he was kind enough to let me lead the 5.6 pitch. The red slab, 5.6 pitch went better for me this time and, even though there were a couple moments of stress, I was pretty comfortable throughout.
I brought up some extra cord to replace the rap tat at the top of p4. When I checked it yesterday, one of the cords looked good, the other two were starting to wear through (one was worn completely through the sheath and into the core). Jason ended up doing the replacement, and this ate up some significant time; feeding cord through bolted anchors is so much weirder than just being able to clip carabiners where you need them.
All four of us made it to the summit. We hung out, and Mary brought some amazing cookies from Hello Robin for my birthday. That was so nice and thoughtful of here, and I can recommend the cookies, too! We rappelled down, descended, and were out to the cars in 11:45 from the start.
As a novice trad leader, I’m learning so much every time I go out. This was my first (and second) alpine trad lead. Having followed up Ingalls peak earlier in the summer gave me good beta on the climbing route and made route-finding straightforward. My systems were more dialed on day 2 than on day 1, I was more confident in my placements, and more confident in the climbing overall.
I consider myself eminently fortunate to have an amazing girlfriend and amazing friends who are down to do these things with me, make me feel special, and push me in just the right ways. I’m privileged to be able to bail from work and afford the time and money to do this thing. It was a good two days.