[TR] Welch Peak - SoutheastFace/East Ridge 9/4/2006

[cheamclimber]

Trip: Welch Peak - SoutheastFace/East Ridge

 

Date: 9/4/2006

 

Trip Report:

I decided that this would be a nice climb to do on the day before school started again, me and my friends Lorne, Vivian, Allan and Diana left at 6:30 AM and arrived at the Williamson Lake trailhead at 7:45 AM. We took the trail fairly slowly winding up and around the bowl to williamson lake.

 

Welch from the trailhead.The East ridge being the right skyline.

 

I din't really want to climb the South ridge as it is a bit boring and lacking of challenge. We arrived at Williamson Lake a wshort while later and stopped to play in the giant boulders and chase marmots for a while,Allan, Diana and I started up the scree leading to the Welch/Foley col and Lorne and Vivian, While compeletely capable of climbing to the peak stayed behind to hand out at the Lake. I decided to play on some of the ugly cliffs on the south face and then branched back onto the scree, we reached the snowpack on top of the glacier and scoped out the mountain for a fun route. I chose the southeasterly face because it offered the most variety of climbing and better looking rock. I took the lead and and played around on the face while Allan led Diana around the more difficult spots. For the most part the climbing was the higher end of class 3 and a lot of fun class 4 options. One highlight of the climb was when I decided to try to climb this 15 ft near vertical step three quarters up the face, of coure the rock turned out to be crap and I got stuck in the middle of the cliff nad had to back out. We eventually aquired the south summit and started up towards the true summit, at one point the ridge becomes knife edge and while the route is easier on the south side of the mountain, me being me went on to the North side of the mountain (dumb choice)looking way down on the Still I made a tricky really exposed and freaky traverse/ascent to the summit where I met Allan and Diana (who had taken the right way). Not feeling like descending the way we had come up we decided to follow the East ridge down a ways and turn down into the bowl where the snowpak is.

 

Foley and the East ridge of Welch.

 

 

The East ridge was a really easy descent with an impressive view down the NE face, down climbing from the East Ridge was class 4 with a bit of exposure. We made good time down to the lake with no incidents where we met Lorne and Vivian

9who had unfortunately cut her arm open on a rock) and took the trail to the car.

 

Gear Notes:

None...maybe a rope if not confident on rock. (i did it in skate shoes)

 

Approach Notes:

Easy approach/short gravel road

[tinytim]

Hmmm...did you just ignore the "road closed for heli-logging" sign? We tried to climb it a few weeks before but got chased away, and ended up going up lady instead.

[cheamclimber]

i forgot to make the date say 2005...back then there was no logging