Climb: Mt. Blum-N. Ridge

Date of Climb: 8/10/2004

Trip Report:
Mark_L and I Headed up to Mt. Blum to try out that granitic N. Ridge mentioned in Beckey and partake in some outstanding meadow sniffing.

Scary jungle the first bit of the way, until you find the trail. And you will find it. There's about 1,000 of those little flags. And on some tree's there's close to 2,000!

After about a jillion feet of steep dry open forested ridge we broke out onto the meadowed spine. It was pretty nice. Camp was at an alpine lake so untrammled that the heather actually was not spider-webbed with foot trails.


unnamed lake below NW ridge of Blum

Next day we headed out for the North Ridge. A giant dark buttcheeks chimney at the base looked pretty unnappealing so we hiked around to the East flank.


buttcheeks at base of Blum


skirting around East side of ridge

We found a reaonable-looking line. Aimed up to just left of this big ear. We found an old piton at our first belay.

The granite was very clean, but a bit compact (sparse pro). There were some loose blocks but not a bunch. Views out to the N. Cascades and down to the glacier were cool.


climbing first pitch

The climbing was pretty sustained 5.7 or so, with one ugly doubleplus awkward spot of 5.9.


looking down from p. 1

The rest of the ridge was less technical. We only climbed one more roped pitch (5.7 x), but there were plenty of exciting moves on super exposed ridge spine.


fun scrambling

It turned out to be LONG!! It was very much like the North Ridge of Stuart. As in like doing that part above the Gendarme about 30 times. It was hot and we woulda died, but we found this gigantic snowfield with a drip.


cheers!

Descent was uneventful, if a bit hectic. But you can't really complain about strolling about in open alpine country right around sunset.


view from summit


There it is! That's the North Ridge (from the West)


Gear Notes:
most of these photos by Mark Landreville cause my POS Sony cam stopped working halfway up p2

Approach Notes:
There's a bridge over Baker River now! That is, it is no longer necessary to ford the river. This is not the bushwhack that legends make it to be.

nice! p1 looks steep!

friggin' sweet job! Way to try something "new"!!!
The granite looks awesome! Any potential route action on that peak or nearby?

Great looking rock, and surroundings.

Very cool! I've eyed this route ever since it was pointed out to me a few years ago on a trip up Shuksan via the Sulphide. It looks like a 'schwack getting up to it though.

Schweet! Kearney mentions the route as a runner-up in his classics guide. Looks great!

Very cool. I was looking at this earlier in the year as a secret "no one goes there to do that" and "its granite!" project. Have wanted to check out Blum ever since I saw it from Challenger in 99.