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Trip: North Cascades, Arches Peak aka Little Johannesburg - Central Buttress of North Face, 10 roped pitches plus soloing, ~1,600 vertical feet, 5.6/7ish Trip Date: 08/03/2025 Trip Report: A couple of weeks ago, Rolf Larson and I climbed a probable* new route on this peak. Anyone cresting Easy Pass has been greeted by the big north face of this peak. There is one reported route on the face from the late 1970s; the party climbed the left-hand "Plumb Line Buttress" 2,700' from the valley floor to the summit, which clocks in at 7,945'. They reported loose rock. (See photo of register page in the album linked below, the AAJ, or Beckey guide.) Of three relatively prominent buttresses, our route climbs to the western false summit (circa 200' west of true summit) via the central buttress -- the most prominent one lit up (furthest left) in the photo below. We believe the 1977 line appears in this photo as a nondescript buttress in the shade further off to the left. Our route wends up the gneissly-featured buttress on pretty good, pretty clean Skagit rock--we began climbing behind the third snow-patch from the right on that prominent shelf, directly below the toe of the sunlit buttress. (Also available here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BV3itCHmqcoo7qL38) We had fun on this route, which thankfully was in shade while we climbed. Didn't take many climbing photos, but snippets of conversation went like this: "How'd you like that section of hand crack?" "I preferred my section of laser-cut finger crack." "Yeah, I went Squamish style and laid it back." Here's Rolf putting in a piece at perhaps mid-height on the face (the rope is out of view, off to the right): The first pitch was probably the steepest and most sustained, fwiw, and had a 5.6 or maybe .7 move. A couple of steep mini-headwalls were also climbed in that range of difficulty, but a person could avoid these if willing to take looser rock. We unroped for a few hundred feet of mellow scrambling after the first pitch or two, but some steeper terrain compelled us to again rope up and resort to pitching and simul-climbing on fourth and low-fifth terrain. The climbing is moderate, but generally solid and fun, with adequate protection. *As you will see in the summit register pics, Roger Jung soloed a route on the north face, but it's hard to say if he took our route -- there is certainly latitude to wander on that big north face. The photo album, which includes some pages from the register: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4JU83LgK6XKFdbSA7 We descended via a walk off to the south and east--no crampons required. The short-ish approach, moderate and generally solid climbing, and easy descent (not to mention the blueberries!!) might make this climb more appealing than some of Rolf's and my other routes. I'll wait for Rolf to correct me on any details (which are already fuzzy), downgrade the level of difficulty (as is his crusty wont), etc. etc. Here's an early musing about Arches from the cc.com archives: Gear Notes: Standard rack with emphasis in finger-sized pieces; tri-cams were useful Approach Notes: Via Easy Pass, drop to and cross Fisher Creek, find your way up through the lower cliff bands, wiggle-chimney between moat and rock to the start

In case you haven't seen it yet:

Trip: Darrington - Gardening on Salvia (5.7 A2+) (A Ground Up Scary Darry Adventure!) Trip Date: 09/05/2024 Trip Report: WARNING! LOW QUALITY PHOTOS AND FEET PICS! Back in September of 2024, I teamed up with my homie Ethan @macropipette to go on a ground-up adventure in Darrington. We set our sights on the NE face of Mt Ulalach, an 800-foot slabby face on a granite dome. As far as we knew, the face hadn’t seen a lot of climbing activity, and we later found out some pretty good reasons why. Ulalach from Squire Creek Wall We departed the car with our packs loaded with the kitchen sink, eventually finding a “good” spot to turn left and begin our shwack up the forest slope. Immediately, we started post-holing in the spongy mixture of thick moss, decaying wood, and tangled roots. After about 150’ of this, I started to realize that this approach was going to suck big time. Fresh off a week and a half bout with Covid, I was drenched and wheezing as we slogged upward through dense brush and ankle-snapping blowdowns. All smiles for the most mellow bushwhacking of the whole approach! I have to applaud Ethan for sticking with it with no guarantee of any quality climbing ahead. A final push through brutal slide alder led to a welcome respite, easy travel on a boulder field. While my body was thoroughly worked, I could let my mind relax as we trudged up the final 1000’ to our campsite. We dropped packs and began surveying the face, and decided that tomorrow we would start our ascent up a flaky left-facing corner/arch and then aim for the steepest, square-shaped part of the face we dubbed “The Box”. "The Box" After a few puffs on a spliff and a guide’s ration of some gas station vino, Ethan and I called it a night. The Climb: Ethan sorts gear in preparation for our excellent adventure P1: 5.7 C0 We scrambled up a low-angle ramp to a small ledge, where Ethan took the lead. After moving up some easy terrain into the left-facing corner, he found his way up a right-trending crack that petered out quickly. After questing 20ft up the increasingly blank slab, he was forced to retreat and perform a heady downclimb. After regaining the corner system, he followed it up the loose, flaky arch and pulled the final mossy undercling moves to a well-placed stance for two. P2: 5.6 C0 I took the lead, pulling a couple of fun moves up and right to exit the arch. A slabby, dirty, and vegetated ramp led to a short but splitter finger crack, then to a gently sloping ledge. I spent probably 15 minutes throwing clumps of dirt and grass down the face, looking for gear to no avail. 15 feet above the nice ledge, I dug out a good cam placement and got a decent pin. I fixed the rope and descended to the ledge for a snack break. P3: 5.6 A1 R I pushed through a dense clump of bushes just above the anchor, then started up a slab with good edges but no gear. I finally reached the bottom of “The Box”, where the wall started to steepen. I decided to aim for a right-facing corner with a thin crack in the back. Still without options for protection, I slung a small shrub and had a quick laugh. Between me and the corner was a precarious stack of flakes. I looked down and determined that they would miss Ethan and the rope if they fell. I traversed under the stack and was rewarded with a perfect #2 C4 that granted me access to the bottom of the corner. From here, I made good time on cam hooks and pulled up to a roomy stance, the best belay on the route. Me reaching the bottom of "The Box" P4: 5.7 A1 This pitch held the best climbing on the route. After moving leftward up flakes, I reached a sequence of free moves on thin, incut holds. This bit was only about 5.7 but so fun, and well-protected with a downward pin behind a flake. Directly above me lay another right-facing corner that I shuttled up with cam hooks. Exiting the corner and wrestling with some bushes, I stepped left to what would have been a 10/10 belay stance if it wasn’t built out of loose flakes with only small gear available between them. In hindsight, the anchor I built was sketchy, and I really should have taken the time to drill a bolt. Pitch 4 P5: A gumby gets gripped on moderate aid: 5.5 A2+ I stepped left around the large flakes and got established in a hand crack, which led to easy climbing with lots of big loose flakes and blocks. I tiptoed around bushes and looseness before reaching some slab moves below a roof (barely any good gear to this point). I found a good inverted cam hook and poked my head over the top of the roof. My heart sank as I saw a broad, featureless slab. It seemed our relatively moderate line had come to a dead end. Hanging from the hook, I looked around for other options. 6 meters to my right, I saw a pair of thin cracks splitting a slab above, but I would have to nail the thin, dirty seam under the roof to get there. The seam was packed with moss and grit, and the rock looked crumbly. My last okay piece was now well below my feet. I composed myself and started placing a beak, chips of rotten granite fracturing from the seam with each blow. I tried to block all thoughts of zippering the traverse and taking the big, ugly swing as I put in a foul string of upward-driven blades and beaks. I gingerly inched closer and closer to a shallow 0.3 placement and finally breathed a sigh of relief as I clipped. At this point, I was nearly to the end of the rope, and the drag was so bad I could barely stand up in my aiders. Yelling curses, I pulled on the rope as hard as I could to gain the last bit of slack the rope would yield, then pulled the last few moves up and over the roof. The cracks were too flaring to accept cams or nuts and too shallow to give a solid pin. I decided it would be stupid not to place a bolt, which took the last bit of physical and mental fortitude I had in the tank. I fixed the rope and yelled down to Ethan, then sat at the hanging belay sideways, my left cheek resting against the cool, gritty granite. The sun was just kissing the horizon next to Whitehorse, and I felt a surge of gratitude for Ulalach for teaching us, humbling us, and allowing us safe passage on its steepest flank. There was another pitch of densely vegetated slab between us and the summit, but I knew our push was over. Ulalach had won. Ethan: After finally hearing JT yell that he had made a belay, I was pretty overjoyed. It was starting to get dusky, and we both knew we were looking at a lengthy descent in the dark. Cleaning the pitch with my large pack was not an easy feat, and after jugging up hundreds of meters of slab, I was pretty spent. I was thoroughly impressed by the work JT had put in to lead the last pitch, as the roof traverse seemed like quite a piece of work. Once I reached JT, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and were promptly in the dark on the wall. Ethan's thoughts about descending in the dark Bonus Reel: The next morning, I was boiling water in camp. I dropped the Fritos bag I was eating from onto the cook pot, which promptly tipped over and poured boiling water onto my shoe. I started yelling and ripping the shoe and sock off my foot, but I’d already received some gnarly burns. Just my luck! Free foot pics. Can you guess which approach shoe I was wearing from the burn pattern? Not too far from the car, we ran into local legend Bill Enger, fresh off completing another fantastic-looking new route (Miracle Ramps 5.8+) on the South Face of the Squire Creek Wall. I sprayed about our GNARLY NEW AID ROUTE… How embarrassing. This isn’t an FA of the NE face or even remotely close to being a good route, but we named it anyway. Suck it! Any of you old-timers climb this thing? Tell us about it! Gear Notes: Too much junk! Approach Notes: Approach to the base of the Squire Creek Wall and climb an actually good route.

Looking for Half Dome climbing partner. Donald Perry, Please message me here: https://www.facebook.com/DonaldJamesPerry/

looking for a crew of Seattle-based partners for long, free and moderate WA rock and alpine (WA pass, index, squamish, alpine objectives, etc etc). former mtn guide for many many years; now a desk jockey, but still move fast and light and safely on everything. you don't need to be the same--happy to lead all and teach/learn a little-- but fun is not optional!

Plan 9 looks great, sign me up!

Reading Mike Layton's TR for "Plan 9" on the Blob (such a humbling read!!) suggests that the name comes from the 1958 sci-fi flick, which doesn't seem disrespectful as it's a classic in the horror genre. Plus, I've found something carnivorous and alien about the rock in the Pickets, haha! That N. Buttress on the Rake sure is gorgeous... I, too, hope to find out more about it, so really appreciate you starting this thread!

I’m trying el cap soon after last climbing it 40 years ago! Also hoping to repeat an fa called solid gold on prussik 37 years later

My guess is downclimbing from the WR Terror col in early July might be the ticket.

I could be convinced to go in there and check it out. It has been long enough since I approached the north side of the Southern Pickets, obviously!

Hi, I read an article that talked about the Firey's et al climbing the north buttress of The Rake in the Picket Range, but I can't find any more info about it other than red Fred saying that most of the rock climbing is solid class 4 and easy class 5. This is suitably vague to pique my interest but also not make me too excited to go there and give it a shot. Has anyone done it / know more about it / want to tell me to shut up and just go do it? I'm not looking for play by play beta, just basic info on the difficulty so I don't go out and epic or get skunked. Also interested in info on other routes up the Rake besides the east ridge... Thanks! Also, I don't know where the names come from but I personally find The Blob to be a bit disrespectful of a decent looking mountain. Maybe the moniker "blob" could be applied to something in Colorado?... Iowa?

Hey now! I have a white pack. And yeah it doesn’t make me any less of a slow lard ass. But man the pack looks good. It’s like wearing a Jordon jersey when shooting hoops at school across the street.

Such a bad ass trip! Great work. I'm super impressed by how fast you guys climbed the West Arete. It seems there are several ways to go on the lower and upper ridge - some of the terrain in your photos looks a lot different than what we did. The crux traverse of the West Arete is pretty sweet but I understand how you accidentally bypassed it. It is not an obvious entrance to that section. EMS looks so, SO good. I'm really stoked you guys got it done. I'm definitely going back for it.

Awesome trip. Loved the part about running vests. I feel the same way about white backpacks... but hey, my white backpack makes me feel ELITE.

Who really cares about this shit anymore? Still, if you eat all the dessert--and skip your dinner--you didn't really finish your meal.

What rope did you use for hauling your pack?

Not too bad now that we started using the talus fields. We were originally using the slide alder and open forest in early season but shockingly that got real overgrown. Its a little brushy getting across the braided creek, but its short and there is currently a hacked/stomped in tunnel through the worst of it. There is also a short shwack at the top of the second talus field to get to the base of the wall. All in all its really not bad at all right now.

Go Lucas!

Howdy friends, I'm moving to Vancouver from Colorado for grad school this year and I need a crew! I am very skilled in ski mountaineering and just okay at ice, mixed, and trad. Usually I prefer to do those in order to get to a better ski line rather than from intrinsic motivation. I know it's early to be thinking about skiing but if you're also planning next year's routes I want to be your friend! I'll ski just about anything but I'm a bit of a snow snob (I like good snow on steep lines). I am very happy to discuss experience and expectations. My instagram is @declanknies if you wanna see what I've done or message me there. DM me if you're stoked to get out! Would love to make some friends to be ready for the first snowfalls... I tried to attach some pictures from the year not sure if they'll show up!

That is pretty funny. Also I’ll need your credit card number, expiration, and number on the back.

Super cool. What's the bushwack situation to the base...? It feels like, from your description, that it's not that bad...?

That’s some serious effort! Look forward to checking it out.

Thanks for sharing this one. I’ve been curious about it for years!