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Trip: Johannesburg Mountain - NE Buttress Solo Trip Date: 08/01/2018 Trip Report: I overheard some friends talking about Bill Amos' solo of Johannesburg and was immediately inspired. The allure of the mountain and style of climbing was too much to pass up. Before I start my senior year of high school I wanted to do something really fun. After binge reading trip reports and training for a few months, I felt psyched and ready. I already have a decent bit of soloing under my belt so the climb just seemed right. Fast forward to Monday night, I got in my car and drove out to Cascade Pass. I set my alarm for 7:00 but woke up at 6:30 (probably due to the anticipation). The sheer beauty of Johannesburg is impossible to ignore; its imposing face shows so much promise. After scarfing down a breakfast bar and some pop-tarts, I locked my car and began the arduous approach. A grueling .2 miles down the road lead me to a dirt mound with access to the river. Crossing over rocks and walking up a talus field put me at the first snow on the route. The snow was rock hard so my crampons begrudgingly came out of my pack. I was careful to move fast across the snow because I didn't want to get taken out by an avalanche. A rock ramp to the left of the second waterfall provided seemingly easy access to the buttress. Looking up at Johannesburg After some easy slab and low 5th class I arrived at the second snowfield. Here's where I made my first mistake. Once again, the snow was rock solid. I put on my crampons to walk the 100 something feet across it to the rock. Thinking more snow was soon to come, I clipped my crampons to my harness. Looking for a good line through the trees, I decided to go straight up some 4th class rock and then traverse right later on. This beta absolutely sucked. The initial 200 feet or so was smooth sailing. I soon encountered more and more trees, eventually reaching an impassible rock band within the brush. From here I traversed right until I found a gully within the trees that allowed me to climb up. It was hot, steep, and heinous bushwhacking. Finally I could see the third snowfield. At this point I was well above it but had a clear view of the 1957 route. This snowfield basically cuts the buttress in half until they join up again high on the vertical rock. Tired, I took off my pack to eat a probar and drink some water. Looking at my harness I realize only 1 crampon is clipped on. My other must have gotten eaten by trees earlier in the bushwhack! Thinking about Jean-Christophe's rescue on Annapurna reminded me that I'm probably not going to die if I'm short one crampon. Slabs before second snowfield. It's hard to describe how much the trees suck. I found no evidence of a path and basically pulled on branches, heather, and devil's club the whole way up. Things would frequently get caught on my rope or ice tools during this section. Another hour or so of this put me at the heather slopes. For about 800 feet I walked up some easy 3rd class slopes covered in heather. The 70 degree heat made me really thirsty. I brought 2 liters of water and realized it probably wasn't going to last all the way to the bivy. Rationing out water was uncomfortable but that's life. More scrambling finally put me on the rock. What a relief! Soon 4th class rock turned into low 5th and life was peachy. It felt absolutely euphoric to move well on the steep slopes. I didn't find loose rock to be that big of an issue. I checked my watch and realized I was about 400 feet from the bivy. Up ahead of me looked to be the "crux" rock section. I traversed right from the 1951 route on to the approximate 1957 route. I think this allowed me to skip some hard sections because I encountered maybe 5.6 rock up to this point. Though the glacier was still obscured by rock, I knew I was close. Rock face. I stayed in the middleish left My fatigue meant I wasn't climbing at my best. I elected to take off my pack for the next 200 feet or so and just haul it up. Some 5.8 face climbing through loose rocks put me on top of a small ridge. I was at the glacier! After bringing up my pack, I scrambled up some 4th class rock and was at the bivy. I drank straight from the glacial runoff. This was the first time in my life I was happy to see mosquitoes. The struggles of the day melted when confronted with the beauty of the mountains around me. After a warm meal and some relaxing. I was sound asleep in my bivy sack. Bivy of the decade Me stoked to be fed and hydrated Waking up at 6:30 was kind of cold. I didn't bring a sleeping bag but was pretty was comfy nonetheless. After some packing and eating, it was time to get on the glacier. This part was less than ideal. The snow was luckily much softer than at the base of the mountain. Despite only having one crampon, climbing up the snow to the arete was easy. After carefully walking on the arete I decided going straight up the headwall would be hard. I downclimbed a few meters to the rock ridge. The rock actually went! Easy scrambling and some short traverses on the snow allowed me to skip almost all of the glacier and headwall. At the summit ridge I scrambled up right to the biggest peak. I made it! It turns out I was the first person there in almost a year! The log could also use some more paper if anyone is going up there soon. The feeling of being up there is indescribable. Signing the summit log and snapping a few photos, I was ready to head down. Headwall. I scrambled on the rock to the left Obligatory summit selfie Signing the climber's log Staying to the south side of the gendarmes, follow a loosely marked carin path to the East face. I opted to rap instead of downclimb initially. 8 bomber rappels brought me to some low angle heather. It's important to aim straight for the CJ col. There looks like other paths would be better but they cliff out. About 600 feet of downclimbing brought me to the col in one piece. Looking up from the col Now sidehilling ensued. Going close under the buttress and heading straight toward Doug's Direct seemed to work best. Walking through all the brush isn't fun but the ascent to mix up peak was easy. About 1000 feet 3rd and 4th class scrambling down the north ridge of Mix Up brought me to Cache Glacier. The climbers trail is visible from the top of the ridge; go there. Walking down the climbers trail felt like one of those flat escalators at an airport compared to the rest of the climb. 3.7 miles of running and I was back to the parking lot. Looking down from the top of Doug's Direct. This was a climb to remember. The beauty of the North Cascades is hard to forget. I don't think I'll be back to Johannesburg for at least a few more months. I would really love to try and get up it in the winter. Shoutout to Steph Abegg and everyone else who has previously made trip reports. I have mad respect for anyone who has done this climb. Don't let your guard down when you get to the summit. Johannesburg is the mountain that keeps on giving. Now its time to get ready for Bear Mountain. Here's the general route I took. I could have screwed up but I'm pretty sure this is where I went. Gear Notes: Took climbing shoes and chalk but didn't need them. Approach Notes: Walk .2 miles down the road. Cross river.

Trip: Johannesburg Mountain - NE Buttress Date: 10/7/2012 Trip Report: Everyone has a special place they’re particularly fond of, one that they return to time and time again. One such place for me is Johannesburg Mountain. For some reason, despite the hazards, I keep returning to this majestic and rugged place to bask in its beauty, and revel in the sights and sounds of a quintessential North Cascades alpine environment. For the North Cascades enthusiast, Johannesburg is a smorgasbord of rugged terrain, scenic beauty, and alpine challenge that has few rivals. With the forecast this October weekend of 60 degree temperatures at pass level, there was no question a trip to the N Cascades was in order. It didn’t take long for me to persuade Daniel to join me on a climb of Johannesburg’s NE Rib, a climb I had done twice before. I talked it up to him on a ski trip up Mt Torment (directly across the valley) a couple of years ago, and he had wanted to climb it ever since. Departing Seattle at 4AM, we wanted to time it so we got to the Cascade Pass parking lot just as the sun was rising. We were leaving the parking lot at 7AM, just before sunrise. Unique to North Cascades peaks that can be considered rugged, the approach to Johannesburg takes all of 25 minutes. Descend from the parking lot, cross the mouth of the Cascade River, and ascend a talus slope to the base of the C-J Couloir. The snow was rock-solid and we were glad to have aggressive steel crampons, especially for the exposed upper portion of the arête. Upon transitioning to rock, the moat was enormous. After a bit of searching, we found the most reasonable spot to get onto the rock which involved downclimbing a 20 ft vertical step. The NE Rib consists of ~2500’ of steep to vertical bushwhacking, followed by 1200’ of steep rock, then a final 1000’ of steep glacier to the summit involving a knife-edge snow arête with nearly 5000’ of exposure. The challenge on the lower portion of the route is to find a thread that involves minimal bushwhacking, because the potential for epic bushwhacking is real. There is sort of a path (if you can call it one) where it is obvious people have been there, but staying on it is not easy. Daniel and I managed to find the path of least resistance, and we both enjoyed swinging from branch to branch and making relatively quick progress up the lower portion of the NE Buttress. Soon, steep bushwhacking leads to steep heather and eventually rock as you break out above tree line. We paused frequently to enjoy the views.. the vivid colors of October in the N Cascades were everywhere around us, and to be able to witness them amid comfortable 60 degree temperatures was a real treat. Finally we reached the steep rock headwall just below the bivy spot. The first time I climbed the NE Buttress with Steph, we found a route through the upper headwall that required only low 5th class. The second time I climbed it with Wayne and Sergio, we ran into 5.8 rock. This time, Daniel and I found ourselves in the exact same spot Wayne, Sergio, and I wound up.. staring up at ~100’ pitch of loose 5.8. Daniel drew the short straw, and led the pitch. There were some tenuous moments when Daniel got to a particularly loose section. Holds that he needed to use were barely glued into the mountain with dirt and gravel. I reminded him that I was right below him, so he was very careful not to release any rocks. He did a great job, and we were both happy with how things had gone up to this point. We reached the bivy site 10 minutes later, and set up for the night. There was no running water, so we chopped away at the icy snow with our ice axes and collected a garbage bag full of ice chunks to melt for water. We both shared a pint of whisky, and watched the sun set over Eldorado Peak and Boston Basin. I took time to reflect on a memorable climbing season, and knew this would be the last climb of the “Summer” season. The next morning we awoke with the sunrise (now around 7:15), and packed up for the final summit climb and subsequent descent back to the parking lot. The snow, again, was rock-solid.. luckily, though, the glacier hadn’t yet melted down to bare ice. We took our time ascending the precarious knife-edge arête. The arête was sharper than on my two previous ascents, and the snow much firmer. This bumped up the seriousness quite a bit. The exposure on the arête is wild.. thousands of feet down to either side, and a magnificent position with stellar views to the surrounding peaks of Cascade Pass. I was worried about bergschrund issues, and those worries became reality when we got to the schrund. A huge crack spanned nearly the entire width of the glacier, with really only one feasible weakness. We only had three ice screws with us, so climbing the 100’ vertical ice wall was out of the question. We ultimately decided to cross via a committing jump to solid ice, then a ramp through the remainder of the ‘schrund to safer ground above. Above us was the final snow slope to the summit. It is very exposed, and the hard snow made it feel pretty serious. The consistency of the snow made it such that ice screws wouldn’t hold.. it might have held vertical pickets, but we didn’t have any. Looking up, we saw some pretty solid-looking rock on the summit tower. We decided to check it out, and I’m glad we did. Two low to mid-fifth solid rock pitches allowed us to bypass the exposed, icy snow-shield finish. Standing on the summit for the fourth time was just like standing on it for the first time. The views never get ordinary or mundane. Daniel was pretty stoked as well. The smoke from the wildfires filled the valleys with a haze that made for some pretty great photography. We enjoyed the views and t-shirt weather (in October??) for about an hour, before finally deciding to begin the long, arduous descent to the parking lot. We got back to CJ Col in a little less than 2 hours from the summit, then made the long ascent to Doug’s direct. We took our time descending back to the pass, and eventually the parking lot, and savored every last bit of daylight this October Sunday could muster up. We arrived back at the parking lot around 6PM, staring up at Johannesburg in amazement. I am happy to have had the opportunity to bond with this special place again, and for the good times my friend Daniel and I were able to share. Downclimbing into the moat at the base of the NE Buttress. Looking up ahead. Daniel climbing on the lower buttress. Vertical brush. Looking up towards Cascade Peak and the C-J Col. Welcome to the jungle. Daniel around mid-buttress. Daniel high on the NE Buttress. That is the Cascade Pass parking lot down there. Typical scrambling on the upper buttress. Daniel on the 5.8 pitch. Daniel coiling the rope after the 5.8 pitch. Approaching the bivy site. The bivy at sunset. Good morning! Eldorado at dawn. Hidden Lake Peaks and Mt. Baker. Beginning the ascent of the snow arete. On the arete. Daniel enjoying the views. The upper Sill Glacier. Towards Cascade Pass. Just below the bergschrund. Looking back at the arete. Daniel and the giant bergschrund. Jumping into the 'schrund. Climbing out of the 'schrund. Looking over towards the final snow shield. Forbidden, Boston, Sahale, Buckner. Daniel at the base of the summit tower. Starting up the last two pitches. The first of the final two pitches. On the summit. Formidable, Dome, Glacier. Looking east. Daniel on the summit of Johannesburg. Starting the descent. Typical scrambling on the descent. Spider, Formidable, and the Middle Cascade Glacier. Daniel enjoying the views. Looking back at Johannesburg from the top of Doug's Direct. Pelton, Magic, and Hurry-Up.