Leaderboard

Trip: Mount Garfield - Southwest Route Trip Date: 08/31/2024 Trip Report: "As has been reported elsewhere, Garfield is a hazardous enigma. It offers more than a climb, for it is also a physical and orienteering challenge. It is important to get a very early start. While a 12-hour r.t. is generally considered a minimum, only during the long days of summer will there be sufficient daylight for what is a long, steep climb, with some very exposed areas." -Fred Beckey, Cascade Alpine Guide I first read the section above in the 1990s when I was just getting into climbing and frankly was both attracted and scared by the photos and descriptions in the Beckey guide. An early trip report by @CascadeClimber and @philfort did little to dissuade my apprehension of this peak and so it sat for decades on the back burner. Always there, always taunting, even long after I probably had acquired enough chossdawgery skillz to make an ascent a reasonable goal. Turns out, two of my long-time climbing partners felt the same, and somehow it came to all of our attentions this year that Garfield could no longer be ignored. In the words of @Trent, "It must be climbed!" Secretly, I was hoping that @klenke was still correct and the the route was dumbed down by a bootpath and flagging. But I wasn't so lucky- he can rest easy on the golf course or the workfloor of the Lazy B, knowing that the brush has returned, the flagging rotted away, and that the blue collar masses have moved on (or died?). This peak is probably once again nearly as lonesome as it was when Fred first penned those words (the register went back to 1987 and traffic really has dropped off the past 10-15 years). I can honestly report that it is proper challenge for a Cascades Connoisseur such as those that frequent this esteemed site. (If you want hardman or hardwoman points, read no further and just photocopy the pages out of Brown Fred for your trip. If you're someone like me....read on) But we didn't know any of that when @therunningdog, @Trent and I rolled into the "gravel wash" that marks the start of this 4500' off trail adventure, late on a Friday night in Trent's old VW camper (nickname "Speedy"). There was another car camping there, but given the smoking and drinking we were pretty sure that they weren't heading to Garfield in the morning. Then again, I think a late evening of smoking and drinking would probably have been fitting preparation for the peak. Next time. Alarms were set for crazy early, I think about 430, since we had heard ample stories of unplanned bivies, thrashing exits in the dark, and general mini-epics. We were thinking 13-15 hours would be about what it would take and planned accordingly. But it turns out, us old dogs (combined team age of 158) can still beat Beckey and we were back to the van in about 11.5 hours, including breaks. The early start gave us extra time for beer and chips, so it wasn't all for naught. To be honest, the way up was mostly a blur. A dark gravel wash to an impassible set of falls started things. We went left into the forest when we should have gone right (be sure to keep that Beckey topo in your pocket and consult at all junctures!) and then I somehow thought that the real "dirt gully" below, wasn't the right dirt gully and kept going past it. Trent and Tim kindly put us back on the right track without too much wasted time The "dirt gully" wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. You don't want to be on this mountain with more than about 4 people. 2-3 is about right so you can move as one team. Shortly after the gully you climb up and hit some slabs that force you left. We went all the way left then found a weakness to scramble up and right back towards the ridge crest which is below the "rock outcrop" and "razorback" that you hit right before the "tiny notch". You will be referring to the topo many times in this section, wondering where in the hell you are while looking way down into the "Great Canyon". It is a wild mountain. Soon enough you will come to the "glade saddle" where you will see a short gully leading to the "wooded ramp": which will take you to the brushy "key ledge" where you will be thankful for the brush for hiding the significant exposure. The brush will also distract you from the fatality that occurred in this spot, presumably due to the "trecherous footing" that Beckey describes: And then the meat of it, the "no. 1 Gully is reached, with the "no. 2 Gully" just beyond it: We had already chosen no. 1 Gully as our line, even though Fred describes it as the alternate path up, mostly due to a few of the more recent TRs we dug up which we compared to older no. 2 Gully TRs. I am sure that both have their pluses and minuses. The no. 1 Gully starts out easy, but then a step is encountered where @Trent ably put the rope up for Tim and I. It was a bit trickier than it looked with polished rock and moss. I sort of wanted to do a shoulder stand in the spirit of this peak, but unfortunately I was the last one up. So I grunted and lurched my way up. Then it was mostly easy 2nd and 3rd class scrambling until you had to turn right under the Leaning Spire to ascend slabs to a small col that dropped you halfway up the no. 2 gully. Here the way got harder with some slabby 4th mixed in with the slabby 3rd. We were in boots/approach shoes, which I think is the correct footwear for this route. The slabbyness isn't sustained or hard enough to warrant rock shoes. Plus rock shoes are definitely not blue collar! Style matters. Soon enough we were established in the no. 2 Gully and began to chug upwards to the "crux" chimneys. The first one we soloed: The next one, @Trent led, again. It was wet and involved a lot of grunting and pack dragging. Still, I think it is preferable to the variations that others have reported to the right. The notch between the Leaning Spire and the summit was easily reached after the chimneys, and here we went a bit too far left. You basically want to go straight up a cl. 3-4 slab above the col until you can burrow into a brush tunnel (complete with trimmed branches!) that will take you up and left to the summit ridge. A short walk right will land you on the true summit. If ever there was a peak where the summit was "halfway", Garfield is it! We dug out the register and marveled at who had signed in over the years. Some famous climbers in there and it was fun to take the trip back in time. The views weren't half bad either. It is a long way down to the Middle Fork and the van, less than two miles horizontally from the top. But, like most summits where the descent is worrisome, we didn't stay very long. The descent was also a blur, though it went faster than expected. Several bolted stations in the no. 2 gully greatly helped by keeping us out of the path of the inevitable rockfall. I think we did 6 30m raps total, about 3 in each gully. We paused on the "key ledge traverse" to oogle the Great Canyon in better light as we passed again: And also stopped to admire the Doorish part of the mountain as well. Anybody know that guy? I have to say that he's a legend, at least in my estimation. The routes he did, in the era that he did them, are truly astounding. He had a funny entry in the summit register talking about "a bit of an epic" he and Alex Cudkowicz had in June of 1988 where they ended up spending 2 unplanned bivies (in the rain!) establishing a route that they thought would go in a day. Yowza. Yeah, this should go in a day: But soon enough we were back at the easy slabs, scrambling down to the forest, the dirt gully, the forest, the gravel wash, the forest..... and then....BEER. Gear Notes: 60m twin rope, helmet, light rack to 2", leather gloves. Boots or approach shoes. Best to go after snow leaves the gullies Approach Notes: Middle Fork Road to gravel wash. Page 214 in Brown Fred has a great topo of the route/approach, which is all the experienced chossdawg needs.

Trip: Roosevelt + Kaleetan + Chair Peak Date: 9/10/24 Trip Report: tl;dr: Alpental -> Roosevelt standard route -> Kaleetan White Ledges -> suuuuper roundabout way to access the NW ridge of chair -> standard Chair descent -> Alpental. Having scrambled up all three of these peaks independently, I had some suspicion that a linkup was possible that started and ended at Alpental. The intention was to make this a similar-feeling neighbor to Climber Kyle's CURL -- not a pure circumnavigation of a basin, but a fun peakbagging romp with more than enough no-fall terrain to make things interesting. I met up with Marc to realize this goal, thinking that we'd scramble up Roosevelt, then follow the North Ridge of Kaleetan (5.2?), and then go up the West Face of Chair (Beckey 4th, no TR's that I can find). Emphasizing again, this is a scramble, so no ropes allowed. We did bring rock shoes and are both glad we did. We started up towards Snow Lake at 7:20AM, and enjoyed the easy trail until maintained trails gave way to social trails as we approached Mount Roosevelt. It was great to meander around Snow Lake with none of the weekend hordes. Mount Roosevelt, is an easy class 3 dirt slog, with a few fun rock moves towards the top -- certainly interesting enough to make it into the linkup. From here we descended the standard route, and then cut south to enter the gulley just SSE of Roosevelt, setting our sights on Kaleetan. We ascended the loose dirty gulley to gain the notch of N Ridge Kaleetan, enjoying a short low-fifth step to access the notch. We then followed easy ledges and scrambling on the west side to gain the ridge proper and take a gander at the knife-edge of Kaleetan. My head game has been out of whack lately, so as we both eyed up the knife-edge and the true start of Kaleetan's North Ridge, both Marc and I decided that it looked a little too spooky for how we were feeling that day. We revised the plan to instead take Melakwa Pass to the White Ledges of Kaleetan. So back down the dirty approach gulley and over Melakwa pass we went. The White Ledges are truly a joy -- definitely a much more fun way to get up there than the standard route, and much faster, too! A quick jaunt up let us sight what seemed to be a viable line up Chair Peak. Foolishly, I ignored everything written in the Beckey bible (route description, topo, etc), apparently forgetting that I had taken photos of Beckey the day before. Turns out the White Ledges also make a stellar descent route, too! Instead of adhering to the West Face 4th class description, we opted to take an easy left-leaning gulley approximately 0.5mi north of upper Melakwa lake. The plan was to ascend this gulley and then zig to the south, eventually gaining enough elevation to traverse south along what we spied as a ledge system near the summit and eventually suss out a route up the summit block. We reached the base at 4:30PM and started up the gulley. The initial going was easy third class slab, and at a junction of two ascending gulleys, we opted to go up and right with some fourth class grassy sidehilling. We ultimately probably ascended too much and found ourselves very close to the NW ridge. Continuing to traverse underneath the gendarmes seemed exceptionally treacherous, so we took our chances and peered over a notch in the ridgeline. The east slope seemed like much easier going but offered minimal promise of regaining the ridge. There was some discussion of bailing since we were explicitly trying to avoid sustained class 5 travel and were running the risk of losing the light. We dropped off the notch onto the east side and were sighting possible exit opportunities, when an easy-looking gulley/couloir presented itself, one gendarme to the south. The time was now 5:20, and we had roughly 2 hours before headlamps would have to come out. Wanting to give the summit the old college try, we decided to regain the ridge and see what we could see. I was thoroughly sketched out so I paused to don rock shoes while Marc ascended the gulley in his approach shoes. Stemming up this dihedral felt slightly committing and definitely something I didn't want to undo. I caught up to Marc who was perched on a ledge beneath a chockstone guarding the ridge. He was a little stuck and wanted to see if I had any ideas. I stepped out to the right, doing a short sequence that felt mid-5th class with serious consequences. Back on the ridge, we were still flummoxed by a line of gendarmes. We were generally pretty unhappy here, since this no longer felt like scrambling. I vaguely recalled that the NW ridge of Chair goes at 5.7. Faced with the option of trying to find some unknown cliff-free descent to bail or just to solo the 5.7 route to unlock the 3rd class South Shoulder descent, we reluctantly decided to keep ascending. We traversed under the next gendarme on the W side and then regained the ridge proper in a chimney with a chockstone. Here Marc switched to rock shoes and we started up the 5.7 NW ridge. Most of the moves were low-fifth on rock of dubious quality, but aside from a move or two that felt slightly harder, everything felt fairly easy and it was a really pleasant climb! Maybe above my pay grade for a solo, but very attainable. It was comforting to be back on a "known" route -- we even saw a few pins at an obvious belay stance! Taking our time, we reached the true summit at 6:30, with ample time to descend the circuitous sections of the standard scramble route up Chair. Headlamps came out at some point, talus was hopped over, we made it back to the cars around 9:40PM for a 14h20m c2c. Photos: N. Ridge Kaleetan Best guess of the line we took up Chair Better topo I stole from the internet somewhere showing the NW ridge of Chair. Gear notes: Rock shoes were really nice to have. If early season, I'd want to bring an axe and some traction. Rope and rack not necessary. roosevelt-kaleetan-chair-91024-71853-am (corrected).gpx

Trip: Pinnacle Mountain - Standard Trip Date: 08/25/2024 Trip Report: I can finally admit it. I am out of the closet. I am an aspiring Bulger. It has taken me almost 30 years of closeted Bulger bagging to come right out and admit it. Why else would you find yourself trudging through 10 miles of burn to the upper reaches of the less than attractively named Snow Brushy Creek and to a summit that hardly requires the use of your hands? Oh, the views. Devil's Smokestack on the hike in ^ Lots of fire carnage on the hike in ^ v North side of Saska from camp ^ Saska, Emerald, and Cardinal from the ramble up Pinnacle ^ Bonanza ^ Rugged peaks on the west side of Lake Chelan ^ @cfire and @Trent heading up Pinnacle ^ @cfire and @Trent walk the last few feet to the top of Pinnacle ^ The view west to South Spectacle Butte, Dakobed, and Maude ^ @cfire and @Trent on the summit ^ Hiking out the lonesome Emerald Park trail after Pinnacle ^ Gear Notes: We only brought hiking poles and this was fine once the snow comes off Approach Notes: Entiat River trail to the Emerald Park/Snow Brushy Creek Trail. All had been recently logged out as of our trip, esp. Snow Brushy. I don't think we stepped over a single tree. Good camping where you leave the trail to head up Pinnacle

I've done everything... but that was easy since my bar was intentionally set really low with our new daughter. She's been sleeping reasonably well (for a baby) and I've been able to do more than I thought. The oldest is now 3 and loves doing outdoor adventures. I did a "3 pitch" route with her last weekend. Each pitch was about 10 ft and 3rd class for me and then we lowered/rapped down a low angle slab off a tree. Pretty fun. Hoping to climb some harder routes this fall (not with the 3 year old).

great work! If this is published do we punters of cc.com get peer review credit?

Fascinating!

Wow awesome write up! Thanks Eric! Cool project.

So we all have to go back up for the SW Rim now? 😃