Leaderboard

Right on. After doing forbidden and looking at that face I knew we had to do something on that face. In the late 80's my buddy Ralph and I started off early July with the intention doing the route that said 20 pitches of 5.6. So just brought handful of nuts,tricams and titons. We ended up going to the left of you and left of that gully. Most of the gully's were wet,we had to use the two tools just to get on the rock after that it seemed constant 5.8 with some harder for 10 to 12 pitches of really good rock. Then we started getting into wet and greasy stuff I ended lowering off a couple of pieces and tried going left and right no go. I found a snow covered ledge that barely fit. We cleared it off put our bivy sacs down and then heard something coming from above well we hugged the wall and a nice chunk of ice landed on the ledge. Oh well it was getting dark so we ate some food and talked how we didn't have enough gear to safely rappel and how long we would probably wait for a rescue all while looking down at the road. We brushed and flossed our teeth and went to sleep sorta. In the morning Ralph thought he seen a runner hanging off a horn way to the left above so wth tension and what was left of our meager rack I got to it and got to some dry rock that easy class 4. Whoo hoo we hauled ass to the summit and started the descent a few rappels and we were at the top of CJ gully. That was definitely the closest we got to getting nailed by rocks. One person would look up and yell when the other would run to (shelter) there wasn't much of that. So getting home looking at Fred's green book it seemed we might of done the route that was written up as generally unpleasant and frightening. A couples years later I was walking around north Seattle and met Don Brooks pushing a stroller with two newborn with another kid walking, it seems they just wanted one more but got a extra one. Anyhow he was with the group that did the unpleasant route, he said he didn't write the entry and felt it wasn't bad. I felt the same should of done it later in the summer and don't go down CJ gully in the afternoon. Ralph said his favorite memory is sitting on that ledge flossing his teeth and thinking we were fucked! Always thought that face would be amazing in the winter.