JonParker

Nice, it made a believer of me. High five!

Fixed the photos

Trip: Eldorado zone tour, with EMS - South and west ridges of Eldorado, SW face of Early Morning Spire Trip Date: 08/08/2025 Trip Report: Got to do some routes in the Eldorado neighborhood from a base camp last weekend. This was another trip I’ve been meaning to do for a long time where the pieces finally fell into place. Climbed with Ben who has learned quickly in the three years since he started climbing. Solid partner, his only real error was leaving glasses back at the car. On the first day this was mitigated with some tmnt Inuit tech. Cowabunga! Luckily at camp there was a climber who elected to stay there while his guided team climbed the E ridge. Heard the guide had extra shades and we arranged to borrow them for the weekend. Sky harp We set off for the south ridge. I love knife edges so found the route just barely in the worth doing once category. If you don’t particularly enjoy knife edges there’s no reason to do this climb. Unincorporated choss county Some fun atmospherics helped make it somewhat enjoyable despite some of the worst quality rock I’ve climbed. We counted it as good mental prep for W arete the next day. At the end of our three hour tour camp to camp we arrived to find the guide-lended glasses waiting for us. Most of the rock climbing in the next two days was in the shade, but this was still quite the score. Got up early the next day for the W arete and kind of raced another party departing camp right after us. There turned out to be a third party on the route that day too (!) Below Dorado Needle col we saw tracks through a snow bench above and left of the tarn, and followed these around to slabs near the sit start of the route. We misjudged the heathery path from below. What looked fine turned out to be dirty, crumbly, overly narrow and exposed, with mostly down sloping rock and dirt. This was a bit of a traverse coming from the NW to the ridge around 6700-6800’. Not at all recommended, there must be a better way, maybe more directly from the west? The other two parties took the considerably higher entrance from snow that bypasses all the green stuff, which seems more appealing in retrospect, though it looks like it has a bit of hazard too (steep, bad runouts). We were glad to be in front. There was one particularly thunderous episode of rock fall accompanied by muffled shouts and we were relieved to eventually see all 5 climbers back at camp that evening. After pulling through some legitimately scary terrain we soloed up briefly sound rock before it got questionable again. Then we started to simul. I think two blocks got us into the gendarmes. We had climbed up a chimney to a piton, but it didn’t look anything like photos of the crux traverse. After some confusion we saw another piton down below and realized we were above that crux. We rapped past it. It looks exciting, kinda wish we climbed it. Unintentionally mimicking the rocks’ posture From there two more blocks got us past the snow into lower angle terrain where we unroped. I found mostly pretty good stuff to the summit. The path of least resistance isn’t always the best path. It was so early I proposed heading back down for the SW buttress of Dorado Needle but we elected to rest up for EMS instead. With the south ridge the day before, the west arete completed the Eldorado compass for me (north and of course east ridges climbed before). South ridge! meh I enjoyed solitude on the summit for a while and left as a large group of sunburned youth neared the top. The hours drifted lazily by. We chatted with various day trippers throughout the afternoon. Next morning another early start had us retracing our steps to Dorado col. Celestial choss, earthly choss This time we passed by the tarn and its outlet stream. One slope looked inviting but it cliffed out on the other side. Proceeding lower we found a nice path through trees to cross the ridge with friendly heather downclimbing. EMS presents quite the striking mien all along the approach. We met someone at camp the night before who had his own route beta for EMS which he shared with us. Compared to Nelson’s it had a direct start, and above that, more of a diversion to the right and back left, rather than straight up. Both of these variations turned out to be good calls. The start was a little tricky in terms of climbing and pro. First piece The climbing quickly got to be really fun. After about 70m I took the lead. After scoping a more direct line I tried the shallow right facing corner diversion to the right, and was pretty delighted with this section. I think this wide low angle splitter was in this pitch. I stopped about 70m later just below the ledge below the crux roof. Ben took over again and dispatched the slightly wet moves and drifted out of sight. This pitch ended up maybe 80m with a little simuling to the slab under to the roof. As I followed pitch 3 the rope hung over some excellent mid 5th friction slabs, where Ben had fortunately not placed pro. I took these optional sections (easier ledges around) to make the pitch even better (out of frame right of this photo). Pitch 4 was another rope stretcher with quality stone and low-mid 5th climbing. Ben took off again and neared the ridge crest. He selected a scruffy 5.10 chimney to get us to the slab and stopped there. I got to lead the finger traverse above this slab, another route highlight. I crossed the crest and continued up it, placing hardly anything, mostly focused on keeping the trailing rope from crossing the abundant choss that now sadly replaced the excellent rock. A seventh rope stretcher got us near to the summit ridge. We did one more short pitch that turned out to be unnecessary, should have unroped after 7. Tempered expectations may have been a factor, but we reveled in how good this route turned out to be. It’s not Stuart range classic quality but I think it’s up there with some three-four star WA pass routes, with an obviously much more engaging approach and return than you can find there. Our descent began with sandy goat ledges on the south side of the ridge. When this cliffed out we crossed back north. It was very exposed here with a deep moat below, but with bomber easy staircase rock leading down. There was one low 5th body length, an awkward long step and then we were at the moat. The gap was significant but absolutely doable. Still got high dive butterflies before finally making the leap. When Ben’s turn came he sprang from both feet, launching far beyond the gap and came skating into me lol. The hypothetical descent to the south had looked atrocious during the approach, and there is at least one epic going that way documented here on cc. We instead followed the advice to climb snow to the choss saddle north of marble peak. At the crest we saw rather steep snow to the east, so followed the snow up and south to get a look around. This passed so close to the summit we thought we might as well tag it. Took rock down here to bypass the steep snow. I scouted south while Ben scouted north. We never found existing anchors, so when a good crack on the north end below the steep snow presented itself we set an anchor and rapped down. 70m easily made it, might have been 25m or so. Next we crossed the McAllister, almost exactly matching my track from 3 years ago (snow levels early August this year look even lower than early September 2022). Having decided to skip our last night out, we zipped over to camp where we packed up, ate dinner, and quickly hiked down, getting past the boulders and close to the bottom before pulling the head lamps out. The dip in the creek at the end was extremely necessary and welcome in a dumbfounding sort of way. Gear Notes: Doubles 0.3 to 1, single 2 and 3. Some C3s and nuts. Ax and crampons. 70m rope. Radios were very useful for our long pitch strategy on EMS. Approach Notes: Counter clockwise

Wow, sounds like you had time for a second lap that day!

PM’d

Trip: Johannesburg - NE Rib Trip Date: 07/24/2025 Trip Report: Another Johannesburg NE rib trip report is something the world likely doesn’t need but I’m in a bit of beta happy mood lately. Certain kinds of climbers might find the endless scrambling pretty enjoyable. And with perfect route finding the route doesn’t have to be especially sketchy, though as I found, navigation errors might be punished severely. The steep dirt embankment right off the road is a heads up rude awakening that foreshadows what lies ahead. And for such a short approach the bushwhacking is not insignificant. Steph Abegg has a good photo of the start of the route but the snow fan cuts off the very bottom of the slab and the elevation is wrong. You gain the rock more like 4100’. This confused me back in early June when I came to try the route. I got spooked off the slabs at the start. Thinking I may have missed something due to the “4400’” annotation, I climbed snow higher, but found only sheer cliffs above. On my way back down I saw from Steph’s picture that I had been in the right place after all but it turned out to just be really hard instead of easy class 4. During my second attempt I began by trying to follow blocky terrain on the left side of the slab. It started out good but when it came time to move right, a drip formed an impossibly slimy 10 foot wide barrier to passage. I retreated nearly back to the bottom and instead headed up to a right facing corner left of a roof with a wet slab below it. I went this way on my first attempt before bailing. It starts with a bit of lieback on a jug and a high reach to another jug, after which you can pull up to easier ground. Right after I took this photo my feet blew on slime. It’s a low angle stance, so fortunately I didn’t go far. Humbly I reapplied and was accepted on the second try. This short sequence felt like 5th class though as my fall demonstrated, maybe not exposed enough to count as true 5th. Though I’ve spent more than my fair share of time on that slab by now, I still have no idea where the path of least resistance is. Having failed to find the “easy class 4” I also failed to find the “sketchy 5th”. At the top of the slab next to the waterfall I found good solid rock and was on my way. Worse was yet to come in the jungle section. From the stream below I noticed some tall cedars and guessed that it wouldn’t be too crowded at their bases. This was true, I was able to move between them and the rock buttress without any real entanglement (18L pack with ax and tool covered in socks and just barely stuffed inside). However I was getting further and further west and not gaining enough elevation. Finally I saw something I was hoping to find, a steep, rocky and mostly dry bed. But guarding access was minor cliff band maybe 15’ tall. Overly committed, I explored three fairly terrifying options at 5.forest and managed to get through, relying far more on good fortune than I’d like. The episode left a bitter taste on an otherwise umami day. I definitely prefer my climbs not avoidably harrowing. Above that section I tended to stay in or just to the right of the gully between the two ribs, with a wider diversion to the right just above the last major snowfield. Where the vegetation finally gives way to solid, polished rock beginning around 6K’ was the highlight of the route for me, both because this was the best quality rock for the day, and because of the sense of relief for escaping what was just below. At about 6450’ I found a promontory with a great view of the northeast face. Beyond this point the rock quality declined some (but not terrible) and the route complexity increased. I saw that I needed to move diagonally up and right to get to where the snow was on my map. I found reasonable ramps and ledges cut with interesting quartz bands. There was one more section of minor drama with steep, exposed choss to get around the corner. Then I could see the snow and ice spilling down from Johannesburg’s north face. I gained the snow at 7200’, maybe missing the famous bivy, though I noticed one small one at 7000’ with good but not panoramic views. The snow arete was AWOL. My guess is the high heat has melted it down to a boring broad shape. Passage on the left was a little narrow but in good shape. There were no real difficulties with shrunds and crevasses and no mandatory hard ice. At the upper face especially the snow was steep enough that I was glad to have sharp things on each limb. Unlike my first time here, I couldn’t locate the summit register. Before long I began the descent to the east. It was helpful to have been up and down this way before. I had forgotten how much griffin shit is in this zone. I seemed to take a long time descending. Probably I was mentally fatigued from all the no fall terrain. It was a lovely afternoon as I traversed the basin over to the ridge off of Mixup, pierced with many marmot cries dying off with slow haunting decay. Industrious workers of the underworld, unite! More mental fatigue descending the slabs coming down from that notch, then a long overdue water break below the snow (though somehow I didn’t get dehydrated despite running out shortly after the summit). Pretty straightforward and gratuitously beautiful from there back to the trailhead. It took me slightly less time than going up and down Doug’s direct had, a little under 15 hours. I think I lost at least an hour with the slab and forest cliff navigation fiascos. Many reports say this climb is best done once. I think that’s not untrue but if you really like scrambling this could be a good one, because the scrambling goes on and on hypnotically. That said, it’s a slippery one. Gear Notes: Approach shoes, steel strap-on crampons, one tool, one light ax. Approach Notes: Last hair pin before the Cascade pass trailhead. Don’t fall down the very steep hard dirt.

Love it! And really, the entire report top to bottom. I took two different ways to get back and forth over the Challenger E-W ridge line. The further east one was definitely harder. I think the west one is Solar pass, and wasn’t technical.

It’s a matter of personal preference. Chikamin is big and deep, there are some house swallowers there. But I think you’ll find 2 person parties are not rare.

Yeah 5 people in the vicinity within an hour or two of the event, on a Monday at least 1.5 days from a road (for most). Would have been game over otherwise. While remote, the ptarmigan traverse does seem to be blowing up.

Trip: Gunsight - E and SW faces of Middle, S ridge of South Trip Date: 07/13/2025 Trip Report: I had the tremendous luck of finding a pair of climbers (Rebecca and Shane) who wanted to check out the Gunsight range using a rope team larger than 2 for the Chikamin. We climbed as a party of 3. They turned out to be excellent climbers and excellent company. First I’ll stick mostly to the things I wish I knew beforehand, inaccurate beta, etc. On our second day we blindly followed tracks of a party about a half hour ahead of us in the Chikamin which led to the lowest pass. Getting on the rock it seemed like possibly low 5th slab and too far south of Gunsight. We decided we were in the wrong place. I briefly scoped the next gully north which was terrible. We then found the right path, using mostly clean slabs. In Blake’s book the arrow isn’t quite in the right place, we were one notch north of his line, in the “s” in “peaks”. We had hoped to climb E face of Middle this day but with the lost time settled on S ridge of S peak. We would later find out that doing E face of Middle on day 2 is doable only if everything goes right, no route finding issues, climbing and descending efficiently. A better plan that I’d recommend to most coming from Downey is to aim for SW face of Middle for your day 2. P2 and start of P3 on S ridge S Gunsight: S ridge of S Gunsight is a garbage climb. The first pitch is not terrible but the face after an ok corner is covered in black lichen and any pro seemed worthless. Hard to find an anchor on top of the choss ridge. Much less than the reported 45m. The next very short pitch, again much shorter than in our description, has an exciting knife edge lean + leap onto the rock that begins the cannon hole (my first trad dyno I think). From there we expected 5.4 to finish the climb. I went back and forth, high and low, repeatedly dead ending near a notch with lots of tat. Finally I committed to a delicate and highly exposed 5.8-5.9 stem around a corner to get to a downclimb to the notch. From there I ran the rope out to the summit at somewhat dirty low 5th. Looking back I saw how the follower would be exposed to a big pendulum and deck, so I encouraged my partners to just rap that step off the existing tat. With a couple raps we were back on the east side retracing our steps to the notch. Numerous steep hard snow interruptions to the slabs involved time sucking crampon on-off transitions. I was grumpy about 2 days of effort to climb 3 pitches of choss but we caught a gorgeous sunset just as we reached the notch. From there we traversed high on snow and slabs below Gunsight to get to where we had stashed our bivies. The next day we tried again for E face of Middle. Rather than circle around the peak again Rebecca had the great idea of climbing the SW Beckey route, rapping S to the notch, then rapping E to get to the E face. The Beckey route was straightforward low-mid 5th choose your own adventure on fun solid rock with lots of knobs, which we began from a small cave just above the best moat crossing we found. The summit register’s last entry was from 3 years prior, a party doing gunrunner. We did one rap south beginning a little below the summit, backing up the slightly suspect block. From there a double rope rap from a higher confidence anchor got us to the notch. The anchor we found there wasn’t very great but we couldn’t find better options. I immediately found the e side to be mostly steep dirt. Angling slightly south I found an ok nut anchor maybe 45m down from the notch. A double rope rap from there got us down to the very dirty snow. This might have been the dirtiest gully I’ve descended up to that point. The high quality of the E face lived up to the hype, though misleading beta vexed us at times. Our first pitch was quite long due to low snow and glacial recession. Comparing our photos to some from 15 years ago there was some thing like 50-100 feet of rusty rock that had been covered in snow in the earlier photos. The pitch 2 crux is right off the deck and maybe sandbagged (or I was just tired). Awkward, tricky, exposed to decking, it took me about 4 tries to lead through it. I don’t think the pitch was more than 15m. This was another ledge where a good anchor was hard to find. Pitch3 (10c) was actually easier than pitch2. Shane had stopped one ledge short of the proper start of pitch 4. We worried about linking that step into pitch 4 because it’s supposedly 45m. In reality pitch4 turned out to be more like 30m. Oh well. The pitch 4 climbing was fantastic and its crux (10d) was another possible sandbag. I could not have led it. Very demanding powerful moves finally got me through it after a few attempts. By now the hour was late and we were looking at the mental crux of the runout 5.9 slab. Shane led this one too. Rebecca went second and I came last. I was glad to have watched them for beta on the subtle step down crux at the most run out point. Brilliant colors lit up the horizon while it was my turn but I could give it only fleeting attention as I concentrated at the crux. Once through I ran up the ridge (low 5th? Didn’t notice any 5.8) in the twilight, basically a full 60m rather than the 15m our beta advised. We repeated the rap sequence south to the notch as it grew dark windy and cold. The rope got stuck during the pull here. With much effort Shane finally freed the rope. The descent to the east was a known thing at this point but I argued that it was so bad that the descent to the west couldn’t possibly be worse. About this I turned out to be wrong. We did one short rap to an anchor south of the main gut/vomitorium of the gulley, with resident snaffles greeting us at both ends of the rap. From there Shane plunged into the unknown, over an overhang, choss diarrhea of all sizes being released. At a full 60m we went off rope and I took a clean slab ramp around a corner and found good cracks while they pulled the rope. Somehow that rap didn’t destroy us or the ropes. We placed a cam anchor and got past the steep icy snow onto lower angle stuff and began the traverse back to camp, arriving around 2am. We made dinner, celebrated, and tucked in around 3. Next morning I went back with the suspicion that our anchor could be reached on class 4 slabs that we couldn’t see well in the dark. It turned out to have a little low 5th, so rapping was definitely the right call for the circumstance. But I was glad to recoup our gear. Having encountered the worst and second worse gullies of my life on either side of middle gunsight I now think that the best way to retreat is probably down the SW Beckey route. It’s ledgey so it would be best to downclimb most of it with some raps where it makes sense. And best done in the daylight, after climbing it at least once so you know the way at least approximately. Faded from the unexpected epics our only goal for day 4 was to get back to Itswoot ridge, beginning around noon. But around 1:40 at about 7K’ we heard a voice from a distance. We stopped and listened. Heard it again. Could barely make out words like “broken ankle” “helicopter”, “alone”. We pressed the SOS. The voice seemed to be vaguely in the Sinister area but we couldn’t tell where. We started backtracking and did some Marco Polo every few minutes without success. Finally passing east of the north face of Sinister we saw what we realized was a person. He was not moving and covered in a gray sleeping bag so we hadn’t been able to tell him apart from a rock at a distance. Maintaining some privacy here, we found that he was indeed immobilized and in severe pain and needed rescue. His inspiration and his equipment were in disharmony and this had culminated in a long and presumably very rapid slide down snow NE of Sinister. Fortunately over cracks, unfortunately meeting some rock(s) along the way. A little while later a father and daughter were coming down the Chikamin. It was nice to have more help. We did our best to keep him warm and as comfortable as possible as we waited for SAR. When the helicopter came we were surprised that it took so many laps through the area (maybe 5?) before two rescuers finally were lowered down with a litter. The morning had begun mostly cloudy but the afternoon was quite brilliant. Some rain approached quickly from the north and reached us just as the helicopter took off with the victim and SAR people aboard. We restarted our ascent in the rain, reaching our turnaround point >4.5 hours after we had stopped. This guy was quite fortunate that several people happened to be in ear shot on a week day in such a remote area. The rain cleared half way up the Chikamin and gave way to that kind of really clear atmosphere that seems to come on the heels of misty alpine weather. We found a wonderful spot past Dome glacier, well before Itswoot and called it a day. The highlights of our last day included a brief swim in cub lake, the flora above cub lake, and the many berries along Downey. Less fun was stuffing our pockets full with entirely unnecessary flagging all along very obvious trail along Bachelor. Some of it quite haphazardly stuffed onto bark like so Gunsight delivered adventure in more ways than I could have anticipated. For people going there for the first time I’d advise to stay the fuck out of the gullies on both sides of Middle, bring lots of gear for rap anchors because there seems to be little traffic there, skip south gunsight, and expect everything to take longer than you’d think. Photo dump will go here: Gear Notes: Double to 2, one 3, one 4. 2x60m twin. In reach (please people). Knife for tape. Approach Notes: Downey approach is currently straightforward. Trail work has been done all the way to Bachelor

For contrast to the double moat encountered on 7/4/25, the 7/6/24 conditions are pictured in the TR linked here. No moats, easy downclimb.

I don’t, I’ve never looked into it. This is the best recent photo I have of the area

Trip: Terror - N buttress (attempt), Himmelhorn - Wild hair crack, Degenhardt NW+E route, Pyramid - W route Trip Date: 07/04/2025 Trip Report: Drawbridged again in the pickets for the second time in a week. After the standard rap into the couloir north of Otto-Himmel col my partner @aikidjoe encountered a moat that appeared impassable. He ascended back to the station and I took a look down the next gully skiers left. From lower down I could see it would have been no good to try the moat (which would have required an absurd running leap) because another moat was not far below that one. I kept descending adjacent to the couloir, finding mostly solid, even fun, exposed class 4. There was a short low fifth corner with a lemon cake sized block that kept it secure. I passed a slung block with old webbing. Where things cliffed out I found some good .1-.2 cam sized cracks that could be used for a rap anchor. My 60m rope easily reached continuous snow from there (maybe 20m rap). Last year at exactly the same time of year I downclimbed continuous snow down this couloir without even needing the first rap. And last year was a low snow year too. So I was pretty surprised at the state of the couloir. This workaround skiers left seems viable to me. Posting it here in case it helps anyone. The false start and exploration ate up enough time that we decided to bail on our plans for the Stoddard route and head back up to climb WHC instead. My partner was bemused because he expected a crack climb The day had started clear. On our way back down from O-H dark gray clouds moved in to block the ridge. I was glad we weren’t somewhere high on the north buttress of Terror. Next day was quite socked in. We headed off for Degenhardt, accidentally heading up from the south before correcting course for our intended NW route from near Terror’s east col. To gain the couloir there was short choke that steepened at the end to maybe 80 degree snow. We underestimated the angle from below. Odd, usually it’s the opposite. We were able to bypass this on slabs on our return. The foreboding weather and lack of visibility gave the climb a serious feeling. As it gradually cleared on the way back the route started to feel easier. There is plenty of choss on Degenhardt but I recall the scramble being pretty fun. While extracting the summit register I dropped its pencil down some hole. Sorry. From there we groped our way slowly toward Pyramid. The route finding in the clouds was trickiest near Degenhardt. Was glad to carry ax/whippet all the way due to about ten steps through a narrow and steep snow couloir to get to Pyramid’s rock pyramid. We had peek a boo views into McMillan cirque but could see nothing at all to the east. By the time we passed back west of Degenhardt the clouds were lifting and it was a relief to see where we were going. The weather kept improving and the sunset was a real mind melter. UFOs came out in force. Next morning greeted us with more clear weather but having had our fill we bid adieu to the goats and our impeccable camp. After the bruising descent we enjoyed copious berries south of terror creek. Gear Notes: 60m rope and light rack, crampons, ax or whippet Approach Notes: Goodell

Yeah that west side looks real sketch

Yikes, yeah that would do it. I’m curious was that on the west or east side of the buttress?

Trip: East Fury - North Buttress Trip Date: 06/29/2025 Trip Report: In the couloir leading to the buttress from its east side, the drawbridge is up. It’s hard to think of a route in the cascades that I haven’t climbed that I was more excited to try. From Luna col the position of upper snow arete looks insane. And the photos in this 2017 report don’t hurt: https://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/topic/100747-tr-mt-fury-north-buttress-6232017/?tab=comments I was lucky to find a partner inspired enough to take a day off and put in the considerable effort to get out there and check it out. Saturday was a little cloudy and not too hot, which kept things relatively smooth on our way from big beaver to Luna Col. Even though I’d seen it before, the first sight of the northern faces of the southern pickets that rewards the grind up to -6400 was literally breathtaking. I let out a little pious whoa. The last mile or so took approximately forever but we arrived well before dark, 11.5 hours after drop off. A ghost set up our tent. From the col the couloir didn’t look too promising but wasn’t obviously impossible so we proceeded to go for it the next morning, leaving camp at 5am (4:30 might have been better). As in the trip report from 2017, we trended left on the descent to Luna lake, which worked well. From the lake we traversed W and SW, bottoming out around 4500’. At this point we could see the snow was not continuous in this first couloir and quite a bit lower, maybe 15-20 feet, than in the 2017 reference photo. We found a ~5.0 exit onto slabby rock and got up to easier ground. Continuing up we traversed as quickly as possible across the exposed face to the entrance of the main couloir. From below it still looked worth trying. But only about 200’ up it we encountered a hidden moat spanning wall to wall, just above where I am in this photo. It was tall and unnervingly hollowed out. Questing up and left on the rock for a bypass was fruitless. I found steep slabs without much pro. And transitioning from boots and crampons to rock shoes while exiting a tenuous snow location onto a narrow rock stance turns out to be very awkward. At 30m I ran out of rope (folded 60m half), placed a piece and down climbed on top rope back to the snow. We down climbed the steep snow back out the couloir. About to down climb to the first couloir. Looking up on our return to Luna lake I thought, hmm, we came down that? It looks improbably steep but is actually reasonable. All throughout the cirque there was surprisingly little activity given how warm the day was. At camp 12 hours after we left the evening was unpleasantly hot and buggy and I impatiently awaited the reprieve of dusk. In the meantime there was some helicopter activity near Outrigger. I hope everyone involved is all right. The heat was considerable already at 7am the next morning when we began our descent. I used crampons but there really was no hard snow to be found. We took a long break at the stream by Luna camp and it seemed then that we’d make our 5pm taxi in plenty of time. One small delay occurred when we saw two bear cubs climbing to the top of a tree right off of the trail. Mama wasn’t making herself seen or heard, so we backed up a little, made a bunch of noise and gave them a few minutes to clear out. We didn’t see the cubs again and did see the mother a little bit off trail, not acting aggressively. Checking the time. As the afternoon miles went by we realized that we were slipping behind and had to really push to get there right at 5pm. The driver was very nice and encouraged us to take the time to cool off in the lake. I don’t know if I have it in me to try this route again but if I did it would have to be possibly even earlier in the calendar, and in a year with above average snow pack come June. The west side alternative doesn’t appeal much to me, the photos from Steph Abegg make it look like overhead exposure would last a lot longer than it does while traversing in from the east. Gear Notes: Crampons, ax, whippet, 60m half rope, single picket, light rack and some bail gear Approach Notes: Big beaver to Luna col to Luna lake

Nice! I had hoped to do these peaks on skis this year but couldn’t get there in time. Was Klawatti already not skiable? Too bad about the mush and crevasses, that transition between Klawatti and N Klawatti glaciers looks like it must be the crux.

When I was there in early July of last year I took #1 from Fury to Luna. It is briefly on the glacier. Crossed a rib at 6600’, bottoming out at 6400’ before reascending to the pass that rejoins the ridge line at 7000’. Was a bit steep and slippery crossing the rib. Think I’ve seen gpx that cross the rib a little lower. @tanstaafl might be able to comment on route #2

Impressive climbing, super impressive logistics, congratulations on completing the crux!

https://issuu.com/kevinmax1/docs/1889_decjan2024_with_insert/s/61232102?fbclid=IwY2xjawG-Mj1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWQZhi15InprI7Dh9zvHjp2HNH3xnWI7pfRdnXkpc0JTJZIbJyG0jsBPgQ_aem_I4W3UaKjmpsTIbvy-Adujg

Wonderful TR! Sounds like a really enjoyable trip.

Ooh real purdy.

Haven’t seen many TRs here for this route in the last few years, so I’ll chip in. Hitting the trail at 3am worked well for us (after heading down the spur to nowhere for a few minutes before correcting course). This time of year that meant arriving at the propeller cairn just in time for the darkness to begin lifting for the scramble down to the slabs. We filled up before that scramble (4L for my partner, 3.5L for me) but could have done so a little later. There was plenty flowing from ice blocks on the shelf at the end of the slabs right before you gain the ridge. We also ended up finishing the technical part of the day just before dark. Along with all the water and a little extra food we had enough stuff to ride out a bivy if needed, but intended on a c2c. We planned to simul most of the route but ended up pitching out almost all but the section of 4th above the largest bivy ledge. Including that simul block I think it was 14 pitches for us: 3 to the notch where we opted for the bypass, 3 along the bypass, 1 to gain the bivy ledge, 1 simul on the 4th class stretch, and 6 pitches up the final headwall to the summit. From where we began pitching it out it took 9.5 hours to the summit. It had rained a lot (maybe even snowed according to some forecasts) two day prior. Before the climb I had worried about this but it wasn’t terrible. It was slick enough in spots to discourage us from simuling, especially in the mossy bypass section. The climbing on this route is super fun. The rock quality is never great, but it’s usually plenty good. Finger locks and hand jams galore, interspersed with interesting face climbing too. In some of the dirtier sections there are little solid rock islands (often polished white) in the choss that lead the way, keeping the difficulty lower than you’d expect from a glance. We each had a couple minor slips on wet sections but no holds broke the entire climb. We roped up at around 5900’, expecting to simul. But my partner led into a tricky traverse so we pitched this one out to a ledge. From there, slabby moves to the left looked just a little too committing and devoid of pro, and I found a fun blocky way to the right, stopping at a slung tree. From here my partner led us to the junction with the bypass (there might have been a little simuling on that pitch). After one lead in the mossy damp bypass my partner declared his distaste for it and so I led two more pitches to join back to the crest (the second of which was 4th class, I didn’t bother with pro). At this point our beta mentioned a 5.8 layback, but I didn’t see any reason to climb it that way. It was more like 5.7 with fist on right and stemming and positive holds on left. The only real difficulty was some wet rock, but the feet were secure so it was good. Almost new moon shot, zoom in. Somewhere in the bypass section. The big bivy ledge was one of only two times we were in the sun during the ascent, aside from the first couple pitches gaining the ridge. I led up the fun scramble to the next sunny bivy ledge, below the final headwall. It seemed like our pace was reasonable enough to this point, but the summit looked quite a ways off from here. Just left of the crest a left facing corner fist crack on granite looked like an inviting start but the beta described starting right of the crest so that’s what we did instead. Starting up the final headwall. Rock was generally good going up the headwall, with lots of finger, hand, and face climbing as mentioned earlier. I took the second pitch. My partner led the third pitch (5.9) which was the crux and the best climbing on the route. As an extra bonus, the crux was the wettest spot on the route. Fun traverse right on steep rock that looks harder than it is. I led the fourth pitch, which might have been runner up funnest climbing. There was a delicate traverse through some of the more obviously loose choss on the route near the end of the pitch. The view from the top of this one down the ridge is pretty wild. Another party was finishing the 4th class section at this time but I didn’t see them again. Climbing on a Thursday worked great. No one else was at the trailhead when we arrived Wednesday night. My partner said there were two parties of 2 behind us. I imagine today (Saturday) it’s a lot more crowded. From here it was probably 5.6 maybe 5.7 to the summit. We could have simuled but were in the rhythm of swapping so kept that going for two more to the summit. Didn’t check out the final bypass to the left. Staying on the crest was fun and easy, I’d recommend it. The rock suddenly transitioned back to clean granite just before the summit, icing on the cake. Amid a big insect orgy on the summit we briefly savored the views of Jack’s Nohokomeen, Luna, Challenger and Shuksan. Baker, Larrabee, and the border peaks kept us company as we descended by a crazy prominent tower. Above a classic obvious gully I saw a trail heading down a slope and mindlessly charged toward it. Fortunately I lost only 200’ vertical before realizing this was the wrong way (carryover). Back up to the correct notch we did more traversing over variable terrain as the climb we just completed came in and out of view. The descent is really long and I wasn’t up to speed on the rockfall induced changes to the standard descent. Fortunately my partner had paid more attention in his research. After a couple of raps to Crossover pass he corrected me after I blew past the start of the crack of noon descent. There was yellow flagging marking the route, and bolted rap anchors all the way down. Trying to be efficient I down climbed in parallel with my partner rapping, occasionally joining onto the rap for damp and needly sections. Most of the route is less than 5th class. We touched down and packed up the climbing gear just in time for headlamp hour. I had a random gpx from a decade ago for reference. We headed down blocky talus which was fine enough. Gradually we reached a vegetated area. The track I had made a big diversion here. It was only about 300’ wide so I decided to just follow an approximately straight line here, thrashing as needed. My partner was unimpressed but it really wasn’t very long or so bad, plus there were berries With the groans, thrashing and berry munching we might have been mistaken in the dark for bears. Finally our reference track popped out on an obvious trail. We could have used a better reference. With all the flagging, blazes, and traffic, there’s got to be a much better way that we just couldn’t see. Once on the right trail we sailed down the increasingly dank trail. Saw some of the largest mushrooms I’ve ever encountered, plus some cool deep violet ones. We arrived back at the car a little over 20 hours after we left it. The trailhead still wasn’t crowded. Given the hour we opted to spend another night here. A couple years ago my partner and I climbed the north ridge of Stuart c2c, which took longer than this one, partly due to waiting out a squall on and after the 3rd pitch. That’s a useful baseline when contemplating long routes - seems long but hey, shorter than N ridge of Stuart, so let’s do it We agreed that Slesse NEB was a real good time and that we are probably satiated on epic days for the summer, though I might try to squeeze one more in.

Not gonna speak for Jason, but I checked this out a couple years ago. It’s pretty straightforward. You’ll want to leave the trail and start uphill about 200-300 feet south of the creek by Luna camp. Avoid minor cliff bands and just stick to the shoulder, which gradually becomes more pronounced as you ascend. On our way up we were initially under a canopy of giant ferns taller than we. This was fun but we found the more efficient path on the way back a little further from the creek.

Love it! And thanks for taking such good photos. I’m inspired to get to Luna cirque now. And the mystery of where the bootpack south of Outrigger came from is solved. I came through there the day after you from Otto-Himmel and had the impression of boot pack dropped in from the sky. Wouldn’t have thought of coming from McMillan cirque