I'll quit lurking for a minute now that Dru has pushed me out of the closet. We were also on the East Ridge of Rexford on Sunday. We carried light up to the base of the climb on Saturday, planning on descending the NE Ridge. As it turns out our planning was poor, but more on that later. We started climbing about 8 am with several hundred feet of class 4 with one interesting low 5th class. Sorry about the rock there Dru, wasn't aware that it happened or you would have heard me yell first.
Dru caught us at the beginning of several hundred (felt like thousand) feet of less than pleasant tree, shrub and grass climbing. As Dru pointed out when he passed me, crampons would have been nice. We were slow through here, even though we simul-climbed the whole thing. Protection consisted of an occasional sling around a tree which was adequate but of course made for ugly rope drag. We finally hit the top of the ridge about 1 or 2 which was about the time I figured we would summit based on route descriptions. The climbing got a little more interesting with less greenery and more rock. We still simul-climbed parts of this. Dru's description pretty much summed up this portion of the climb. There were three sections that we set up a belay for, all in the 5.6 - 5.7 range.
Our story changes from Dru's at the summit which we hit about 4:30 or 5. At this point the NE Ridge descent was not feasible as our bivy gear consisted of one ls poly top and one goretex jacket, so we opted to bail via W Ridge. Our water supply was down to about a 1/4 of a liter, with two others filled with snow from one of several snow patches present on upper ridge. We made a two or three rappels down to W Ridge and apparently blew it at that point. Darkness was approaching, we were parched and somehow missed the descent into Nesakwatch basin. As we got lower on the W Ridge the distance to the Nesakwatch basin increased proportionally. We were suckered to the north side of the West Ridge by some foot traffic, shorter distance and at this point the presence of a small tarn (WATER). We knew this was not the right way to go but given our circumstance went of it. We made our last rappel and pulled out the headlamps. An hour of scrambling got us to the pond. After sucking down almost two liters apiece we were happy even though we knew the night was young. We started the descent at 10:30.
The rest of the evening was a blur; endless feet of scree, slide alder (not too bad), a little devil's club, typical NC bushwhacking. We passed under a large overhang at about 2 am. We took one look at the grass and soft shrubbery and said nap time. We pulled on our bivy gear, threw down the ropes and dozed for a couple hours until the shivering got us moving again. We hit the logging road about 12 hours after Dru and about a 1/2 mile further from the gate. A long walk down the road brought us back to the gate at about 8 am. Jim hitched down to the Chlliwack Fish Hatchery and made necessary phone calls while I continued hoofing back up the east side to our car and the rather unpleasant task of hiking back up to our high camp. Luckily I was intercepted by Jim and his chauffeur from the hatchery who drove us up to our car. Another three hours of hiking got us up to camp and back to the car.
We sucked down two beers stashed in the creek in a flash went down and washed off 10 lbs of pine needles, dirt and misc debris in Centre Creek then feasted on burgers and fries before the drive back to Tacoma.
Summary
The BD Moonlight and Petzl Teeka headlamps were outstanding. My Moonlight gave more light but was a little heavier.
My new partner was also outstanding. His attitude through the long evening on the west side of Rexford was a pleasure to be around. We laughed and joked throughout the evening (after we got water that is).
Water is good.
Times in guidebooks can never ever be trusted. Follow them knowing that you may take a bit longer. In our case on this trip, a lot longer.
Don't even think about descending the NE Ridge - go down West Ridge, but know where you're going.
We could have done some things differently but didn't, suffered the consequences and dealt with them.
Great trip.
Would I recommend Rexford? Probably not. The amount of work and vegetation involved to get to a couple of short 5.6 - 5.7 moves doesn't add up to a positive number in my estimation. I'm glad I did it and I'll be back up north again soon.
If you do plan a trip to Rexford the fish hatchery employee let us know that the gate is no longer going to be locked.
Finally, many thanks to Dru for checking up on us.
Sorry for the length of the report...
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