[TR] Mix Up Peak - East Face 07/22/2019

[bellows]

Trip: Mix Up Peak - East Face

Trip Date: 07/22/2019

Trip Report:

The weather was too nice on Monday to spend it working for the man, so I ditched work and headed out to the alpine.  The east face of Mix Up is a fun moderate climb with a couple pitches of low fifth and some of the best 3rd class scrambling I’ve ever seen.  Good times!

Views from Cascade Pass and Mix Up arm.

 

First view of Mix Up East Face.  Go through the lefthand U notch and circle around back to the righthand V notch.  The moat was fine on the left.

I self belayed a short low fifth class 10m pitch directly up from the V notch to a rap anchor, then scrambled up to the top of the east face shoulder.  Surprisingly I ran into a party of 4 out-of-staters climbing the route right before the infamous white staircase.  The staircase looks intimidating from afar, but the rock is clean, grippy, and FUN!  And mostly only 3rd class despite the exposure down to the Cache Glacier.

 

A final low fifth class 20m pitch at the top brought me just right of the summit.  The summit register was a fun read and I spent some time snacking, enjoying the views, and chatting with the other 4 climbers as they made their way up.  One of them “Ram” was making his fifth ascent of the peak.  Fred Beckey June 25th, 2006, age 83!

 

Two raps off the summit block and two raps down to the V notch got me off the technical terrain and a nice walk back to the truck ~10 hours after leaving.  Overall a very worthwhile climb, I can understand why Ram was making his fifth trip up there.
 

Gear Notes:
60m rope and light rack to 2" worked well

Approach Notes:
Easy peasy

[JasonG]

Impressive!  I was glad to have a partner holding the end of the rope.  How far back did the register go?  Wondering if I need to go back and re-live those simpler times....

[ivan]

that'll show The Man

[bellows]

The register went back to 1992.  I saw your name in there.  Simpler times... before wife & kids?  I thought it was a fantastic climb and very worthy of a repeat.  It's an easy approach, pretty mellow climbing, and the east face stairs are total type 1 fun.

[JasonG]

17 minutes ago, bellows said:

before wife & kids?

Kids, I was with the wife! Or maybe we were still dating....not exactly sure of the year.  Need to review my slides (!).

[Rad]

Thanks for the TR. I've got to put this on my list as I love that area but might have outgrown the type 2+ fun of J'berg...

[tanstaafl]

We climbed Magic and Mixup to celebrate our first wedding anniversary ( we did an entertaining corkscrew girdle traverse of Magic, that was...loose) and as I recall the summit registers on both peaks made for great reading.  Lots of local history in there.