Colin Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Forrest and I climbed the West Ridge of Inspiration today (well, I suppose it was yesterday, now), after hiking in to a camp on the Terror Glacier on Friday. The Gully leading up to the Pyramid-Inspiration col was mostly steep snow, with a quick step of WI2. The West Ridge, above the col, was low fifth class, coated with substantial rime ice. In general, conditions are good in the North Cascades, and things are getting more solid with every day of sun. Skis or snowshoes are still neccesary to get around efficiently, though. I think that our climb might have been the first winter ascent of Inspiration. Please speak up if you have any info to suggest otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billygoat Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forrest_m Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Colin - I can't believe that you had the energy to boot up the computer after you got home last night! Too much energy, man. I was asleep about 10 minutes after getting home... The pickets in winter are really wild looking, lots of cool rime ice formations like a miniature patagonia. I will post some photos in a few days when i get my film back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plexus Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Good job guys! Does the approach get any easier in wintertime? How much brush was covered? Can't wait to see the pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Yeah buddy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt.Caveman Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 (edited) Nice one! Tell us more! Edited February 10, 2003 by mattp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Great work Colin and Forrest!! It is amazing what good weather will do for this site! I am thinking it is the FWA, but wait till the Becky update comes out. You bagged a trophy FOR SURE if it holds! Cant wait for the pics . I was looking good energy to you guys when we saw it from Colonial! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 i was looking at the pickets with binoculars from BC on saturday just gapin with my mouth open cause they looked so cool. good work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 (edited) Colin and Forrest. You have no concept of what pain is do you? Your efforts make me look a child. Congratulations. Amazing. Edited February 10, 2003 by Stefan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbb Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Congrats colin! 2 days? you guys are animals! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juan Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Colin, you punk. My niece Kelly told me you had a broken arm after being hit by a car on the way to school. What gives? Also, who exactly hung the dope leaf flag at your high school? Word is it would be pretty hard to climb up there. Do you know anything about this? Way to go on the climb, both of you. My weekend included legos, playdough, and Red Robin. But whatever. Cheers, John Sharp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Parker Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Colin, you punk. My niece Kelly told me you had a broken arm after being hit by a car on the way to school. What gives? Do you really think a broken arm would slow Colin down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 Thanks for all the kind words. One of us will post some pictures soon, but Forrest might have easier access to a slide scanner than I. Plexus, The approach isn't as easy as in summertime, but fortunately it isn't much harder either. The approach starts at 600 ft., so the first 4.5 miles of trail are totally snow free. John, No broken arm, but I did take a bad spill while biking to school because of some ice on the road, and my elbow was bleeding for quite a while. Yes, it was I who hung the giant pot-leaf-banner on the side of my school. It even made it into the school paper! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowell_Skoog Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 (edited) I think it is probably a first winter ascent. A friend and I went in to do it in 1988, but we were moving too slow to take advantage of our weather window. We scrambled up E. MacMillan instead. Some other friends attempted Inspiration a few years before that, but turned around low on the peak. I've always had it in the back of my mind to return, but just haven't been doing much winter climbing the past few years. Congratulations on your climb! p.s. When we went in 1988, the approach was quite a bit harder than in summer. We had a fair amount of snow below treeline, and we did much of the climb out of Goodell Creek on skis. We camped only a little above treeline our first day, which is why our attempt failed. Edited February 10, 2003 by Lowell_Skoog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lambone Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Nice climb! Did you guys see any kind of avalance activity goin on up there? What was the snow pack like? I assume you travel some pretty prone terrain on the way up to the ridge, just curious...I'll probly wiat till summer for my first trip to the Pickets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 "One of us will post some pictures soon, but Forrest might have easier access to a slide scanner than I." If these great adventures from Colin and his friends keep taking place, we're going to have to create a "Buy a scanner for Colin" fund. Because once he's got a scanner, our "downtime" waiting for the photographic record will be reduced. And we can live better, more efficient lives as a result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Here is a picture taken from Trapper's Peak on Sunday towards the Pickets from a friend of mine. Inspiration is above and just to the right of the guy in the red jacket. You can see the west ridge. http://www.mtnmike.com/pics/trappers/cookies.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forrest_m Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Let's start with the money shot: Colin approaching the summit. Several people have asked for more details, so here goes. Let me start by making it clear that this was Colin's idea; when we set aside this weekend to climb something, I would have been content with something less ambitious. But it was an appealing thought, as I've been thinking that this low-snow year might be a good opportunity to get first winter ascents of primarily rock climbs. We almost bailed when family plans meant we had to be back on Sunday, but we were both able to rearrange our schedules in order to take off Friday. (I traded workdays, but I think Colin just ditched school...) We drove up to Newhalem on Thursday night and sacked out behind the car. Our plan was to go light, light, light: summer weight sleeping bags, lightweight shell jackets. The rack consisted of 6 nuts, 2 cams, 2 tricams, 1 ice screw and a couple of pitons; we brought a single 8.6mm rope. We started hiking at 5, and had gotten past the old road and onto the steep hillside as the sun came up. We joked about "winter" conditions, as there was no snow anywhere to be seen. We finally hit snow about 4,000 feet, and we were wallowing a bit as we went through the small cliffs just below timberline. As we broke out of the dense trees into the more open basins, we put on our snowshoes and began the long traverse. In shaded areas, the snow was loose, deep powder, but anywhere the sun had hit had a substantial breakable crust. We (barely) made it over the pass into Terror Basin without removing our snowshoes, as the final slopes were a bit steep and icy for comfort with no edge control. We descended to the extremely windy low point below McMillan Spires and climbed back up to a more protected spot just before getting onto the glacier, a few hundred feet below the very impressive S. Face of Inspiration. Huge rime ice feathers outlined the ridgetops like a halo. We pitched the tent around 3:30, and spend the next several hours getting rehydrated and stuffing calories. Even so, we were horizontal by 7 - as Colin put it, "one nice thing about winter climbing, you always get a lot of sleep" We got a little later start the next morning, but were moving by 6:30. We got about 100 feet out of camp breaking through up to our thighs before putting the snowshoes back on for a few minutes of EXTREME snowshoeing up a very steep snow ramp into the flat basin below Inspiration. We dodged a few still-visible crevasses up to the base of the Inspiration-Pyramid couloir. Our first view left us very psyched: the 5.8 chockstone, visible halfway up the gully, sported a frozen waterfall to its right, promising easy passage, so we were able to quickly simulclimb the entire couloir to the col at its head. The waterfall turned out to be 8 feet of steep ice, the rest was a firmly frozen snow crust. Spooky views onto the very cold north wall of the Pickets opened up. I led off from the col, up some snow slopes onto the rock. At first it seemed improbable, as the rock was plastered with what appeared to be custardy rime ice. But to my surprise, it took good tool sticks - at 8,000 feet, a week of melt and freeze had firmed it up enough for decent climbing. Weaving back and forth, and connecting snowy ramps with rime-plastered bulges, I ran the rope out until Colin reached the rock and then found an anchor, a complicated affair of opposing nuts and an angle piton. Though the climbing was not too hard, placing gear certainly was. Long excavations were required to find usable cracks, as the rock is quite compact in places. Colin took over the lead; after one difficult move, he disappeared around a corner, and the rope began to move very quickly as the angle kicked back and the terrain became more snow than ice. I'm not sure what to rate these pitches; Colin called them low-fifth class, which I suppose is true, but it was also pretty runout and insecure in places. In poorer conditions, they would have been very scary. The last pitch to the summit was mine, mostly steep snow, with some heart-pounding exposure on the last hundred feet to the summit. On the knife-edged crest, I forced myself to stand upright and take three steps. OK, enough of that, back to all-fours. No anchors anywhere in sight, I stamped out a hole in the snow on the exact summit, sat down, and braced my feet, preparing myself to roll over onto the south face should a collapsing footstep send Colin sliding off the north side. I looked around at the breathtaking scenery, forcing Colin to stop every 15 feet for another photograph. Still straddling the knife edge, we spent some time digging for the fixed rap anchors, but quickly decided that it would be easier just to downclimb the last pitch. Colin disappeared around the corner, re-placing the pro, and I was alone again for a few minutes on the summit. We downclimbed to a good piton crack about halfway down Colin's pitch, then made three raps back down to the col. The sun was already going to work on the rime, and it was frighteningly easy to clear the rock of ice now; a sideways swipe of your axe now broke off large sheets. Clearly, we had slipped through a narrow window of good conditions. We down-soloed the gully to just above the waterfall; the morning's crust had given way to very soft glop, and the occasional snow blob collapsing from the cliffs above made us want to hurry. We fixed an nut and rapped, then another from a fixed sling below the chockstone, before downclimbing the rest of the couloir. Safe from falling objects now, we put the snowshoes back on and retraced our steps. We reached camp at 3:30, packed as quickly as possible, and began racing the daylight back around the huge basin, reaching treeline just at dark. The next hour was perhaps the crux of the trip, as we attempted to stay on the faint trail, especially where it was only barely covered with snow. Luckily, we never lost it for long and the car's reflectors showed up in our headlamp beams just before 10 pm. We didn't see any sign of avalanche activity (except debris at the base of couloirs). All sun-exposed slopes above 5,000 feet have developed a very firm crust over 12-14 inches of unconsolidated powder snow, all on top of a very solid base. I suspect that the next significant snow loading will set off an avalanche cycle of epic proportions on SE - S - SW exposures. When Colin suggested the climb, I must admit that I was prepared for a total sub-alpinism epic of barely-snow-covered-logs and desperate brush (with a possible climb at the end), but conditions were perfect and the approach was very reasonable. This was Colin and my first climb together! I will scan some more photos later this week and post a link to a gallery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshK Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Oh man,sweet pics! Nice job Colin and Forrest. What an awesome place to be in the winter, I can only imagine how impressive it must have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lambone Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Damn thats awsome, thanks for the TR, definately a highlight in my desktop mountaineering career! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COL._Von_Spanker Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 holy shiz, dat's some bomb. If I could be even a 64th as badass as Colin and forrest.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr._jay Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 sounds like a very nice first trip together indeed. you guys must really have some good juju together. i can just imagine what's next on the list. its still sending weather out there, but don't feel bad juan, you can do some pretty cool shit with legos and play-doh. cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelawgoddess Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 yeehaw - you guys rock!!! thanks for sharing, and letting us live semi-vicariously through your awesome efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Don't you love it when you're reading someone else's bad ass trip report and your heart starts to pound? Guess I shouldn't have drunk that liquid candy a few minutes ago. Nice job (the climb and the TR). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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