[TR] Good and Storm King - NE Butt, SW Route 08/19/2022

[geosean]

Trip: Good and Storm King - NE Butt, SW Route

Trip Date: 08/19/2022

Trip Report:

Me, @MGraw and Dave did the NE buttress on Goode Mountain and the SW route on Storm King over four days from August 19 to 22. BTW, that’s “gud”, not “gu·dee”, I don’t know what mountain some of you are climbing. Its named for Richard U Goode of the USGS, and the mountain is pronounced like the name.

 

I’m just writing a quick report to get the info out there. We used beta from Steph Abegg, Climber Kyle, and occasionally Fred Beckey and it went great, so I wont post too much of that. The route finding was generally very straight forward the whole trip.

 

We started out at the permit line. It was waaaay better than in years past, but still long. Then we cheated and drove to the Bridge Creek Trailhead for the hike in. I used trail runners to the junction with North Fork Bridge Creek Trail to save my feet 20 mile of hiking in approach shoes… worth it!

 

Trail after Grizzly Creek (short):

The creek crossing of North Fork Bridge Creek was easy but cold, then straight up from there per Kyle worked amazing. Literally NO brush to get out of the valley bottom. Wow.

 

Approach From North Fork, just go up:

 

We took the wrong buttress up the last portion of the approach and missed the two established bivy spots. The “5400’” bivy at 5500’ or so was occupied, but I looked down and saw the 5700’ site from above. We made a new spot on a slab and gravel at 5970 on a different rib. For next time, you have to scramble up the obviously easiest rib two or three left of the prow that the path leads you up to. This was our only real route finding hiccup on the trip with somewhat minimal research. All of Goode is amazingly complicated sounding, but is really just follow your instinct from North Fork Bridge Creek to the summit. It took us 8.5 hours car to camp I think.

 

Just up from camp:

 

The next morning we walked like 100’ up to the glacier were we easily walked on on low angle firm snow. We had only snow the whole way, no proper ice. The glacier was pretty easy to navigate from there, one big zig zag to get above the cracks at 6700’. The feared moat was just a couple of steps down on blocks to 3^rd class rock. We got lucky hear I guess. I think this wat at 6730’.

 

On route:

 

We scrambled a 3^rd class ramp to near the crest, then started simul climbing. Mike lead out and lead a 1200’ simul pitch to a 5^th class step where Dave took over. Dave missed a move to the right of the ridge and lead up a tough 5.7 spot with no pro (except our now fixed nut above the difficulty). Stout lead in hiking boots dude! Me and Mike followed in approach shoes, wondering the whole way why he didn’t move off the ridge crest, it was aesthetic though. As much as its tempting to lead the crest, any time it gets tough you can break off.

 

The climbing was great the whole way, never hard (except that one spot) but interesting always, all the way to the summit. I clipped my last sling to the summit rap station to finish my simul block.

 

It was hazy so we didn’t stay too long. 3 raps to some shenanigans to the notch (I’m not sure if there is a good way to do the last rap, but it involved a quick belay for us from the bottom of the rap). Then 2 more raps in the gulley. Skiers right side of the gulley was much better than down the gut, not bad at all.

 

Soon we were in camp on an awesome slab amongst heather at 7600’ just left of the rib. I highly recommend this spot, the slab was perfect for victory lounging. 10ish hours this day.

 

Camp:

 

Brief shower in the evening:

 

The next day we traversed to Storm King and followed the standard beta to the notch. Scree slog, up the gulley to the right of the one with the obvious horn. The one with the horn had a rope that appeared to be fixed for a rap. I’m not sure why you would do this unless you just didn’t want to carry it out. Please don’t do this, it’s just trash now that no one want to take out. Descend your ascent route and take everything home with you. I really hope there was some extenuating circumstance here, but I can’t think of what.

 

We scramble traversed the obvious ledge from the notch for 200’ – 300’ horizontal then scrambled up 3^rd -4^th class to the summit. The beta here was complicated but the route very simple.

 

Ledge:

Reversing the traverse to Storm King, Goode behind:

 

Then down, down, down. There is a path from the little 7440’ knob just SW of Goode leading down the rib to the valley bottom, it comes in and out, but just stick on the crest next to the creek. We hiked out to Park Creek Camp for about 9 hours on the move.

 

Up very early the next morning to beat the heat for 6ish hours to cover the 15 miles to the car and beer that was still as cold as the Rockies!  Wow!

 

An amazing trip with way more down time than I am used to. Glad I had good friends to share it with! A classic for sure, though not enough brush for it to be truly a Cascade classic in my book. Nor enough loose rock.

 

OK, so not so quick a report, but it was a really great trip.

Gear Notes:
2 30m rope, aluminum snow gear, approach shoes, single rack 0 metolius to #2 C4, like 15 slings

Approach Notes:
Long but easy. The trail was brushed out except for a little bit after Grizzly Creek.

[mountainsloth]

Sweet! Sounds casual for the average cascadian crusher. 

[JasonG]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:43 AM, geosean said:

I really hope there was some extenuating circumstance here, but I can’t think of what.

I'm guessing a lightning storm and someone wanted out ASAP.  Getting shocked can induce full panic!

[Bronco]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:43 AM, geosean said:

The one with the horn had a rope that appeared to be fixed for a rap. I’m not sure why you would do this unless you just didn’t want to carry it out. Please don’t do this, it’s just trash now that no one want to take out. Descend your ascent route and take everything home with you. I really hope there was some extenuating circumstance here, but I can’t think of what.

Funny, we found an abandoned rope in the "Black Notch" on Goode in 2012 where someone rapped the wrong gully and left the rope behind for some reason.  We decided to just haul it out partially due to it being garbage in the mountains but also because it was set up on the wrong rap route.  It's a long ways to haul a rope, especially when it's not yours to start with.