[TR] Mount Garfield - Southwest Route 08/31/2024

[JasonG]

Trip: Mount Garfield - Southwest Route

Trip Date: 08/31/2024

Trip Report:

 

"As has been reported elsewhere, Garfield is a hazardous enigma.  It offers more than a climb, for it is also a physical and orienteering challenge.  It is important to get a very early start.  While a 12-hour r.t. is generally considered a minimum, only during the long days of summer will there be sufficient daylight for what is a long, steep climb, with some very exposed areas."

-Fred Beckey, Cascade Alpine Guide

 

I first read the section above in the 1990s when I was just getting into climbing and frankly was both attracted and scared by the photos and descriptions in the Beckey guide.  An early trip report by @CascadeClimber and @philfort did little to dissuade my apprehension of this peak and so it sat for decades on the back burner.  Always there, always taunting, even long after I probably had acquired enough chossdawgery skillz to make an ascent a reasonable goal.  Turns out, two of my long-time climbing partners felt the same, and somehow it came to all of our attentions this year that Garfield could no longer be ignored.  In the words of @Trent, "It must be climbed!" 

Secretly,  I was hoping that @klenke was still correct and the the route was dumbed down by a bootpath and flagging.  But I wasn't so lucky- he can rest easy on the golf course or the workfloor of the Lazy B, knowing that the brush has returned, the flagging rotted away, and that the blue collar masses have moved on (or died?).  This peak is probably once again nearly as lonesome as it was when Fred first penned those words (the register went back to 1987 and traffic really has dropped off the past 10-15 years).  I can honestly report that it is proper challenge for a Cascades Connoisseur such as those that frequent this esteemed site.  (If you want hardman or hardwoman points, read no further and just photocopy the pages out of Brown Fred for your trip.  If you're someone like me....read on)

But we didn't know any of that when @therunningdog, @Trent and I rolled into the "gravel wash" that marks the start of this 4500' off trail adventure, late on a Friday night in Trent's old VW camper (nickname "Speedy").  There was another car camping there, but given the smoking and drinking we were pretty sure that they weren't heading to Garfield in the morning.  Then again, I think a late evening of smoking and drinking would probably have been fitting preparation for the peak.  Next time.

Alarms were set for crazy early, I think about 430, since we had heard ample stories of unplanned bivies, thrashing exits in the dark, and general mini-epics.  We were thinking 13-15 hours would be about what it would take and planned accordingly.  But it turns out, us old dogs (combined team age of 158) can still beat Beckey and we were back to the van in about 11.5 hours, including breaks.  The early start gave us extra time for beer and chips, so it wasn't all for naught.

To be honest, the way up was mostly a blur.  A dark gravel wash to an impassible set of falls started things.  We went left into the forest when we should have gone right (be sure to keep that Beckey topo in your pocket and consult at all junctures!) and then I somehow thought that the real "dirt gully" below, wasn't the right dirt gully and kept going past it.  Trent and Tim kindly put us back on the right track without too much wasted time

 

The "dirt gully" wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either.  You don't want to be on this mountain with more than about 4 people.  2-3 is about right so you can move as one team. Shortly after the gully you climb up and hit some slabs that force you left.  We went all the way left then found a weakness to scramble up and right back towards the ridge crest which is below the "rock outcrop" and "razorback" that you hit right before the "tiny notch".  You will be referring to the topo many times in this section, wondering where in the hell you are while looking way down into the "Great Canyon".  It is a wild mountain.

Soon enough you will come to the "glade saddle" where you will see a short gully leading to the "wooded ramp":

which will take you to the brushy "key ledge" where you will be thankful for the brush for hiding the significant exposure.  The brush will also distract you from the fatality that occurred in this spot, presumably due to the "trecherous footing" that Beckey describes:

And then the meat of it, the "no. 1 Gully is reached, with the "no. 2 Gully" just beyond it:

We had already chosen no. 1 Gully as our line, even though Fred describes it as the alternate path up, mostly due to a few of the more recent TRs we dug up which we compared to older no. 2 Gully TRs.  I am sure that both have their pluses and minuses.  The no. 1 Gully starts out easy, but then a step is encountered where @Trent ably put the rope up for Tim and I.  It was a bit trickier than it looked with polished rock and moss.  I sort of wanted to do a shoulder stand in the spirit of this peak, but unfortunately I was the last one up.  So I grunted and lurched my way up.

Then it was mostly easy 2nd and 3rd class scrambling until you had to turn right under the Leaning Spire to ascend slabs to a small col that dropped you halfway up the no. 2 gully.  Here the way got harder with some slabby 4th mixed in with the slabby 3rd. We were in boots/approach shoes, which I think is the correct footwear for this route.  The slabbyness isn't sustained or hard enough to warrant rock shoes.  Plus rock shoes are definitely not blue collar!  Style matters.

Soon enough we were established in the no. 2 Gully and began to chug upwards to the "crux" chimneys.  The first one we soloed:

The next one, @Trent led, again.  It was wet and involved a lot of grunting  and pack dragging.  Still, I think it is preferable to the variations that others have reported to the right.

The notch between the Leaning Spire and the summit was easily reached after the chimneys, and here we went a bit too far left.  You basically want to go straight up a cl. 3-4 slab above the col until you can burrow into a brush tunnel (complete with trimmed branches!) that will take you up and left to the summit ridge.  A short walk right will land you on the true summit.  If ever there was a peak where the summit was "halfway", Garfield is it!

We dug out the register and marveled at who had signed in over the years. Some famous climbers in there and it was fun to take the trip back in time.  The views weren't half bad either.  It is a long way down to the Middle Fork and the van, less than two miles horizontally from the top.

But, like most summits where the descent is worrisome, we didn't stay very long.  The descent was also a blur, though it went faster than expected.  Several bolted stations in the no. 2 gully greatly helped by keeping us out of the path of the inevitable rockfall.  I think we did 6 30m raps total, about 3 in each gully.

We paused on the "key ledge traverse" to oogle the Great Canyon in better light as we passed again:

And also stopped to admire the Doorish part of the mountain as well.  Anybody know that guy?  I have to say that he's a legend, at least in my estimation.  The routes he did, in the era that he did them, are truly astounding.  He had a funny entry in the summit register talking about "a bit of an epic" he and Alex Cudkowicz had in June of 1988 where they ended up spending 2 unplanned bivies (in the rain!) establishing a route that they thought would go in a day.  Yowza.  Yeah, this should go in a day:

But soon enough we were back at the easy slabs, scrambling down to the forest, the dirt gully, the forest, the gravel wash, the forest.....

and then....BEER.

Gear Notes:
60m twin rope, helmet, light rack to 2", leather gloves. Boots or approach shoes. Best to go after snow leaves the gullies

Approach Notes:
Middle Fork Road to gravel wash. Page 214 in Brown Fred has a great topo of the route/approach, which is all the experienced chossdawg needs.

[Phil K]

Nice work, and thanks for the TR. Yeah.... Pete Doorish.  🍻

[Rad]

Impressive!!!

Thanks for the detailed report

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Nice, I wanna go next time!  Still need to do that one, almost looks fun.