"Calcifer's Ridge" III 5.7 FA of the North Ridge of Redoubt

[Sam Boyce]

Over the last 3 days, Lani and I climbed what we believe to be the FA of the North Ridge of Redoubt. This is the long, NW trending ridge that looms over the North Face glacier route. The route was actually quite classic and comes with a high recommendation. It is by far more enjoyable than the standard route scree encountered on the descent.

The route was primarily low fifth class and fourth class scrambling and we roped up for roughly 1100', though snow coverage and comfort sloping may drastically impact this number. The ridge gains a bit over 2000' over around .5 miles of horizontal. The name is inspired by the little ball of fire, Calcifer, from howls moving castle, as we watched the Perry Creek fire grow in the distance.

Day 1

We approached and bivied at Ouzel lake. A bird tells me the Depot Creek "trail" is in particularly excellent condition, requiring NO bushwhacking, and they said handlines are even avoidable. The same bird mentioned that current logging roads take you all the way to the border, making the approach to Ouzel Lake 4.5 miles. We bivied all the way up at Ouzel lake as we were initially planning on climbing Spickard the next day, but growing smoke from the Perry Creek fire changed our minds on that plan. There is also an excellent potential camp at the top of Depot Creek falls, potentially allowing for a direct approach, though this would require bushwhacking of unknown taste... There are also potential bivy options on route to help facilitate a 2 day itinerary.

Day 2

From the lake, we made a long contour on talus, loosing only around 400', once near and below the objective, we made our way up talus and slabs to the toe of the ridge.

Excellent running water out of the toe of the glacier. We initially attempted the cracks smack on the toe of the ridge, I bailed around halfway up after encountering some 5.11 tips and entering unpleasant looseness. There is an obvious corner left of the toe that potentially holds a very classic potentially moderate direct start. 

The unsent directismo 

After bailing off the toe, we looked to the right and zig-zagged up ramps to gain the buttress crest. Snow coverage will drastically impact your experience here. Once on the ridge crest we found thousands of feet of enjoyable scrambling on mostly sound rock. Lani compared it to the NE buttress of triumph but with mostly better rock.

We roped up for the occasional pitch, but mostly soloed. There is a broad saddle at 7600' where things begin to steepen subtly. This would also make an excellent bivy with a permanent snowfield for water access.

Above the notch, the climbing steepened and we climbed a few back to back pitches until we were below a prominent gendarme.

Unsure what the top of the gendarme would be like we traversed into the chossy gully to climbers left and climbed a short, overhanging pitch of surprisingly solid shist. After topping out the gully, we found the descent off the gendarme would have been chill, so Future parties should consider a direct line up the cracks on the gendarme for a more classic finish. Once at the notch in the ridge we met up with the large talus fields that define the slopes on the south summit. The traverse over the sub summits to the true summit was generally easy but involved a few sections of fifth class. 

Once on the summit, we began the "joys" of doing the standard route late season. 

Lani in the canonball hole

Once at the base of the gullies we encountered awful scree, one could only imagine how much more awful it would be to go up, so there is that... The entire day we had been watching a fire grow in the East. Seeing it expand so quickly and already beginning to envelope spickard in smoke we decided early on our descent to forgo spickard and plan on hiking out the next day.

Mordor to the East

Day 3

Hike out, blueberries...

Suggested Rack

Single Rack .3-1, optional 2; full set of nuts; we had a single 60M rope, but it could be done with a 30M line to save weight.

Edited 10 hours ago by Sam Boyce
Adding photos

[John_Roper]

Nice line.  Here's what it looked like 54 years ago on July 10, 1971.

[Sam Boyce]

1 hour ago, John_Roper said:

Nice line.  Here's what it looked like 54 years ago on July 10, 1971.

Thanks John! Crazy to see what the glaciers looked like then. Seems like a big portion of this ridge used to be covered.