Chest Beating Gapewad TR of Secret Ice!!!!!!!!

[Dru]

Steven Harng and I went into a "secret area" on Saturday where there is a lot of sweet unclimbed ice and alpine potential. The east face of "iohymoT .tM" has some obvious couloirs, gullies and lots of weeping ice flows formed from snow melt.

 

We left Chilliwack at 7 Am and drove from Chilliwack up "keerC ihimaT" which takes one back into the mountains. Parking at about km 15 or 16 we packed, hiked the snow covered road for a ways then dropped into the forest and made a stealth crossing of the American border. Almost immediately several black helicopters from Homeland Security flew overhead searching for the terrorists penetrating American territory but they must have mistaken us for snafflehounds cause we survived!

 

Hiking up the creek to reach the east face was totally a mistake. Should have continued further up the road. It took us almost 4 hous to get to the base of the face. Much of that was spent wallowing through snow covered boulder fields and crossing avvy chutes full of devils club. We had to cross the creek several times on ice and snow covered logs but managed not to fall in.

 

This side of the mountain is set up as follows: the big north face is bounded on the left by the NE spur. Left of the NE spur is a triangular wall, ~400m high, the "NE facet". This is bounded on its left by a deep, hidden couloir running all the way to the famous bench glacier atop the face. Left of the hidden couloir is the true east face.

 

We reached the NE facet around noon or oneish. Post holing was slow enough that we didnt even bother continuing to the E face although our original plan was to try and do an alpine route all the way to the top of the E face and then descend the N face couloir. On the NE facet there were 5 potential ice lines reminiscent of some place like the famous Stanley Headwall: huge drips of overhanging ice blobs interspersed with overhanging mixed rock sections and thinner ramps. We chose the left most and easiest line which went up a gully for several pitches to an apparent short final pillar.

 

The route went at 3 pitches to the base of the pillar: 60m WI3, 30m WI2, 50m WI3 R. The first pitch was a gully, sometimes thin, reminiscent of "the Waterhole" route in the Bow Valley. Steve got a sketchy belay in at the top of this pitch with about 1m of rope left. When I followed we tried to beef up the belay but the only gear that we could have got in, aside from the 2 equalized TriCams he had in moss and ice, would have been #2 circleheads

 

Luckily the next pitch was easy. I cruised up the finish of the gully then up a snow apron to the base of the final curtain and set a sheltered belay.

 

Steve took a long time to lead pitch 3. I belayed, freezing and wondering "why the fuck is this taking so long and why is he placing so many screws on such easy looking ice?" Well when i followed i found out. The screws were mostly junk (placed in crust over hollowness), and the WI3 curtain was thin, hollow and sketchy . Exposure was also high here, both psychologically (long way down view) and physically (see below) to ice fall.

 

I should mention here, a beatuful, rainbow-type Sundog appeared overhead while looking up this pitch. Very nice.

 

At the top of the curtain, and below the final pillar, Steve had traversed left into the trees, instead of climb the finishing 10m pillar. When I got close to it I saw why. One of the worst, most skanky looking chunks of rotten ice I have ever seen. Huge cauliflowers, rotten and melting, blobbed on any which way to a 2" thick shield of ice with visible air and running water behind. The lip on top looked to involve rotten, crusted snow. All in all Steve seemed to have made the right call in not attempting it (not to mention he had run out of screws because we had expected alpine type climbing and only brought 8).

 

When I reache Steve's belay we decided to rap. At this point we found out we only had 2 bail slings due to a misunderstanding, and both were short Abalakov type lengths. We tied the longer one around a little tree and rapped back down to the top of pitch 2. We Abalakoved again and rapped ending up at the end of the ropes and still 25-30m off the ground, with no slings. I built a screw anchor, Steve rapped down to the ground, grabbed some slings and sent them up on the rope. I then built a double Abalakov (the ice was bad enough I didn't trust single untested one), equalized it and rapped off. Getting this set up, actually took quite a lot of time, trying to find enough solid ice to drill 2 sets of 2 holes in.

 

Well, we packed up and decided to head out. I dont think i mentioned yet, that i forgot my headlamp, and it was now 5:30 PM. on the bouns side of things the sunset on the west faces of the "skaeP redroB" was beautiful with pefect alpenglow.

 

The hike out was also quite a slog. Involved lots of steep side hill type bushwacking. Once it got dark, having 2 people bushwack by the light of 1 tikka made for enjoyable route finding. eventually we could tell we had crossed back into Canada when we saw old stumps and realized we had swapped old growth for dense pack second growth and brush. I spent at least half of the last hour crawling on all 4s under and over snow covered logs mixed with alder and devils club. However, we were back at the car by 8 PM, so it only took 2.5 hours out vs 4-4.5 in

 

Now did we climb a new route or not? Certainly no one had climbed this ice before. However, we did not climb the crux final 10m pillar due to conditions. So perhaps we only made an unsuccessful attempt -'If you dont do the crux you havent do the route ". Nonetheless we named our "route":

 

CROSS BORDER SHOPPING WI3R 140m. Because

 

1) Serl already called a route with a similar approach "Illegal Entry"

2) We snuck in and pillaged some unclimbed American ice!!!

 

If you want to know where exactly the Chestbeating, Gaper Secret Ice is, spell the place names backwards!!!!

 

There is potential for at least a dozen routes in this area: most of the other routes on the NE facet looked like they would be at least WI5/ M7 ("hard" and scary looking to me ) , but the E face seems, seen from a distance to have snow couloirs and maybe some more moderate ice lines.

 

[chucK]

! eciN

[layton]

Sweet Dude! I always wondered about potential around the Border Peaks in Winter after staring at American Border Peak from the Baker Ski Area.

 

Someone should make a list of the unclimbed lines that folks aren't keeping secret and make it a sticky. Dru, you've got lots of free time...

[Dru]

you mean the "skaeP redroB"

[Dru]

The Ska EP Red Rob sounds like some sorta music sampler you get with a burger at red robin, not the name of a pair of mountains spelled backwards

[JoshK]

Cool TR. Sounds like you guys had fun. I'll be contacting GWB shortly to have our american ice patrolled by dudes with M-16s and air support.

[Dru]

if only there was a viable non technical route out of tamihi creek basin to the american road network there would be a mule trail made by young men toting 80 liter backpacks full of the long green and then the approach would only take an hour.

[JoshK]

Dru said:

if only there was a viable non technical route out of tamihi creek basin to the american road network there would be a mule trail made by young men toting 80 liter backpacks full of the long green and then the approach would only take an hour.

 

Yeah, and I'd also have a favorite new place to meet hike to and pick up the good stuff cheap.

[jordop]

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Edited June 15, 2021 by jordop

[Dru]

I found out there IS a viable route out of the basin something like High Pass to Garget Mine. who wants to meet me and exchange backpacks this summer. yours can be full of money. mine will also be full of green.

 

Beckey doesnt need to quote prospectors, anybody who climbs Border Peaks sees the waterfalls on this face.

 

Research indicates every route on the N side of the mountain was made by a Canadian party that's a long history of plundering American routes

[specialed]

Dru said:

if only there was a viable non technical route out of tamihi creek basin to the american road network there would be a mule trail made by young men toting 80 liter backpacks full of the long green and then the approach would only take an hour.

 

Maybe technical route is good. I'd lead WI5 M7 for a haulbag filled with "BC kush." Better than buying it from some sketchy Canmoran.