Whack TR for Glacier Peak, Frostbite Ridge

[JayB]

I could still feel the psychic wounds inflicted by lugging a heavy-ass pack all the way to the base of the Kennedy Glacier last year, only to get beat back by a storm that unloaded about 16" on us overnight, so when I saw that the forecast called for deteriorating weather on Sunday, I knew that there was only one thing to do. Cancel and go sport-climbing. Unfortunately I had already committed to doing the $#@ing thing in a day over some beers earlier in the week, in order to capitalize on the good weather and avoid lugging another beast up the mountain as part of a three day trip. Not a big deal for some, but a surefire path into a quagmire of suffering for me. Despite these misgivings, and the fact that the route did, in fact, lead me into a quagmire of suffering, I actually enjoyed the route, and think it will go down as one of my best days in the mountains ever.

 

Here's the TR and some photos:

 

We left the car at 11:30 Friday night, and made it to the turn off for Kennedy Ridge (just before the Kennedy Hot Springs) at about 1:30, and were near the base of the Kennedy Glacier by about 4:30 or so. From here you can follow the trail to the base of the ridge that leads up to Kennedy Peak, or -at the moment - you can slog your way up a snow filled gulley. I'm not sure how much time we actually saved, but it looked like a shortcut to us, and since taking the path of leas effort has become something of a credo for me, we took it.

We dragged ourselves to the top of the ridge just before 6:00, and I got the stove ready so that we could start melting snow right away when my buddy got there with the pot. However, in one of our many collective blunders we managed to forget the pot, and reverted to filling the bladders with snow and setting them close to our backs within our packs to melt. Thankfully the weather was in a forgiving mood, and we felt reasonably confident that we could get away with a blunder of this magnitude. From there we made our way up the ridge, passing a large nunatak (or is it nunatek?) and Kennedy Peak on the left. From there it was a short walk to the col between the Vista and Kennedy Glaciers, where we arrived at around 8:30 or so. True to my predictions, we were storming this mountain light and slow as all hell. We roped up here because: 1) We packed a rope the whole damned way up there, and 2) We packed a rope the whole damned way up there. There were no open crevasses visible on the route, with the exception of a few fissures on the Vista Glacier side. So you could actually ditch the rope with minimal risk at this point, but we are a cautious bunch, and the rope actually provided me with the opportunity to let others drag me up the mountain. We were all about two hours away from any sort of a second wind at this point, so the climb up to the Rabbit Ears - which actually look more like a rabbit horn from below - was deathly slow. The pitch here is somewhere in the mid-thirty to mid-forty degree range here I'd guess, and the snow was fairly icy, but ascended easily enough if you have mastered the freedom technique with your crampons. We climbed with a running belay in this section.

 

We arrived at a small plateau about 100 feet below the rabbit horn at around 11:00 and took a breather until about 11:30, then headed up to the rabbit horn. We passed the horn/ears on the right, and once there discovered that while our route worked well enough, passing directly through the ears puts you on a marginally better path. We took a look at the final ridge to the summit and headed down the low third class choss to the ridge and made our way towards the summit. We looked back and suddenly the Rabbit Horn had magically transformed into the Rabbit's Ears. We took this as a good omen and continued on to the summit, and took the slow pace we set below to a whole new level, summiting at around 1:30 or so.

 

About 200 vertical feet below the summit ridge there is a brief section of snow to the left of some blue-glacial ice that checks in at about 50 degrees I'd guess (just right of the cornice in one of the photos above), that you'll need to climb to make it to the top, and I'd imagine that the snow will last for another two weeks to a month. One piolet is more than adequate right now, but if it that dissapears a third tool and a couple of screws will make most people a bit more comfortable I imagine. I took a third tool along and regretted it, but used it on this section to because...I packed the damed thing all that way and would use it on a 10 degree slope just to justify all of the effort it took to get it there. As you can see in this photo, the euphoria that resulted from attaining the summit left me feeling pretty energetic.

 

One benefit of descending via the Sitkum Glacier is the preponderance of bobsled worthy glissade paths that the teeming hordes on the Sitkum route leave in their wake. You can glissade right down to the camps in Boulder Basin on the moment. There are a gazillion convenience trails winding through the basin, all of which look more or less like the actual trail, but head to your right as you are descending and look for the john. Once you find that you are on the right path.

 

Even with a light pack the descent down the trail that leads out of Boulder Basin sucked in a massive way, and pretty much every joint below my waist was killing me by the time we made it down. I was just about to sooth my aching feet in the frigid, coliform bacteria laden effluent that runs out of Boulder Basin when we noticed a couple of black bear cubs and a large brown furry thing that looked suspiciously like a mama bear nearby. Thankfully for us, bears reputedly have a since of smell several thousand times as strong as our own, and I think that one whiff of my feet sent them all packing.

 

We went packing ourselves, setting the fastest pace we would muster, and cruised right past the junction that lead to Kennedy Hot springs. After just over an hour and three miles worth of steadily mounting denial, we confronted the fact that we were, in fact, a bunch of dumb-ass, no-sense-of-direction havin' mofos who had just tacked another 6.5 miles onto their day. It was just after 7:00 at this point, and had we played our cards right, we would have been back at the trailhead in just over an hour. As it were, we had close to four hours of suffering in front of us.

 

After this point the most interesting part of the hike out had to be the nonexistent things that we saw in the woods. We'd been up for close to 40 hours straight at that point, and I am told that when you go for too long without sleep your brain starts to transform ambiguous sensory data into patterns that it recognizes, even if the setting it puts them in makes no sense whatsoever. Between the three of us we saw a cottage (small cliff), a bear (stump), a school bus (not sure), industrial pipes (trees), a sign two miles away from Kennedy Hot Springs that clearly said "Kennedy Hot Springs (tree) a cabin (surprise - trees) and one or two other things. We limped back to the trailhead at around 11:00 or so, and I concluded that had the truck been a half a mile further I would have thrown a tantrum, refused to walk any further, and reverted to the fetal position while rocking back and forth, weeping, and sucking my thumb. As it were I sucked down a warm Budweiser for the analgesic effect and passed out 46 times while trying to keep the driver awake and dreamt about clipping bolts that were about four feet apart on a warm limestone cliff...

 

The End.

 

P.S. Lilly - where were you? We were the only one's on the route Saturday, and there was no boot-track! We needed those steps......

 

[catbirdseat]

Nice pictures. There's no way I could stay awake that long. I'd fall asleep on my feet. I've done that hallucination thing from lack of sleep and it is scary.

[Paco]

Nice work!

[Greg_W]

After this point the most interesting part of the hike out had to be the nonexistent things that we saw in the woods. We'd been up for close to 40 hours straight at that point, and I am told that when you go for too long without sleep your brain starts to transform ambiguous sensory data into patterns that it recognizes, even if the setting it puts them in makes no sense whatsoever.

 

THis was a very commonplace occurrence that Reinhold Messner talks about on many of his solo climbs. He held a running conversation with a young girl for two days, I think, on Nanga Parbat when he did it solo after his brother died.

[Ursa_Eagle]

I forget who and on what mountian, but some guy (not Messner) aborted his solo attempt on an 8,000 m peak when he realized he was having conversations with a 2000 year old woman. It was prolly smart to turn around at that point.

[vegetablebelay]

I wonder if he asked her age or if she just volunteered it.

[JoshK]

Haha... great TR Jay! Nice pics. I did that route a few weeks ago with skis and it's a beautiful tour of the mountain.

[robertjoy]

Five of us from Portland are planning to climb Glacier Pk/Kennedy Glacier this weekend, with bivy at Glacier Cr/PCT, near foot of Kennedy Glacier. Can you tell me if ground is snow-covered at this elevation, but most important, is there running water. We would prefer not to have to melt snow.

[JayB]

Plenty of running water in the gulley to the left of Kennedy ridge - the trail will take you right past it. There was patchy snow at this elevation, but pretty much everything is snow free until about 5400 feet, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of it is gone by the time you get up there. There's a great camp/bivy site at the last stand of trees (a clump of about 4 or 5) on Kenndy Ridge, that offers some shade and protection from the wind.

 

Have a nice trip.

[mothboy88]

Who drove after all that? Sounds sketchy.

[Dru]

I saw cabins and cars parked in the woods below Lake Ann on Shuksan once; I saw a huge mushroom growing out of the snow on Joffre

[Pencil_Pusher]

Good job! Hilarious and informative trip report!!

[mvs]

that was a great read, thanks for sharing!

A non-existant man in a red sweater helped me down to the Lower Saddle on our one-day climb of the Exum. Oddly, a similar imaginary figure helped my partner.