Brothers Traverse

[seacker]

Has anyone done the traverse between South and North Brothers?

Also, anyone been up South Brother latelt?

[Stefan]

I have done the traverse. I don't know if we did it right though.

 

We dropped down NE off the South Brother (one or two rappels necessary) into the basin. Traversed north to the North Brother in the basin. Went up a couloir and then went climbers left to the summit of the North Brother. The last section of the North Brother was either class 4 or low class 5 and we did use a rope. This was many years ago so my memory is foggy. We then thought going straight downhill to the East Fork of Lena Creek would go back to camp. Wrong. It did go, but we had something like 3 full length double rappels where there were semi waterfalls occurring on both sides of us. I did NOT like those rappels. We should have headed more north to the headwaters of Lena Creek to head down. Lena Creek was the standard brush bash back to camp.

[seacker]

Yeah, I was actually thinking of the traverse between the two peaks along the ridge that separates the two. The Oly Mtn Guide says this is a jaunty II 4.

Thanks for the beta on the descent from the North Peak...it sounds like something to be avoided.

[Norman_Clyde]

I got a good look at most of the traverse in May, and was impressed at the steepness of it. The first portion I couldn't see from the S. summit due to cornice risk. The next portion was a very appealing airy snow traverse W. of a steep spire, a couple hundred yards of 60 degree snow. Once past there, it was more like 45 to 50 degree snow, but very exposed to steeper drops below. At that time it did not look like any rock work was even an option, but I'm sure it looks way different now.

[Flying_Ned]

I spent the night on S Brother last Friday. My original plan was to traverse into the basin from Lunch Rock, but the cloud layer sat at 5000 feet most of the afternoon and I got caught in a dead end chimney and never made it over. Route finding was problematic in the poor visibility. After retreating to the coulior the ceiling started to lift so I climbed to the summit and enjoyed a spectacular night. Getting down to the N-S ridge is a little dicey without a rope (loose gravel over sloping ledges) but can be done if you're nervy. I dropped down about 75 feet and bailed since I was solo and it was loose. There was a recent avalance with large snow boulders in the base, but everything looked very solid. The traverse does stay high and is fairly exposed. Class 4 might be a bit of a sandbag this time of year. We did it in early May with several pickets and found it pretty time consuming for such a short traverse.

 

Stefan's recollection seems like a combination of the ridge and the basin traverse. Once you drop into the basin, as he did, you can skirt the obvious buttress and take a direct line almost to the N summit on 40-45 degree snow. A straightforward class 3 scramble of 100 feet or so takes you right to the top, which is a pinnacled ridge.

 

I'd say a single double rope rap will get you off the S summit in good shape to decide which option to take. The low traverse into the basin could be done in an hour or so. Not sure about the ridge. But I highly recommend the excellent bivy (3-4 people) just east of the S summit.

[kklimber]

I did the Brothers Traverse (N to S) about 12 years ago. In May. It is spectacular and a early season route. Through a notch into the Great Eastern Basin, traverse, and then up 55-60 degree hard snow to the summit. Into the notch, traverse across basin (initially) and up to summit are exposed. The traverse itself consists of a knife-edge ridge, some scrambling around a notch (I think many go astray here), and then up 55 degree exposed snow to the S. summit. We never slowed down enough to pull out the ropes. The traverse itself took about 2 hours. Round trip from high camp about 4 1/2. It is classic. Becky describes it well: "sporty".