daylward Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 I did some serious slacking last week, so as of the time I went to Forrest's party on Friday night I still had no plans or partners for what I really wanted to be another fine weekend in the Cascades... but I knew the chances were high that I'd find what I was looking for at the party. Sure enough, Colin was there, and he was making noises about Redoubt, so I signed up. Saturday morning he picked me up at 8 and we whipped up to the Chilliwack valley (getting some food at Currency Disemboweler on the way), only to find a ranger setting up a road block just past Chilliwack Lake Prov. Park. "Fire danger" she said, as she stapled a notice declaring the same onto the barricade. Plan B - Cascade-Johannesburg Couloir. We drove up to the Cascade Pass parking lot and looked across at Johannesburg. Very thin! The whole middle section was free of any water in its solid state, and plenty in its liquid state. Colin spied a line up the cliff to the right of the deepest part of the couloir... the idea being to get onto the sill glacier and traverse leftward above the lower couloir and link up to the upper couloir. We had no rope and it looked a little sketchy for my liking. Plan C - N face of Buckner. I'd done this before, but Colin hadn't, and I didn't mind doing it again. So we left the car at 4:00 am, carrying our heavy boots (I had my plastics) but wearing lightweight hikers. We got to the moraine camp on Sahale Arm by 6:00, where we switched to boots and ditched our shoes. I expressed concern about snafflehounds eating our shoes, so we decided to erect Colin's ski poles in the rocks and hang our shoes from the straps. We talked to a weird dirty guy in blue who was camping by himself. He asked if we were mountain climbers. He said he saw some people climb "that one" (pointing at Sahale) the previous day. He wanted to give us food. Colin didn't want to carry any more food; he already had too much. I remained silent. The summit of Sahale was brisk, the S. face of Boston was snow-free and choss as usual, the Boston glacier was not as broken up as I had feared, but we did have to do a little interesting route finding. The N. face of Buckner looked a little worse for the wear. Ended up not being too difficult to get past the large bergschrund, and we were surprisingly able to stay on ice the entire way. There was a section in the middle that was really solid water ice, and part that was a frozen slurry of gravel and dirt, which did not provide for good tool placements. When we arrived on the summit there was a guy poking his head over the top asking if the N. Face would be a good ski in the winter. Colin said it had been skied once, a couple years ago... Descent = super scree-o-matic. Less snow than the first time I'd done it in October a few years ago, so only a very small amount of glissading to be had. After much tediousness we regained Sahale Arm and our shoe monument. I was looking forward to getting out of those clunky boots, however, there was one problem: My shoes were gone!!! Colin's were still there hanging from the ski poles, but mine had clearly been untied and taken. They were not new; actually they were starting to get fairly worn out, and they were not the most expensive shoes (I'd only paid $35 for them), but someone apparently liked them anyway. So we ran down the trail (me in my blister-riffic boots) talking to everyone we passed trying to figure out who had them, and in the end I think it was the dirty blue guy that we talked to in the morning. I hope karma gets him back. Quote
slothrop Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 Parking lot to moraine camp in two hours? You guys are fast! Bummer about the shoes, though... Quote
mtngrrrl Posted August 27, 2003 Posted August 27, 2003 Nice report! Were you the 2 guys in the parking lot on Saturday hanging out discussing various subjects like "capillary training"? We were the 2 who cooked dinner at the blue minivan before taking off. Bad, bad weird dirty guy in blue. Quote
wayne Posted August 27, 2003 Posted August 27, 2003 I had the same Chilliwak closure shit when I first went after Bear pk. Shitty gear thieves! Quote
daylward Posted August 27, 2003 Author Posted August 27, 2003 Nice report! Were you the 2 guys in the parking lot on Saturday hanging out discussing various subjects like "capillary training"? We were the 2 who cooked dinner at the blue minivan before taking off. Aha, that was you! You look exactly like your avatar image, I should have recognized you in the parking lot. Um, you weren't supposed to hear that capillary training stuff... That's classified. You didn't hear anything else, did you? Quote
mtngrrrl Posted August 27, 2003 Posted August 27, 2003 My lips are sealed. You look exactly like your avatar image, I should have recognized you in the parking lot. Ditto, but your nose is smaller than I thought it would be. Glad you had a good climb, except for the shoe deal. Quote
ncascademtns Posted August 27, 2003 Posted August 27, 2003 mtngrrrl said: Nice report! Were you the 2 guys in the parking lot on Saturday hanging out discussing various subjects like "capillary training"? We were the 2 who cooked dinner at the blue minivan before taking off. Bad, bad weird dirty guy in blue. Dirty Blue Guy Dirty Blue Van ? Hey, Mtngrrrl, Were those shoes a size 11? NF Buckner, excellent climb!! Quote
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