Approach to N. Face of Maude

[Necronomicon]

I managed to maul the approach last summer, dropped down from the col and cut towards the face, but got stuck above some cliff bands. We could see the glacier under the face, but couldn't descend. How far down from the col should you drop before you begin to work towards the face?

[genepires]

Same thing happened to me last year. Seems like you have to descend all the way to the valley floor. Amazing how morning sun that face gets for being a "north face". Must me more east than north.

[layton]

Hey Necro, Gene. Just go straight up to the col btw 7-fingered jack and maude. Don't follow the nice trail. It gets really shitty though.

I thought it seemed E.Facing too. I swam most of it.

BRING A BIKE!!!!! (screw the rules)

[mattp]

I did that traverse from the Seven Fingered Jack col many years ago, in October, and found a lot of very loose talus and some dicy downclimbing but overall I would say it was no worse than many scrambles in the Cascades and it seemed to me the route was more or less obvious. However, many people have trouble with this, and I think it is because it is exposed and scary -- did I say it is littered with junk? Here are two trip reports that describe successful crossings:

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000110

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000115

In my opinion, the North Face of Maude is an outstanding climb because of where it takes you but not because of the climbing. The Entiat cirque is deep in the North Cascades wilderness but not really all that hard to get to, it is absolutely beautiful, and the summit views are outstanding. However, if you are looking for an ice climb, expect to be disappointed. Even at the end of the season I found firm neve snow (not ice) all the way to the final wind roll, and that final roll was no more than two hundred feet high (probably less), sloping up to a final twenty feet at perhaps fifty degrees. It was plenty exciting, and the top-out was great, but it just wasn’t an “ice climb” if you compare it to any of the standard ice climbs in the Canadian Rockies.

[klenke]

Little known fact?...

The sun actually rises north of east in the summertime due to curvature of the earth. Remember on June 21 the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees toward the Sun. Plus, the Entiat ice face does face just slightly east of north.

[ 03-24-2002: Message edited by: klenke ]