mountainguy01 Posted June 17, 2004 Posted June 17, 2004 (edited) Climb: Forbidden Peak-West Ridge Date of Climb: 6/16/2004 Trip Report: What a great climb! A friend and I left the parking lot (MP 22) at 4:30 am and headed up the road and up into Boston Basin. For the most part, the basin is still completely snow and nearby routes up Sahale look awesome. The gully going up to the west ridge was in great shape and we were fortunate to have two other in front of us kicking steps the entire way up. There is a hard layer of snow on top with a nice deep wet snow a foot below. Note: the gully is horrible when the snow is soft. Once on the ridge, the first "pitch" is completely snow and about 15% of the route is still snow, though someone might be able to argue with me. The picture in Selected Climbs V.1 of the summit is exactly what it looked like on Wednesday. We were planning on descending the East ledges, but most of the ledges were snow covered so we decided to down climb/rappel the west ridge (what a tedious task) and then rappel the chimneys west of the snow gully. Besides getting the rope stuck on the west ridge descent and rapping down a wrong gully, the trip was great with fantastic weather. There were two other parties on the route, one of which was a photographer. Overall, a great route, and easily doable in a day. Upon arriving back to the car there was a note from the NPS stating the road would be closed further down at ~MP 19.5, and it looks like they are beginning to fix the washouts. Gear Notes: Small rack 60m Rope (wish to have had a 70m) Approach Notes: Cascade River Road closed at MP 19.5 Edited June 17, 2004 by mountainguy01 Quote
erez Posted June 17, 2004 Posted June 17, 2004 Thanks for TR. Any pics? We are headed there this weekend. How bad was the downclimb of the ridge? Are there fixed anchors of some sort for the rapel of the chimney's west of the snow gully? Did you bring any snow protection for the gully (i.e. pickets?) Thanks in advance for any further info you can provide. Quote
mountainguy01 Posted June 17, 2004 Author Posted June 17, 2004 Hopefully pics will follow in a few days. We did not protect the snow gully at all, but that depends on your comfort level. Ascending the gully most parties went straight up into some 3/4 class scrambling with snow and ice, we went left and bypassed it all on a snowslope. There are plenty of anchors on the route, mostly OLD slings. There is one pin at the "crux". The first rap off the west side of the gully (note: the rap starts at the top of the gully and traverses west across the main gully, I believe Becky notes this route as the chimney route(?))required down climbing a short snow arete in very soft snow with a some exposure. A 70m rope would reach it, but we only had a 60m, thus having to downclimb to the first rap station. Also note that the the forth rap goes straight down from the anchors and not down the chimney. There are anchors all the way down the route and many should be replaced. Overall, the downclimb/rappel was just slow and tedious. Quote
JoshK Posted June 17, 2004 Posted June 17, 2004 MP19.5, wtf?! I didn't see any washouts below the mp21 closure. Quote
Dustin_B Posted June 17, 2004 Posted June 17, 2004 MP19.5, wtf?! I didn't see any washouts below the mp21 closure. I talked to a woman at the marblemount ranger station last week and she said CCR would be closed at MP 19.9 (there is a gate right after the pullout parking area for Eldorado that I would assume they shut) from around the end of June through August 15, but she thought the August 15 date was a bit opptimistic. Quote
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