[TR] Buckner - Sahale - Forbidden 6/28/2004

[swaterfall]

Climb: Buckner-NF Route - Sahale-Sahale Arm -Forbidden-West Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 6/28 - 30/2004

 

Trip Report:

My buddy Jerry called me last week and asked if I was interested in the North Face of Mt. Buckner. Since I'm new to the area I'd never heard of it but was immediately interested after looking at the Nelson Guide. We planned a trip for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday because the guide says that it can be a "strenuous 2-3" day trip.

 

After some delays meeting up in Burlington, finding a place to stash a car, getting the permit in Marblemount and last minute food shopping we got to the start of the approach at a little after 12. Our plan was this: Day 1 (half day) cruise up to Boston Basin and set up camp. Day 2 move over the Sahale/Boston col and onto the Boston glacier and camp under the NF route so that we could get on it when the snow was still hard enough to climb. Day 3 climb Buckner and head out to the car.

 

The road is closed at mile 20 and the trail head is at mile 22.5. When we reached the trail head we realized that we'd overestimated the approach. We hiked faster than I thought we would and were sitting on the Quien Sabe glacier at a little after 4. We thought that the snow would be too soft to cross the glacier, but once we got going we realized that it wasn't too bad so we just kept going up.

 

We moved fairly quickly to the top of the glacier only encountering difficulty when a chunk off of a bridge collapsed as I crossed the huge 'schrund on the Quien Sabe.

 

We rested at the col between Sahale and Boston peaks and took a look at Buckner for the first time. What a sweet mountain. Rising up out of the Boston glacier its sides drop steeply in all visible directions. We now realized that we would be on the route a full day ahead of our schedule.

 

We scrambled on 3rd class rock to access the Boston glacier and after Jerry popped in a hole up to his waist we decided that we'd gone far enough and found a nice bivy spot about half way across the glacier next to the ridge between Boston peak and Mt Buckner. We brewed up made dinner and crashed out at around 10pm.

 

At 4am we crawled out of our bivy sacks and started the stove. We both took and little too long getting ready and we were off at 5:30. The route finding was slightly problematic across the glacier as we didn't want to give up too much elevation. This took us into a broken-up area that we probably should have avoided by going lower. It cost us some time back tracking.

 

At 6:30 we had crossed the lowest of three 'schrunds and were on the climbing route. We had discussed doing the NF couloir route, but decided against it due to the time of day and the fact that there were two large 'schrunds guarding access to the couloir.

 

We could see some old tracks that went up and left across three huge runnels left from lord only knows what falling off of the top of the peak. These runnels were up to 4 feet deep and very icy. They were interesting to cross.

 

We proceeded with a running belay, following the tracks and placing one picket per rope length on our 30m rope. The snow was just a touch on the soft side on the bottom of the route, but we made excellent progress, only stopping to swing leads. We encountered about 20 meters of unconsolidated, sugary snow about 2/3rds of the way up the route but that soon changed. The top 100 meters was probably some of the most enjoyable climbing I've done. Very firm, steep snow and the scenery was awesome. We topped out at 9:00 on the dot and spent about 30mins looking around and reading the summit log entries and wondering how both of us had managed to forget our cameras.

 

In our jubilation for smiting 24 hours ahead of schedule we talked about how we were gong to relax in camp that afternoon and how nice it would be... hubris.

 

We descended the south west side of Buckner and thankfully the snow had not softened too much. Once we dropped to about 7000ft we began side-hilling right to contour around horseshoe basin. The guide here is particularly accurate and we had little trouble locating the 'short gully' at 6400ft which led us to class 3 and 4 scrambling to gain Sahale Arm.

 

From here we had a long (felt endless) trudge up the Sahale glacier topped off by a butt-puckering scramble up the 3rd? class loose-as-shit rock with full packs and ski poles sticking out getting snagged on everything to gain Sahale Peak, our second summit of the day. We were on top a little after three. A full six hours after summiting Buckner. It took us much longer to traverse Horseshoe basin and gain Sahale Arm than I thought it would.

 

We pussed it and rapped off the summit of Sahale and then blasted down the Quien Sabe. We had both been out of water for a while so we stopped and guzzled multiple liters out of a snow melt flow near the bottom of the glacier.

 

After coming off the glacier we spent about an hour looking for the high camp in Boston Basin. We finally found it and spent a nice evening chasing marmots away from our smelly gear.

 

Up to this point we had only vaguely discussed the fact that we might have a full extra day to spend in Boston Basin. Jerry had a cat-sitter for another day still and I basically have no life so we decided to give the West Ridge of Forbidden a go.

 

We hadn't brought much rock gear. No shoes other than our boots and we had one pink, one red, one brown and two blue tri-cams and a super light 30 meter rope. We figured that we would climb the couloir and gain the ridge and if we got sketched out we would just bail.

 

We were up at 5:30 and moving at 6:30. The snow had not hardened up at all that night which made us even more happy that we had done Buckner the previous day. Soft snow on that route could be really dangerous.

 

Without all of our bivy and ice gear we moved pretty fast. At least it felt better to move without all of that weight on my back. We were well up into the couloir by 7:30 and could see one party on the ridge proper, but no one else. The couloir is already pretty melted out and there is a large hole developing about a third of the way up. The snow will not be there much longer.

 

We ditched our crampons and axes on a ledge below the notch and climbed a 4th class chimney to the notch. We proceeded with a running belay along the ridge, slinging horns and placing the tri-cams where possible. The route was almost completely snow free. We pitched out the crux step and continued with running belays to the summit. We encountered the other party on the west summit as they were descending. They were a party of three from Seattle who had bivied at the notch the night before. They were the only ones at the notch that night, lucky dogs.

 

We sat on our third summit in approximately 24 hours and were treated to a grand view of Buckner, Eldorado, Goode, Shuksan, Baker, Glacier, Johannesburg... it's just spectacular up there.

 

We descended via down climbing and very short (15m) raps. We soon caught up to the other party who had gotten one of their ropes caught on a flake. We helped them free it and they offered to let us rap down the couloir with them. Very cool! We were not too excited about down climbing the slushy mank and gratefully accepted their offer. Those guys were super nice.

 

Back to camp and of course the marmots won in the end. They chewed the face out of my bivy sack and put a hole in my sleeping bag. Damn rodents! They had even pulled one of Jerry's poles all of the way into their burrow so they could gnaw on the cork grips at their leisure.

 

Back at the car a few hours of trudging later and we cracked the ice cold beers that we had stashed in the river three days before to cap off a really great three days in the North Cascades.

 

-S

 

 

Gear Notes:

30m 8mm rope

 

4 pickets - used 'em

 

4 ice screw - didn't use 'em

 

5 tri-camps - used 'em

 

shoulda had anti-marmot camp guadring robot

 

Approach Notes:

Huge 'schrund on Quien Sabe glacier is almost fully open.

 

West Ridge coulior on Forbidden is melting fast.

[Pandora]

Right on, Mr. D! Sounds like a fun trip despite those devious marmots.

[DonnV]

Good job guys! You made the most of three days. Nice TR, Seth. And now you know that a camera is the One Essential in that area!

[terrible_ted]

Those tracks across the avy chute were ours - we left them on Saturday. The avy triggered around 5:45am Saturday morning and left us a little unnerved from our mid-Boston Glacier high camp. It went continuously for about 45 seconds. We traversed the Boston pretty high on the ridge, which allowed us to avoid losing much elevation. Nice climb!

[AaronB]

Up to this point we had only vaguely discussed the fact that we might have a full extra day to spend in Boston Basin. Jerry had a cat-sitter for another day still and I basically have no life so we decided to give the West Ridge of Forbidden a go.