[TR] Mount Redoubt- Redoubt Glacier, South Route 7/5/2004

[off_the_hook]

Climb: Mount Redoubt-Redoubt Glacier, South Route

 

Date of Climb: 7/5/2004

 

Trip Report:

A long story without pictures because I don't have a digital camera, but I will try to scan some photos and post them in a few days.

 

Seven of us packed into two vehicles left the Seattle area around 6 am. We drove up the Depot Creek as far as we could (about 1 mile). It turns out the crux of the road was just above where we parked. Had we continued, the road improved for over a mile before a major washout that is impassable. Fortunately, the weather here was dry and we knew the forecast was calling for an improving trend through Monday.

 

We saddled our packs and hiked up the road for a mile and a half and then the abandoned logging road for another two miles to the border. After the border, the climbers path runs along Depot Creek meandering up and down in old growth forest for about 3 miles.

 

Three miles in from the border, the way begins to ascend to the base of the falls. The “unforgettable” falls with the 8 foot rock step at the base is definitely something I will remember. The wet, slippery rock and mist shooting off the falls definitely makes the move interesting. At the top of the headwall, in which 1,000 feet is gained in a very short distance, the way becomes flat and we see our first view of Redoubt.

 

After walking through the meadows we ascended the final 1,000 vertical through talus to Ouzel Lake. We camped out at Ouzel Lake the first night. The sky cleared just after sunset, but we found ourselves socked in the following morning. Dampened a bit by the weather, we slept in till 10 am at which point the clouds began to break up. Three members of the group decided to go for Spickard and the rest, including me, went for Redoubt.

 

Ascending the rock ledges to the foot of the Redoubt Glacier was fun and the right side of the glacier was benign making for a quick trip to the 7,800 foot col just under Redoubt’s massive flying buttress which is almost vertical and even overhanging in some parts. The glacial plateau of the Redoubt Glacier is an amazing setting with Twin peaks, Redoubt, and Spickard across the valley. By this point, the weather had cleared to where we could see the Pickets and other points south. At the col, we decided to wait to climb Redoubt via the south route till Monday morning because we knew the weather was improving and made camp in a small snow bowl sheltered by the rocks. The north face of Bear was especially cool to look at. Just after the sun set, the clouds lowered into the valleys providing us with excellent views.

 

The night was clear and cold with nearly a full moon providing ample light. The sunrise in the morning was unforgettalbe as all the clouds had disappeared except for a little low valley fog. We began the ascent up the south cirque of Redoubt soon after sunrise stopping to take pictures of the Pickets in the soft morning light. The route up to the summit was fairly straight forward. The gully system was slightly chossy and the final rock section involved some fourth class moves. We made the summit at 9am and chilled until about 10 am reveling at the panorama from the Pickets to Slesse to garibaldi and other points in the BC coast range. After rapping off the summit and down climbing the gully, we found that the snow in the cirque had softened making for great plunge stepping and glissading all the way back to camp.

 

We made it back to camp at about 12:30 and packed it up. We cruised down the glacier and took the shortcut down to Depot Creek. The crossing of Depot Creek gave me a rush, especially because I had no poles to give me balance. By the time we made it down to the base of the unforgettable falls, we were all tired. The final 6.5 miles out were definitely forgettable, but renewed energy after the border crossing allowed us to finish the hike out quickly arriving at the car exhausted at 9:15 pm. Pizza in Chilliwack at midnight and back home at 3 am.

 

The Redoubt/Spickard area is an amazing, wild place. The morning view of the Pickets is the best I have seen in the cascades. All of our cameras got a good workout on this trip! The company on the trip was fun. Thanks for the good times! I will definitely return to the Redoubt/Spickard area in the future and I look forward to getting a close-up view of the Pickets soon.

 

Gear Notes:

standard glacier equipment

each of us had a picket but never used it

 

Approach Notes:

Trail overgrown in sections, a few major blowdowns to traverse, road is rough but passable for high clearance vehicles until washout about .5 mile before junction. Not too much snow left at Ouzel Lake, the lake is almost melted out. Redoubt Glacier still largely crevasse free and most of the south route up Redoubt is still snow covered making for easy travel.

Edited July 7, 2004 by off_the_hook

[Dru]

nice but i don't think you can really see garibaldi from redoubt! post the pic

[off_the_hook]

yeah... i don't know if i took pictures of those peaks far off in the distance to the northwest, we'll see. I guess you'd know more about what you can see from peaks around there, but the visibility was excellent to the north. We saw your name in the summit registry. Nice climb!

[klenke]

From Hard Mox on Monday (the same day these yahoos were doing Redoubt) there was definitely something high and snowy off to the northwest in Canada. Since it was a peak in Canada, I didn't bother photographing it . It was not too many degrees of angle north of Vancouver's position, or so it appeared to me.

[Dru]

i wouldnt be surprised if what you were seeing was judge howay.

[AJScott]

Is it a lot faster climbing redoubt from canada? I have wanted to go up there for a while, but I havent really done a lot of research on it other than the approach from the states...

[Timcb]

Is it a lot faster climbing redoubt from canada? I have wanted to go up there for a while, but I havent really done a lot of research on it other than the approach from the states...

 

Absolutely. without question. unless there's a beautiful path leading up indian creek, going up depot creek is definitely the way to go. On my recent trip up that way, we bushwhacked down Bear Ck on the way to challenger and that schwack nearly crushed us. It took us over 7 hrs to go what we figured couldn't have been more than 3.5 miles. The upper part of the valley wasn't bad- a good bit of mature forest we could cruise through. But lower down- oh the misery! it's not even that we had to deal with miles of slide alder. Yes, there were patches, but the way bear ck got us was with its tall pile ups of blow down and thickets of devils club. but mostly just the blow down in a tight, steep walled little canyon (as it is near the bottom). I think it would take at Least a full days travel to get from the chilliwack river up to bear lake. and it would not be fun.

 

Depot Ck, in comparison, is a highway. Just make sure you get and stay on the proper trail. My buddy and I (each wearing 75lb plus packs) spent 2.5 hrs schwacking through stinging nettles, slide alder, thick brush, swamp, vine maple, devils club and associated other sharp and painful plants. We almost bailed on a phenomenal 9 day adventure before even getting started.

 

Anyone else have similar/different experiences?

[klenke]

Tim, where did you lose the right trail on the Depot Creek approach? Was it at the road portion in Canada where the roads split--you forgetting to take the uphill fork? Just curious.

[Timcb]

Yeah- I think it must have been right from the get-go, where we parked my truck at the Major washout/road impasse. We knew we needed to keep going up and left one or two more times, but when we crossed the dry creek/washout, we found the road continued straight ahead and so took that till it completely petered out without seeing another fork. My hunch is that the washout coincides with a road fork and that we had lost the correct way as soon as we shouldered our packs.

 

Don't do as I did. The bushwhacking we suffered through was horrifying. We zigzagged up and down as we tried to make progress up-valley, falling into crotch deep mud near the river, wading up-creek, and brush-thrashing until we were mentally and physically exhausted. It left our arms shredded and our pants torn, dirt stained, blood stained AND grass stained. When we finally ungritted our teeth and spoke, we immediately agreed to give up. Those were the worst hours of the whole trip.

 

However, once we dropped packs, I wanted to go look uphill just a bit further. Light on my feet, I headed uphill, under the cover of a small stand of cedars. After maybe a hundred more meters, I'd found the trail- plain as day. Once on the trail, it was 15 minutes of cruising to the border.

 

And across the border, oh what a difference in the veg! Walking through the mature, native forest of the Park, as compared to the thick brush of logged-to-oblivion BC was like heaven and hell.

[klenke]

For everyone's information, here is a map I made of the approach to the Depot Creek Trail.

[Dru]

I saw grizzly tracks right at the point where the upper red x is

[klenke]

i wouldnt be surprised if what you were seeing was judge howay.

Here you go, Dru. What are the peaks circled? I think these are the ones off_the_hook was talking about.

[Dru]

thats the cheam range - pp. 144 -150 red beckey

[AJScott]

wow, thanks for all the great info. Maybe I will have to bumb Redoubt up on the list of things to do for this summer...This web page is great, I have got so much info for climbs that you just cant get from a guide book

 

thanks guys

[off_the_hook]

Here are some photos taken with my non-digital, point and shoot Pentax...

 

Evening light on the Pickets

 

Post-sunset glow over the Pickets

 

Baker and Shuksan at sunrise.

 

Early morning shot of Pickets from south cirque of Redoubt.

 

 

 

 

Late morning sun.

[ivan]

morning camp pic is sweet...kinda like a bunch of random drunken farmers tring to figure out what the hell is going on.

[AJScott]

ahhhhh.....great photogs! Now I really want to get up in that area!

[mikeL]

Is it a lot faster climbing redoubt from canada?....

This wasn't always the case and I think this is why older guidebooks list access via the US side. First of all that logging road up Depot Ck from Chilliwack is relatively new. That's why the brush is still so bad on the Canadian side as it's still new growth. Some friends and I know this brush very well, I'll get to that later. Another reason it used to be better from the US side is that there was a fire on Indian Creek in the 70's and the fire trail made for easy access for years but now the old fire is really brushy.

 

A few years ago 2 friends and i attempted the Depot Creek access. Then we could drive to the end of the road. Our mistake was heading straight off the end of the road as I see from the above map. Thanks!! Anyway after a couple of hours of flailing around and only getting maybe an optimistic 1/2 mile we bailed and opted for Hanging Lake instead. We got off the flagged route and ended up bushwhacking straight up the border as we knew we couldn't miss the lake that way. The route it turns out curves around to the north. Guess I better give Depot Creek another try. Did you guys see the water fall?

[Timcb]

A few years ago 2 friends and i attempted the Depot Creek access. Then we could drive to the end of the road. Our mistake was heading straight off the end of the road as I see from the above map. Thanks!! Anyway after a couple of hours of flailing around and only getting maybe an optimistic 1/2 mile we bailed

 

...

 

Did you guys see the water fall?

 

Yeah, we were very, very close to bailing as you did.

 

and the waterfall? you mean this one?

 

Yeah, best waterfall I've ever seen was hard to miss.

[klenke]

Your picture almost doesn't do the waterfall justice. It is incredible and aesthetic. On our way out on Tuesday morning after the heat of the sun the day before and light rain that morning, the waterfall was noticeably more boisterous. On the way down to its base I actually feared the water flow could be so heightened that the path down the wet step would me inundated or unusable. Fortunately this proved not to be the case. Mark and I both managed to downclimb the step without use of a rope, but it was definitely sketchy.

 

Here are two more pics of the waterfall last summer (upper half and lower half):