[TR] Boston Basin Area- Torment-Forbidden Traverse 7/25/2004

[adrianburke]

Climb: Boston Basin Area-Torment-Forbidden Traverse

 

Date of Climb: 7/25/2004

 

Trip Report:

My climbing partner (Lee) and I set out to spend four days starting last weekend in Boston Basin and climb some of the gems of the North Cascades. Our primary target was the Torment-Forbidden traverse. I had climbed the East Ridge Direct of Forbidden last year (16 hrs car-to-car) with my pal Ura and thought the Traverse looked like a great next “to do” on the checklist. Moderate alpine climbing along a very long ridge. In our usual “eyes bigger than our stomachs” attitude, we figured we’d hit the Traverse first, then follow up with Mount Buckner and/or Sahale and the Shark’s Fin.

 

Lee and I hiked up to Boston Basin early Saturday morning, trying to beat the heat of the day up to base camp. The hike was easier than I remember it being, though traversing the fallen trees/avalanche debris zone was still a pain in the ass. At least we weren’t doing it in the pitch dark this time! Got to Boston Basin camp in about 4 hours and spent a leisurely afternoon sunning, reading and swatting the continuous swarms of blue bottle flies. Ahhh… the joys of summer in the alpine.

 

Got up at 4:45AM on Sunday with a target of doing the Traverse in a day. Surprised a deer in the middle of camp in the dark – not sure who was more surprised to see the other! Oatmeal for breakfast before sunrise and started hiking West to the Taboo Glacier at 5:15, getting to the base of the South Ridge of Torment at 7AM. The South Ridge was definitely not the best part of the climbing. Inconsistent, scruffy and uninteresting – but it gets you to the start of the good stuff anyways. We had met some Mountain Madness climbers who had rapped the Southeast Face of Torment and thought that that might be a more interesting 5.7ish way to get up Torment…. YMMV.

 

Finally made our way to the top of Torment, with some minor route finding issues at about 9:45. Tons of loose rock on the gully up to the summit. We made our way from there to the beginning of the Traverse – an interesting rappel into a berschrund/moat on the North side of the ridge for the first snow bypass section. A committing step – reversing the moat would be tough to do, though not impossible. We made our way about halfway across the snow, then for various reasons to do with moats and crevasses, climbed a 40 meter pitch straight back up onto the rock ridge. If I had seen the pictures in the previous post…

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=373391

 

…we would have understood that we needed to go all the way to the end of the snow before heading up onto the rock. As it was, we added three pitches of rock on the South side of the ridge that led us to about the same place – the second snow bypass. As is the case in a lot of alpine climbs – there are many ways to get from A to B – we just added more time and effort and saw an entirely different side of the Traverse than most, but… it worked.

 

The second snow bypass was much more interesting. About 50 degree snow and what the picture doesn’t show -- a very long runout across rocks and crevasses to the base of the glacier a couple thousand feet below. Reasonably easy to traverse with crampons and an alpine ax, but worth being cautious with no pro to speak of. The end of the second snow bypass puts us close to halfway across the Traverse. But by that time we had burned 2/3 or our time – it was nearing 4:00PM – thanks to all the rappelling, route finding issues, crampons on and off three times, etc. Thankfully the rest of the ridge went much more quickly.

 

The second half of the Traverse is the reason to climb it, IMHO. Pitch after pitch after pitch of moderate, reasonably solid granite. Great exposure, beautiful views and fun climbing. Like the easier portions of the East Ridge Direct, but for endless pitches of climbing. The type of climbing that makes you grin compulsively. Longer than expected though… every time we topped a gendarme or tower, we thought we’d be near the base of Forbidden’s West Ridge, only to discover we still had many pitches to go. We simul’ed a lot of the climbing, but I estimated about 32 pitches if you pitched it all out, from the base of Torment’s South Ridge to the base of Forbidden’s West Ridge (inc. the side trip to the summit of Torment).

 

By the time we got to the top of the approach/descent gully at the base of the West Ridge of Forbidden, it was already 8:30PM. We debated bivying and doing the final 6 or 8 pitches in the morning, but in the end decided to simply descend back to Boston Basin. We were pretty exhausted at that point. Maybe we’d get up and do the West Ridge in the morning? Maybe not? Too bad too… as the West Ridge looked like even more of the same great climbing we had spent the last 4.5 hours on. Rappelled and down climbed the West Ridge snow gully and got back to our sleeping bags shortly after 11:00 PM. Descending the gully, glacier and rock bands right above camp was not the most straight-forward thing to do in the dark, never having been up them before. But, like I said earlier, there are multiple ways to get from A to B and we managed to find one of them.

 

Slept in the next morning and quickly realized that neither of us were particularly in any shape to slog our way 3 hours back to the base of the West Ridge, climb it and descend again. Screaming quads made it uncomfortable enough to wander over to filter water, never mind have another full day of climbing. Clearly we need more endurance training!! J In the end, we left the West Ridge itself for another day…. So the Traverse is only 90% complete for us. And there was no way we were going to tack Buckner onto this trip!! J

 

One Lesson Learned: The Torment-Forbidden Traverse is given a Grade IV+ rating for a reason. It is a very long climb. Without good route-finding skills, some luck and quite a bit of simul-climbing, you may want to plan for a bivy.

 

Second Lesson Learned: We only got a Boston Basin backcountry pass by sheer luck – someone was returning theirs right when we walked in to the Ranger Station Friday night. The last of the daily 6 group passes had all been given out very early on Friday. Maybe plan your trip to get there Thursday night? Otherwise, use the Torment Basin approach, which is steeper.

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Light packs, crampons, alpine axe, leather boots, rock shoes, single 8.8 mm rope, light rack (7 cams, one set of nuts).

[adrianburke]

I am not getting how to post my pictures into the TR itself. I put them in the gallery -

 

EDIT - Thanks jmace! Here are the pics...

 

Traverse from the approach - Torment on the far left - Forbidden on the far right:

 

 

Bivy in Boston Basin, below Sahale:

 

 

Lee on approach to Torment across Taboo Glacier (climbed South Ridge from the lowest notch on the left - summit is the left of the two):

 

 

Traverse from the Summit of Torment:

 

 

Lee rappeling into the moat at the beginning of the first snow bypass:

 

 

Second Snow Bypass:

 

 

Best part of the Traverse - the second half - with Forbidden at the end (and Mount Buckner in the distance on the right):

 

 

Adrian

Edited July 31, 2004 by adrianburke

[jmace]

all you do to put pictures in your post is go to the gallerey click on your picture, large size, right click on the picture,click on properties, copy the link ends in .jpg

 

go bact to your TR next to the gremlins is a link that says image, click on it paste your copied text from the gallerie into the window, hit ok and your done, repeat as many times as you like, if you have a MAC then I dont know how to do it.

 

J

[adrianburke]

Thanks jmace.... I edited my pic post and added the shots.

 

Adrian

[Billygoat]

Nice photos, good beta