[TR] North Twin Sister - West Ridge

[Blake]

I had a window of almost 48 free hours this weekend, during a period of good weather. This hasn't happened in months, so I was stoked to get out and do something in the mountains. A friend was eager for some alpine time as well, so we set our sight on the North Twin Sister SW of Baker.

 

We left Bellingham about 12:00 on Saturday morning and hit the gate over the Nooksack river about an hour later. We were a little unsure of what conditions to expect for the approach and climb, but decided on a small rock rack, a few pickets, ice axes, and crampons. I brought Randonee gear (my only footware), and my partner had snowshoes, although he never broke them out.

 

The snow starts right at the gate, and is continuous form 1.5 miles in. The story here was a thin sun-crust on southern exposures, and totally unconsolidated fluff on the northern aspects. All of the creek crossings were easy, and the streams mostly frozen over. The top layer of snow near water courses was a thorough covering of flakey frost crystals. Skinning up was very nice, and the clear skies and hot sun made it comfortable t-shirt weather... things would get consideraly colder that night.

 

We camped at the top of the clearcut on the end of the ridge, enjoyed our view, melted snow, and tried to keep our water bottles from freezing. The next morning we made an early alpine start of 8:30, and were soon climbed through bits of class 4 rock interspersed with loose powder. We were moving slowly, and taking our time in the sun, but my partner was not feeling very well, and we decided to stop at about 11AM. We did not rope up for any of this. We were both climbing in boots, which made the constant transitions from powder to rock slabs a little tricky. We made it to the second big gendarme on the ridge, before turning back. Just below the first gendarme we were able to find a snow gulley where we could single-rap down onto the loose snow of the north face. (Next person up there should booty my $10 mammut sling from the ridge crest).

From here it was an enjoyable plunge-step decent down powder, and back to our camp. The afternoon ski back to the car was fun, and made the trip out quick as well. Overall it was a fairly tame, yet really enjoyable weekend in the mountains. Bright and clear weather definitely contributed to a relaxed atmosphere.

 

Gear Notes: Used - Skinny Rope, slings, Randonee Gear.

Did Not Need - Pickets, crampons.

 

 

Thanks to Steddy and Frosty_the_tradman for route beta.

[AJScott]

Boy what a depressing winter. My friends and I were up there on the 15th and 16th of Jan, and it looks like there was more snow when we were up there! I put two photos in the gallery for comparison. Looks like you guys had a good time up there, I love that little range...I want get back up there and do some exploring around some of the smaller peaks to the south. Lots of interesting little peaks composed of some pretty neat rock.

 

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=5600

[Steddy]

glad you had a seemingly good experience despite the pessimistic beta. i bet without a rope and other beta, an epic wouldn't have been out of the question.

cheers!