Hacknig away at Sloan...

[daylward]

Forrest and I didn't get going until 9:00 on Saturday morning... We didn't have to stop anywhere on the way up there though because we thought we already had all the stuff we usually have to stop to get at times like that - food, batteries, gas, etc. The Mtn. Loop Highway started being snowy in places just outside of Darrington; that was surprising to me given how little snow there has been this season. We drove all the way to where the road was closed for the winter, just past Bedal township, then realized that was actually too far instead of not far enough (the USGS map shows the road to the trailhead on the south side of the creek, whereas it actually is on the north side), so we backtracked about a half mile and turned up this little logging road. I'd been up there before, several years ago (in the summer), but Forrest had actually never been into Sloan that way, but I assured him it was familar (aside from the snow. but that was understandable). The road was not plowed nor were there any car tracks up it (only old snow machine tracks); there were probably 6-8 inches of re-frozen snow on most of it. But my Subaru with its 4 studded tires basically blasted right through it... though there were a couple places that were a little sketchy! We finally got to a flat spot before a corner that was really drifted in, so I decided to stop there. It was about noon when we loaded up our packs and started hiking... about a mile up the road (two more switchbacks) to the trailhead, then 4 (?) miles of untracked trail (which we could identify by cut logs poking out of the snow here or there). Soon the sunlit W. face of Sloan came into view, and we saw on it some glorious ice! From our angle we couldn't tell if it connected all the way to the bottom though. We'd have to see what it looked like when we got there. The sun was just setting when we finally reached a suitable campsite right beneath the face. My yellow Dribbler was soon erected, followed by the standard satisfying meal of couscous-curry-parmasean, mmm! Forrest took up more than his share of the tent. Bastard. We waited for the sky to become light before we got up. Maybe we should have gotten up earlier in retrospect, but then again maybe it wouldn't have made much difference. I hadn't brought breakfast. I guess I thought Forrest was going to take care of that, silly me. But he had two packets instant malt-o-meal so he gave me one (for which I thanked him; that made up for his hogging the tent), and I tore up some tortilla to augment it. Then, on a whim, I decided to sweeten it up a bit by squeezing a packet of GU on it. It was really good! After that, we spent an hour getting up to the base of the face. As we did so, more of our potential route came into view, but it was still unclear how we would gain the great ice pitches higher up. There were some ice smears down below, but they weren't formed up enough to be climbable (at least without being Will Gadd). We soloed up some easier ice/snow/rock slopes, through a gully, across a snowy bench... and traversed to the right until we found a way that didn't look too hard to get up to the next tier. It didn't have much ice on it though... it was mostly rock, with tufts of frozen moss and grass. I led it. Rock pro was sparse, and there wasn't enough ice to use ice screws, so I had to run it out quite a bit. The most troublesome thing, however, was that my crampon somehow became very loose & rattly on my foot!!! I was not pleased. I was able to get a piece in and sort of hang from it while I took off the crampon, adjusted it, and put it back on again. Very strange. After that I had to do some pretty sketchy moves on slabby rock and then a slightly overhanging traverse on a tuft of frozen grass, then I got to an ice flow and it got a lot easier. We were on another big snowy ledge, so when Forrest finished following, we traversed more to the right and sort of around a corner to where the sun was shining, where Forrest started his scary lead, similar to mine in many respects, but with even less ice. By the time I finished following that one, it was 2:15 in the afternoon! Where had all the time gone??? We were nowhere near the fat ice, in fact we were way too far right, and there was no obvious way to get back left and up to the ledge where the good ice started. Crap. In one last vain attempt, we went even farther right, then I followed a ledge system up and left again, until it petered out and I could tell there was no way to get there from here. Time to bail. Fortunately it was 3 easy rappells down the ridgline to where we could take a snow gully all the way back down to our camp, so that was a piece of cake. We packed up our camp and made it back to the car in the bright moonlight, right at 8:00 pm. So, it was a fun weekend out, we got to see what Sloan looks like in the winter, and now we know that it needs a lot more ice to be good! But you guys already knew that. Forrest might post some pictures if he gets around to it...

[jordop]

Way to get at that one! What's gonna be the perfect conditions for that I wonder, all this melt-freeze should be fattening up everything by now

[Alex]

Apparently my server doenst like the number of times this thing is served, so for now here is a link to a large image of W Face of Sloan taken this weekend.

 

http://www.mountainwerks.org/alexk/art/DSCF0172.jpg

Edited February 24, 2005 by Alex

[klenke]

Geez, I thought I was reading some Faulkner there for a minute. In true Faulkner form, you lost me in the density.

 

That W. Face has given others fits (even in summer). It's complex.

[daylward]

Sorry, I was having a stream-of-consciousness moment.

[dbb]

... My yellow Dribbler was soon erected ...

 

daaaaaaan???

[layton]

thanks for saving the rest of us the effort this w/end i guess. i was up there 2 weekends ago during the 2 foot dumpage! i agree with jordan...what's it gonna take?

 

nice go of it!

[forrest_m]

having thought about this for a few days, i think the main issue is that it is too dry, i.e. this cold weather spell in a normal winter would have produced a good line, but there's just not enough water in the snow above to make up for the ice that is evaporating off the top of the flows and melting off the sun-warmed rock. Ade told me that similarly, the north face of dragontail had no ice at all last w/e!

 

of course, a normal winter would add another 4 miles of road hiking to the approach unless you have a snow machine.

 

just to clarify dan's post a bit, we were essentially trying to follow the right-hand line in the MattP's famous photo, but each tier of ice kept turning out to be not in (not touched down, only an inch thick, very sun-rotted, etc.), so we would bypass on rock to the right. the rock on sloan is very compact, so in two cases, we had to traverse almost a full pitch rightwards to find a line that we could climb/protect. thus we ended up too far right to easily get back to the major flow (that did look like it _might_ have been in) on the upper face. the rock we did climb was in the M4-M5 range, so we were not up for trying the much steeper/blanker looking stuff that would have gotten us there.

 

however, in fatter conditions, there would be at least three independent 5-6 pitch ice lines on the face. very rockies-esque. also, where there is shade (i.e. the gully down low there was plenty of ice), it's just the ice on the face that is exposed to the sun. i'll post some pics when i get my film back.

[ken4ord]

Nice attempt you guys. I know before leaving the Seattle area I spent some time up in that area of the Cascades during the summer and saw potential for some winter lines given the right conditions.

 

So where is this ever so famous MattP picture?

[daylward]

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/429116/an/0/page/0#429116

[dbb]

I think that's phil's picture. From what I recall, MattP wouldn't have ever posted such a picture on this board, cuz he's been after it too!

[daylward]

Someday, when conditions are just perfect, there will be an instant traffic jam going up that road!

[daylward]

Apparently my server doenst like the number of times this thing is served, so for now here is a link to a large image of W Face of Sloan taken this weekend.

 

http://www.mountainwerks.org/alexk/art/DSCF0172.jpg

 

It's better this way anyway. With that big picture in the thread, it didn't allow the text of the other posts to wrap narrower than the picture, which forced some painful horizontal scrolling for those using 1024x768 (like on my cheap old laptop at home). But it is nice to see the picture with such detail... it's amazing how different it looks from that angle than from right below the route! Thanks Alex.