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[TR] Goode's Goodness- 5/24/2005


TeleRoss

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Climb: Goode's Goodness-

 

Date of Climb: 5/24/2005

 

Trip Report:

Sky and I climbed and skied the E Face of Mt. Goode, from just above the saddle between Goode's summit and the SE summit.

I finally succeeded in convincing Sky to come with me to Goode. There had been much waffling from him as recently he had become fairly obsessed with Logan wink.gif. Eventually I won out and off to Goode we went.

Arriving at the Bridge Creek TH at a leisurely 10:00, we set off for the 14 mile hump down Bride Creek and then up the N Fork of Bridge Creek. The trail gradually loses elevation with the creek while passing several creeks to the south with views up to some pretty impressive peaks. The bears of Bridge Creek, recently active out of hibernation, evidenced by the large (both in size and quantity) of scat left all over the trail.

The hike in went quick enough and soon we were gazing up over a vertical mile to the lofty summit of Goode. Crossing N Fork Bridge Creek on a nice debris bridge, we then hiked up the debris pile up to the slabby buttresses that block the way. I made a few tree-aid moved up the rock, while Sky (true to form) opted for the bush-whack up steep woods and shrubbery on the other side of the creek. Eventually we met up below a large patch of conifers and began looking for a suitable bivy. We found a farily flatish area at the top of the patch of fir trees a bit below the glacier.

2:00am, the alarm beeps us awake. Moonlight from the full moon illuminates the upper slopes of Goode and at about 3 we start hiking towards the glacier. Sky was a bit anxious about the slabs directly below the glacier but they were easily negotiated.

The glacier had a few inches of fresh that had solidified nicely during the night making travel fairly fast. We weren't sure how much new snow there would be this far east, but from the looks of the upper slopes of Goode it looked like there was a fair amount. The route was filled in through the lower cliff band making us both very pleased and soon we were making our way up the steep face.

There were some small runnels which provided firm snow and ice for climbing, but as the route turned towards the left the snow got fairly deep. With a large cornice at the saddle and some sketchy looking wind loaded slopes above and to our left we decided to head to a spot just above the saddle, near a smallish rock pinnacle.

We took shelter from the wind for a bit before hiking up to the highest knob between Goode's summit and the SE summit. The view straight down nearly 6,000 feet to the N Fork was pretty intense, and in the other direction the peaks of the Ptarmigan Traverse were spread out before us. Wow, pretty sweet was all I was thinking. The convex slope off the knob was looking really sketchy so we decided to ski from our spot about 100' below along the ridge.

The top several hundred feet were sweet wintery powder about 1' deep. Then through the narrow section the snow was a bit firmer, but we could get out to the left into the sun softened. Below the narrows we cut out right onto a nice, steep powder fluted face and had several hundred feet of epic powder turns.

We quickly realized that we started skiing at just the right moment because as we were skiing the lower sections, the upper face of Goode began to spill its load. The sun warmed face let loose some large slides that crashed right down the bottom of our route. Fortunately they all ended up in a central runnel and it was easy to stay clear. Down on the glacier we skied nice corn through the crevasses and the small icefall at the bottom edge of the glacier. We nearly skied all the way back to our bivy, with one small rock step just below the glacier.

Back at camp we quickly packed, gazed back up at Goode and the continuing avalanches, very pleased to have gotten the early start, and got set for the long hike back out. We skied a bit below camp before lack snow and all the alder forced us to forgo skiing any farther and start hiking.

Back down at the slabby cliffs we found some rap slings and with the 30m rope that we had been carrying and yet to use finally put it to good use. Below the cliffs it was only another 14 miles back out to the car. Not quite as enjoyable as the day prior, but that hike was still spectacular, and even more covered in bear scat.

Many long miles and hours more and we were back at the car well satisfied with another awesome trip. While loading the truck a lady comes over to us from her camper trailer and asks "you guys weren't skiing were you?"

~Ross

 

Gear Notes:

brought pickets, rope

used rope for rap down through cliffs above the N Fork

 

Approach Notes:

Bridge Creek Trail, N Fork Bridge Creek.

~14 miles, bring your bear poo stompin boots

Edited by TeleRoss
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No snow at all on the hike until you cross N Fork Bridge Creek. It was debris up to the lower slabby buttress, but above that there was very little snow again until almost 5,000'.

Yeah the NE Butt had a lot of snow, but with all this sun maybe it'll melt off soon? Sky should have his pics up when he gets back from New Mexico next week.

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Here is a route photo, courtesy of John Roper.

 

GoodeRoute.jpg

 

Those are much different conditions than ours, but I haven't seen a photo that shows the route as well that has anything resembling our conditions. We went to the blue high point, but the slopes above the notch had a bit too much wind-deposited snow; I really didn't feel like taking a magic carpet ride out there.

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We passed on the summit for the sake of skiing the route before it went to shit. The blue dot was our high point. We started skiing at about 9:15 and that was not a moment too soon.

Kind of like our trip to Jack, to me anyway, the summit is not all that important, skiing the line is the objective and summiting would be merely icing on the cake...

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It sure is a gorgeous mountain, Mike. I don't know about lines that haven't been climbed (you might learn more by trying to contact characters like JR, JN or SW), but if you went up there in the right fall or spring conditions I'm sure you could do some CRAZY 3k-ish mixed lines; that would be SICK. But this was probably the year for that with all the unusual conditions and alpine ice we seemed to have. I'll definitely return to hit the summit, sans skis.

 

About halfway down the face, the cliffs on the right getting sun in the picture started dropping BOMBS. I knew it would happen. This type of ski mountaineering is all about conditions. We were fortunate to get the right melange of luck, skill and magic on this trip. Like Ross said, the focus was the descent. GET DOWN!

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Have all the various ribs (esp the last one on the right before the hanging glacier) been climbed?

 

That's roughly the line of Beckey's NE face route. It climbs the ice sheet to its upper-left corner then wanders up the rock above. When I climbed that route in 1978, we climbed a little to the left of the rib, as I remember.

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Lowell's photo is more wintery than current conditions. Forrest Murphy, Dan Aylward, and I climbed the NE buttress route this Memorial Day weekend and saw those ripping tracks coming down the couloir. Wow, what a ski run!

 

There was snow on quite a few short sections of the buttress, but the climbing was superb. The descent, on the other hand, made us wish we'd dragged skis all the way up there, especially when the thunderstorm slammed into us 30 minutes after the first clouds appeared in the cloudless sky. Apart from some heinous blisters, it was a great weekend. Goode is a worthy destination.

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