W Ridge Forbidden

[Pencil_Pusher]

Went in Saturday, Aug 11. All permits had been taken Friday for Boston Basin and Buckner. Left TH at 8am (ranger station opened at 7am), we decided to go for it in a day knowing full well the late hour we were leaving. Things went fairly fast and the approach to the finger coulior was pretty easy over sort of soft snow. I had light hikers and instep 4-pt crampons which worked fine. The snow was soft enough to make steps in going up finger, no schrund problems whatsoever and imagine it'll stay like that for a few more weeks.

We did take a picket which we used a couple of times, mainly on the descent. From the snow to the notch is some loose rock so beware. Lots of rappel anchors at the top of the snow coulior that will become exceedingly difficult to reach as the snow melts, ours was some 15 feet up rock.

Got to notch at 1pm and started climbing at 1:30. Met a pair of climbers (one in plastics) who did the Torment-Forbidden traverse then on up the west ridge. Pretty impressive watching the guy in plastics lead one of our fixed pitches (the first three or so were simul) on a ~8.5mm rope and didn't place any pro in for that 80 foot lead, just clipped into the rappel anchor and yelled, "Stevie, you're on belay!"

The last pitch will give you some hellacious rope drag.

Gear was pretty much how everyone said it to be: medium sized stoppers and a couple of cams. Most of the pro was slinging horns so bring a few more doubles than you normally would.

First team summitted around 4pm, we hit the top at 4:30. Getting down took as long as going up, surprisingly. Hit the notch at 8pm and after a feeble attempt at simul climbing down from notch, rapped down to snow instead which made me REALLY happy. Group difficulties forced a bivy at 10:30pm on the rock below the finger. I was happy to bivy, I was really feeling tired and it was a warm night. It was kind of interesting while we were descending to occasionally glance down at the headlamps way below looking up at us descending the finger.

We all had minimal bivy gear but the night was super warm. I filled my bottle with snow and left the boots out. Come morning, the snow was now water and my boots dry

Pretty amazing for an alpine climb. We left the rock around 8am to let things warm up some, it was still a bit sketchy for the cramponless. There are a couple of rappel anchors off the rock but we figured it'd be just as easy to walk off it, around the crevasses. One guy lent the cramponless one crampon and things went much faster. Just outside of high camp we goofed around on a boulder, I suck. No, wait, it's the equipment, yeah, it's the equipment that sucks, yeah, yeah.

Then the flies attacked en masse. MF'ers were all over the damn place, it was insane. I tried twice to stop and kill all the suckers but their friends kept on coming so I decided it was best to either stick close to the group (more targets) or run like hell. Met the ranger who was keeping an eye on us, thanks bud. He used a good chunk of discretion when asking us about our night and permits. Way cool dude. Then I ran like hell down the trail, through the bush, to the car and guess what... 50 biting flies must've followed me there because it was insane city again. Once the other guys arrived with all their accompanying flies, it was all we could do to just throw our shit in the vehicle and get the hell out of there pronto. Bring the flamethrower.

Nice moves near that rusty piton. I know if we'd left earlier that morning instead of futiley waiting to get a permit, we'd have made the trip in a day. Also saw an awesome climber soloing the East Ridge, good job.

[jblakley]

Hey Pencil,

Yeah we passed by you guys on our way up while you were at the bivy rock. Great climb but yeah those flies sucked.

[Pencil_Pusher]

The party of five. You guys were moving at a pretty good clip. Your leader had good technique getting over that schrund. From the other side of the rock, there are no schrund problems.

Wish we could've gone up Sharkfin too, but I think if we'd stayed any later the Ranger would've given us all some coupons.

[jblakley]

Yeah we actually descended down the other side of the rock. A bit easier. Oh well :-) That couloir was pretty cool though. Nice to get a little bit of everything in on one climb eh. Those two fast dudes you were talking about came by our camp afterwards and said there were four or five parties up there late Sat. Was it really that crowded? Guess we got lucky..we were the only ones on the route the whole day.