NE Buttress of Johannesburg

[Lambone]

Very impressive fellas! It looks like a wild route from the Boston Basin.

Would it be fun to head up the Cascade-Johannesburg couloir to the col. and then up the east ridge? Or is it not worth risking the objective danger?

[bobinc]

I think it's worth doing the climb up to the col (as long as you do it when it isn't a bowling alley) but don't bother going up that chossy ridge. When you look at it from below, you legitimately wonder why anyone would ever go up there.

[Kyle_Flick]

Some friends of ours did it last year and felt it wasn't too hazardous. My feeling is with the hanging glaciers and the number of avalanches I've heard coming down through there, the less time I spent in the couloir, crossing to get up and onto the buttress, the better.

[philfort]

Is it possible to stay to the climber's left of the couloir and avoid danger from the Sill glacier?

Seems like the couloir might be a nice late season ice climb (although it already looks more broken up this year, than it did last october).

[Lambone]

Yeah, we heard a monster rip through there while heading up to Forbidden in the late afternoon. Sounded like an earthquake! Remember Phil? You was there too...

So both you guys say that you wouldn't do the NE But. again, but was it worth doing once? Would it be a good first "vertical bushwack" route, or should I warm up on something like Mt. Index first?

[This message has been edited by lambone (edited 08-23-2001).]

[bobinc]

Matt: If you have something to atone for in this life(or past lives), by all means do it. Otherwise, I can recommend plenty of brush closer in (for example, anything in the Mid Fork drainage).

Phil: there isn't really a line to climber's left of the col; but since the slope is a NE aspect, it generally doesn't get too overheated and if you pick your time right, you shouldn't have to dodge too many rocks. There must be much better snow/ice lines in the Cascades, but the view from the end of the road tends to draw one in to climbing up there...

[Lambone]

Its hard to deny such a short approach. Looks like you could toss a rock from your car to the base. What can I say, I'm a fan of Alpine cragging, it must be the sport climber in my blood!

[bobinc]

For alpine sport brush, it's hard to beat. Doubtless you've seen the bushwhacking rating scale.

[Lambone]

Would you give it a B2 0r B3? So I should bring my extra long "draws" huh!?!? What about glue, do you think some of them trees need to be reinforced?

[Dru]

Does it still count as a redpoint if the trees are pre-slung?

[Mr._Blister]

Well, since I was with Bob, I guess I should chime in here. We are the party of three (with Jim Nelson) who were "rescued" by a helicopter in the Cascade Pass parking lot as we were a full day late. We thought it would be a day climb, but it took two days. Oh well. When the rangers landed the whirlybird in the lot, we were just about to leave to drive down to Marblemount after changing our clothes. Really embarrassing. We had some explaining to do.

I would consider doing it again. Bob has said he would rather be "dipped in shit," or something to that effect. Jim has no use for it. I would like to go again for no other reason (and this is a pretty thin reason) than to sign the damn summit register. We stopped below the final short summit pyramid, rested, then said fuck the top and started down, thinking (wrongly) that we might reach the col by dark. Whatever.

I agree with Bob that the East Ridge is shitty going down, and would be even shittier going up and then down. If you do the couloir, consider hanging a left at the top and going around the back of Mix Up et al. and over to Gunsight Notch, then back to Cascade Pass.

That's about it. Way to go Kyle et al. I know of at least one other party to do it this year (Tim Matsui and partner). Welcome to the "club."

John Sharp

[philfort]

quote:

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Originally posted by lambone:

Yeah, we heard a monster rip through there while heading up to Forbidden in the late afternoon. Sounded like an earthquake! Remember Phil? You was there too...

---

Yeah, I saw it spill over - the debris went almost to the bottom of the couloir.

quote:

---

Originally posted by lambone:

So both you guys say that you wouldn't do the NE But. again, but was it worth doing once? Would it be a good first "vertical bushwack" route, or should I warm up on something like Mt. Index first?

---

Suggested course in "vertical bushwhacking":

VB-101: Mt Garfield

VB-201: Index, N peak

VB-301: J-berg, NE butt

 

[bobinc]

Mr. Blister did the heavy lifting on the TR. John -- you should put up a link (plus one to the other TR we read around then -- it was even better).

I agree on Garfield, although now there seems to be something resembling regular maintenance on the middle portion of the approach (thus threatening a B1 rating) and an embarrassing number of bolts on the gully (even two full anchors less than 75' apart on the upper slab -- anyone know about why this was done?)

[Kyle]

Awesome job- I think any ascent of this scary looking peak is highly respectable... you probably won't ever see my chicken ass up there

[Lambone]

John,

Sounds like the Park Services mistake, not yours. You didn't call for a rescue did you?

I'd apologize politley, then get in the car and leave. I wouldn't feel obligated to explain anything to them. It's not your fault that you had to bivi, blame it on the mountain!

[philfort]

quote:

---

Originally posted by bobinc:

I agree on Garfield, although now there seems to be something resembling regular maintenance on the middle portion of the approach (thus threatening a B1 rating) and an embarrassing number of bolts on the gully (even two full anchors less than 75' apart on the upper slab -- anyone know about why this was done?)

---

I would give it a BW3 (constant use of hands required, some blood loss) - although there is a faint path through much of it. In terms of the "horizontal" travel, it wasn't very difficult bushwhacking (it ain't valley-bottom devils club or alder, just steep pine bushes, huckleberries and salal). But the rock climbing was often a vertical bushwhack, at least the route we took.

We did notice some "trail maintenance": cut limbs along the key ledge. That was weird. Who would do that? Maybe someone is guiding the route :-)

We only saw two pairs of bolts in the gully. The second set was probably 150' below the other. Maybe we just missed the middle pair because we had 2 ropes? Or maybe - got forbid - they've been chopped!?

[This message has been edited by philfort (edited 08-23-2001).]

[bobinc]

If you stay in the corner on the std Garfield route, you avoid most of the brush. You are right, though, that down lower, there is some first-class vertical brush (though in small quantity and with less objective danger than on JBerg) so perhaps VB2 or VB3 is still applicable.

[Mr._Blister]

Lambone:

Actually, my wife and mother-in-law called for the rescue. They forced the rangers' hands by calling two WA State politicians (Jim McDermott and Norm Dicks, who are family friends), and begging them to call the rangers. The rangers wanted to wait until the next day based on our register at Marblemount, on which we gave ourselves two full days to return just in case. The wives (mine and Bob's) thought we'd be home sooner based on our optimistic one-day plan, and panicked.

In any event, the rangers had no choice when Stormin' Normin' called from D.C. and ordered them to fly. The subsequent explaining was the result of our telling the wives one thing, and the rangers, via the register, something else. And of course, we left the cell phones at home because they are jsut too darn heavy.

The full report used to be on Mike Adamson's web site. I don't have it on my hard drive here. I wrote the thin route description for Jim/Peter's new book. Sorry Kyle. And yes, there are at least five rap stations on the E. Ridge descent. We found four and made one.

John

[Lambone]

Hmmm...wow! Well, its good to be loved I guess

[erik]

http://alpinelite.com/Archive/jberg_sharp.htm

[mattp]

I did the route many years ago, and although my memory is somewhat vague, I don't believe I had to contend with much vertical bushwacking. I took a variant that remained east of the crest of the lower buttress, all the way to the snow arete. It utilized a gully diverting left from that which most climbers take to reach the crest of the lower buttress, and after at most 300 feet of very friendly bushes, there were several hundred feet on the steepest grass slope I have ever been on, followed by some scrambling and a couple rope lengths of rock climbing to reach the buttress crest at the snow arete. I had no belay, and remember only a little bit of it being scary. Since then, I have been told that my route was "off route" but there were numerous old pitons on the hard part, and it may well be a good alternative if the "on route" variation is as bad as recent posts here have indicated.

The descent from the top of Johannesburg has proven difficult for most parties. Everyone who has posted here found significant difficulties on the descent to the East. Way back when, I descended the south face which, although I would not recommend it, I was able to downclimb without any rappelling. In an earlier thread on this site, Wotan suggested the traverse west over the west peak and down the standard W. Peak route into a basin (almost entirely snow free in late season) from where one can climb over the ridge and descend north back into the main drainage.

[bobinc]

MattP is good to point out the very steep grass slopes on J'berg; on the NE Buttress main route, there is equally steep heather with quite a bit of exposure. Really, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to wear crampons on some of it, but we elected to just not fall.

[Kyle_Flick]

We climbed the route 8/18-19/01 both days in the fog. While route finding thru the vertical bush was unpleasant, we were never far off course. The rock climbing on the upper section of the buttress was more than anticipated. One option is to rap into the gully (which was free of snow but looked wet). There was a new pin and sling to rap from, but we opted for option 2 which was supposed to be a 5.3 chimney on the left of the vertical face. We didn't find it and instead climbed a sketchy, exposed face to the left. With pack and mountain boots, it felt harder than 5.7. The second pitch on the north face of the arete had two short sections: The first comprising a fist crack and the second a dihedral with a mantle (also in the 5.7 range).

Once past this section the rock was able to be simul-climbed to the snow. The right side of the snow arete dropped off into the mist into no man's land. There were two major crevasses to cross on the glacier where the ice screw and picket came in handy (I'd recommend a second ice screw for gear so that you can skip traversing to the rock to avoid the first crevasse--it was very hard blue ice trying to bypass the 1st crevasse).

We topped out 14 hours after starting. We descended that evening a couple hundred feet and mined out some bivy sites. No water.

We spent an hour the next morning trying to figure out the right gully to descend to get to the Johannesburg-Cascade Col. Unfortunately, our efforts were hampered with only about 100 yards of visibility. In retrospect we should have stayed as close to the summit ridge as possible to descend easterly. We thought we were too far north as we saw a north sloping snow slope below us and mistakenly thought it was the Sill Glacier 1000' below. The route description is skimpy and requires visibility. We broke out the map and compass and debated the best course to take. Unfortunately, we selected a different gully which ended up as an extremely dangerous slot canyon filled with loose boulders that spit us out on the south side of the mountain 700' below and 1/2 mile away from the Col. After several near death misses from rockfall, we escaped the gully on ledges to the left and were welcomed with sunny alp slopes filled with succulent blueberries. We hadn't found any water all morning until we traversed around the mountain and were below the Col's snowfield.

We sidehilled across the alp slopes occasional picking up a herd path (crampons were helpful for the steeper sections of heather) for about a mile and a half. There is one cliff band that we rapped that dropped us close to the drainage from Gunsight notch. It took us 14 hours to complete the descent from our bivy spot to the car, but if you stay on route I suspect it would take half the time.

Kudos to the climbers noted in the summit register, one of which indicated he had soloed the route. Query to those who have done the route: Where was the 5.3 chimney in relation to the pin rap? Are there any rap stations on the descent? In any event your answers will be beta for some other party because I have no intention of repeating that route. Kyle

 

[bobinc]

Kyle -- we did the route 3 yrs ago (or, more accurately, it did us...) and had a similar experience, in terms of time up/down and problems with the descent. We did stay high near the top (and bivied probably where you did, as there is really only one flat place to do so) and made it down to the Sill at C-J col then descended that way. It was 13 hrs up and 13 hrs down.

As far as the 5.3 chimney goes, we didn't go up there but instead did the rap into the gulley (that may have been our pin/sling). Going up the snow in the gulley was the least stressful part of the whole climb. (Above there, on the snow slopes near the top, there isn't much technical difficulty, but the stress comes from the inevitable wonderings about the descent...)

Really impressed you guys were able to pull this off in the fog. As you said, I wouldn't recommend doing the route again...