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Hozomeen


Dru

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Anybody other than GregM and Mtnphil tried to climb it? I made it all the way to the devilsclub on the shore of Hozomeen Lake once. specifically I am looking for first hand experience with the rock. I have heard cracks are rare and a good rack is lots of knifeblades and RPs and long slings for horns, I was wondering ifthis is borne out by experience.

 

Jordo Peters - I know the question you are going to ask - the answer is Yes. [Wink]

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quote:

Originally posted by jordop:

Foo is so smart, he knows what I am thinking before it ever enters my mind. I'm thinking that you're thinking that I'm thinking about bolts. Lots of 'em.
[Wink]

Im thinking youre thinking Im thinking Im gonna get there first [Razz]

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quote:

Originally posted by Cpt.Caveman:

Dru is just trying to deter ya mike. There are reportedly large walls up there that do not have great crack systems
[Wink]
Unclimbed? Bring nutsack or prepared to make sport climbs in the wilderness
[Confused]

Shhhh.. there are no big walls and the rock is bad. Really bad. Horribly loose and yet crackless.

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From an account of the 2nd ascent of the Sw butt. of the N. Peak in the 98 BCM by Don McPherson:

 

"...The rope is placed behind several fairly solid , short flakes. I belay from 1 cheek [sic] and 1 good foothold..."

 

"...a 3m wide gully capped by a huge roof with rotten vertical walls on all sides..."

 

Yeah, I'm all over it, keep away all of you! [Roll Eyes]

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I climbed both peaks of Hozomeen in June 1982 with Mark Bebie and my brother Carl. At the time, we felt that early season was good because you could avoid some unpleasant rock scrambling on snow. The standard route on the north peak was pretty easy as I recall. There was a long snow gully that led high on the peak from the SW.

 

The south peak was more intimidating, As I recall we climbed up the NW side of the peak largely on snow, then crossed the W ridge to the S side, where the rock climbing began. Most of it was not too difficult, but there was a crux step protected with an old loose piton. I don't think we brought any pitons of our own, but it would be a good idea these days. If you're really interested, I could check my journal for more details. (I don't have it with me at the moment.)

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daylward and i tried to climb it a couple of years ago during a good weather spell in october, but we got lost in the woods. really. we were traversing around the lake and started doing a rising traverse, but never realized that we hadn't crossed over into the drainiage leading up to the col. first thing we knew, we were way up in the cliff bands facing the lake, facing several thousand feet of descending to get right again. oops. with the short days, the lost hours meant that we would miss our boat ride out, so we bailed without ever seeing the "technical" part of the route. i hate it when that happens.

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I got a request for more information about my Hozomeen climbs, so here goes, from my journal...

 

North Peak, June 19, 1982. Left Seattle 5:30 am Saturday. Drove Canada #1 to the Silver-Skagit road to the Hozomeen guard station. 10:30 am hiked to Hozomeen Lake (about 1-1/2 hour). Crashed along a rough path around east side of lake, then climbed through fairly open trees and traversed right to the SW gully of the peak. Followed gully until it threatened to get hard, then did some class 3 backpacking out of it to the left. Climbed more steep forest, then traversed right at around 5000 feet to a point above where the gully splits. Dumped overnight gear here. About 3:30 pm we continued up steep woods and traversed to the north peak gully. The gully was snow filled and we made good time to the notch. Snow covered the rottenest rock to the summit, which we reached at 6:30 pm. My journal says, "Don't do this climb without snow." We descended and bivied where we had left our overnight gear.

 

South Peak, June 20, 1982. Used 165 ft 9mm rope, 8 chocks to #6 hex, 6 runners (2 long) [sounds skimpy.] From our bivi (about 6 am) we dropped to a snow filled gully [the right branch, I assume]. Easy climbing lead to an area of slabby rock. Here we did some steeper snow climbing, then made a scrambling traverse rightward to the saddle between the S and SW peaks. My journal says "caution required" for this section. We scrambled up to a point east of the saddle, then down-climbed rock to snow on the south side. We backed down the snow and traversed east to a spur, then climbed snow and easy rock up the spur to a gravelly traverse that led to the crest of the west ridge (east of a major sub-peak). Here we roped up and did three running pitches of moderate class 4-ish climbing close to the crest to reach the summit. The hard bit ("mid class 5") was a 15 foot section about 2/3 of the way up, which I described as "very steep, lousy rock, with a questionable fixed pin." The climb took 4 hours from our bivi and about 3 hours to cautiously return.

 

My notes say that from our bivi we traversed into the woods north of the gully, then made a long but straightforward descent to the lake, where we took a swim. We were back to our car about 6 pm. My final journal entry: "Hozomeen, by any of its routes, is only a nice climb to say you've done."

 

Addendum: My notes did say there were some nice views from the top. [smile]

 

[ 06-10-2002, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: Lowell Skoog ]

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  • 2 years later...

Adding to this thread:

 

TLinn and I climbed N Hozo last Thurs and Fri. Not mentioned in the above notes is the elegant north face, accessed from the easy but long Skyline Ridge Trail (~7 easy hours in early season) which leaves the Skagit road just before the border. We bashed straight down to the truck from the col north of the peak in 3 hours on return, but this would be sucky going up due to copious forest wanderings. (Full size pics in gallery)

 

1736hozo-med.jpg

 

The climb up the north face is never more than about 50 degrees, but contains enough ice to warrant ice tools.

 

Wicked views down Ross Lake:

1736ross-med.jpg

 

And contrary to the above wonderings, THERE ARE NO BIG WALLS ON HOZOMEEN tongue.gif:

1736speaknorth-med.jpg

1736zorro-med.jpg

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  • 9 months later...

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