Beta for E Ridge Direct on Forbidden?

[fredrogers]

Any one done the route and want to share? How's the descent? Good old Beckey 4th class or mellower?

 

TIA.

 

Fred

[forrest_m]

It's fun. Often empty while crowds are on the W. Ridge. No scary snow couloir to get to the base. The crux is down low, getting around the two gendarmes. It's been too long to remember which side we went around, but I believe we more or less followed the description in the Nelson guide. The rest is pretty mellow. There was a long thread about the East Ledges descent a few weeks ago, look around I'm sure you'll find it.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I did it couple months ago. The nelson description is best. Shoot me email to rayborbon@hotmail for details.

[Lambone]

Check this out: Ben's Beta

pretty spot on.

 

the ridge is eaisier to approach than the west ridge, but the descent is worse. Climbing is pretty straightforward, and never too difficult, although sometimes over large very loose perched blocks. Some rally cool arete traverses. Have fun!

[Smoker]

Here's some beta:

 

Dont attempt the route in mid October unless you want to deal with snow on everything! If you wait for the sun to warm your butt (like I did), in October, you'll turn around mid route or biv on the route. Solid rock, by Cascades standards it's excellent!

Did I mention that it is cold in October on the E. Ridge? Damn Cold!

 

Oh yeah, if you go in mid October, you'll have the whole damn freezing mountain to yourself!

 

Have fun, and, I recomend picking some other month besides the freezing month of October to climb the East Ridge.

[greenfork]

how bout november?? would november be good?

[SEF]

Did the route Saturday, 8/30, along with another party of 2 that we passed. Forbidden was crowded with several parties on the W Ridge.

 

Nelson's topo is close on the E Ridge, but our experience was a bit different. Instead of going over the last gendarme, we traversed around. Never did find any 5.8 climbing as a result, I suspect because we were a bit lower than Nelson's topo. We also had to stretch out our pitches (50m rope) with simulclimbing to match his pitch count. He must be using a 60m rope, and using all of it.

 

Nelson's times are conservative. A reasonably fast party of 2 will do better. For us, the summit was 4 hours from Boston Basin (Nelson says 6 –8). The E ledges descent took an hour back to the packs. We followed pretty closely Nelson's description except for the last part. The gully to the notch was nasty looking and we scrambled up the rib before the gully to the notch.

 

For booty hunters, a rap rope was abandoned on the SW side of the E Ridge, perhaps about half way along the route, and one rap below the ridge. Looks like someone bailed by rapping to the Noname Glacier, but could not pull the rope.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I drew a topo for Beckey Green book (if he uses it) and I pitched it out to 9 pitches myself. Good climb on a great peak.

[KFox]

Crowded on west ridge on Saturday? By my count (and I was on the ridge) there were only two parties. Same as on the East Ridge. It did, however, look like it was going to be crowded on sunday with a few parties camping in B-Basin.

 

A Word to the Wise, Because the snow coulor is melted out you have to use the gullies to the left. DON"T GET IN THE GULLIES WITH ANYONE ABOVE YOU. My partner were on one of the last raps when a party above us launched a storm of rocks on us. It was scary and we were lucky we didn't get hit. In my opinion Unless you do it on a day with no crowds, ie. weekday, you're beter off waiting untill next year.

 

-Kevin

[Jerome]

quote:

---

Originally posted by KFox:

Crowded on west ridge on Saturday? By my count (and I was on the ridge) there were only two parties. Same as on the East Ridge. It did, however, look like it was going to be crowded on sunday with a few parties camping in B-Basin.

 

A Word to the Wise, Because the snow coulor is melted out you have to use the gullies to the left. DON"T GET IN THE GULLIES WITH ANYONE ABOVE YOU. My partner were on one of the last raps when a party above us launched a storm of rocks on us. It was scary and we were lucky we didn't get hit. In my opinion Unless you do it on a day with no crowds, ie. weekday, you're beter off waiting untill next year.

 

-Kevin

---

Big no shit there! I launched the rock. Figured there was no way in hell anyone below could've survived, particularly with the amount of smaller rocks that got picked up along the way. Worst 30 minutes I've ever had.

 

Bloody dangerous. I was downclimbing; a rock the size of a big microwave pulled out just after I'd lowered off it. Looking up at it shaking and about to pop off I thought I could reach up and hold it in place; the more rational part of my brain jumped me ten feet right. My partner said it missed me by a foot.

 

We neither one of us would've ever thought it would come out, and for what it's worth we've done a fair bit of loose crud.

 

Kevin's dead right. Those gullies are horrid. Or at least, really close to horrid.

 

Sorry again guys! Glad it missed everyone.

 

Jerome

[chelle]

The East Ridge is a great climb. Have done it twice. The first time we did not bypass the spires and it was a lot of fun to go up and over on the full ridge. The second time we bypassed the last tower in the name of speed.

 

One the first trip we descended via the East ledges descent. 5 single rope raps to the ledges, traversed towards the gully and started following ramps up to avoid going up the gully. Got into some loose stuff and scared ourselves a bit, but made it without incident. Ended up getting to the ridge about half way up the first pitch and rapped back to the gendarme.

 

Last time (a couple weeks ago) we decided to traverse the thing by going down the west ridge. This was a fun way to go too, but I wouldn't recommend it on a weekend with crowds. We had the mountain to ourselves on a Friday. Rapped down the gully to the left of the snow gully descent. Not that big a deal, but there are a few funky rap anchors up there. You may want to bring some extra webbing to reinforce things if you aren't comfortable with what you find.

 

Enjoy!

 

p.s. when we were up there a couple weeks ago the approach was sweet. steep snow nearly all the way up to the gendarme. Much nicer than the kitty litter covered slab climbing last year.

 

[ 09-05-2002, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: ehmmic ]