[TR] Mt. Washington- ESE Face - Route 2 6/11/2006

[Off_White]

Climb: Mt. Washington-ESE Face - Route 2

 

Date of Climb: 6/11/2006

 

Trip Report:

On Sunday I climbed this route, the line to the right of the SE Buttress. It's worth noting that I found this route in every way superior to the standard Big Creek route:

 

Approach: Steep open old growth forest, only whispers of tread here and there and only two very old pieces of flagging sighted. There was virtually no brush involved. This is also the approach to the SE Buttress. You'll still want boots & axe to get to the SE Buttress this time of year.

 

Route: All snow, up and right, steep bits interspersed with moderate angles, leads into the basin below the SE Buttress.

From here, head straight towards the summit then up and left on snowy ramp. I traversed into the regular route ~200' below summit, other lines possible. NOTE: steepest snow had bad/fatal runouts, don't take someone up this who doesn't have snow skills in place.

 

Bonuses: Unpopular route - Saw no one, some indications of steps in snow here and there, at least two weeks old. Spotted small cannonhole in the lower SE Buttress. Spectacular position between SE Butt & E Ridge, much more scenic than Big Creek.

 

Booty: Rope and two pin rap anchor on the sketchy class 3 traverse to the regular route. It's a bit of a mystery: rope from this season, clipped to two pins, heading down a chossy rock wall. I smell epic. Why would you have a rope and pins on this route? Why rap here, when the regular route is 300 feet away? Anchor was bad, two pins in choss, pulled one out with fingers and had to hit the other with a small rock 3 times. If it's yours, provide details of the gear and the story behind it, and I'll be glad to return it.

 

Summit Register: all wet, needs new plastic bag. Familiar names: Fairweather and son from 2004, Hardy Batchelor RIP from 2005, and just the day before me, none other than Paul Klenke.

 

Descent: I opted for Big Creek as a more secure descent than my route up. Snow on the headwall is getting thin. Passed a group of Mountaineers headed up, and lower down had to make a choice whether to follow their line up or Klenke's footprints. Should have followed the mounties. Got into some class 3 BW4 terrain avoiding waterfalls with recently collapsed snow cover. Root clotted Big Creek trail sucks.

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Axe

Crampons (nice, but not essential)

Should have brought a camera

 

Approach Notes:

Park at the turnout on the outside curve past the U shaped curve with the two Big Creek waterfalls. There's a single yellowish bamboo wand that marks the trail through the roadside brush.

[klenke]

I drove down Saturday with friend Jeff. The drive took longer than the climb. Made a Mediterranean start of 1:30pm. Cloudy/foggy weather had us doing the punter 1A route. Took us 2 hours! There was a group of newbies quaking in their boots at the headwall traverse.

Leader among them asks, "do you have a rope because you'll need it?"

"Yes, we do actually."

"It's a steep traverse above a crevasse. It may not go."

"Well, we don't like to fail..." and Jeff and I carried on...never roping up, never nothing, though we did get our ice axes out. Took us all of 10 minutes to get across this supposed crux of the climb. We got halfway across, saw the boot path in the snow, and I yelled back to the leader: "There's an easy path here."

Jeff and I went on up and saw/heard them coming (clank clank clank with the pickets!). They never got past the headwall traverse.

 

No views at the summit. But the beers made up for that. Register does need to go into a hermetic kind of box or canister.

 

One hour down, slipping as necessary on the "root-clotted" lower trail.

 

Jeff and I then dumpster dove two peaks south of there. I'll spare you the smelly underwear details.

[Roy]

I was on that standard route about ten years ago,there was a guy I belive from Olympic Mt rescue there. He said on busy spring weekends they hung out to help people.

 

We had a good talk and he said nothing of our lack of gear. There were a few nervous people there.

 

It reminded me of the haystack on Si or the hike from Diamond lake to Mt Thielsen summit.

Edited June 13, 2006 by Roy

[Fairweather]

You should have called me! I would have belayed you with my new GriGri and loudly hollered for tension as you brought me up to the easy part.

[Off_White]

Pfft, you'd have smoked me on the hike in. Besides, inspiration for the outing didn't strike me until 11pm the night before.

 

 

 

 

Do you really own a grigri?

[mattp]

That ESE face is one of my favorite beginners climbs in the State. I've taken all kinds of people up it - kids, juvenile delinquents, hikers - at nearly all times of the year except mid-winter. It DOES have big exposure on that ramp up the headwall so I wouldn't suggest anybody treat it as completely trivial; someobody in the party ought to have some mountaineering experience, judgment and party management inclinations, perhaps, but it really doesn't require any technical skill in normal conditions. It is just plain fun, with great ambiance and a very reasonable approach/depproach.

 

By "normal conditions" I would mean with or without snow on the ramp, but ice or some funky transition period could be treacherous -- those would te times when judgment and party

management skills might be extremely important. Late season there is lots of loose and somewhat tedious scree involved in getting to the ramp.

[Fairweather]

Nice trip. I'd like to take the kid up that route.

 

I bought the grigri for my wife's recent interest in top-roped rock climbing - (After 22 years, go figure!) - and my own peace of mind. But after getting dropped on my ass by her ambitious grigri-levering skills at Bruce's Boulder last month I'm thinking it might be easier to just train her proper-like.