[TR] Chiwawa and Fortress- South route from Chiwaw

[JDRodgers]

Climb: Chiwawa and Fortress-South route from Chiwawa basin

 

Date of Climb: 7/9/2006

 

Trip Report:

Hearing that the road to Trinity was finaly drivable,I decided that this was a pefect time to get in there and tuck away two more top 100 peaks while there was still some snow left making for easy travel and before the bugs descended upon the area.

 

Meeting up with Ed M at the p&r on Saturday morning, we drove over the pass and arrived at the parking area for Buck creek pass/ Chiwawa valley. We geared up and were on the move by 9:00 a.m.

 

Going though the formalities

 

Hiking up the wide, flat, and boring Chiwawa river trail (road) had me daydreaming about riding mountain bikes or driving the jeep further than the trail head to make it interesting. Oh well, looking across the valley at Buck Mountain and wondering when that climb will come helped pass the time.

 

At the trail junction for Red Mtn, we took the left, going down hill slightly untill we came to the East fork of the Chiwawa river which we had to ford. This was a nice break from walking in the heat. My feet enjoyed the soak and rock massage during the quick crossing. Shortly there after we arrived in the basin at 4900'and saw that there had been a recent slide and its pile of broken trees from this spring that had peeled off from Peak 7534'. There were some folks skulking around the basin looking like they were actualy enjoying the mid-day heat.

 

We could see our objectives from here and a possible spot for a bivi, so We pressed on and up wanting to camp high, preferrably on top of the ridge seperating the basin where it joined the south slope below the Chiwawa col. Walking along the open basin we headed up ( climbers right) before the brush started and into the forest. Here we gained about 200' before coming upon a game trail on a forested ridge. We turned left onto the path,( west) and followed this to a open flat area below some water falls. It looked like it is possible to gain the col from here, but we elected to head for the aformentioned ridge via a snow gully to the left of some cliffs. This brought us to the ridge proper and easy travel took us high to the snow line. Here we decided to make our camp, organize gear, and rest. There was running water for us as well to help in the rehydration process.

 

After resting we decided to take snow slopes and rock slabs towards Chiwawa and finished the climb on talus arriving at the summit by 6:00p.m.

Bonanza and Lyman lake from Chiwawa

 

A couple standing and sitting glissades delievered us back to camp and a much wanted dinner and rest.

 

Boot ski

 

Early Sunday morning had us traversing over to Fortress under cloudy skies and a reprive from the heat.

 

Fortress

 

Booting up the gully,we exited from the snow onto some loose rock, real loose, the rock I was standing on to remove my crapons decided to drop off and bound down the snow slope. I simply stepped off it but was glad there was no one below or that it didn't start a chain reaction from above. This worried Ed some and the scramble from here up was still plenty loose and we were still a little concerned from the incident.

 

Working the ridge on creaking loose rocks and a couple token snowpatches brought us to the "class 4 section'

Loose ridge

 

 

Class 4??

 

 

 

The top of Fortress is a spectacular view point and we enjoyed this for some time before heading down.

 

Glacier peak

 

Walking out we met a group that had climbed Fortress a day before us via Buck Creek pass and saw another groups worth of tents in the basin who went up Chiwawa after us. Busy place this weekend. We finished the trip with some chow at the Happy Clown by Lake Wenatchee and the usual Sunday evening traffic jam on US-2

 

-Jeff R 7/8-9/06

 

Gear Notes:

Crosstrainers.Used Axe, and crampons lightly.

 

Approach Notes:

Trail is snow free, a couple muddy sections and a few blowdowns across the path. Not to many bugs YET.

Edited July 14, 2006 by JDRodgers

[summitseeker]

Cool Jeff! Thanks for the TR and the great pics. I posted a link to it from my website.

 

--Scott

[zoroastr]

nice job! i like hiking and scrambling in that area, and have done those two already, but I was thinking I might like to go back for another day hike and climb up Red Mtn--do you remember if it had much snow left on it?

 

thx for the T.R.

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Nice TR, Jeff!

 

zoroastr, if you haven't climbed Buck yet, I highly recommend it. That granite pool flowing into a 1500'+ waterfall has got to be one of the nicest hidden gems in the range.

[Stefan]

I see your camera is NOT broken!

[JDRodgers]

nice job! i like hiking and scrambling in that area, and have done those two already, but I was thinking I might like to go back for another day hike and climb up Red Mtn--do you remember if it had much snow left on it?

 

thx for the T.R.

 

Thanks. Here is a picture of Red if you're going up the south slope-

 

After leaving the trail, there is not much snow left.

[JDRodgers]

Summitseeker and Tom- Thanks!

 

I see your camera is NOT broken!

 

It was my partners camera that he so graciously let me use. Unfortunatly, my camera rattles when shaken, I should probably throw it away now that I am thinking about it. Time to get a new one.