[TR] Rapid Peak- NE Butt Failed Attempt via Ensakwatch Cr 8/20/2006

[G-spotter]

Climb: Rapid Peak-NE Butt Failed Attempt via Ensakwatch Cr

 

Date of Climb: 8/20/2006

 

Trip Report:

I had this great idea that I would bushwack up Ensakwatch Creek from the Nesakwatch road that comes real close to the border, and then solo the NE Butt of Rapid Peak which looks like a great line from a distance (like on Rexford)

 

Drove up this morning - left car around 6:30 AM

 

Bush is super dense and sucky. Took me 5 hrs to get to below the buttress and 2 hours to climb scree to the base of the route

 

The face is not all granite. The top half is granite and the bottom half is Darrington Phyllite or some such brown and blue choss

 

The buttress is treed at the toe, then 3rd and 4th class for the choss part and then turns into steep clean-loking granite maybe 3 or 4 pitches from the top

 

I realized i was gonna have to bivy if I kept climbing and the climbing wasn't good enough to bivy for, so I bailed in the 4th class part.

 

It took me another 5 hours to bushwack out. This time I stayed high, there was less devils club and slide alder but more bedrock slot canyons and gullies to cross I was descending one of these when I smelled something putrid. It was a fresh kill (deer?) buried under some leaves. I got the fuck out of there fast so I don't know if a bear or cougar had killed it but it was kind of scary anyway.

 

I think if you wanted to climb this buttress (which is apparently unclimbed) you should take bivi gear or fly in. The bushwack is teh suck. I had to crawl on hands and knees through devils club under fallen trees several times

 

On the other hand I saw a herd of seven goats, and a bazillion pikas It's kinda cool and wild in there.

 

It looks like the best descent is to traverse north over Pocket Peak and past Labour Day butt all the way to the Slesse propellor Cairn. Either that or go the other way around via Middle Peak and Mt Cope. The descent option via Pocket lake looked like lots of steep alder

 

Gear Notes:

should have had bivi gear, bear spray or gun, and machete

 

Approach Notes:

Nesakwatch Road is 4wd/hc to 1.5 km from border swathe then turns to thick alder

[layton]

That's what you get for stealing Jordop's proj

[G-spotter]

After this much beta is available, anyone who still wants this thing as a proj should see a psychologist.

[Don_Serl]

good effort - u were a good deal more persistent than David Harris and I when we attempted this same buttress about 20 years ago. similarly, we found the bush well beyond unpleasant, and gave up before reaching the buttress itself - or even, in fact, the slopes leading up to it.

too bad; it's kinda a nice looking line...

cheers, don

[jordop]

Get any good shots of el rapido?

 

Yes but it looks pretty chossy!

 

Jeez man, you should listen to your own info sometime

[G-spotter]

doesn't look any better close up