Mt Washington

[aggressivepedestrian]

This weekend I made a daytrip to Mt. Washington from Portland with two friends. It was a pretty standard climb up the north ridge, except for a little incident on the way down.

 

There were a lot of people up there: a Mazamas party, an Obsidians party, and another largish group (Ptramigans, perhaps?). Rocks were falling down all over the place. Mostly, it wasn't the large groups kicking stuff down, it was a private party of three. (And for some reason, those idiots seemed to be incapable of yelling "ROCK!!!")

 

Anyway, we descended the scree slope. A thousand feet or so below the summit, I heard a crack, glanced to my right, and saw a huge rock (about the size of the 21-inch monitor I'm looking at right now) crashing straight for my friend in front. My other friend and I yelled at him, and, in a move reminiscent of Neo in the Matrix, he stepped to his right, arching his back over the tumpbling rock. The rock glanced off his backpack, but had so much momentum I don't think it was deflected out of its path at all.

 

I'm pretty certain someone high on the summit kicked it off. So the lesson is, when there are folks on the summit, don't go down the scree slope immediately below the summit; go down the ridge around the first gendarme, then descend the scree. We thought we were out of danger, but I guess all those bolders at the foot of that slope had to come from somewhere.

[iain]

MtnHigh and I saw you guys almost get clocked way down on the scree. We were halfway up the west ridge at the time. We thought for sure your friend was going to have his head taken off. You are not the first I've seen in that situation.

 

I heard people screaming ROCK ROCK ROCK though and you did not look up. Maybe the acoustics were not good (they were up in the gully I think) I don't know why people have such a problem knocking these monsters down the mountain. I've been pretty cavalier running down that slope and have never trundled anything larger than a baseball.

 

I've learned from descending that slope many times that you are never out of danger until you are well around the corner to the north. Wear your helmet until you are well north of the gulley (though no helmet was stopping the one that almost hit you).

 

There were WAY too many people on that route that day (yet there were only like 3 parties!), and most had never been on a climb before (it seemed). Many were rapping half the route, which made for a lot of confusion and rockfall. We were stuck at the lower rap station for some time as people sketched their way over the lip, and the gully was a veritable shooting gallery. We got the hell out of there before someone got hurt. Sharp contrast to the morning, since we had the west ridge to ourselves.

 

Glad to see you are okay.

 

-Iain

[MtnHigh]

Yo agress... your friend is one lucky dude. I was watching the whole fiasco. It was like watching Cops on Fox, who’s gonna get nailed by the shit first. Later in the day we saw another close call on the same lower scree slope your friend was on.

 

When Iain and descended, we passed about 10 wankers in the upper gulley who were sketchin on everything they stepped on. We practically ran down the gulley and the scree field to avoid the firing range until we reached safe ground.

 

Nonetheless, great mountain and climb.

[aggressivepedestrian]

Yes, he was very lucky. There's absolutely no way I'll go down that scree field again with that many people above. I've descended the north ridge before, and it's slow and not much fun, but it sure would have been a lot safer on Sunday.

[MATT_B]

Didn't someone get hurt there a few years ago? did they get clocked by a rock or take a dumble down the scree? There is a lot of loose rock in the area. The North ridge is fairly solid compaired to the rest of the hill. I was on a route between the N. ridge and the W. face and pulled off a block the size of a small TV set despite being extremely careful for loose rock. I was able to hold it in place for a while but there was nothing I could do but let it go. Thank god my buddy was not belaying in the fall line. It went a LONG way down before it stopped. Ware your helmet and don't decend driectly below the sumit block!

[iain]

If your doing any of the west face routes that exit in the upper gully it is essential that there is no other team on those routes above you on the loose stuff. The route (West Face) was actually quite solid once a ways off the ground last year. The west ridge also had some good rock. It's not all stacked china on Washington, tho the parts that are can be terrifying

[Roger]

to be fair, most of the SE spur route was actually pretty cool, on decent rock. It was long enough ago that the details aren't very clear, but I seem to remember three or four really fun pitches on solid rock, followed by a few pitches of crap (where I got clocked), then some decent rock up to the top. Haven't been on the west side.

[Roger]

Oregon -- the land of the choss.

 

I got nailed hard by a brick-size rock on the SE spur of washington several years ago. On about the fourth of nine (?) pitches an avalanche of rock was dislodged by rope drag, and one landed squarely on my thigh. By the time we were on the summit I could barely put weight on my leg... which made for a slow and unpleasant descent and "hike" back to the car. I have not been back to that cone of peanut brittle since.

[Raingoat]

Sorry for not posting earlier. I was the leader of the eight-person Mazamas group on Washington last Sunday (wearing the sparkling, disco helmet). First a positive note: We all got to climb the summit pinnacle with literally hundreds of Monarch butterflies fluttering about. Must have been passing through on their migration.

 

Our party had a couple of less experienced, timid climbers. That's why we set up the middle rap station, which the Cascade Mtn. club from Bend also used. Those rap stations suck up lots of time.

 

I warned our party repeatedly throughout the day about stepping carefully so as not to cause rock fall. Despite that, I'm sure we let some fly. We did not, however, knock the television off the middle section. We saw it (and its twin right next to it) and carefully stepped around it. I'm gald it didn't hit anyone, though it sounds like it came far too close.

 

I will certainly be more selective about who I take on climbs like this. I will also avoid that mountain on busy summer weekends. There was far too much rock fall, and it's really quite amazing that no one got hurt. I also will never go down that scree field again--too much rock fall and too destructive to the plants trying to survive.

 

Tim

[aggressivepedestrian]

Well, newbies have to get the experience somewhere. I don't really blame anybody for kicking stuff off: you have to be as careful as you can, but stuff's still going to fall. If you're worried about the risk, well, you can choose another route or stay home and watch the British Open.

 

No, what irked me was when I was waiting on the saddle while one of my partners was rapping, and another team climbing above him was kicking rocks off but not letting anybody know about it.

[iain]

Those mountains just don't seem conducive to large teams. You get 8 slow people on TFJ for instance, and the mountain is effectively shut down for the day. People have since turned around in the parking lot because they saw too many Mazama stickers. The groups I've run into have been fun, polite people, but at the same time have eaten hours off of peoples' climbs. Anyways, thanks for posting.

[bellemontagne]

I'm just glad to hear everyone made it back down relatively safe and sound.

 

A frequent quote I hear about Mount Washington is the route your partner climbs will be different than the route you just climbed. Hopefully as soon as I get my knees taken care of, I will make Mount Washington my first foray into true mountaineering.

 

A friend of mine was up on Three Fingered Jack last year and got caught up in a logjam of climbers. A group of four (two guys and their girlfriends) ahead of them had decided to setup a toprope on the final section that leads to the summit. Interestingly the two girls had never climbed before, and this time toproping was their FIRST TIME CLIMBING - PERIOD.

 

Sometimes I find some people's judgement and stupidity un-frgging-believeable...;

[iain]

quote:

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Originally posted by bellemontagne:

I'm just glad to hear everyone made it back down relatively safe and sound.

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Hear hear!

 

the route your partner climbs will be different than the route you just climbed.

 

I've found the rock to be good, by OR standards. (read: I've only almost died twice from rockfall :-))

 

I will make Mount Washington my first foray into true mountaineering.

 

You'll find it a staircase if you are a sport climber. It's not the difficulty of the climbing up there, it's the consequences of a mistake. :-) Just ask the last sport climbers who had an accident up there.

 

and this time toproping was their FIRST TIME CLIMBING - PERIOD.

 

That's not uncommon at all on TFJ. If I had one-two people I'd be willing to take them up there as a first climb. It's just when you get a bigger inefficient group that it really slows down the works.

 

I hope to see you up there. Both are really easy climbs but I don't get tired of them for some reason. Smoot's a snob when it comes to OR climbs. He dismisses both Wash and TFJ as garbage. Don't blame him too much when he's coming from a WA cascades background I guess, but I like them.

 

-Iain

[S_Carter]

My partner and I came up the east buttress that same Sunday. The size of the crowd on top was amazing! Perhaps a couple of more bodies could have been squeezed in with difficulty. The large groups looked liked they were being led by capable people and everyone was courteous. Sure, there was some rock fall but the only one that hit me was the one kicked off by my partner on the buttress. Anyway the fastest way to exit with that crowd was to downclimb past the crowd at high velocity. Everyone stepped aside nicely and I was out of the danger zone soon enough.

[Picketeer]

Climb long enough on the volcanos in summer and the rocks will visit. A friend had his pack shredded climbing on the north side of South Sister; another got clocked by a basketball size rock descending Cathedral Ridge on Mt. Hood and ended up with busted ribs. Glad to hear your partner Matrixed the stone.