E ridge of Rexford TR -08/12/2001

[Dru]

Soloed East Ridge of Rexford as a day trip on Sunday. Left home 5AM got to Center crek gate 6AM. Hiked road (2 hrs) to start of bushwack, nice trail cutting work by guys working on the FFA of Pillar of Pi, no more bushwacking . Another 2 hrs of scrambling to base of route c. 10 AM (went up left hand most gully to below Pillar of Pi then cut right under ridge toe). Started climbing bush lines & ran across another party (Perry and his friend from USA, Perry lurks on cc.com, hi Perry, how did it go?) after they nearly beaned me with some rocks. Passed them at high speed and fought up bush pitches to ridge crest. Above, great ridge walk leads to pyramidal pinnacle and then several hundred meters of good, easy 5th class climbing mostly on crest and right side – excellent rock, short problems and good cracks. The 5.7 grade is pretty bouldery and the whole thing was easily doable in my Mtn. Masters. Last 100m to summit is a class 2 hike. (1PM – 3 hrs up on route)

Ran into a BCMC party on summit and begged some food from them as I had forgotten my sesame snaps –still sitting on the counter in the kitchen at home. Asked them about the descent down W. ridge, got beta, took off, downclimbed from rap station to rap station (4th class) on summit tower then down ridge to basin below Nesakwatch spires (c. 2:30). Spent half an hour drying out sweaty socks and drinking snowmelt then half hour looking for trail, found trail, very steep descent. Back to logging road at 6PM, hobbled out to car at 7PM, great views of Slesse silhouetted against the setting sun with the sun’s rays shining beams through the notches.

This was my 3rd attempt on the route – first time in 96 in a party of 4 we turned around after 2 bush pitches due to slowness. Second attempt in 2000 with 1 partner we turned around at the creek crossing when rain started. 3rd time lucky! Nice to finally tick. I would recommend it to anyone looking for some moderate, classic climbing. If you are going to take a rope along, even if just simulclimbing everything, be prepared to bivy somewhere, lots of elevation gain & loss.

 

[Dru]

Went up to Centre Creek at noon in my work truck to check out if P. & his buddy made it back down, they were moving pretty slow last I saw of them. Perry and his friend were not yet back at their truck. Maybe they are having an EPIC?????

[jordo]

This area is finally getting its due attention and is now quite popular. I climbed the N. Ridge of North Nasakwatch Spire on Sunday and over the weekend saw at least two parties come off Rexford on Sat., a party of four going up Rex. on Sun, and fresh footprints on the N. Spire. The North Spire is a fun route, but just when the climbing gets cool, you're on the summit. We were on the ridge at 7:30, simuled about four pitches of blocky stuff, pitched out three pitches at about 5.6, 4th, 5.6 and were on the summit by 9:15. Watch out for the five-foot flake of death when entering the last crack! There are three systems that breach the final spire. Take the furthest left one. The flake is the only thing to stand on to reach the crack above you! Lots of fun! Dru, must have just missed you by a couple of hours -- we had a good nap at the col between the spires and were on the trail down at about 1pm.

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: jordo ]

[dberdinka]

It's a long way down no matter how you do it. Dru, maybe we could hook up sometime for some other climbs in the Chilliwack? Give me an e-mail at dberdinka@yahoo.com.

What do you know about the free attempt on Pillar of PI? Looks like an incredible line.

Darin

[Dru]

Darin I don't know how much they have freed but it is Mike Spagnut and his buddy Sean (I think Sean Neufeld) and they have been in there a few times, for all I know it's free by now.

Update on Perry (or is it Barry - now I'm not sure) - he and his partner summitted late, decided not to descend NE ridge, went down W side, bivied somewhere w/o bivi gear, hiked all the way back up Centre to their truck (got a ride part way), and then had to climb all the approach, grab bivi gear, and come back out to their truck. They were up at the bivi, packing, when I drove in to check on them at noon yesterday.

By the way the hatchery people are sick of climbers fighting to get the key so they are now leaving the Center Creek gate unlocked, so you can show up there at 4AM and still drive up the road. This should make daytripping the route easier.

[Terry]

I'll quit lurking for a minute now that Dru has pushed me out of the closet. We were also on the East Ridge of Rexford on Sunday. We carried light up to the base of the climb on Saturday, planning on descending the NE Ridge. As it turns out our planning was poor, but more on that later. We started climbing about 8 am with several hundred feet of class 4 with one interesting low 5th class. Sorry about the rock there Dru, wasn't aware that it happened or you would have heard me yell first.

Dru caught us at the beginning of several hundred (felt like thousand) feet of less than pleasant tree, shrub and grass climbing. As Dru pointed out when he passed me, crampons would have been nice. We were slow through here, even though we simul-climbed the whole thing. Protection consisted of an occasional sling around a tree which was adequate but of course made for ugly rope drag. We finally hit the top of the ridge about 1 or 2 which was about the time I figured we would summit based on route descriptions. The climbing got a little more interesting with less greenery and more rock. We still simul-climbed parts of this. Dru's description pretty much summed up this portion of the climb. There were three sections that we set up a belay for, all in the 5.6 - 5.7 range.

Our story changes from Dru's at the summit which we hit about 4:30 or 5. At this point the NE Ridge descent was not feasible as our bivy gear consisted of one ls poly top and one goretex jacket, so we opted to bail via W Ridge. Our water supply was down to about a 1/4 of a liter, with two others filled with snow from one of several snow patches present on upper ridge. We made a two or three rappels down to W Ridge and apparently blew it at that point. Darkness was approaching, we were parched and somehow missed the descent into Nesakwatch basin. As we got lower on the W Ridge the distance to the Nesakwatch basin increased proportionally. We were suckered to the north side of the West Ridge by some foot traffic, shorter distance and at this point the presence of a small tarn (WATER). We knew this was not the right way to go but given our circumstance went of it. We made our last rappel and pulled out the headlamps. An hour of scrambling got us to the pond. After sucking down almost two liters apiece we were happy even though we knew the night was young. We started the descent at 10:30.

The rest of the evening was a blur; endless feet of scree, slide alder (not too bad), a little devil's club, typical NC bushwhacking. We passed under a large overhang at about 2 am. We took one look at the grass and soft shrubbery and said nap time. We pulled on our bivy gear, threw down the ropes and dozed for a couple hours until the shivering got us moving again. We hit the logging road about 12 hours after Dru and about a 1/2 mile further from the gate. A long walk down the road brought us back to the gate at about 8 am. Jim hitched down to the Chlliwack Fish Hatchery and made necessary phone calls while I continued hoofing back up the east side to our car and the rather unpleasant task of hiking back up to our high camp. Luckily I was intercepted by Jim and his chauffeur from the hatchery who drove us up to our car. Another three hours of hiking got us up to camp and back to the car.

We sucked down two beers stashed in the creek in a flash went down and washed off 10 lbs of pine needles, dirt and misc debris in Centre Creek then feasted on burgers and fries before the drive back to Tacoma.

Summary

The BD Moonlight and Petzl Teeka headlamps were outstanding. My Moonlight gave more light but was a little heavier.

My new partner was also outstanding. His attitude through the long evening on the west side of Rexford was a pleasure to be around. We laughed and joked throughout the evening (after we got water that is).

Water is good.

Times in guidebooks can never ever be trusted. Follow them knowing that you may take a bit longer. In our case on this trip, a lot longer.

Don't even think about descending the NE Ridge - go down West Ridge, but know where you're going.

We could have done some things differently but didn't, suffered the consequences and dealt with them.

Great trip.

Would I recommend Rexford? Probably not. The amount of work and vegetation involved to get to a couple of short 5.6 - 5.7 moves doesn't add up to a positive number in my estimation. I'm glad I did it and I'll be back up north again soon.

If you do plan a trip to Rexford the fish hatchery employee let us know that the gate is no longer going to be locked.

Finally, many thanks to Dru for checking up on us.

Sorry for the length of the report...

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[Dru]

You say Terry, I hear Perry, then on the phone I thought you said Barry... I will take a qtip and clean the wax out of my ears when I get home.

So you went straight down from the W. ridge to the road? Wow. Sounds like a story where 2 friends of mine did Ne buttress of slesse, went down w side, missed traverse ledge and kept rapping into forest then followed creek gullies down until they hit the border swath at which point they knew they had to go north to find the road...

Character building bushwhacking is good for the soul in small doses. "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger". And there is nothing quite as nice as a sunrise when you are shivering at an unequipped bivy!

[This message has been edited by Dru (edited 08-14-2001).]

[hacim]

The hatchery people have changed their minds. You have to get a key for the centre creek gate again.

The guy at the hatchery this weekend acted like this policy is unchanged and the gate was never left unlocked. Although the last time teh key was checked out was a month ago.

[Kyle]

I was thinking of doing this route, but now I'm not so sure...sounds like some serious work

Nice going!

[bobinc]

Brush is a protector of wilderness values.