[TR] Mt. Formidable - Direct NE Buttress 7/14/2010

[daylward]

Trip: Mt. Formidable - Direct NE Buttress

 

Date: 7/14/2010

 

Trip Report:

Well, Forrest finally had the opportunity to get out and do something in the mountains this summer, so the date was set ahead of time. He left it to me to figure out something to do. Back in the late 90's (can't remember which year), Forrest and I had tried to approach Formidable via the Middle Fork Cascade River, with the idea of doing something new on the NE face. That didn't go so well, due to disappearing trail leading to massive bushwhacking with a healthy helping of rain. Since then, most of the reasonable lines that would have been new at the time have been climbed. Nonetheless, I somehow had the idea that it would be fun to climb that mountain anyway, so we headed out there with the plan to see which route looked good when we got there.

 

We decadently slept in until 4:00 am in an undisclosed location within a 5-mile radius of the Cascade Pass parking lot, so it was fully light by the time we got going. We hit snow just before Cascade Pass at 6:00 am, made it to Cache Col by about 8:00 am, ate a snack at the still frozen tarn of Kool Aid Lake at 9:15, followed goat tracks up the high route above Red Ledges, and made it down to the Middle Cascade Glacier by 11:00. There, we sat on our haunches and stared up at the pile of choss before us, deciding which way we wanted to go. In the end, we suspected that the most fun would be had by getting on rock as soon as possible, which meant the DNEB.

 

[img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Ha9ql-I/AAAAAAAAC-I/PDY-FdndqWw/s800/IMG_2331.JPG[/img]

 

I had read this post the day before, so I knew it went, and heck, we'd probably be getting the second ascent of the thing.

 

After munching some meat and cheese, we hiked up to the base of the rock and got on it via this convenient platform:

 

[img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_LnK4bkI/AAAAAAAAC-g/tQEenyV2BMY/s800/IMG_2337.JPG[/img]

 

From there, the route was straightforward with lots of vegetation, mud, and loose rock. The climbing was interesting in the sense of not being boring, and the views and exposure were spectacular.

 

[img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_NlB42sI/AAAAAAAAC-o/OKp4KvpChaw/s800/IMG_2339.JPG[/img]

 

[img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_PxqJedI/AAAAAAAAC-0/EToCBRAHCIE/s800/IMG_2342.JPG[/img]

 

[img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Q_GNqkI/AAAAAAAAC-4/cPjLGFdQMsg/s800/IMG_2343.JPG[/img]

 

We chose a line that seems to have been a little farther right than the FA party. When we got to the snow arete, we went straight over to the notch to the right of the East Ridge Pyramid instead of climbing over it like the FA party did.

 

[img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_RREnUrI/AAAAAAAAC-8/WVxN2vK8RyQ/s800/IMG_2344.JPG[/img]

 

We sumulclimbed the east ridge almost to the summit, then soloed the rest of the way. We hit the summit just about 5:00 pm. On the way back, we decided it was too much trouble to deal with the rope, and soloed all the way back to our packs at the notch. It was a little dicey with all the loose rock, but much better without rope drag.

 

[img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Tna4lUI/AAAAAAAAC_M/9uQRJOz0MGg/s800/IMG_2347.JPG[/img]

 

[img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_UZbKzyI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/RSNU14E_BaI/s800/IMG_2348.JPG[/img]

 

[img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_V7qRJLI/AAAAAAAAC_Y/4guh_g-Bf0w/s800/IMG_2350.JPG[/img]

 

We descended from the notch on the NE face, to skier's right of the buttress we climbed. We descended to the right of the snow arete, then down a snow finger that started to peter out, but we found ledges to traverse across skier's right to a steep snowfield that extended all the way down to the glacier. We carefully downclimbed around bergschrunds until we were on flatter ground, around 8:00 pm. Then it was another 5-hour trudge back to the car, but very beautiful:

 

[img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_XxXSEHI/AAAAAAAAC_k/gbMVt1r0dqw/s800/IMG_2353.JPG[/img]

 

Got back to Seattle at 5:00 in the morning, after stopping on the side of the road to sleep for an hour on the way. It was a full day.

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Eh... do what you want and call me back.

 

Approach Notes:

Longer than I thought. I'd done the Ptarmigan Traverse once, from the north, but I didn't remember it being so far to Formidable. We should have gotten an earlier start. It was nice to have all the snow though, we didn't have to do much scree scrambling.

Edited July 17, 2010 by daylward

[mountainsloth]

cool!

[dberdinka]

Hey,nice TR. You can always tell the hardcore alpine climbers by their dynemma helmets.

 

So reading between the lines here is this a classic example of a still motivated climber with to much else going on who gets a free day then says....honey we're gonna drive out the night before...then says ....honey we'll be home late so don't wait up. Who's day trip then becomes a +/*- 33 hr epic! Sweet. I like it.

 

Beautiful photos I can't believe you went all the way in there and back out in a day.

[forrest_m]

\honey we're gonna drive out the night before...then says ....honey we'll be home late so don't wait up

 

"honey, technically, i'm home but actually i'm lying on the couch all day..."

 

[dberdinka]

Hah. Ain't that the truth!

[kurthicks]

glad to see someone else climbing this thing! nice work.

 

Interesting choice on the descent route. How steep was it? Our walk off the back side was pretty casual and took about as long from my notes (4 hours from summit to our camp near the red ledges).