[TR] Enchantments - Black Pyramid, Prusik Peak, others 7/11/2010

[mountainmatt]

Trip: Enchantments - Black Pyramid, Prusik Peak, others

 

Date: 7/11/2010

 

Trip Report:

Stewart (OlympicMtnBoy) and I just finished a great five-day trip in a less traveled area of the enchantments. We started from snow creek TH, headed up Nada creek, climbed a couple of unknown peaks, the Black Pyramid (the NE face?), the south face of Prusik (Beckey route), and exited down Toketie. Overall we had a great time, but we were both pretty happy to see a normal trail after four days of mostly off trail hiking.

 

Day 1: We hiked up to Nada lake early in the morning to try and beat the heat. After a dip in the lake, we headed up the hill for another mile or so (mostly class 3/4) in the hot ass sun to get to the entrance to the Nada creek gully. The route is not particularly hard to follow, but I understand why some people chose to rope up on a few of the sections. After setting up camp and taking a rest, we headed up to the start of the Temple ridge and climbed two small peaks (Nada Creek Crags). One was 4th class (climbers left); the other peak was 2 pitches (5.easy, 5.8). The second peak was fun, with the last pitch requiring climbing through a hole, a chimney, and an OW mantle finish. As would become the norm, the descent took a while. We had an awesome bivy site, good views, with a nice running stream nearby.

 

Day 2: we got up late and went to the Black Pyramid. True to its name, there is a fair bit of lichen on the wall, and since it doesn’t get a great deal of traffic, a descent amount of loose rock. The wind was blowing sustained at about 20, with gust well into the 30+ range. The wind was coming out of the west, so we went to the NE side to get on the "5.6" route. The winds were strong enough that we would be hypothermic after belaying the leader. The gusts also forced the leader to occasionally just stop and try not to be blown off the wall. It definitely makes for exciting climbing. We are not totally sure that we identified the correct line as the pitches went at ~5.7, 5.8 (loose stemming), 5.9 (hard offwidth/chimney), 5.8 super mossy face. Again, I am sure someone has done the route before, or at least many of the pitches, but it doesn’t meet up with the description of the NE face route in the Beckey guide and we didn't see any gear of definite piton scars. The descent off the Black Pyramid took a couple of hours with some raps and down climbing.

 

Day 3: we wanted to do Prusik on day 4, so we moved camp further up the Nada creek basin, we moved it 0.5 miles, it took ~1.5 hours to walk there (bush whacking, rock pulling, pond avoiding fun). We found an awesome bivy site and the mosquitos were not really out yet (that would change the next day). We even took a dip in the lake and dried out in the sun! After setting up camp again it was 1 PM, so we did a little hike to scope out the approach for Prusik from that direction as well as the way we wanted to hike out (down to Toketie wall).

 

Day 4: Up early to hike to Prusik. We had to side hill a large section of snow that was hard in the morning, making the crossing really sketchy with just hiking boots and a trekking pole. After a few hours, we were at the base of the south face of Prusik. Luckily the winds were gone now, but now it was super hot! We started up the Beckey line by hiking a snow mound at the base. We started the line on the correct pitch 1, but definitely were wandering for pitches 2 and 3. We figured out where to be by p4 and did the rest of the route as usual from there. The best climbing started on pitch 5, where Stewart cruised a nice hand crack with interesting features. However, this is where things went wrong for me.

 

When seconding, I fell. As a second, this is not much of a problem, but we were using his thin Joker rope, and the stretch in the line allowed me to take a long fall. I went 15 feet into a ledge, smacked both of my legs pretty hard, and then flipped upside-down and traveled another 5+ feet below the ledge. It was perhaps the scariest fall that I have ever had (and it was on TR!). I was shaking pretty hard from the adrenaline, but I finished the pitch, scared as hell to fall again. When I hit the belay, I crashed. I was tired, hot, and super sketched out. Stew did a great job of calming me down and forcing me to rest. After sitting there for a half an hour waiting for the adrenaline to wear off, we determined that luckily I just had some bumps and bruises. As I was still shaking some, Stewart took the final crux pitch, and we topped out at about 5 or so. We rapped off, headed down and did the hike back to camp. The mosquitos appeared that night, but luckily a couple of cigars scared them off.

 

Day 5: we headed out of the NW end of the Nada creek valley, up to the ridge, and dropped down into the Toketie lake valley. There is a "trail" that goes through the area that we luckily found, but there is so much vegetation, blow-down, and snow that it was really hard to follow for more than 50 feet at a time. After an hour or two we arrived at Toketie lake. Toketie wall is awesome. The wall is huge with lots of route potential. There were lots of good bivy sites and the views are out of control. New route development would be a major undertaking though.

 

We made it to far side of the lake, filled up with water and then started the rest of the descent. The route heads straight down for ~2800 vertical in about 0.8 miles where you intersect the Snow Creek trail. Again we luckily found the "trail", but the whole thing is basically loose dirt, rocks, and tons of blow-down the entire way. To top it off, it was insanely hot. This section of hiking took us a little over 3 hours to come down, I bet it’s a pleasure to hike up. We hiked another 1.5 hours back down to the snow creek wall baking in the sun, and headed home.

 

 

Nada lake looking up the Nada creek valley

 

When you near the end of the boulder field, you cut right and up this:

 

Three musketeers

 

Beginning peaks of Temple Ridge

 

Summit of unknown peak #2

 

Gotta bring the horse cock along for the trip

 

Black Pyramid, Comet, Meteor, Professor, and friends…

 

Pitch 1 of the Black Pyramid:

 

Matt on pitch 2:

 

Matt on p4:

 

Rappel off the backside (south) of Black Pyramid

 

Descending the Black Pyramid:

 

Black Pyramid routes:

 

Camp for nights 3 and 4:

 

Day hikin’

 

Lighthouse tower, Comet, Meteor, Professor, and friends

 

Temple peak

 

The west end of Temple ridge, we approached Prusik by side hilling in the snow

 

Edward’s platue:

 

West face of Prusik (a party is starting p1)

 

Stewart loves chimneys!

 

 

Stewart starting pitch 3:

 

Stewart coming up Snafflehound ledge:

 

Stewart, the High Priest, Matt

 

Temple ridge from Prusik:

 

Approximate trip route:

 

 

Gear Notes:

Bring a thicker rope, gear to 4” took care of everything we did up there. Ice axe would have been nice in a few spots.

 

Approach Notes:

While we were able to follow portions of trails some of the time, these trails are definitely not well defined and you can expect lots of downfall, bushes, and for us, snow sections.

[Tony_Bentley]

Toketie has been climbed quite a bit. I doubt much worth climbing up there hasn't already been climbed but you could probably squeeze a gem or two out of it.

 

You trip is a classic. You guys did it in great northwest style. The little lake in Nada Creek is very nice as is everything else on that Northern side of Temple. Good job.

 

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Lots more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/matthiesen/BlackPyramidAndPrussikWithMatt#

[scottgg]

Cool guys, great sounding trip!

[bwrts]

Nice Pics, brings back great memories...

 

FYI: peak #3 in MountainMatt's photo is the Great-Horned Owl.

Climbed in 2004 Cappellini and Stanton (FRA)

"The Pellet"

5.9+ two pitches- start left hand side of formation center.

Pitch 1- 210' lots of loose blocks and a few trees to contend with. gear to 5-6"

Pitch 2- approx 100' short killer hand crack (similar to nface of the mole) with many ledge foot holds, also a few fingerlocks and lieback moves. gear to 2.5"

Easy to summit both of the ears. Walk around to west side gully. rap/downclimb back to base.

cappellini notes: from the temple canyon trail, ascend a couple hundred feet up steep heather to base of tower..this climb is best as an afternoon tick after the hike in to temple canyon, for a presumably more significant objective the following day....the route is classic enchantments, 5.9+, and although north facing, it is far from choss...i will forever refer to the route as "The Pellet" in reference to the way that owl coughed up ben on our way down....

 

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Cool, thanks for that little tidbit! The cracks on the Owl looked pretty nice with pretty large continuous blocks making some good splitters. Peak 1 and 2 served that same nice afternoon climb role since we were camped just below Peak 1 at the creek.

 

Also on closer inspection of Beckey I think Peak 1 and 2 are the "Nada Creek Crags" that anchor the end of Temple Ridge but aren't labeled in his pic.

[wdietsch]

[Teh Phuzzy]

epic

[dberdinka]

Nice TR. A friend and I did a very similar trip a couple years back spending I think three nights at the little tarn up there.

 

Couple other greats routes up there include a west to east traverse of Razorback and Comet. Maybe 4-6 pitches of 5.6-5.8 on great rock with some exposed 4th class thrown in.

 

We also climbed the East Face of Lighthouse Tower. While the first pitch is garbage the rest is excellent and includes several stretches of great hand cracks. Sort of a classic.

 

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