keenwesh Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 (edited) Trip: Pickets - Traverse, In Big Beaver out Goodell Date: 8/10/2010 Trip Report: Went in August 10th, got out the 17th, team of 4, Me, and my dad Scott made up the oly crew and Alex and Greg formed the Port Angeles contingent Fun trip, can't wait to go back and do the harder routes! Day 1: drove up to Ross lake and caught the boat to Big Beaver creek, as we hopped off my dad forgot to grab his trekking poles out of the boat. we shared a pair of poles between us for the rest of the trip. 13.5 short miles later brought us to Big Beaver Pass where we bundled up against the mosquitoes and drifted off to sleep after a filling dinner of homemade rehydrated lasagna. Day 2: the shwack up the hill. heading out of camp a few hundred yards we cut left into the trees and made our way to the easy first part of Wiley Ridge, heading up through the forest with no undergrowth was nice, after a while we traversed right for a hundred feet through a beat down section of devils club, only to continue heading up easy forest, a cliff band was passed by a steep section of trail on the climbers right side. we took a break and then headed up into bushwhack hell. if theres a trail up Wiley ridge through this section we were not on it, think of pulling yourself up through thick trees and slide alder with 8 days of food and gear hanging your ass over cliffs and treetops. eventually we crested the ridge out of water and energy and slowly made our way to eiley lake where we planned for a easy day to do Challenger. Greg post schwack Alex same Day 3: [img:left]http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs363.snc4/44594_1591010533614_1186393944_31693553_2429439_n.jpg[/img] Got up and made our way to the base of challenger arm and cleared a tent spot out of the mud for the megamid layed around and burned off the excellent weather only to start our climb of Challenger as the clouds rolled in and obscured the summit. went to the top of the arm and headed down wouldn't really have been able to see much up there... a while later the clouds burned off but since we suck we decided to lay in camp and eat. Day 4: into the hole. headed down the heather slopes and chossy dirt gorges into Luna cirque went right below that ice cave, luckily nothing came out of it went up to Luna Lake and I took a swim, it was damn cold but felt super nice to get 4 days of grime off me Day 5: lowered expectations Expecting that the 6 hours max time from Beckeys guide from Luna to the top of Fury was at least semi accurate we planned to make it all the way to Picket pass on this day, we did not. We crested the Luna/Fury ridge after 3 hours of steep climbing and then spent another 3 descending the other side to realize that we were still a long ways from our goal. Electing to camp on the heather below the toe of SE Fury Glacier was a good call. Luna/Fury ridge: Those heather slopes don't look that easy... that glacier looks sketch... Day 6: Fury! deciding that climbing the glacier was a really bad idea we headed up the heather slopes to the right of the big cliff above the glacier. Nervous about descending the steep slope on the SE route we decide to climb up and down the East route and then head up to the Outrigger fury notch, avoiding the tricky part of the SE route. looking back I'd just carry over and descend the SE route, faster and it's not that steep. Greg was feeling a little over his head at this point (this was his first mountaineering trip in the North cascades...) so he decided to hang out below the East route and skip the summit. we scampered up the glacier and tagged the top. This should kickstart my modeling career... summit group shot register, we were the 4th party to climb it this year as we headed down we ran into another group of 2 that were coming up, kinda funny to run into other people at the most remote part of our trip... they came in access creek, they had tried to climb Fury 28 years beforehand and gotten weathered off. they said that the good weather was forecasted to change on Monday night, unfortunately it didn't, making our hike out very hot on Tuesday! We dropped back to Greg and headed up to the notch, right below this behemoth of a Cornice thankfully it didn't fall. after the notch I soloed up some low 5th to the easy ledge to the top of outrigger and dropped a rope to help the others get up the moat. I ran to the top of outrigger and checked out the views before we headed down, we pulled the rope out for the rap and the very airy knife edge. it was a log day to Picket pass! Mongo ridge looks nice... Knife edge relaxing at Picket pass the views were okay I guess... Day 7: hiked out of camp and made quick progress to the low 5th section I soloed up trailing a rope and belayed the others up. we spent a fair amount of time doing this and I personally think it'd just be easier to just scramble it if you want to have plenty of time to fuck around getting through the Himmelhorn/Ottohorn notch (you do). coming up to the top of the low 5th we made one rap to the mustard glacier to minimize the sketchedge that was occurring in everyone but me (is that a bad thing on my part?) as we looked up at the notch. we made a rising traverse to the bergschrund where my dad almost killed all of us. he was leading and headed up to the right side of the schrund when we all heard a loud low crack and a short quick "fuck!" from above. He quickly traversed to the left side and dropped in there heading up inside the source of the sound that scared the shit out of all of us. I lead up some 5.7ish rock to traverse a ton of loose shit to get to the right side and belay everyone else up another way. if they had followed the way I went they would have faced a huge penji into the dirt so I pulled the rope up and dropped it down a different corner. unfortunately this forced us to leave a nut and a draw, if you can get in there and get it I'd really like it back. we then scrambled up some loose like wizards sleeve rock that sucked to the notch. anyone on here leave that bag full of food up there? it's orange and 20 feet above the notch on the himmelhorn notch. got a couple mountain house meals and tons of other goodies in it. we didn't take any of it cause were not dicks but I would like to know why your stashing it there. Looking back out of the notch Down into the schrund Rapping off the other side took quite a long time, the rope got stuck in the moat on the 2nd rap and then we lowered and downled a 200 foot ropelength before we could get out. we camped at the first available spot after this as it was getting late. Day 8: went over the barrier and followed the remakably good trail donw to Goodell. Burgers in Marblemount were fantastic! Gear Notes: brought a 60m half rope and a 30m glacier line, coulda gotten away with just 2 glacier lines for 2 rope teams of 2 but that would mean soloing a lot of the rock. trade off... pack light and have good weather! Approach Notes: Long and hard Edited August 19, 2010 by keenwesh Quote
sparverius Posted August 18, 2010 Posted August 18, 2010 Very nice guys. Thanks for sharing. How did you like the barrier crossing? Seems like it's always the most nerve-wracking part of any pickets trip. Unless you found a hidden passage that is quick and easy. Quote
keenwesh Posted August 19, 2010 Author Posted August 19, 2010 crossing the barrier was super easy, maybe dropping into the other side on terror glacier is tricky. crescent creek side is just a short steep snowfield and then easy low angle snow down to the trees. the ottohorn himmelhorn notch was super nerve wracking, rapping into the moat and having to downclimb on the descent combined with loose rock and cracking snow going up made for a long day. Quote
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