[TR] Big 4 - Direct Tower route 8/28/2011

[hanman]

Trip: Big 4 - Direct Tower route

 

Date: 8/28/2011

 

Trip Report:

Headed up yesterday with a couple friends. The wet spring/early summer helped the devil's club grow to nearly Jurassic proportions. The ferns were head high, and unseen tripping hazards consisted of marmot sized snaffle slugs native to the northern side of the massif.

 

Needless to say, it was a wee wet on the first pitch, surprising given the calendar date. Pitch 2 was dispatched with some huffing and puffing by yours truly, and the somewhat runout pitch 3 was climbed in excellent style by FAer Mr Packard with nary a whimper. We were stopped at this point by considerable wetness, and decided to rap.

 

Overall, a great day with great friends! Sorry no pix

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Full rack to 4.5" on P1, P5, P6, P7

 

Approach Notes:

Cushy highway trail to traverse out east of the ice caves. Typical jungle crawl we know and love

[goatboy]

What early summer are you referring to? It has been a late spring and no summer really until August... Nice job on Big 4 though

[chucK]

Jeff Hansel and I climbed this (first 6 p's) yesterday.

 

Very fun route (first 5 p's anyway), and an excellent choice for a hot day. We were in the shade the whole time. Apparently it is also a good idea that you head up there after a period of prolonged dryness. Both times I've been there it has been dry and nice and cool, but it looks like (and reports indicate) that it could be pretty wet on the stellar corner pitches (1, 5).

 

As it was, p1 and 5 have lots of seriously good crack goodness (on pebble-studded congolmerate) and p2-3 are some serious face climbing up a bolted face. Pitch 3 is pretty heady with some runout 5.9 climbing and a well-protected 5.10 move.

 

Pitch 6 is a short handcrack which has refilled with moss (lots of on lead gardening) and a very funky topout. You have to pull up over a dirt cornice through a bunch of dead trees, and the rap station is not obvious. So if you are going up there for an awesome crag climb, I would suggest rapping from the top of p5.

 

Further adventure can be had above (about 5 more pitches), but should be thought of more of a mountaineering adventure with route finding, bush thrashing and figuring out how in hell to get back down (we didn't do that part yesterday).

 

INFO

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/484691/Re_TR_Big_Four_Direct_Tower_Ro

 

And I am very happy to report that CrazyJZ's helmet was retrieved (http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=487270). Which was quite useful as Jeff had forgotten his. As we are once again reminded, everything happens for a reason.

 

[hanman]

Nicely done Chuck-

 

Great hot day outing!!

 

MH

[shapp]

pitch 3 makes me cry for mommy, on second no less

Edited August 13, 2012 by shapp

[tanstaafl]

chucK! I was just wondering what ever happened to you. Glad to see you're still getting after it and dragging Hansel along with you. Many thanks for the link to the JZ TR; I hadn't seen that one before.

[Off_White]

We went up to this route on July 8th this year, and it was decidedly too early: the first pitch was running with water and the face pitches above were wet too.

 

Here's the base in less than ideal conditions.

 

We wandered over and did The Mule, which was dry, and took a good picture of the approach. We had gone up to the Tower Direct via an unpleasant bushwack, but descended a very pleasant set of washes and talus. Shooting from The Mule I got a good angle on the approach and offer this beta photo:

 

 

The pink line is the preferred way to go, after the talus field hop over the ridge and pick more talus and rocky washes, much better than the bushalicious black line. Note that there is a trail that leads through the brush where the two lines diverge, but it becomes indistinct when you hit the first talus field.

[hanman]

Wow off- great approach variation. I've always soldiered on through the devils club infested head high ferns, head down swearing softly about a somehow better route. The thing really does need to be dry though, then it is alot of fun. How was the mule? Haven't been up in a few years. I would definately like to go back and add a pitch or 2 to get to the top of the chasm gulley.

 

Mh

[Off_White]

Yah Mark, you wind up coming up the drainage that forms the gully west of the Direct Tower, so you even avoid that elevation loss. Coming down was a simple matter of following your nose and the line of least resistance - almost all talus hopping and rocky stream bed, though some of those beds were a little narrow. Almost no bushwacking at all.

 

I'm going to update my old Mule TR from 2007 with a couple more beta photos - got a good one for the location of the third pitch belay as well as one of tree wrestling on pitch 4.

 

In short, the Mule was a great way to salvage the day and we had a really good time.