JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Trip: Mt Formidable - South Face Date: 8/26/2011 Trip Report: Climbed Mt. Formidable with my dad this past weekend over a 3 day period. Amazing weather, sketchy scrambling and unbelievable views highlighted the trip! We left Seattle early Friday morning, arriving at the Cascade Pass TH at about 8:30a.m. The hike up to Cascade Pass was uneventful as usual and took roughly 1 hr 30 mins. From there we headed up towards Cache Col. The traverse to the Cache Glacier was a bit sketchy as usual, but went without any issues. We arrived at the base of the glacier about 45 mins after leaving the Cascade Pass. The route up the Cache Glacier is in fine shape with the exception of getting up onto Cache Col...I went left up the moat while my Dad took the right hand option up steep snow. From Cache Col, we got our first look at our objective. Such an unbelievably gorgeous area...Formidable standing tall with its intimidating north face staring at you all the way to camp. We made quick work down to Kool Aid Lake and continued on past the Red Ledges to make our camp just south of Arts Knoll. The ledges are in fine shape but the consequences of a fall transitioning from the snow to the ledge is pretty real...I just kept telling myself to not look down into the moat. After getting past the Red Ledges, we walked about another 10 mins until we found a flat spot at the base of Arts Knoll. Made camp here for the next two nights. The next morning we woke up at 6:30a.m. and were walking by 7:15a.m. We made the descending traverse to the Middle Cascade Glacier, put on crampons, and took off towards the Spider-Formidable Col. The glacier was pretty straightforward so we didn't rope up, although the consequences of a fall could be serious as several very large crevasses have opened up. We got the col around 9a.m. and took a short break. Getting off the col and descending towards the south face was pretty easy as the loose gully that Klenke talks about was completely snow filled. Expect fairly steep down climbing for about 200 or so feet. From there we started the long up and down slog to the south face of Formidable. We got to the first saddle and decided to follow the moat down the gully instead of heading straight down the snow, gaining access into the first basin. Our next objective was to gain the cleaver and enter into the most western basin. We followed up the heather slopes and crossed over just below the snowfield that guarded the upper slopes of the south face. We followed the ledge option detailed out in Klenkes summitpost description. This was not as easy as we had thought it would be due to some snow in the gully he talks about that breaks up the ledge system. We managed to negotiate this little obstacle but not without some hesitation...its crazy how "easy scrambling" can sometimes strike the fear of god into you! Once getting over this little issue, we continued west until we were right below the summit. From there it was glorious rotten, loose 3rd/4th class rock all the way to the summit. The descent was easier than we had expected and we started the fun up and down required to get back to our camp at Arts Knoll. Time to the summit was around 5.5 hrs from camp and round trip was round 11 hrs. Not the longest of days but definitely one that kicked my ass. The hot weather didn't help but I guess its better than the alternative that we usually get to enjoy here in the PNW. Got back to camp around 6p.m., made dinner and went to bed. The next morning we woke up at 7a.m. and left camp around 8a.m. Back to the car by noon. Overall it was a very rewarding trip with plenty of amazing views, great weather and enjoyable (?) climbing Pic here at FLICKR: FORMIDABLE - SOUTH FACE (LEDGES) Gear Notes: (2) 8mm x 30m ropes (only used for two rappels), harness, small amount of pro (not used), crampons, ice axe, trekking poles and iPod. Approach Notes: Approach is pretty well laid out. Refer to summitpost if you need info...its all very well described there. Edited August 31, 2011 by JasonDowns Quote
JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Apparently the pics didnt work....again! Could someone tell me how to link photos? My dumb ass cant seem to figure it out. In the mean time, see pics at my flickr account: Mt Formidable Pics - FLICKR Edited August 31, 2011 by JasonDowns Quote
jon Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Regarding FLICKR. It's sort of a pain in the ass. What you need to do is left click on each photo, click on "Medium 640" which will take you to a new page, and from there you can then left click again and then copy the image address. We unfortunately don't have the resources at the moment to make this a simpler process from Flickr. Quote
JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 Awesome, thanks Jon. Ill make those edits to my TR as soon as I can. Appreciate the help. Quote
mattp Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Thanks, Jon. I knew there had to be a way. It may be just as easy to select a couple of your favorite pictures and post them on the cc.com photo gallery and then link them here. Quote
denalidevo Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Or after clicking on the photo in Flickr, choose the Share menu (above the photo) and use the "Grab the HTML/BB Code" option - just copy and paste into your post. That's what I do. Quote
JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 Tried that just now and still no luck...I must be a complete moron! I just updated the TR with a link to my flickr acct. One day ill get edumacated on loading pics, until then this will have to do. Quote
CamelJockey Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Solid report and pics, Downs! Great work dawg! Quote
JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 Thanks, Samona! Great report out on Triumph, looks like a fun route Quote
jon Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Or after clicking on the photo in Flickr, choose the Share menu (above the photo) and use the "Grab the HTML/BB Code" option - just copy and paste into your post. That's what I do. Yes that is actually a quicker method I guess, you have to copy only the image url to paste in. It's not just copy and paste though because you have to use the UBB markup. Flickrs policy is they do not "allow" image linking without a physical link to their site, which is totally understandable. I do want to point this one thing out, and I will preface it with the fact that we know our photo gallery software currently is a bag of suck sometimes. It's really better for people to post their TR images in our photo gallery. Reason is we can control those images, versus we can't control flickr urls or when you move your blog or it disappears. We aren't looking to own your photos, although I will not lie in that photos with proper metadata help our cause a lot. We want TRs to be timeless and around hopefully forever. So again, I really encourage people to include their TR photos in our gallery. Sorry to hijack your great TR, Jason. Quote
JasonDowns Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 I have no problem loading pics into your database, it just seems to poop out on me a lot and after a few failed attempts, its just easier to link to Flickr or Picasa. Ill continue to work on getting those pics into your gallery, as i do appreciate it when others do the same. CascadeClimbers is an amazing resource, we are lucky to have it Quote
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