howiecrusher Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 (edited) Trip: Black Peak - North East Ridge Date: 7/7/2012 Trip Report: BOEALPS ICC Alpine 3 Outting: North East Ridge of Black Peak July 7-8, 2012 Quick Stuff: - Rainy Lake/Lake Ann trail head parking lot still completely snow covered. - Lake Ann TH is behind the trail info board closest to SR20. - Trail to Heather pass is melting out quickly. No real issues following it, but there are some longer sections of snow coverage. - Snow all the way up to the NE ridge. - Ridge is snow free. Time Line: Saturday: 8:20am Leave TH 11:30am @ Wing Lake 12:30pm, leave wing lake after dropping overnight gear and getting water 2:00pm @ start of NE ridge route 9:00pm @ summit (yeah, we were sloooooow) 11:51pm back at Wing Lake camp (still a day trip!) Sunday: 9:10am Leave Camp 11:30am Back at cars! Longer Version: This past weekend Micha, Niki, Emily, and myself (Mike) did the NE ridge of Black Peak for our ICC Alpine III outting. We planned on completing the route on Saturday and camping at Wing Lake to avoid a super long day. The Lake Ann TH was completely snow covered and, unless you already know where the trail starts, it can be very hard to find. (It starts behind the notice board at the entrance to the parking lot and the trail climbs up and to the right). The trail was originally snow covered and hard to follow. It was melted out about 20ft above the parking lot so a quick bushwack can let you avoid a switchback. After this point the trail is pretty easy to follow all the way to Heather pass. The traverse and climb from Heather pass to Wing Lake is a wonderful traverse for multiple miles and is a great way to get your left leg into shape...It's completely snow covered. Smart route is to actually veer closer to Lewis lake than to try and to maintain elevation. Your legs will thank you later. Looking back at the Pass and Lewis Lake: We found a nice, snow free bivy spot by some larch trees and dumped our gear here. Wing lake had a nice melted puddle of water for us to filter from for the rest of our journey. The route from Wing lake up to the ridge was easy and snowy. Looking at the route from Wing Lake to the ridge: The start of the route had a large snow mound on it, but there was still enough melted away that it was a pretty easy walk. We roped up before this (with some goat company) and started off. Micha and i were on a 60m half rope that we doubled up and shortened even more to 25m. Niki and Emily were on a 60m single rope that they shorted to about 25-30m. Rope drag was a problem from the entire route!!! The start of the route: Emily has a new friend looking down to her. Too bad it's a goat! There's not much to say about the route. Stay left then at some point stay right. I'm not sure if we were lucky and made the transition correctly or if we were forced to do this by what looked "easier". Both teams simul-climbed the ridge and pitched the 5.2-ish section. Swapped leads when appropriate. Best and only route picture I have at some unknown location on the ridge. It's not even focused well! Proof of summit. At least for Niki: The down climb of the standard route sucks with headlamps. We weren't really sure how it approaches the summit so we did some awkward down climbing from the summit down to the sandy ledges below and followed carins intermittently. At some point we were in the wrong decent gully and headed down the wrong side of the mountain. Niki luckily realized this and we corrected our route and quickly found a great marked 'trail' down. Hit snow around 7900ft and ran all the way back to camp! Sorry no pictures of this...camera doesn't work at night. I also don't have much to say as to why we took 7hrs on the ridge when it normally should be 4hrs. Some of it is my fault for leading slowly and being cautious to find the correct and best route on the ridge at first. Something that comes with experience I guess... Overall this is a good trip/climb and we had great weather for it. I'm sure I'll be doing it again sometime in the future. Gear Notes: ice axe, helmet, harness, etc. 8.2mm, 60m half rope....a 25-30m rope is best. Set of nuts, a few hexes and tri-cams, 2 link cams, LOTS of slings. Rock seemed to take smaller pro better than larger stuff. Had crampons, but left them at the lake. We needed training weight. Approach Notes: Trail to Heather pass is about 30% snow covered. Continuous snow from the pass. Edited July 9, 2012 by howiecrusher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeShy Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 After this point the trail is pretty easy to follow all the way to Horsefly pass. Did you actually go to Horsefly Pass or did you follow the trail over Heather Pass? From your first picture Horsefly looks a bit cliffy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howiecrusher Posted July 9, 2012 Author Share Posted July 9, 2012 Oops. I corrected the post. I mean Heather Pass... I blame the lack of sleep. 15Hrs climb followed by a sleepless night followed by a long drive home... Thanks for catching that Luke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeShy Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 It's all good get your rest at work today . I figured that's what you meant or you found a little known bypass of the down slope to the lake. Oh well the slog uphill to the pass remains Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James8596 Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 (edited) My girlfriend and I were the party of two you guys met coming down from Wing Lake. Glad to hear we weren't the only ones who had some issues at the TH. We went up the standard route and had a great climb. Encountered a very big and very friendly (a bit too friendly) goat on the way up. I made a 360 degree panorama from the summit - you can check it out here: http://www.360cities.net/image/black-peak-summit#0.00,0.00,54.8 Edited July 10, 2012 by James8596 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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