[TR] Mt Joffre - East Ridge 8/12/2012

[mountainsloth]

Trip: Mt Joffre - East Ridge

 

Date: 8/12/2012

 

Trip Report:

My friend and I spent a week in Squamish rockin' out to some rockin' routes but after battling crowds in Squamish on a Saturday of perfect weather, we decided it was best to escape to the alpine for our climbing fun.

Not knowing the area very well, we settled on what sat right in front of us, Girabaldi. Feeling satisfied with our itinerary for the next day, we headed to the brewery for beer and dinner. My friend leads us onto the patio and makes a b-line to the tall blonde sitting by herself pouring over the Squamish guide book. He has a nose for these situations that I have all but lost in marraige.

After a few awkward moments, he strikes up a conversation with her and soon I am involved as well. Long story short, we find a good friend, climbing partner for Monday, and thanks to her, a new and better objective for Sunday.... Joffre.

 

 

Joffre is a great up and down in a day 8900 ft peak along the crest of the coast and cascade ranges with a wide variety of routes to chose from. We decided to approach and climb Joffre in one of my favorite styles of "lets go out there and see what looks like a go".

We parked on the HWY along the old winter approach after realizing the forest road ahead was closed.

We took the trail out to the hut for a couple hrs with occasional views of our objective.

 

 

We passed the hut and followed a moraine ridge and started planning.

 

"The east ridge looks pretty cool"

The obvious arm of rock jutting out from the summit pyramid.

 

Scrambling and snowfield crossings brought us to a long and steep 50degree snow slope straddling the east ridge.

 

 

The snow was soft and easy step kicking but the exposure and runout kept us focused.

 

 

Feeling confident, we ascended without ropes or crampons ready to break either out if necessary.

One snowslope led to another steeper and more exposed snowslope.

 

note the climbers on the snowslope of the SE face on the far right. This would be our descent.

 

looking at the drop off from the North

 

This brought us to the base of the steep rock on the east face of Joffre.

 

 

Still feeling strong and confident, we continued to solo up the broken 4th, low 5th class rock. The rock was solid in general, but there were plenty of loose, large blocks to negotiate and test before trust was given. There were plenty of places for pro behind these blocks, but neither one of us felt we could trust most of it. This in conjunction with the wandery nature of the route convinced us to keep the rope and rock gear in our packs.

 

Looking down our route

 

The slab that led us off the technical rock.

 

Once off the headwall we had spectacular views of Matier and the other surrounding peaks and glaciers.

 

 

 

I have never seen such turqouise waters in my life! The color certainly trumps anything I have seen in the Cascades.

 

Above the headwall we began to run into the couple of parties who ascended the standard SE face. Crappy loose rock ensued for a perfect opportunity for us to send shit down on each other at a bit of a bottle neck. Good times.

 

The summit was not far ahead and we soon basked in the alpine glory above.

 

summit photo

 

Feeling happy, we made our descent with the party of 3 older locals we shared the summit with.

 

The SE face was basically 2 large snowfields of up to 45 degree snow with pretty mellow runouts. The slopes were a little too steep and suncupped to glissade so needless to say, the going was slow.

Having much longer legs than my friend I cruised down a bit faster and took a 20 min nap in the fading sun.

 

 

The light and suncups made for a pretty descent down a lower snowslope.

 

 

With a long way to go, we hussled down the way we came up only to stumble upon a trail that led us a more direct path back to the hut.

 

Once past the hut it was just a seemingly endless romp downhill to the car and the cold beers waiting. My dogs and knees have not hurt like that in a while.

 

7:30AM - 5PM seems like a pretty good time.

 

It had been a while since I tackled a fairly big objective like this and was happy to make hard but short work of it.

The crowds slowly trickling out of Squamish, we were happy to return to warm and secure granite cracks

 

Gear Notes:

60M rope, light rock rack, axe and crampons. Only used the pons and axe.

 

Approach Notes:

HWY 99 past Pemberton to Jofree Lakes Provincial Park. Park on the road on the East side of the Mtn.

[genepires]

nice.

 

so much snow still. looks like there is no exposed ice on n face matier?

[G-spotter]

Just a little patch bottom center-left.

[mountainsloth]

3 people were skiing the North face of Matier the same day. We got to watch them work the face from our summit perch. They seemed to avoid any ice. Looked like a pretty rad run.

[Alex]

wheres the pics of la blonde??

[mountainsloth]

see my squamish pics. She climbed Rock On with us