[TR] Mt. Slesse - NE Buttress 7/27/2012

[jesselillis]

Trip: Mt. Slesse - NE Buttress

 

Date: 7/27/2012

 

Trip Report:

NE Buttress- Mt. Slesse: Trip Report

July 27-29, 2012; with Seth Bushinsky

 

 

60-second overview

Between July 27 and 29 Seth and I climbed Mt. Slesse, in Chiliwack, British Colombia. Friday, we approached below the north glacier, and climbed the Northeast Buttress (NEB) from it's toe to the midway bivy ledge. Pitches to the buttress crest were strenuous and largely choked with vegetation. Weather moved in shortly before reaching the crest, reducing visibility to less than 50m for the remainder of the day. Several pitches of good climbing (much of it simul-climbing) took us (into the night) and to the large bivy ledge half way up the climb. Saturday morning again several pitches of fun and variably scenic (low cloud deck and sky islands) rock took us to the summit by late afternoon. Due to time of day, limited visibility and anticipated descent challenges, we changed our plan from the crossover descent (CD) to the standard (west-side) descent (SD). We descended via numerous rappels and oftentimes-obscure trails to campsites at 5800ft and slept there. Sunday we continued to descend 2000+ feet to the old road bed, then out on old forest road and eventually Slesse Creek Road (SCR). We hitchhiked from the intersection of SCR and Chiliwack Lake Road (CLR), back to the car.

 

Pretrip planning

Seth and I both read numerous trip reports and route descriptions prior to this trip (namely Becky, Nelson, Kearney and Abegg). I thought as a result we would encounter less complications than we did.

Additionally we made numerous inquiries into the nature of the pocket glacier (has caused fatalities in recent years) and discussed at length the best decent strategy, ultimately opting for the cross-over.

 

Approach

Thursday

Left Seattle around 1845 Thursday, stopped for dinner, arriving in Chiliwack ~2130. Pulled over by police and cited for speeding; first alerted to rescue in operation for WA climbers on Slesse. Officer offered no additional information and was of unpleasant disposition, so we made no further inquiries (later learned my good friend Peter was amongst them, though, circuitously, as a result of assisting another party in distress). Continuing to trailhead (TH) on Nesakwatch Creek Road (NCR), we encountered a lone S&R personnel, who could only add the party was now more than 24 hours past expected return time (no knowledge of which route), that Mt. Slesse is 'unforgiving' and that 'people die up there all the time'. S&R additionally offered that taking my Impreza to the Slesse TH would result in 'carnage' to the vehicle. Of course we tried anyhow, and of course he was correct. Cross ditches for drainage would prevent most vehicles without 8+ inches clearance from passing without scraping/worse. We returned to the Wind River (WR) camp area and slept at a pullout littered with spent ammunition, resigned to a 3 mile longer-than-expected approach.

 

Friday

Up at 0400, moving by 0500M. We drove to pullout before first cross ditch and start hiking up road to TH (road worsened in condition past the four cross ditches we did cross in the car the night prior). Noticeable absence of S&R vehicles. Arrived at Mt. Slesse TH without seeing a car, so presumably missing climbers got out while we were sleeping. Noticing we had three cameras between us (two point and shoot, one DSLR), Seth opted to stash his at TH. An hour hike (non-eventful) brought us to excellent views of Slesse, our route and the pocket glacier. Took crossover trail from this point (obvious sign), down to Slesse N-face drainage, intending to take this up to the base of our route. Instead wound up taking much of crossover route descent upwards though forest. Realizing this, at 0800 (and at similar elevation to route base) we cut off from trail towards base of NEB. Rather than taking our intended line (yellow in first picture below) we took a much less direct approach that crossed directly below the north glacier.

 

 

 

Less than an hour after crossing (as we were racking up for pitch 1), the north glacier shed pieces large enough to knock climbers from their path. Base of climb at 1000.

 

Narrative of climb

Friday

I wish I had made even brief notes as to character of each pitch along with notes on times. Next time.

The first pitches up from the toe were very much vegetated. Sometimes to ridiculous extremes.

 

 

Overcast all day after 1300. Visibility down to 50ft after ~1700. Climbing into night to reach large bivy ledge and snow for water.

 

Saturday

Woke to low cloud deck and sky islands, cloud deck ~500 feet below us.

 

 

 

The clouds ascended as we did, but more quickly.

The photos below are separated in time by about 30 minutes.

 

 

 

Cool rainbow halos.

 

 

Summit around 1530

 

 

Narrative of Descent/Return to car

Saturday

We rapped down a couloir immediately below our summit point (not the true summit, had a 60m climbing rope and a 30m tagline). And then followed that by another three or so. Reaching a large shelf we tried walking off (skiers left), but found ourselves quickly rappelling again. Four more rappels and eventually we reached the snow in the col, we opted to take (what we believed to be) the less complicated, traditional descent (despite our car being on the NCR), in hopes of reaching a road before dark and avoiding the snow of unknown character in low-to-no light. Trails of variable likeliness (at one point steering clear through a tree in an idyllic bivy site) eventually took us down to the 5800' alp, where we gave up on our intent to get out that night, and bivied.

 

 

Sunday

Similarly impish trails disappeared and reappeared as we descended down the ridge towards Slesse Creek. I ran out of food at breakfast, Seth never ran out. Lacking any confidence that we were on the prescribed descent we continued plodding confident (well, at least more confident that we were of other things) at least we were moving in the correct direction. At what our GPS told us was almost 1000 feet lower (2900) than we expected (3800), we found an old forest road perpendicular to our descent and followed this until it turned to old gravel roadbed, and eventually into the blast-site dominated SCR. Ideally we'd have dropped a car or bike here, but those plans we not laid, leaving us with a bit of an extra walk. For the next two hours I was surprised every 2-4 minutes that hitchhiking in Canada is as poorly received as it seemed to be. Ultimately a gracious gentleman and his son gave us a ride, all the way back to our vehicle and even brought Seth back to the TH (not without some scraping) to retrieve his camera.

 

Additional subjective bits

- 1/2L water is too little to climb with

- two 60m ropes or a single rope and a 60m tag line would have saved us some hassle on rappel (we brought one 60m 8.5mm double rope and a 30m 6mm tagline)

 

Gear

Camping- bivy sac, light sleeping bag, blowup pad, jetboil

Climbing- 40L pack, 60m 8.5mm rope, 30m 6mm tagline, BD cams .3-3 (doubles 0.5-1), BD nuts 4-11 and Metolius Astro nuts 1-6, 3 pitons, 8 alpine draws, 3 double length runners, 2 quickdraws, BD couloir harness, katoonah spikes and petzl aztar ice tool

 

Time/Feature Summary/notes

time landmark/event

Thursday

1845 leave Seattle

2130 Chiliwack, speeding citation

2200 chat with S&R

2230 discover extent of cross gullies

2300 camping at Wind River pullout

Friday

0400 get up

0500 leave campsite

0515 start hiking up Nesakwatch Rd towards Slesse TH

0600 arrive at Slesse TH (no car), Seth leaves camera

0700 Crossover trail junction

0800 break from crossover trail descent trail, and through brush in direction of route

0915 cross under north glacier

1000 start climbing route

1050 J top of P1

1115 S start P2

1145 S top of P2

1200 J starts P3 [magic carpet]

1245 J top of P3

1310 S starts P4

1350 J starts P5 (simul)

1420 S starts P6 (simul, ALL TREES)

1440 S leads another (P7, simul)

1515 J reaches buttress P8 (simul)

1640 S at top of P9 (his lead)

1720 J top P10

1800 S top P11

1945 J top of P12 (possible link of 5.8, 5.10, 5.9)

2015 S leads up tiny bit for better anchors (P13)

2055 J leads short section to 'beautiful ledge' (P14)

2135 J leads another short section to base of 5.8 layback crack (P15)

2210 J leads crack to 'gigantic' bivy ledge (P16)

2230 S to gigantic bivy ledge (snow, thank god)

2345 to bed

Saturday

0630 get up- sore as heck

0900 S starts us out from bivy (simul, P17)

1000 J starts up first of 4 'summit' pitches described in Becky (5.7, P18)

1030 J at top of P18

1055 S starts up 2nd of 4 'summit pitches' (P19)

1125 S at top P19

1220 J at top of 3rd of 4 summit pitches (P20)

S leads up above (P21, maybe off -route a bit?, lots of lichen)

J leads P22 to a ledge

S leads P23

J leads P24 to summit (after taking a lead fall (foothold broke) at the base of it and decking- ouch)

1540 summit!

1600 S at summit

1800 after 5(?) rappels, start walking down towards col (about even elevation with slender gendarme)

1945 after short walk, sketchy downclimb (J) and 2-4 (J,S) variably sketchy rappels, reach snow below NW of Slesse, opt for normal descent

2130 5800ft alp and campsites, make bivy

2230 sleeping

Sunday

0630 get up

0745 start descending

0930 descent stops, start traversing Northward on something like a game trail, parallel to creek still far below

1030 game trail becomes graveled

1110 reach paved road, blasting site and signs for Slesse Creek TH

1220 reach 5540 Chiliwack Lake Road, start hitchhiking attempts

1320 catch a ride

1340 arrive back at car

1420 Seth returns from extra trip back to TH to retreive camera

Edited October 1, 2012 by jesselillis

[G-spotter]

Too bad about your epic, but you got a great Brockenspectre shot.

[Buckaroo]

You summited and made it back in one piece, that's all that matters.

 

If you had a lot of bushwhacking in the early pitches you were off route, especially that pic in the tree.

 

The descent is 2 25M raps, some 3rd class down climbing and traverse, then 2 more 25M raps. A single 60 is fine unless you have to retreat from on the climb.