[TR] Mt. Slesse - Northeast Buttress 8/21/2013

[stamati]

Trip: Mt. Slesse - Northeast Buttress

 

Date: 8/21/2013

 

Trip Report:

This report is a long time coming. I was waiting for the author, Greg, to post this up, but I'm taking matters into my own hands. I'm sure Greg won't mind. We didn't take pictures, so here's George Bell's photo for all mountain-porn addicts:

[img:center]http://home.comcast.net/~gibell/image/86slesse1475_31classic.jpg[/img]

 

 

I wanted to strangle Stamati. Coworkers were sure Stamati was going to kill me. In fact to tie in with him was suicide. Still, I asked, "Stamati, lets get after Slesse." And you know what he said? "No. Following thirty pitches of climbing is not going to be fun." This left me fuming; this was Stamati’s chance to climb a route longer than either of us had ever climbed. I would have leaped at the opportunity years ago. Slesse: if there was ever a mountain that meant something it was Mount Slesse. Slesse was my reason to moving north to Washington, to be near this peak. Imagine a massive buttress rising from the ground for over three thousand feet of ridge climbing, as I did, day in and day out. It was Slesse the most amazing mountain there ever was. Accessible, challenging, daunting, mythical - it was everything. It’s North Buttress goes at 5.10 grade V. I wanted to do it in a day and Stamati wanted none of it.

 

I was brooding about a climb that had to go now, there was no other time. Every star in the galaxy had aligned except Stamati. Plus, 28 pitches on your 28th birthday is a goal long in the making. Try as I might I couldn't let it go, It welled up in me on the walks home from work. Why wouldn't Stamati climb it, why does it mean so much to me? As the work week of washing dishes roared onward, I stared into the soapy mess scraping pots with the back of a spoon. More and more dishes came through the window. I stood there with no place to run to. No place to think about. My mental refuge is the next place I am heading, the next route, the next path. This is how I wash dishes- by not really being there.

 

Soon, another fear became compelling. What will I do if the weather is splitter and have nowhere to go and no one to go with. I couldn’t even speak with Stamati. He said he wanted more compliments for things done right. He didn’t want to feel incompetent. I thought, “You dropped me while I was hanging from a bolt, you didn’t tie your knot right and still fell on it. You lack the fear that keeps us alive as well as the attentiveness to be safe. Stamati was all I had. My diamond in the rough was more rough than diamond.

 

The days counted down. Two days before the weekend I relented. "Let's go backpacking, Stamati." We should cross the McCallister Glacier, traverse from Eldorado to Primus peak. See the country, taste the salmon berries, smell the glacial lilies, watch the sunrise from sleeping bags . Stamati agreed- this was more like it for him.

 

Then God intervened. Two roads were wiped out; one on Cascade Pass and the other was much worse. Eight slides in all, some twenty feet thick, slurries of mud, closed down highway 20. It was God's way of saying, Greg you must climb Slesse. Soon, SAR crews were sent out to Cascade Pass, closing our intended entry point for the backpacking. Upon the news of the road closures, I faked sadness.

There I was, spraying away in the dish pit, trying to excavate some fixture of junk latched like a sea anemone to ceramic plates when Stamati arrived in my dish pit. It was him, not me, who declared, "Backpacking is out. SAR has their hands full extracting sixty people trapped in the Cascade Pass Parking lot." I tried not to smile and over play my benevolent hand. I said, “Stamati, you know what that means right?" He says, "What?" "We should climb Slesse." He threw down his hands. “Fine lets climb Slesse, let's do it."

 

With that, another coworker said it was nice to know me, figuring Stamati would be the end of me. He told Stamati to get his man pants on. Truth is, I didn’t give shit. We were going to climb Slesse- nothing else mattered. We were going to climb it from the very base tackling the Magic Carpet pitches of moss and cedar that most avoid.

 

We left late on the first day of our weekend, driving four hours to the jarring washed-out logging roads that lead to the mountain. We scouted out the approach that afternoon. Our excitement welled up as we retired for bed out in the open, looking at the stars. My wake up alarm went off at 2 am. After a breakfast of disgusting, gritty, energizing chorizo burritos, we were crossing the river at 2:30. Stamati felt like his bowels might explode.

 

The darkness of the morning gave way to gently lit glacially scoured slabs above the cirque. The imposing East Face and the soaring buttresses of the Beauty Queen were like nothing we had ever seen. How could something so perfect exist in this world? I don't know and I probably never will. The approach was surprisingly straight forward. Stamati voiced that the descent should be a piece of cake. Arriving at the base of the North Buttress we began moving vertically, arriving to the aptly named Magic Carpet which was as humorous as it was terrifying as it was frustrating. But we had to do this thing from the ground up or it didn't really count, did it?

 

Moving past the toe, we got into the groove of simuling, pitching out, simuling, pitching out. We made belays that wouldn't pass inspection by most standards, but they worked and we were knocking out pitches in half an hour at most. Our change overs were quick and efficient. And to Stamati's surprise, I switched the lead over to him. It was something of a reward for making my dream a reality. And you know what, he did it and he did it well. When he put his mind to it, he soared.

 

In ten glorious hours we summited. Stamati said, “Greg, happy.... I'll save the rest for when we get back to the car.” He smiled. We took our packs off and lounged about, taking in the wild glaciers of American Border Peak, Luna Peak, Mt. Baker. This is classic. So classic. And we had dispatched the climb with ease. We felt great.

 

Then came the descent. We had both researched the climb extensively but had forgotten one critical piece- getting off the summit itself. We spent an hour looking for the belay station. Turns out that snafu would gain us an unforgettable and arduous descent off the mountain of my dreams.

 

Our first bout of excitement: Stamati lost traction on a low angle snow slope and careened towards the rock at the bottom of it. All I could think was, “Shit.” Turns out that's all that was on his mind too. Snow sprayed everywhere and it looked like disaster. But God intervened again- the scree he hit stopped him gently and he didn't even have a scratch. Onward we go.

 

Darkness overtook us in the talus off of Crossover Ridge. Life became an exercise in crashing down hill making our way to a basin swamp where we could pick up the trail and head home. It was a sort of, kind of, maybe a wonderful lesson in natural history. We learned Alder trees run parallel with the slope having been run over by avalanche after avalanche like diesel trains on a familiar track. There was relief in the old-growth montane fir stands that grew spacious and open - they felt like a breath of fresh air once the alder battle was finished. Then more alder. And then, the basin.

 

The hell, the real nitty gritty, began in the basin. Deep, dark, damp and maze like, it seemed we would never find our way out of it. The poorly drained soils only got worse closer to creeks. Willows spread webs of branches that choked competitors and those dumb enough to find themselves battling Salix beneath the midnight sky. In the dark the ground would disappear. I would scamper up and over brush only to fall feet first into a creek. And finally, the end was in sight, though blocked by salmonberry. God damn Salmonberry.

 

The fecund bush sprawled, leaped and dove as if in a joyous dance of evil irony. Armored with thorns it halted all progress. We could see the faint open trail in the dim darkness of the moon. Our exit was so close; it is so close to being over. There was only one way through. So we dove in, threw elbows, legs and necks into the fray. Expensive technical jackets were gouged and ripped. Cuts were lashed across the face like red scars of Zorro. We ignored the pain. Thorns dug deep. We wanted nothing more than freedom. And soon after what seemed like days yet was only minutes, we were free. I thought of leaping, skipping and singing though gravity pulled my shoulders towards the ground. Like a simple minded zombie, I partly closed my eyes and stumbled the last two miles to the truck.

 

Three days later I was scrubbing pots again and finally feeling strong enough to speak. I asked Stamati, “Was it fun? Are you happy we climbed Slesse?” He unhesitatingly admitted, “It was the best.” I could see the pride swell across the face in a quiver of grin that was unrestrained. He had only been climbing for a few months and now people respected him for climbing Slesse in a day. I think he respected himself more than anything.

 

I am afraid my memory of Slesse will not be the finishing hand crack with the light rain pelting my face. Nor, the careful slab movements of the first pitch or the full on veggie battle on the second. Maybe it will be the gentle ridge walk with the sun sinking low and lower on the horizon as we descended. No, those will too will soon fade. What always seems to stay are feelings.

 

As a true delusional climber I will let the bushwhack fade as time washes wounds and polishes memories. I will hold on to the image I had when I turned my headlamp off, allowed my eyes adjust- and there grew Slesse. In the darkness the faint stature of Slesse rose higher as my eyes adapted; through the darkness the outline grew. The mountain was my cardinal landmark in the disorienting mess - Slesse's dark silhouette on the skyline. Slesse guiding us through the brush as if he were watching us, grinning at us, laughing at us, and loving us.

Stamati will never let Slesse go either. He tells everyone the story, posting the route’s difficulty on Facebook: TD+ Grade V 5.10, and begging anyone, someone, to come climb Slesse again. His admiration for the unexpected, his ability to forget, his morale once committed all short list Stamati for more long nights and bad ideas. He knows next time will be better - right? We will nail that descent and we will go when Stamati can lead all the pitches. I will follow my bastard of an apprentice as he leads pitch after pitch of beautiful loose and dirty climbing with finesse and speed up at an old friend - Slesse. Until then the season is over. Just as I will miss the mountains I will miss Stamati, a rough diamond but a diamond nonetheless.

 

Gear Notes:

Enjoy the fixed red camalot below the headwall.

 

Approach Notes:

Straight up the basin to the toe of the buttress. Glacier slid so no icefall hazard.

Edited March 22, 2014 by stamati

[mountainsloth]

Great read. You captured a climber's inner obsession well.

[olyclimber]

Did Greg write this, or did you? I have to say, if you wrote it, thats a pretty hilarious ...writing from your partners point of view. And even if Greg wrote it, great TR.

 

Thanks for posting!

[JasonG]

I think this was posted already, last summer or fall, but now I can't find it in the database. Weird.

 

But just as great the second time around!

[stamati]

Haha! Thanks for the feedback. I wrote a bit of it, mostly the parts that deal with specifics of the climb. But the best parts, the parts that express the inner obsession of climbing, were written by Greg.

 

I begged Greg to let me read this essay as he was reticent to share it. Probably because it starts off with him wanting to kill me! But I knew that already.

 

The best part of this climb for me is knowing I earned my mentor's respect, and that I no longer have to worry about being murdered in my sleep.

[Newfield]

Great read. I'm even more psyched to get on it!