[TR] Bugaboo Spire - NE Ridge (5.8, 10p + summit traverse + 1p) 7/6/2015

[ilias]

Trip: Bugaboo Spire - NE Ridge (5.8, 10p + summit traverse + 1p)

 

Date: 7/6/2015

 

Trip Report:

 

 

Allie and I did a BC climbing trip from Jul 2-12. I'm breaking it up into a few reports for the individual climbs. Here was our overall trip timeline. Bolded days are those described in this report.

 

Jul 1: Leave Seattle after work, drive to Glacier National Park in Canada

Jul 2: Pick up our permits to camp at Mt Sir Donald at the Rogers Pass visitor center, hike in to the Upper Bivy site, at the col between Mt Sir Donald and Uto Peak. Climb Uto Peak via SW ridge.

Jul 3: Climb Mt Sir Donald, descend most of the way

Jul 4: Return to camp and hike out, drive to Golden and stay in Motel

Jul 5: Get our packs packed for the Bugaboos, have breakfast, drive to the Bugaboos trailhead and hike in to Applebee Dome campground

Jul 6: Climb Bugaboo Spire via NE Ridge

Jul 7: Scramble Eastpost Spire via NE Ridge

Jul 8: Climb Snowpatch Spire via Snowpatch Route

Jul 9: Climb Crescent Towers South (Donkey Ears) via Ears Between

Jul 10: Attempt Snowpatch Spire via Surfs Up, but get weathered off

Jul 11: Hike out, drive to Halcyon Hot Springs for a day of relaxation

Jul 12: Drive back to Seattle

 

Bugaboo Spire NE Ridge (5.8)

 

After our adventure on Mt Sir Donald and a rest day in Golden, we hiked in to Applebee Dome campground in the Bugaboos on July 5th. At the trailhead, you have to protect your car against porcupines:

 

The hike in is absolutely beautiful, offering views of the Bugaboo glacier which descends down to very low elevations in a broken mass, and the Hounds Tooth:

 

 

We had ridiculously heavy unwieldy packs as we planned to stay at the Applebee Dome campground for 6 nights, and brought lots of food as well as some luxuries like camp chairs, pillows, camp shoes, a change of clothes, a comfy double wall tent instead of my firstlight, etc. Here is Allie coming up the ladder on the approach trail:

 

It took us just over 3 hours to finally reach the Kain Hut with our heavy packs, where we paid for the stay at Applebee Dome:

 

 

It's quite the hut, with beautiful views, running water, electricity, and outhouses right outside. You can also even pay here (for your stay at Applebee Dome, Boulder camp, or at the hut) with credit card so you don't have to bring in cash (you just need your credit card number / expiry / etc and right it down on a form).

 

From there, we continued on up to camp and had a lazy afternoon/evening, getting our stuff ready for the climb of Bugaboo Spire NE Ridge the next day:

 

 

This climb is one of the fifty classics, and certainly lives up to its reputation. The initial 10 pitches take you up the NE Ridge (right skyline) itself, where you can tag the lower north summit if you want. From there, you traverse a ridge from the north summit to below the south summit, on the Kain route. This traverse involves 3 rappels and some exposed scrambling / low 5th. Finally, to tag the south summit, you have to do one pitch of 5.4 climbing. Then, you descend the Kain route (left skyline) back to the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col, which involves a bunch of rappels and downclimbing as well.

 

The first part of the climb is gaining the Bugaboo-Crescent Col (lower right of photo). Gaining the col is a few hundred feet worth of low 5th class climbing in definite no-fall terrain. Despite this, it is generally done unroped, and we did it unroped as well. The section could be pitched out if desired, and there are rap slings in several places going up to the col.

 

From there, you scramble up 3rd/4th class terrain to the "rope up terrace", clearly visible as a light diagonal line across the lower part of Bugaboo Spire.

 

The first pitch off this terrace is the only one officially rated at 5.8, but we did not find this to be the most difficult pitch. Here is Allie following me up it:

 

The pitch I found most challenging was the "5.6" corner a few pitches later, here is Allie following me up this one:

 

 

The corner protects well but is quite sustained, and no-hands rests are very infrequent. From there on, you climb a chimney system for 5 or so pitches. The chimney is described as low/easy 5th in a lot of beta, and while this is true for the upper part of the chimney, the first 1-2 pitches of the chimney have some interesting moves that I think would best be described as being in the 5.6-5.8 range themselves. The chimney does also still contain some loose rock despite the popularity of this route. In fact, just the day before, a climber was injured in the chimney and had to get rescued, when his partner accidentally dropped a rock on him.

 

After completing the chimney, there is a short section of further ~5.6-5.7 climbing before the ridge eases off. Near the top of the NE Ridge:

 

Looking over at Snowpatch Spire:

 

I'll describe the summit traverse here in some detail since I found beta on the details of this to be a bit limited.

 

We decided to skip the north summit since the south summit is the taller one anyway. After finishing the last pitch of the NE ridge, there's an obvious notch on the left side of the north summit block that you come to. There's a rappel here (Rap #1). Awkwardly squeeze through the notch and rappel down just a few meters to a ledge, where to rappeler's left you will see a chockstone wedged between the wall and a large boulder/flake. Scramble over this chockstone and down the other side. Looking back at the chockstone and boulder/flake after having climbed over it:

 

 

From here, follow a short sandy ledge to gain the ridge between the north and south summits:

 

 

Downclimb along the ridge-crest for a bit until the ridge angle on the right becomes much less steep, then follow very easy cracks right of the ridge crest to the obvious big V notch left of the south summit block (center of above photo). There's another rappel (Rap #2) right at this notch. Again, rappel only a fairly short distance down to a ledge.

 

Looking back at Allie downclimbing the ridge crest:

 

 

From the ledge, you'll see another rap anchor off to rappeler's left, which you'll need to get to. We did this section as a pitch, as there's a few steps of 5th class downclimbing and some exposure. From this last rap station you'll see the famous Gendarme of the Kain route. Use this last rappel (Rap #3) to get down onto the Kain route, from which you take the last pitch of the Kain route to gain the south summit.

 

We enjoyed the summit for a while and the beautiful views from there.

 

 

Looking across at the Howser Towers:

 

 

After enjoying the summit, we descended the Kain route (descent beta for this route is readily available), and down-climbed the Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col, returning back to our camp at Applebee Dome still in the light, around 9:30pm. The climb took us 17 hours camp-to-camp.

 

On July 6th, the Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col was still in good shape, but by the time we left on the 11th, it had already deteriorated noticeably though was still pretty good. On the 6th, we were kicking easy steps in snow. On the 11th, many of the steps at the top were hitting ice as the snow on top had disappeared, and the last few steps to the top of the col were on loose rock/dirt. Here's a photo of the Col on the 11th:

 

Over the week we were there, several parties reported close calls with falling rock at the col. With the low snow year, the col will definitely be out this year earlier than it is most years. It may only have a week or two left, in fact, before the growing objective hazard dictates that it's wiser to take alternative routes.

Edited July 13, 2015 by ilias

[NDrake]

Since I'm too lazy to write any TR, here is a pic of the col from Thursday.

 

A rock about the size of an oven door slid off the dirt above and came whizzing by us about 45 minutes after Ilia and Allie went up on Thursday. It spooked a climber who was descending after doing Beckey-Chounaird the day before. She fell, lost her axe, and did not arrest. Her slide went until the slope mellowed out just before exposed rocks well below, thankfully with no injury.

 

Note the new rap route is well protected from rockfall in the couloir, but it's going to eat up time. A good option coming off Bugaboo if you decided to bring approach shoes instead of boots.

 

This was the offending rock that stopped in a moat below:

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2015 by NDrake

[Devin27]

You had another chance to tag the North summit and skipped again? and this time you didnt even have quickly impending darkness as an excuse.