• trip reports
• dream routes
• about me
• climbing partners
• blog
• web cams
• links

8,815 feet
West Ridge, Grade II, 5.6

The Approach

Prepare for an image overload!

Spencer and I have been doing a decent amount of rock climbing this summer. We tried to climb Mt. Hood in the spring but I ended up taking a block of ice to the leg. It wasn't that much fun. We turned around about 400 feet from the summit. Spencer is young and ambitious, I am old and experienced. He call's it "old man strength". Young or old he still has trouble keeping up with me! We make a good team in the mountains!

I tried to get up to Forbidden peak about a month ago but ran into waste deep oatmeal snow. It was a horrible experience and ended up being a 12 hour day hike as we turned around not being happy with the climbing and avalanche conditions. I was quickly searching for a better weekend to head back up to Boston Basin.

Spencer and I both twisted our schedule around until we could work something out for a 2 day trip into the mountains. We couldn't have chosen a better time to go into the North Cascades! We made it to the Marblemount Ranger Station at about noon to get our permits. The rangers let us know that we were taking the last available permit for the Boston Basin Zone! I couldn't believe it! I have never ran into that issue in the middle of the week! We were very excited and greatful that we were able to snag the last permit!

The road is actually open all the way to Cascade Pass now. This saved us a at least 5 miles off of our roundtrip hike! We parked in a completely packed trailhead. This has got to be the first time that I have had to parallel park in the mountains! You quickly packed up and prepared for the "hike from hell"!

The Boston Basin trail starts with about a mile of an overgrown miners trial that gains very little elevation. The trail is easy to follow but seems so overgrown that you are constantly get smacked and sliced by trees and brush. You soon start to go straight up the mountain through difficult and steep sections that have a ceiling of trees and branches that don't want to allow you passage. The ice axe becomes a burden as it snags on every possible branch. This must be what the little girl in "Poltergeist" felt like as the tree ripped her from her bed! Always grabbing and snagging and pulling! You gain a significant amount of vertical through this section as you climb steeply through the forest. Spencer and I passed the time talking about our hero Larry. One day you too will learn about Larry!

We made it to Boston Basin in good time and took a nice long needed break in the sun. This place is spectacular with never ending scenery!

We moved on passed the lower camp at 5,800 feet and started up the meadow filled moraine that leads up to the upper camp at about 6,400 feet.

It took us approximately 3 hours and 25 minutes to reach our high camp. 3,100 vertical feet from the car to our camp at about 6,500 feet.

The Climb

We set the alarm for something crazy like 4 a.m. It hurt to get up that early! We set that early because so many teams were going for the West Ridge and we wanted to be up and done before the other teams bottled necked us on route. By about 5 in the morning we were on the way. The snow was perfect for crampons and even though not necessary we roped up for the small glacier. There was hardly even a crack in the glacier and a perfect smooth route hugged the left hand side to the couloir.

A ramp leads off of the glacier between the slabs and a rock island. This is a pretty steep section that leads to a short knife edge and then traverses to the couloir.

We climbed the 50 degree couloir with perfect hard snow for about 400 or so feet. The snow ended at a long and thin ledge that we traversed to the left end to start the 3rd and 4th class scrambling to the notch of the ridge. The scrambling is easy and blocky, just be careful not to knock loose rock onto parties below you!

Once we made it to the notch we took a break and downed some delicious gu shots. We exchanged our boots for rock shoes. I packed my boots into my back pack to get used to the feel of climbing with a pack. Spencer left his backpack, boots, axe and crampons at the notch. We pulled out the small rack which consisted of 8 alien cams and a set of BD stoppers with about 8 slings and started up the ridge. We decided to try and simul-climb as much of the ridge as we felt comfortable.

The ridge started off easy and blocky. I found myself staying as close to the crest of the ridge as I could to spice it up a bit. I could see the path of least resistance below me on the left side of the ridge. I definitely recommend staying on the crest as the exposure is great!

I just kept climbing and climbing on great rock with great views down both sides of the ridge. I would make sure we always had one or two pieces of gear between us.

I finally reached what looked like the crux. There were slings at the base of a gendarme which I assumed were used as a belay for the crux. I considered stopping here to belay spencer up to me as I was out of slings. The crux looked short and easy so I decided to pull the crux and belay Spencer from the top. I clipped the slings with an extra carabiner and moved up to the small corner. There was a new piton in a small crack (why?). I clipped it with another extra carabiner. Good cracks and holds were everywhere. I placed a purple alien in a crack and pulled through a couple moves of 5.6 rock and was on top of the crux. I set up a belay and brought Spencer up.

After the crux we exchanged gear again and I started off on our 2nd long simul pitch.

We quickly made the summit and were happy to see that all the other parties below us were still in the couloir! If we are lucky we can get down the ridge before they get to the crux and cause a cluster fu#* of ropes and people all trying to squeeze by! We spent about 10 minutes or so taking pictures and munching on some food.

We quickly re-racked the gear again and I started a simul-climb down to the crux. By the time we made it to the first rappel station another party of two were simul-climbing up. They were moving fast and efficient and I new they would not be an issue with us trying to get down. We did one 30 meter (tied our 2 30 meters together) down to the top anchors for the crux pitch. Rappelled another 30 meters down the crux and past the lower anchors. We just took this rappel as far as we could go! From this point we put the ropes away and solo down climbed the rest of the ridge. The group of 7 were just coming out of the couloir when we made it to the notch. We waited a bit before we started heading down from the notch. When we made it to the snow there was another party of 3 on the rappel anchor. This is what made us to decided to just down climb the couloir.

Since there has now been 12 people plus us up this couloir this morning we had huge steps that took very little effort to down climb. I feel this was much quicker than trying to figure out the random rappel stations.

We quickly made it back to camp and soon headed off for the car.

• Car-Camp: 3,100 vertical feet - 3:24
• Camp-Summit: 2,510 vertical feet - 3:23
• Summit-Camp: -2,510 vertical feet - 3:01
• Camp-Car: -3,100 vertical feet - 2:06

-Useful guide books-

---