Alex taking a photo of the first waterfall.
Let's clarify one thing from the start -- this is not a climb for climbers, it's a climb for scenery buffs. In other words, it's not an aesthetic climb, with fun rock scrambling or interesting routefinding, or technical challenges. At least, not in August when it's snow-free. I suppose if you got on it "early" in the season, which for this area probably means mid-June, it might be more aesthetic, and involve more snow climbing than slogging up the heather in the sun, and bushwhacking through the trees.
Jeff Smoot says this, of course, in Climbing Washington's Mountains but you need to actually pay attention, which I'm not so good at doing.
It does have the benefit of constantly changing and gratifying views, including the classic Beckey view of Sloan Peak, and Baker, Glacier Peak, and all the surrounding peaks in the Mountain Loop area.
We now return you to the trip report...
Setting a new personal record, it's the middle of August, and I haven't been on a single climb yet.
I was hoping to finally check Triumph Peak off my list the weekend, but the weatherman said it was supposed to be rainy Sunday, and so after a while we settled on climbing one of the Monte Cristo peaks, depending on which one looked best when we got there.
Alex showed up a bit after six, and we took off, up the familiar I-5 corridor. I guess I haven't been to Granite Falls since Del moved, which is over a year now. It's built up a fair amount.
We stopped at Big Four to ogle the north face once again, then headed on up to Barlow Pass. While we were getting ready to head off, another car pulled up, down the road a bit, and a couple of folks came out with a Westie. Of course I had to go over and say hi, and chatted for a bit. This one was 13, older than Maisie, and somewhat wider in the beam. THey took off on their bikes, with the Westie happily pearched in a plastic milk carton on the back of his bike.
So we got packed up and headed off on our bikes. The road was just as I remembered it for the first quarter mile, then we passed through a cut through an immense snow avalanche that had buried the road in the winter. It was still 6-8 feet high, with logs and branches and tons of pine needles blanketing it. That would have been a hell of a thing to see.
But that was only the first, minor obstruction. A few hundred yards further on was a huge bight out of the road, fifty feet long and a good fifty feet straight down. THey'd carved another road up into the hill to the west; it was pretty hard going but manageable. Then another, and a third, where the bridge used to be, that involved a good hundred yards of off-road travel, and then walking over a big log over the river. After that, fortunately, it was pretty good travelling, with some minor rough spots over small washouts. There was another impressive bight out of the road further up, with a couple of 1890's railroad rails exposed about six feet down. It's remarkable that they could have sat there, buried underground for a century, and still be in pretty good condituion.
We made it to Monte Cristo in about 45 minutes, stashed our bikes, and went out into the field by the cabins to survey things. I brought a compass and map, and so we were able to pick out the mountains around us with satisfying accuracy.
Then, on to Glacier Basin. Past the Keyes tree, and signs identifying the sites of cabins and other features of the former mining settlement, and fairly soon up into the forest. Past the remarkable waterfall I remember from last time I was here with Heidi, about 20 years ago, and 2 1/2 miles later and we were in Glacier Basin.
When I was here last with Heidi it was a pretty solid overcast, and so we hadn't been able to see much. But it was quite beautiful today, with the mountains circling the basin quite picturesquely. For the far left Foggy Peak, Cadet and the ragged row of Cadets, then the 'amorphous massif' of Monte Cristo, Keyes to the right of that, and Wilmans Peak, and the famous Wilmans Spire. It's been on my tick list for several years now, based on reputation, but I've never actually seen it or known quite where it was, before.
So we looked at Smoot's book, and the mountains, and decided on Cadet. It looked like a more interesting rock climb than a long snow slog up the flanks of Monte Cristo.
Up we went, fairly expediently despite the heat of the sun. This is where the interesting views help. Then, at the top of the snow gully, we had to make the traverse to the left. Smoot's diagram shows a prominent 'narrow rock gully' which we never really found (or, we found about three which could easily have been so described.)
Eventually, we got up onto the ridge, and found a climber's trail which, though not particulary obvious, we were able to keep on most of the way up, through the tedious heather slopes.
It was hot, though. Damned hot. It got up to over 90 in Seattle, and it may have been less up here, but not much.
Just below the summit, you go up a very narrow steep gully, which has climber tracks in it, suggesting that it's obviously the right way. Then, the route flattens out and appears to contour around the right side of the summit. However, it quickly turns into a pretty stiff fifth-class proposition, and not something I'd be comfortable attempting without some pro, especially with no rock shoes, and hot and tired as I was.
But, it turns out, you go around the left, to what appears to be clearly a dead end, but which turns out to take you to the last heather slope, and up to the summit, ten minutes away.
The summit views were great, the best view I've ever gotten of Sloan Peak. It was a bit too hazy to see Stuart, or Rainier, and Baker and Shuksan were obsucured by the haze. Still, it's awfully nice up there. I found and signed the summit book -- ours was the first entry since July of 2007. We can't have been the first people in a year to climb it; I guess previous summiters didn't find (or look for) the summit book tube.
The descent went somewhat quicker, but not as much as I'd have liked. I need my hiking poles much more on the descent, with my aging knees. I'd placed cairns on the upper mountain, afraid that I'd miss the trail down, but that wasn't much of a problem. Still, it provided an unreasonable amount of reassurance to see them there.
The traverse back over to the top of the snow gully was a pain in the ass. The climber's trail had vanished, and we had to navigate by guess through the trees. Eventually we stopped, and Alex used my map and his GPS to decide we were too low, and had to climb back up a couple hundred feet. We did, and contoured back down to the left (climber's right) and then found a blank rock wall I distinctly remembered from the climb. A bit further, and there was the top of the snow finger!
By now we were both out of water, and pretty dry. We stopped for 15 minutes or so to fill our water bottles from snowmelt, enjoying the cold water. I don't know what it was, maybe the heat, but every swallow of water (or food) gave me a slight nauseuous feeling. I knew I needed the water, without question, but it didn't feel good at all.
The rest of the descent to Glacier Basin went pretty easily. The scree isn't nearly as nasty as Stuart, or Thompson, or Black Peak, or any of the other diry, crappy descents I've been on.
Took about an hour and a half to get from Glacier Basin to our bikes, about 2 1/2 miles, according to Smoot, and 40 minutes more to do the next 4 miles on the road. Thank God for mountain bikes!
This is not a climb I'm likely to do again, or even recommend to anyone. Still, it does have some redeeming qualities, mostly the ambiance of the area. .
Equipment notes: bring an altimeter. And, use it. Otherwise, finding the proper spot to traverse back to the snow gully will be almost impossible.