Johannesburg Peak.
The first challenge was crossing the river on the log. The log was there, all right, had been for at least a season given the wear, but it was a challenge getting up onto it, over the root wall (not a ball at all.) Russ, the soccer player, went around it, stepping nimbly on the rocks, but I drug myself over the ten-foot-high wall of dirt and rocks and really-flimsy-feeling roots, grabbing onto another tree trunk sticking out of the mess at a 45-degree angle, feeling like Mr. Peeb, desperate and ungraceful.
On the other side of the river it took a bit of sniffing around to locate the proper trail, and then we were on it, and heading up the hillside.
Up is right. This is no planned and built trail, this is a "climber’s trail" that goes straight up the hillside, remarkably steep and unrelenting. Not quite as steep as the Little Shuksan Lake trail of storied fame, but plenty steep. And it was unseasonably warm, and humid, from the moment we started gaining altitude. I didn’t bring a handkerchief (on my climbing list) because I couldn’t find one, and because I figured I didn’t really need one. I would have appreciated it, though, I spent a lot of time wiping my forehead, and for most of the hillclimb I had my longjohns pulled up to my knees for some ventilation.
Before we got to the first talus slope, we came across the first pair of climbers descending. They’d been to the summit, and reported that the snow was pretty sloppy, and we’d be glad of our snowshoes (we both brought them, courtesy of Russ.)
On the upper part of the trail, we heard and saw the party below us approaching, making time at least as quick as us. We stopped on the talus slope for a breather, after a solid hour of work, and they joined us in minutes. Finally it occurred to me to turn around and look across the valley, and I faced one of the most magnificent scenes of mountain splendor I may have ever seen. My first look at Cascade Pass. "Dave," the leader of the other party of nine, talked about the mountains we were looking at.
Directly across from us was Johannesburg peak, and Cascade Pass. Johannesburg may be the most beautiful and dramatic mountain I’ve ever seen, a Hollywood scenery painter’s conception of what rugged mountains look like. Steep, jagged, loaded with snow, THAT is a mountain to be lusted after. And beyond that, up the pass a whole cast of mountains: Mixup, Buckindy, and on and on. Far off in the distance, he said, was Bonanza, but I couldn’t make out anything that I thought looked like what I expected it to look like.
We headed on up the talus slope, hopping from boulder to boulder. The rocks got larger as we ascended, from the size of desks to the size of cars. It wasn’t nearly as steep as the trail, but still a respectable grade.
Soon enough, we came to patches of snow, which quickly spread until we were following a trail on snow. Members of the other party passed us; we would leapfrog with them the entire ascent. Of course, thin snow over rocks spells danger and the possibility of punching through, and it happened to several people several times. Russ fell once, and twisted his ankle. It was painful, but he managed to walk it out. It hurt the rest of the day, and contributed to his not quite summitting. After a couple more hours of soldiering up the now safely snow-covered rocks, including up an extremely steep but short bit, you come to an overlook, where we stopped for another break, with the other team. In the mean time, we passed three or four other teams descending, all of whom warned of sloppy wet snow.
I had been assuming the other team was Mountaineers, but they weren’t. They weren’t even a group of climbers from one company, just a bunch of friends, at least one or two of whom had never climbed before. I heard some conversations about web sites and metering and digital cameras. One of the things I learned from them, aside from having a dozen different mountains pointed out to me (including Whitehorse Peak, which I would never have recognized!) was that Alpine Ascents International out of Bellingham runs climbs up to Eldorado, so it’s not what you’d call your isolated mountain peak.
After a rest and a snack, we dropped down a steep notch down onto the Eldorado glacier. From here you slog up another couple of hours up the glacier to a snow field, actually the Inspiration glacier. From here, Eldorado peak is a large side-lying wedge, analogous to Shuksan’s summit pyramid, but not nearly so steep. Reminds me of a tire ramp.
We never passed anywhere near a crevasse; the other team put on seat harnesses, but never roped up along this section either. I got good information from Michael.
We rested here another fifteen minutes or so, in dead calm near some snow walls built for tents when it wasn’t so calm. It’s a beautiful spot, you can see the entire two-headed Mt. Terror from there, Triad, and a hundred other peaks. This is truly a climb for mountain voyeurs.
And, off up the slope. We went around to the blade of the wedge and started up it. It’s not exactly a steady climb, the track is a series of hummocks, steep then nearly flat, always tending upwards. There’s a rock wall on the left, and to the right there are crevasses, so I stayed within a few yards of the rock, for safety sake.
Eventually Russ turned around, probably 2/3 of the way up the summit wedge. His ankle was hurting too much to continue. So, I pushed on alone, and it got colder and windier. I had to dig out my shell and put it on -- and I’d almost not brought it! Towards the top I got to thinking, "I don’t really have to summit, it doesn’t mean that much." Looking back now a couple of days later, it’s hard to remember those sentiments, but that’s what I was feeling. Part of it was the difficulty of the snow conditions: it was sloppy and wet, but there’d be a few steps of really solid footing, followed by shin-deep postholing. It’s very tiring, not knowing what to expect under your next step.
Fortunately, the first rope team of four was hot on my trail, so I was able to focus on them, rather than on my own frailty. I let them pass me probably 30 vertical feet from the summit, intending to get one of those classic "climber on the knife edge" shots, but I ran out of film, and missed it. So I reloaded and continued to the summit, arriving at 2:35.
It was a bit of an anticlimax, thought I can’t really say why. I said in my head that it wasn’t quite "the drama I was craving" to paraphrase a Sleater Kinney song title. I guess I was sufficiently intrigued by Johannesburg Peak that this one seemed kind of a "punter’s peak." Plus, not having Russ summit cheapened it some for me. Still, I had one of the guys take a couple of shots of me, then headed back down -- and ran into the second rope team. So, I was able to get my "climber on the knife edge" shot after all.
I glissaded every chance I got, loosing altitude as quickly as I could. I stopped to take pictures of the bugs in the snow, though, thinking Peter might get a kick out of them. The snow was so wet and sloppy, so the glissading wasn’t as efficient as it might have been.
Russ wasn’t at the snowfield when I got there, so I headed on down the glacier. There was one guy hanging around the base of the wedge, but it was someone from the other party.
The postholing was deep -- knee deep, so I figured this was as good a time as any to try the snowshoes. I strapped them on after a bit of fussing around, but they didn’t work all that well for me, my right (downhill) foot kept slipping down the slope, twisting and bruising my ankle. Really annoying; finally I took them off and just plunge-stepped on down the hillside, knee deep. My boots got full of water, I could wiggle my toes and feel the water squishing around in my socks.
As I looked down the glacier, I saw two figures. It took a while to figure out whether they were coming or going, eventually I figured out they were going slow enough they had to be coming up. I chatted with them a few minutes, and they said that rain was predicted for Monday (as I’d thought) but they were going to try it anyhow.
Up the notch to the overlook, and Russ was there, resting on the rocks. We stayed there a few more minutes; his ankle had tightened up quite a bit. He did just fine, though, although I guess he was awful slow, since he was descending no faster than me. Usually he descends like a rock rolling down a hillside and disappears from sight.
We passed another couple of climbers on the snow, and then another near the base of the rocks. It was pretty surprising to see so many guys going up there into expected bad weather, but as Russ pointed out, you can’t really predict the weather by reading the weather reports. That was nothing to what we saw next, though, which was a group of at least a dozen people, resting at the base of the talus slope. We’d got off-route, and were slipping and slogging though the god-damned slide alder and devil’s club when I saw something move off to the left, and headed over to it, and saw that it was a person. A lot of people, in fact. It appeared to be one of those Alpine Ascents International climbs, though if I had to pay to do this climb, and got hauled up on a day with such poor weather prognosis, I’d be pissed. Still I was personally grateful that they were there. Who knows how much longer we would have been bushwhacking if we hadn’t seen them?
Re. The off-route bit: we were following a pretty obvious trail, at least as obvious as anything else. In fact, I found a short strap with "Ruby Mountain hele-skiing" printed on it, not at all old, lying on the ground where we were descending. But the track just stopped. Just entirely stopped. Go figure.
The rest of the descent went pretty well. I kept thinking that this didn’t look familiar, but then I’d look up-slope and it would look right again.
Crossing the tree was another challenge, this time because the water was much higher from the day’s snowmelt. Following Russ’ route wasn’t an option: the water was several feet deep. Even going over the top and lowering ourselves down meant going ankle-deep into the water, which I didn’t mind, since my boots had been soaked anyhow, and we were yards from undressing. I wonder about that AAI group going up, though. There was another much smaller log bridge a bit up the river; that might have been the way they went. Anyhow, we got back to the car around 7:00; 12 hours up and back. A tough day, but I’ve had far worse.
One member of the other group got to the log just as we did. He crossed right after us. And managed to avoid getting wet hardly at all. I feel pretty bad for the last person in his group, though. By then, the roots on that tree were likely going to be useless.
We stopped at the first convenience store we came to for some food, and I got myself some aloe vera, since it was obvious that I’d sunburned myself pretty badly. We drove straight home, and after dropping off Russ, got there around 9:30 or so.
One day, I’d like to be climbing, and overhear a conversation about a clutch job, or working on a transmission. Seems like every climber around is a website programmer or Microsoft tech.