The view of Monte Cristo peak, from Glacier Basin.
I didn't think, when I was at Glacier Basin two weeks ago with Alex, that I'd be back again so soon. But I was having to do a solo, if I wanted to get out at all, and there are a limited number of options. And, it seemed like a good idea: the place is beautiful, after all, and at the time I'd felt like monte Cristo was a more interesting objective. But Alex didn't have crampons that day, so we did Cadet instead.
The alarm went off at 5:00, and I was on my bike at the trailhead by about 7:20. It was surprisingly busy this morning; tents pitched along the trail and road up to the town site.
It was a heavy overcast, which was supposed to ease up through the day, and I set off up the trail feeling fairly optomistic. But the foliage was dripping wet, and by the time I was halfway up to Glacier Basin, I was soaked to the skin, and feeling pretty negative about the whole thing, very close to turning around. I could be home by noon, I figured, and have the day to do something more productive than sloshing around in the wet.
But I proceeded to Glacier Basin, just so I could say I did, and put on some dry clothes and sat there a while, waiting to see if the clouds were going to lift at all. You couldn't see the top half of Monte Cristo, and the Wilman Spires were completely hidden. I watched to clouds, trying to see if they were lifting at all, and amused myself by returning marmot calls with my emergency whistle.
A couple of guys came up, heading up to Cadet Peak. They'd been up there last weekend, when the weather was wet and rainy down here (we'd been camping, ten miles away, in the intermittent rain) and they'd turned back just below the summit in a blizzard! We talked a bit; they knew a LOT about the local mining artifacts, and pointed out a couple of mine adits, which they'd been in before.
I decided to blow off the climb, and go poke around one of the adits they'd pointed out, and started up. On the way I crossed a stream, and slipped on a slimy rock, and came down on my right butt-cheek so hard I could hardly stand the pain. It left me with a pretty serious charlie-horse back there the rest of the day. Strike two (strike one being the soaking I got from the bushes.)
Partway up the hillside, I thought I saw the clouds beginning to rise. At any rate, they were thinning, and I could see at least the presence of the sun through them, so I started heading over towards Monte Cristo instead, 'to have a look at it.'
The route is pretty easy and direct, if you follow Smoot's book. You head up the 'obvious' scree slope up the middle of the face, between the cliff bands, and from there up onto this sort of hogsback that heads up the mountain which this time of year was completely bare of snow, and had faint footprints on it, and make for the 'v-notch' to the left of the summit.
Smoot recommends going up the snowfields, but I decided to stick to the dirt/scree, even though I had my crampons with me. Towards the top below the notch (which was still kind of hypothetical, with the clouds obscuring it: I thought I saw it, but wasn't sure) things got more dicey, climbing up steep, wet gullys.
There are two kinds of rock on Monte Cristo: granite (or, granite-like) pretty clean and solid, nicely fissured and textured, and absolutely ghastly red crumbly crap that makes you yearn for the andesite on Mt Rainier. The red stuff was littered with scree, of course, and was really dicey to climb on, since you never knew when a piece would come off. The correct way to climb on this shit is to dig away the garbage until you find something you thing might hold, and then not yard on it too much.
But I did make it up to the notch. The route takes you around the back of the mountain for about 300 feet to a gully, a bit like Silver Star Peak. It was steep enough that I felt like I had to put on my crampons, and actually would have been more comfortable with an ice axe rather than my ski poles. I followed a faint set of footprints over to the moat about halfway to the proper gully, but the spot this person had chosen to ascend looked too dicey for me. So I kept on, digging into the snow with my crampons to get a decent grip.
At the gully, the moat was hopeless. It was at least ten feet from the edge of the snow to the rock, though it seemed clear that this was the right spot. The moat plunged deeply down, and even if I could have downclimbed it, down there it was not climbable at all. I looked around, trying to find a spot to gain the face, where I could climb with my hiking shoes. It was frustrating, because the upper half of the rock looked totally easy, but the lower portion was very steep and challenging.
Finally I found a spot, about halfway betwen the proper gully and the spot where my predecessor (yesterday, perhaps) had been. I looked over the rock and thought it was doable, with only one real problematic spot. It took a few minutes to kick and carve the lip of the snow to where I was comfortable sliding down onto the rock, and I left my pack and crampons (and ski poles, of course) behind.
And, of course, I couldn't really make it up the dicey-looking spot. It was a steep narrow ramp, going upwards to the left at about 45-degrees, with no real handholds. I'd sort of envisioned stepping up to it and just carefully walking up, but I couldn't make the step over onto it and without a good handhold, and no pro, I just couldn't convince myself to risk it. Instead, I traversed over to the left, up a much wider and less steep, but slimier, ramp, and around this nose things seemed a bit easier. I made it up a good 20 feet or so, before coming to another stopping point. Once again, another ten feet would have taken me to very easy ground. But ten feet of dicey climbing, again with no rock shoes or pro, and looking down at the pitiless rock below me, I realized the foolhardiness of my spot.
This was probably 5.5 climbing, not particularly difficult on a route where you're properly equiped, and can put in a piece of pro before you make your crux move, or at least rely on a rope to rappel down. I traversed around the left again, and found a blank face -- and an old iron piton, one of the old solid ones with the ring hanging off it. I figured, well, hell, if one of Fred Beckey's contemporaries needed a piton here, I should not be up here in this kind of situation, with these soft-soled hiking tennies. So, I spent a good half-hour reversing my moves, climbing back down the route I'd struggled up. Climbing down is normally harder than climbing up, but I'd climbed with an eye to whether I could reverse my climb, and so I was pretty sure I'd be able to do it. And I did, but it took me a good long while, and I was pretty grateful when I was finally back at my crampons.
The traverse back to the notch was a bit more difficult, since it was warmer and the snow was starting to ball up on my crampons. Though the scenery below me was awfully pretty, I didn't want to end up down there, and have to try and climb back up. I've never tried self-arresting with a ski pole (something I probably should try at some point, if only for the learning) and so I was pretty careful reversing my steps, taking longer to return than it'd taken me to get there.
On the way, I looked again at the route my predecessor had taken. It looked doable, but (again) for a pretty blank ten-foot section. Maybe there were holds up there I couldn't see, or maybe he was just a better climber than me. I'll assume he had rock shoes (mine were safely in the back of my car.)
To the notch, then down the scree, following my footsteps as best I could. It was slow going, nasty and gritty. I will never again buy low-top hiking shoes, they scoop the grit and rocks in.
Slowly I descended, trying to retrace my route, or at least see the direction I wanted to go (at this point, I couldn't see the bottom of the mountain, and that big treed knob at the top of the basin) and so I was going pretty slow.
It all went okay; I found a chopped-up piece of purple webbing, rappel anchor from years past, and regretted not being able to rapel down as well, but managed to work my way down the gully. It helps a lot when you don't care about getting wet or dirty; I was both, and climbing into waterfall spray didn't bother me particularly. At least the rock wasn't slick; the water kept it clean and it was under snow ten months a year, so it could't grow any slime.
Finally, I was down, pretty much. I was on the last real piece of climbing (or, down-climbing) before I was on the scree and more or less home-free. My tendancy is to hesitate, and look at the different options, and vascilate over this way or that way, do I really want to go down here, or should I cross the snow to over there and descend there? So I was pushing myself to just go, just pick the sensible line and take it, and not agonize. Of course, I was kind of tired. I'm pushing fifty, and I'd been going pretty hard without much of a rest, and so I was tired and need to take some time.
So, then, at the last bit of downclimbing, I was lowering myself down off the lip of a granite wall, not that sheer but quite vertical, and without much in the way of hand or footholds. Here (in retrospect) I probably should have paused and looked at it, to see if it would go, or if there was another way around, but I could see the dirt, ten feet down and a free pass from then on, and I just pushed myself down.
I almost made it, before I slipped. It happened too fast to know for sure what happened; but I hit the ground hard and fell backwards, right onto my butt so hard my first reaction was that I'd broken my tailbone. It wasn't until I got up that I realized I'd also gashed my left forearm, pretty deep. It was hard to get a clear view, and I really didn't want to, but after I stood up, I saw the fat drops of blood splatting on the rock at my feet.
So I took off my shirt (I guess I took off my pack too ) and lay down on my back with my arm up, wrapped with my t-shirt, to staunch the bleeding. It was a red t-shirt, perhaps a good thing. The warm rock felt pleasant on my bare back, and there was some warmth coming through the clouds, and so it wasn't unpleasant to lie there, holding the pressure on my arm, willing my heart to slow, by blood pressure to lower, and the cut to clot.
With my right hand (I'm left handed, of course) I reached over to my pack and dug out the little first-aid kit. I found some tape (ridiculously narrow) and a 2x2 gauze pad, and an antibiotic wipe, and doctored myself up as well as I could. The kit is over ten years old (I got it before Peter was born) and I'd never used the tape before, so it stuck to itself really tenaciously. I managed to do about five wraps around my forearm, before giving up on the tape and tossing the last bit of it away.
The rest of the descent went much slower than I'd hoped. I kept looking across to the lower slope of Cadet Peak, hoping I'd see those guys, but I never did. Obviously they'd made it up and back down while I was screwing around on the back side of Monte Cristo up on the rock.
It was going to be a busy evening at Glacier Basin. I saw two tents pitched, and two more parties (couples) hiking in as I hiked out. I guess everyone wants to grab the last bits of summer.
An interesting bit of mine hardware, some sort of valve, I guess. When we were up here two weeks ago, this thing was completely underwater.
I was glad to see that I could bicycle out okay, except that bouncing over the rocky bits were too uncomfortable, so I walked more than I would have otherwise.
Drove home, and showered, removing the bandage and dealing with the sting from the water. The worst part by far was tearing off all that hair with the tape. I showed the gash to Heidi to see what she thought, and she said "We're going to the emergency room." She called Tom to come by and 'babysit' Peter, who was already in bed, and we headed on down to Northwest Hospital, where the time was surprisingly short (less than two hours) and the staff very friendly and helpful. Then, finally, fifteen stitches later, at 12:30, into a much-needed bed.