90 percent heaven and 10 percent hell. That’s all I can say. I will try to describe the proceedings, but 90 percent heaven and 10 percent hell. This was probably the toughest trip that I have endured when you combine psychological, physical, and environmental factors. It is also probably the best (to date). So excuse the ramblings. ... also I think lucas captured the tone of the trip with the music for the youtube video at the end. It was a very invigorating trip, but humbling and pensive as well. Video well done L.
Mark and Jamie wanted to return to the N Cascades – to the country they love – and do another ‘epic’ trip. We had previously done the ptarmigan traverse which to our accords was ‘epic.’ We decided on the “isolation traverse” or the “inspiration traverse” after long discussions. Mark had mentioned this traverse when I just started hiking in the N cascades and it seemed so awesome, extreme, and undoable at the time. Maybe that gave me the motivation to want to do it… if it was possible for me. We decided to do it from N to S, just because. Because that is what I had in mind and that is how many trip reports have described, although Lowell Scoog described the S to N traverse more beneficial for skiing because of the elevation ups and downs. Nonetheless, we planned for the N to S trip.
Lucas and I arrived home from my sister’s wedding and the Wind River trip on Tuesday. Mark and Jamie came into town on Wednesday. We prepped on Thursday and Friday we set out for the pyramid lake TH after the car shuttle. After dropping my car at take out we stopped at the Marblemont café for breakfast and some yummy, gooey cinnamon rolls. We ended up talking about their rabbits which got Lucas on a most entertaining rant. But then again, it could have been the raisons in his bun. Also, they seemed scared of city folk even though they must get a $hit ton of tourist business, but to their defense we were kind of roudy because of the rabbits – so who can blame them. It was a yummy breakfast, but I digress.
We arrived at the TH and hiked up to pyramid lake for a rest. We continued up the ‘climber’s path’ to get to the colonial glacier. The path we were on had the one and only mission to go up as fast and steeply as possible, which took a toll on our energy reserves. We made it to the foot of the Colonial glacier, but were too wiped to keep going. We really wanted to get to the colonial – Neve glacier divide to centrally locate ourselves for the climbing, but incoming weather was the final straw to solidify the choice to stay put. We made camp and dove into our respective tents to avoid the weather.
We were pelted by rain and wind all night. Our tent didn’t fair so well but we didn’t get too wet to deter us from the rest of the trip. We got up
late morning after the rains ‘subsided’ and planned to make a quick go of colonial peak and then move camp to the Neve glacier. We could see the route, which looked straightforward, so we left the rope and stuff at camp and headed toward colonial peak. Bouncing from snowfields to talus, we made it to a steep snow finger of colonial which we climbed to talus. After arriving at the talus, Lucas and I continued up to the summit – another ~750 feet. We had “lunch” and descended back to camp. Lucas lost his mouthpiece to his hydration bladder that I luckily saw 5 minutes behind him. …after a few personal experiences and then this one with 6 days to follow, an extra mouthpiece will be added to the first aid kit (along with the space blanket from last month). We arrived back at camp to some fierce winds and weather, had a quick bite to eat and retreated into the tents…. Needless to say, we did not move up to the Neve glacier, in effect losing a day on the itinerary. Pictured (left) is Lucas coming back to camp with Colonial in the background seen through the intermittent clouds.Sunday (8/3) we woke late to blueish skies. We had said that by midmorn if the weather hadn’t improved we would bail, maybe this was a sign of what was to come. With the
better weather we packed up camp to try to get to – or past the Neve glacier with some climbs in. I was a pent up bundle of energy so I quickly packed up ran down around Colonial Lake to the glacier and flaked out the rope, got all the knots set, tied in, and ‘patiently waited.’ Eventually the group joined me and we were slogging up the glacier. We stopped halfway at a “flatish spot,” secured our packs and headed N towards Pyramid peak. Pyramid is a group of three peaks, pyramid, pinnacle, and Paul Bunyans Stump (reverse order when referring to elevation). Pyramid is by far the easiest and more or less a walk up. Single file on the rope we all climbed to the saddle between pyramid and pinnacle where we then dropped the rope and gear and ran up to the summit. This turned out to be the first, and only summit (pic right with Baker et al in background) that the four of us would experience. It was gr
eat weather, we had great views, and we hung out for a while. We even got a shot of the four of us doing the summit dance – which I must interject originated as an inane sun dance during the N. Pickets traverse with insanely horrendous weather. We danced, celebrated, and prepared for the descent. On the way down, I wanted to climb the other two peaks, but we didn’t really have time. I convinced Lucas to climb Paul Bunyans stump. Mark and Jaime seemed disinterested but agreed to hang out while we attempted. My thought was with a name like that, how can’t you climb it, and it is the tallest peak of the three. Lucas and I climbed to the S side of the stump (pic left from the entry onto rock from the snow S of the stump), scrambled up around the West and finally up the N-ish ridge to the summit (class 3+; 45 minutes from M&J on the glacier). We had some food, took some pics, and called down via the radios to report back. We then down climbed to the packs on the colonial, where we met back up with Mark and Jamie.
We continued up to the Colonial:Neve col in short time (Pic right is our routes on Pyramid from the vantage point of the Colonial Neve col). This is where things got difficult. Mark and Jamie couldn’t continue and we had to say our goodbyes. We had hoped to spend a night here but weather pushed us back a day and with good daylight to be had Lucas and I decided to forge on. We wanted to do the traverse all together, as we had done on others before, but those cards were not in the mix. This unfortunately sat ill in my/our mind/s through the rest of the trip. (I might add that I had no clue what lay ahead, but whatever it was, I would gladly take it to down climbing the wretched ‘trail’ we ascended.) So bidding farewell, Lucas and I continued across the Neve while Mark and Jamie headed back down to pyramid TH. The Neve glacier was relatively long and uneventful (pic right from Colonial:Neve col with Snowfiled to the left). We had to jump a few cracks, but that’s part of the fun. We dropped our packs between the horseman and Snowfield and made a dash for snowfield. We climbed class 3 and then got off route. We wandered for a bit and I probably got onto low class 5 stuff to the summit, crapping my pants the latter part of the way. In retrospect,
the key is staying on the W ridge, but just S of the crest. Stay just S of the ridge via an obvious path and once you get to a huge boulder blocking the path, continue up/around the boulder (instead of calling it a dead end and turning around because downclimbing looks too sketchy like we did) and downclimb about 20 feet. This leads to a nice, easy class three scramble to the summit. Instead, we traversed just N of the ridge which led us to a doable low class 5 route that got the adrenaline going. In the late afternoon we summited the third peak of the day and hung out, contemplating the rest of the day’s events. We studied the next part of the path and tried to figure our plan of attack. We decided on the ideal camp and would go from there. (pic left is Mcallister glacier and eldorado behind, amongst all the other awesome things in the area)
We downclimbed back to the packs and headed pretty much due SSW to try to hit the tarns on the ridge close to isolation. We hadn’t realized that there was a gorge-like feature that made things impassable. The two options were to climb down then up or vice versa – both of which involved climbing up, which didn’t make us happy. We decided to climb up to where the two ridges met. In retrospect we should have headed due S, or even SSE from the snowfield:horseman col that would have taken us directly to the correct ridge. Descending to the ridge I took a spill and twisted my knee, which was a burden throughout the trip. But we made it down to the ridge, and flat beautiful tarns and made camp as the sun was setting. This was probably the nicest camp on the trip and after the days events – saying out good byes, 3 summits, 2 glaciers, a ton of elevation and mileage, and a spill – we needed to relax and had some (a lot of) whiskey. (pic just below, sunset at camp with a halo over Baker)
Monday (8/4). We woke up to blue skies and enjoyed the camp for awhile. (pic left is our route from late day 2, day 3, and early day 4) We continued on the ridge and made our way down to the lake just NE of isolation (isolation lake???), traversed the lake and headed up an obvious snow field until about 1000 feet from the summit. Here is where things got “fun.” (pic right, isolation lake mid morning) We were too tired (or thought we were) to climb isolation and figured we could traver
se/descend to the ridge leading to Wilcox lakes. So we set off across talus and this quickly led to cliff bands, densely thatched cedars, and steep slick heather slopes. Slowly, painfully, and carefully we picked our way through the crap and in about 45 minutes arrived at the proper ridge and on much easier terrain. This was indeed part of the 10% hell but short lived, and at least I have a few more hairs on my chest. I don’t know if there is a way around it. If I had to do it over again, I would lug my full pack up to the summit and try to directly get on the ridge leading to Wilcox
lakes. Reconnaissance made it look doable, but maybe not better in terms of bushwacking and evil down climbs (but hey it’s another remote peak). We took a bath at Wilcox lakes, hung out and rested for a couple of hours, and thoroughly enjoyed the cascading tarns of the area.We continued on the ridge and started ascending. We climbed to a ridge E of Newhalem peak. We thought there would be a way down into the valley and back up for an entrance onto backbone ridge. Once we got to the ridge we decided that there was no way down into the valley and up to backbone ridge. Well, it looks like that’s the route that Lowell Skoog describes, but we didn’t want to bushwack it. We decided to try to stay on the ridge and climb a nob and make it over to the S side of newhalem. When we got to the top of the nob we found that it cliffed out and dropped a good 200 feet or so straight down and didn’t connect with Newhalem at all. We might have been able to rappel and climb, but that would have been a last resort. At this point we were a little unhappy and keeping with being in line with backbone ridge and the coccyx we named the nob “the scrotum.” We retraced our steps and made it to a shoulder just NW of the scrotum where we made camp.
Tuesday (8/5). We woke up to more blue skies, thankfully, and continued our way through this maze that we had started…. We figured once we were on backbone ridge we’d be set – but how to get there? Since a lot of climbs of backbone ridge start from Stout lake, we headed there. We aimed for the col W of newhalem, but first we’d have to get off the shoulder and onto the talus field. No options loo
ked good and L and I went out by ourselves to find the path of least resistance… Or is it the path of most resistance when you are going down??? Anyway, L made it down magically and I was a little envious until I found out that much of it was (un)controlled sliding and down climbing sketchy stuff. A little extra hunting and I found a nice trivial route. We climbed to the col just W of newhalem where we could see stout lake. On the way, L even found part of an airplane that had crashed the previous decade. It’s here where we realized that most of the route descriptions that we had (which were only a handful) had described and labeled things incorrectly or incompletely. We forewent Newhaven, which would have been an easy scramble. It had been the source of many problems and we wanted to conserve energy so we didn’t want to give it the time of day, and instead, descended to stout lake, which was straight forward with some bushwacking. Down at s
tout lake, we breaked for a while, found a well stocked fishing camp, and decided on the route up to the next ridge. Well, deciding was easy since there was one and only one obvious way up. So we bushwacked through some dense small thatched trees … slowly. Pleasantly surprised we made it into open areas in about 30 minutes and continued up to the ridge. Once there we were overjoyed with an obvious, straight forward shot to backbone ridge. Note that the summit just S, or SE (I believe) has been referred to as the bat in previous descriptions, which is a mis-nomer (again, I believe). Anyway, once on the ridge we needed to pass through one more cirque. We climbed up the ridge and traversed snow and talus, just under the coccyx. We were so close to the coccyx and it looked so entertaining, we decided to drop out packs and go for it.We donned crampons, got the rope, grabbed our ice axes some pickets and off we went. The head wall was very steep and fun. We set minimal protection and belayed up the snow wall. Class 3 after that it was easy going. A fun climb … and now we could enjoy it bec
ause route finding issues were going to be a lot easier and we were a little calmer (pic left, an interesting pic just above the snow and below the summit; pic right, backbone ridge from the summit). We enjoyed the summit and returned to the packs, where we discovered that a marmot, most likely, had stolen my spork, an empty fuel canister, and some other shiny object that I forget
--- I hope (s)he is making great use of them. We cruised to back bone ridge and traversed half of it until we decided to make camp with the sun setting (pic right).Wed (8/6). So even with all of the route finding issues to date, we still had what we perceived to be the crux of the trip – getting from backbone ridge to the Mcallister glacier. We continued on backbone ridge and onto marble glacier. We saw what would have been an easy crossing and made our way towards it, only to realize that we were too far NW, and that there was no glacier on the other side of the ridge, only steep rock/cliffs. So to bide time, we decided to head for Early Morning Spire to see if anything popped out at us. The marble glacier was fun, easily navigating the few horizontal crevasses (pic left, route on the glacier). We dropped our packs for early morning spire. Moats had formed around the rock so it took a few athletic-ish moves to get on the rock for a class three run to the summit (pic left, lucas on early morning spire with eldorado in back). I finished my stash of water, but didn’t figure that would be a problem since we were bound to find water en route. Ok, times up, how to get on the Mcallister? I figured that the Praying Mantis is class 3/
4 on both sides so we could just go up and over that. Of course we’d rapel on the other side. L didn’t like the ideal of climbing that with full packs (I didn’t push hard at all), so we decided to aim for a low spot in the ridge and figure out how to rapel from there. We climbed to the rock. It was doable, but uncomfortable with full packs. I climbed without my pack, set a
top rope, rappelled, and then we belayed each other to the crest. We set a sketchy rappel to make it down to the mcallister. By sketchy I mean loose, wet, rock/dirt, that feels like it’s going to go at any time. It didn’t and we made it onto the mcallister. I think this turned out to be Lucas’ least favorite part of the trip – especially since he was the first to rap. The first few minutes on the glacier were tough going, very steep downclimbing with a lot of crevasses around and what appeared to be snow bridges of unknown strengths. Once we started traversing we high tailed it out of the area to a far safer part of the glacier where we could take in the scenery. The down climbing on snow ended up being my least favorite (sketch wise) part of the trip… probably because I was leading it. (pic right, Mcallister glacier. From left to right: Dorado needle, part of the Mcallister, Marble needle, snowfield not connected to the glacier, and the praying mantis at the halfway point across the photo. Our entry was just to the right (NW) of that where the snow finger goes up) So we traveled across th
e McCalister, onto the inspiration, to the Eldorado glacier. Unfortunately, weather was rolling in for the first time since the Colonial glacier. It was a great stretch in which we lucked out with weather… but why bring in weather now?!?!? We decided to go for Eldorado and ran up to the summit quickly. This was going to be the culmination of the trip and L had never ascended plus it was the highpoint of the trip – we had to do it. Ascent/descent was uneventful (pic left lucas nearing the summit on the snow arete) and we were soon traversing/descending the eldorado glacier. We finally made it to the foot of the glacier – the first drops of water since early in the day (needless to say, I was quite dehydrated and bonking). We rested, filled up on water and carried on to the ridge between roush creek and eldorado creek, for yet another great camp with evening colors, pic right. For me thi
s was another killer day – both in terms of exhaustion and for what we did. Killer in 100%, the most positive way.Thurs (8/7). We packed up in the morning and headed out the climber trail to my car stashed at the TH. We had a couple of beers (stashed in the car) and bathed in the creak. Stopped at Good Food on the way home yelling and screaming about the awesomeness of the trip and how we were going to top it in the summer of 2009.
90% heaven and 10% hell. One can say that all trips have the hell part associated with them. We cursed and moaned because of the 10% hell, but in reality it just adds to the experience. The 90% heaven overshadows any of that, making this one of the best (if not the best) experiences for me in the back country …. To date.
Gear: USGS eldorado map (much more detail than green trails), rope (and ATC; our 50m was just good for rapel to mcallister), various slings/rapel loops, pickets, larger nuts (useful on certain climbs, but not used).
Here's Lucas description on cascade climbers
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