Columbia Peak (7172' 7/24/10)

While a horrific “fail,” our attempt of glacier peak was oddly fun. The bike ride made for an added dimension and if the going is right, makes for much quicker travel. Alison and I decided on the Monte Cristo environs (glacier basin) last weekend. Monte Cristo is a pretty cool place: an old mining town from way back in the day. I found the ruins of town to be a worthy destination for a laid back short day trip. The only access is via a 4 mile washed out road from leaving the mountain loop highway at Barlow pass. Besides one washout, the road is in great condition. We headed to monte cristo on our bikes, and arrived in about 90 minutes. Headed up to glacier basin on a nice trail and made camp. We saw some other campers and they pointed us to a great spot where we pitched the tent. It was only later that we realized that we really shouldn’t be camping in that area and there are places for more impacted on the knoll in the middle of glacier basin. After a quick lunch we decided to attempt Columbia. Per the route description, we made a rising traverse to Wilman gap (5oo feet of the gap, take a hard right up the glacier). We needed to do a fancy two step move to get onto the rock because of a moat, but nothing bad. We headed down and across the 76 glacier to meet the W spur route. From there, as described up a snow field. Unfortunately I went up a little too far and had to traverse steep snow over a very large moat adding a little unnecessary spice to the adventure. Went around the blind corner and started climbing what looked like class three. It ended up being a rotten gully terminating in slightly exposed class four climbing which only looked to get more difficult. I finally decided to poke my head around farther to the S face and every time I did the words “humph, why didn’t I just start over here” came out. Easy climbing led me back to the W face and another two step move got me past another moat to the final 20 feet to the summit. The summit was spectacular – 360 degree views without a cloud in the sky, and only slightly hazy. (The Panorama at the top is from the summit.) This was a really fun route and I really enjoyed the approach. Poodle dog pass is obviously more direct, but this approach added a lot of variability that I personally enjoyed. Not to mention the passing through glacier basin which was glorious in itself. The decent went without issue and we enjoyed a superb evening in camp. We ended up only tooling around the basin on Sunday and argued over the routes up to all of the other peaks in the area. Hopefully we’ll be back to climb those sometime soon (Monte Cristo, Foggy, Cadet, etc.). A stellar climb in a stellar setting.

See more pics here Who knew there would be a bike rack in Monte Cristo? Poor pic, but it shows the route. Columbia is center, in the background. Took the snow as close to the rock as possible almost to the low point (left of pic). Took a sharp right to go behind Wilman peak (not discernable) to hit the col to glacier 76. First snowpatch as heading up the W ridge. Dirty Gully on Summit block. Should have traversed farther right. Baker and Shuksan from the summit Puget Sound glistening in the Sunlight Alison at camp at sunset. Monte Cristo behind.