The weather gods had cursed the climbing season by bringing rain every weekend and were tormenting us by leaving the weekdays clear and sunny. To defy the gods, we met at the Eastgate Park & Ride on 7:30am on Wednesday morning. It felt strange being at a Park & Ride in the morning and seeing the lot filled with cars. We drove out to the end of the Teanaway River Road and hiked toward Ingalls Lake. We scrambled the rocky slopes east of the lake to get to the north side of the lake where we then hiked up the ridge to Goat Pass. There was no running water at Goat Pass as we had hoped so we fired up the stoves and melted snow to have full water bottles for the following day. There was some concern as to whether we would have enough fuel to melt snow for the third day. The black flies and mosquitoes were annoying but the bivouac sites were comfy and it was a scenic place to camp. We could see a pair of climbers on the route heading up to the base of the Gendarme.
On Thursday we woke up before first light and made our way across the Stuart Glacier and then climbed the gully leading to the notch on the North Ridge. The gully has a couple of steep twenty-foot steps that are not to be taken lightly. I gladly accepted a top-rope set up by the others. At the notch we split up into our two rope teams. I tied in with Jim. The climbing was spectacular. Over the course of the day we climbed slabs, flakes, cracks and blocky terrain. We belayed all pitches instead of simul-climbing. This decision made for a longer day but we had started early and had planned to bivy on the summit so we had the full day to work with. Carrying an overnight pack including crampons, ice axe and boots made the climbing harder.
Route-finding on the North Ridge is easier than on the West Ridge but it is still possible to get off route. There are some clues in the form of lighter areas on the rock where climbers have worn away the lichens but following the marked path is not always the best way to go. At one point I led out onto a slab that looked pretty thin higher up but it was clear that climbers had gone that way. I figured that there were features I couldn't see but as I climbed higher I could tell that it was going to be too thin for me to continue safely so I down-climbed and set up a belay on a ledge. Jim took the lead and traversed far to the left and found a different slab that was better.
Many of the pitches involved tremendous exposure while traversing the top of the ridge by gripping the top of a flake and leaning out to smear with the feet. The 11 pitches to the base of the Gendarme took longer than expected and we were now concerned about reaching the bivy sites at the summit before dark. Jim made a point of leading the rest of the pitches as he was familiar with the route and we made an effort to push on.
At the Gendarme we rappelled to the gully to bypass the 5.9 crack. A trip report and photo from John Rollins from a few weeks earlier had shown there to be snow covering the slabs above the gully making for a difficult transition while wearing rock shoes. Fortunately, the show had melted away. Traversing the gully and climbing the pitches immediately above the gully were fairly dicey. The pitches above that were more moderate with an occasional mid-fifth class section. By 8pm we reached the summit ridge, unroped and scrambled to the summit.
The bivy sites at the summit were not that great. We found two good places and two marginal places for the four of us to unfurl our bivy sacks. 100 feet down from the summit was a big patch of snow. We filled a plastic bag with snow and had just enough fuel to give everyone 1.5 liters. After nightfall, the goats and snafflehounds were out in force. Twice during the night snafflehounds ran over my sleeping bag and gave me a scare. The goats were clomping on the rocks with their hooves making it difficult to sleep.
We slept in the following morning until after 6am. Aside from a couple of wrong turns that we soon discovered, we followed cairns and scrambled over the false summit and made our way down the Cascadian Couloir. We followed a decent trail most of the way but we had to bushwhack after losing the trail. The water we were carrying was not as much as we needed and everyone became dehydrated. It was a great relief to hit the first creek crossing the trail. The hike back out over Long's Pass was grueling.
At the trailhead we ran into Ken Hahn, Ann Ziegler, Joe Dumelin and Steve who were hiking in to do the climb.
