West Face on Colchuck Balanced Rock

July 14, 2018

After 4 days staycationing with Colin, we drove home from Washington Pass on Friday evening and I geared up to join forces with Will up at Colchuck Balanced Rock. I'd been up in the area many times before, but had never headed up for CBR itself. With a very strong partner in Will and some friends with a permit to camp at Colchuck Lake, it was the perfect opportunity to give it a shot.

We left Seattle at 6:30am on Saturday and were starting the approach by 10am or so. We left camping gear at the Lake and proceeded up the well-cairned trail from the outlet of the lake at the recommendation of some friends we ran into—good advice! The trail gained elevation quickly and eventually deposited us on the talus field below The West Face at about 1:15pm. We left our packs there and racked up for the climb, scampering up to a ledge and quickly dispatching the first pitch. The second pitch started with some tricky thin hands but subsided after a few moves and ran up to a belay behind a large boulder. The cool spot in the shade was welcome as it was a very hot day and our late start meant the face was turning into a solar cooker.

The third pitch was awesome. Really fun jamming with the left hand, stemming with the feet, and gastoning with the right hand. I reached the large belay ledge below the crux pitch just shy of 2pm. We met up with our friends Matt and Sam and waited as they worked through the classic corner. When it was our turn, Will cruised it. I nearly made it to the belay, but my lack of rock fitness came back to bite me as I slipped off a foothold with grass on it while quite pumped. I finished up the pitch and we waited a bit more for the party ahead of us, but this time in the shade of the huge roof. What an amazing pitch and position. The corner never felt harder than 10b or so, but was just super sustained, clean, and fun.

The roof traverse pitch was hard and intimidating. It was tough for Will to see the crack and figure out what gear to place, but he did an awesome job of battling through it to the belay on the other side. I waited for a bit for the party ahead to clear and then followed, hanging on by the skin of my teeth.

The crux pitch started with more fun corner climbing in a big rightward-arching feature. Will and I were both feeling the effects of the sun at this point pretty heavily, having slowed considerably for the past two pitches, and both found the crux boulder problem to be very hard. We each aided through it, which was decently physical on its own.

After hanging out some more on the sunny, sloping ledge at the base of the "5.8 chimney" pitch, we got our turn. It was hard. We both pulled on gear to get our lanky selves into the feature and I banged up a finger pretty well in the process. By the time we topped out that pitch, the daylight was wasting and we decided to call it good, traverse off, and descend. The light was awesome in that moment as we backpacked the rope and put on our approach shoes, which felt so incredibly nice compared to the prior hot hours in our rock shoes. The descent went quickly back to our bags, but was not very pleasant due to a huge swarm of mosquitos. We grabbed our bags and got out of there fast, hiking about half the trail before needing headlamps to finish it off. We refilled water at the lake outlet and just sat and drank for a while. We were pretty bushed.

We arrived at camp in the dark, ate a quick dinner, and passed out. What a day and what a route!

Northeast Ridge on Black Peak

July 12, 2018

With a desire to get on top of something high during our 4-day staycation, Colin and I set our sights on Black Peak after having a great day climbing two routes on Liberty Bell. Following our late finish on Wednesday from that adventure, we got a late start Thursday and figured out our plan. We packed up our gear, including camping equipment, and headed for Rainy Pass. We geared up and left the car around 11:40am.

The hike up to Heather Pass and down the other side, then up to Lewis Lake was a bit less than 1.5 hours. We continued up to Wing Lake, dropping our camping gear and setting up shop at the edge of the mostly-frozen lake by 2:30pm. With much lighter packs, we headed for the col at the start of the Northeast Ridge, staying mostly on snow from the camp and traversing some steeper bits, arriving at the col within an hour or so. An improbably bold mountain goat was up there with us, posing on top of the ridge as we racked up.

High on the ridge with great views of the range

Soaking in views on the descent from just below the summit

The climb started pretty chossy, but soon improved in rock quality as we got higher. We fought to stay true to the ridge, climbing back to it whenever we'd traversed a short ways. The climbing was quite fun, with low 5th class moves here and there and lots of 4th class terrain. We did the whole ridge in a series of simul-climbing blocks and arrived at the summit at about 6:30pm. Black is pretty high at 8,970 feet and is somewhat solitary with awesome views of the North Cascades all the way down to Rainier. We soaked the view in for a bit before scrambling off the summit block, packing up our gear, and scrambling down the 4th and 3rd-class South Ridge staring at Goode the whole time, reminding me of last summer's climb up the Northeast Buttress with Kelsey.

Snow was continuous from the col down to camp and we had a great time boot skiing down nearly all of it. The descent went quite fast and we were back at the tent before 8pm with plenty of time to soak in the sunset while having dinner and a bit of whiskey. We hiked out the next morning with our sights set on one more climb before getting back to Seattle.

This route was great. I think we timed the conditions really well—there was quite a bit of snow left on the talus field to Lewis Lake and again from camp to the Northeast Ridge col as well as from the South Ridge col back to camp, but there was only a little bit of snow on the ridge itself that was easy to get around. I'd put this ridge climb up there in terms of climbing and views with some of the other classics in the North Cascades!

Northwest Face on Liberty Bell

July 11, 2018

After waiting out some weather on the first day of our staycation, Colin and I headed up from our campsite at Lone Fir to the Blue Lake Trailhead and hiked up for the Liberty Bell. While it was forecast to be a pretty warm day, the NW Face looked a bit chilly in the morning, so we decided to do a warm-up route in the sun first, selecting Rapple Grapple based on reviews, the position, and having been up the Beckey Route before.

Rapple Grapple was quite fun, with good rock and movement throughout. We started climbing just before noon and met the Beckey Route near the summit at about 1pm. After lunch on top, we rapped down to the gully and traversed over to the NW Face, gearing up there around 3pm. We were surprised to find another party starting just before us that late in the afternoon on a weekday and chatted them up throughout the climb at the belays.

The first pitch isn't terribly memorable—some low-angle slot climbing past a bit of shrubbery to a nice sandy ledge. The second pitch has fun movement off the belay for 20 feet or so through a left-leaning ramp with a roof above it before turning up and going through sandier, looser terrain to another big ledge system.

The third pitch was pretty engaging and a bit spooky for my liking with hollow flakes and marginal protection. The final traverse rightward to the left-facing corner was the trickiest part and had some great movement.

Pitch four was advertised as the winner and it delivered. After working through a series of varied moves up the corner, I found myself a bit confused near the top as the crack in the dihedral thinned out and didn't look protectable while the beta implied a ledge on the right. I eventually kept moving up and was happy to find just enough friction, holds, and protection to keep going. This corner deposited me on a ledge straight up where I brought Colin up and we then simul-climbed up for our second summit of Liberty Bell that day.