Forbidden Peak, West Ridge

By: Larry Sverdrup | Climbers: Larry Sverdrup, Natalie Merrill |Trip Dates: Jul. 31- Aug 4, 1998

Photo: Peter Gunstone

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I told Natalie that it would be a slam dunk. This didn't excite her as she wanted adventure. She got it.

7/31/98

The original plan was to drive up Saturday, get a permit for camping in Boston Basin and hike in. When Natalie's luggage didn't arrive in Seattle Friday evening this plan had to be scuttled. Our flight arrived after 11 pm and with all of the luggage BS we didn't hit the sack till after 3 am. Hence we started out with less than adequate sleep. It was worse for Natalie who arrived from Houston. Being from San Diego, I was in the same time zone as Seattle.

8/1/98

After breakfast at my sister's home in Gig Harbor, and a stop at REI to purchase/rent some missing gear we headed north in my sister's humongous Dodge Ram van. The van included a TV/VCR. Natalie watched Bruce Willis in "The Fifth Element" as I drove, relaying to me what was happening as I couldn't view the "perfect woman". At the ranger station in Marblemount we found out that we didn't need a permit to day hike into the Boston Basin area. We drove up Cascade River Road to the trail head and bedded down inside of the van, the rear seats of which folded into a bed.

8/2/98

At 4 am we headed up the trail with fully loaded day packs. These were not light as we needed equipment not just for rock climbing, but also for glacier travel and snow/ice climbing. We also needed 2 ropes enabling full 165 foot rappels in the snow couloir. To minimize weight here, one of the ropes was a 165 foot, 6 mm static line. I owned an 11 mm Mammut super dry rope which I didn't bring due to its weight. Instead I brought my 10 mm sport rope which is lighter (when dry) and I couldn't remember, but I hoped that it was treated to remain dry (it wasn't).

Portions of the lower trail lower were almost over grown with plants. Higher up a canopy of pine trees concealed us. After numerous stream crossings we eventually we popped out into Boston Basin. We worked our way past the high camp, scrambling up a rock buttress to a ledge on the right hand margin of the glacier. From here we could easily step onto the snow fields bordering the glacier on the right. The original route crosses the glacier at this point. However, due to global warming and the late season, this did not look very appealing. The entire lower glacier was heavily crevassed. The bottom of the glacier was calving away and huge blocks of ice would suddenly slide downs the rocks with a roar. The same thing was occurring from an icefall higher up on the right side of the glacier. It looked worse than the previous two times I had been there.

The original route went right through the avalanche debris from the upper ice fall. The trek through the "bowling alley" had Natalie apprehensive. She was tired from lack of sleep and had never been on a glacier before. Every so often, ice avalanches crashed down Mt Johannesburg across the valley. That mountain is more than a mile high and is studded with hanging glaciers. Natalie took a nap. Suddenly Natalie jumped up from her slumber saying she was ready to go. The short bit of rest had replaced the crucial stores of neurotransmitters. We cached a fresh sandwich under the snow nearby. It was already 3 pm, but I had a plan. It appeared that the snow fields along the right hand side of the glacier offered easy and direct access to the top of the glacier, which hopefully was not as heavily crevassed as the lower sections, and in any event was above the bowling alley. This proved to be the case. Part way up the snow fields, we stopped on a rock island and filtered water to replenish our supplies. Once at the top of the glacier, we traversed left to the snow couloir encountering no crevasses. As we hiked I did observe a boulder sized chunk of ice and snow slide into the moat at the base of the couloir. I didn't burden Natalie with this information. The bottom of the snow couloir was a discontinuous jumble of ice blocks connected by narrow but substantial snow bridges. Evidently, the upper ice blocks occasionally slide downhill into the lower ice blocks. Two things were in our favor. The ice blocks were big and so they probably didn't move very often. Second, even if they did move, the motion would be one of sliding down and stacking against a lower block. Certainly this would be exciting, but if one stayed on top it would not be too bad! As I stood near the bottom of the difficulties, the block we would have to cross was making noises. I burdened Natalie with this information. On many big climbs there comes this moment of truth where one has to decide, are we doing this thing or are we bailing? This was the moment of truth. We went for it. First we climbed a steep icy snow slope to the right. I showed Natalie how to hold the ice axe near the head and plunge the pick into the hill side. By pushing down upon the adze with the palm of the hand, easy progress upwards is made. Then we traversed left onto one of the long ice blocks keeping away from the upper and lower edges as much as possible. At the far left end of the ice block we crossed a narrow bridge, and soon we were on a safer although steep snow slope. We had made it.

I progressed up the steep snow slope and into a moat. Now we either had to cross a pathetic looking snow bridge or climb steep wet rock for a few moves to get onto the main upper snow mass which was connected to the couloir. We climbed the non-trivial rock moves in our crampons and were soon on the upper snow mass. At this point I began to use our three snow pickets. In the soft snow I could hammer them in with the side of the head of my ice axe. They were bomb proof. A rope length away, I put in a snow picket for a belay and backed it up by driving in the shaft of my ice axe. We were in the couloir. Natalie found that she could remove the pickets by yanking straight up on them, sometimes after a sideways blow with her axe. Natalie led the next pitch which took us to a giant horizontal crevasse which blocked further progress. More than a four-foot gap separated the snow mass from the rock wall on the left. I traversed left on tension, stemming toward the rock wall, and dynamically hopped over to a small ledge. Having gained the rock, a system of ledges made getting onto the upper snow mass not too difficult. I immediately placed a picket for protection. The upper snow mass was icier, and I used the an ice tool with a hammer head to drive in the pickets. One last snow bridge at the top of the upper snow mass connected to a sheet of hard snow and ice which was not so steep and took one to easy rock. When I arrived at the snow bridge I peered over the upper edge at the side of the bridge and was disappointed. It was only two feet thick and looked to be nothing more than wet snow. I set up a belay and belayed Natalie up. As she wildly stemmed between the snow and rock I realized that it would have made a killer photo. However, I didn't want to relax my attention on the rope slack at the crucial moment. Since she didn't have the luxury of a tensioned rope behind her to the snow, she had to lower off the snow with her ice axe planted near the edge. She made the move and soon joined me.

Natalie belayed me on tension as once again I dynamically stemmed over a wide moat to the rock wall on the left. The rock was wet and in some places muddy. I worked my way up to the last snow and ice sheet placing what rock pro as I could find. I wasn't thrilled by the rock pro, so I put an ice screw into the hard snow/ice sheet above me to back up the rock pro. On top of the sheet and I drove in a picket for good measure. The 24" picket only went in half way, but it was solid. Soon I was at a fixed rock belay.

Early in the season, all of these difficulties are non-existent. The snow has complete continuity, and people simply connect the fixed rock belays. Now, giant moats separate the snow from the rock belays, many of which are too high on the wall to be of use anyway. Some of the belays appeared to be more than 20 feet above the current snow level! I led an easy chimney to the rock ridge as the sun set. Natalie called friends on her cell phone to chat, "We're on the West Ridge now and going for it..." We dropped all of our snow and ice gear, and put on our rock shoes and head lamps. We realized that we were going to have to bivy. We decided to rest now and then, and when we got really tired we would lay down for a nap. If it got too cold, we would get up and start climbing again.

Climbing the airy ridge at night was kind of neat. A half moon illuminated the south side of the ridge which helped. At some places the ridge is as narrow as a few feet with thousands of feet of exposure on either side. What you can't see can't hurt you if you don't fall! Early on the ridge was a jump across move; the gap was only a few feet but the exposure enormous. Ideally much of the ridge would be simul-climbed with running protection. However, in the darkness and being tired we went from belay to belay. The ridge is something like 8 pitches long done this way. Another factor is rope drag. In the dark you can't map out your course too far in advance. One mistake with protection placement or sling length and suddenly the rope drag would get enormous. We went up pitch after pitch figuring that the summit was not far. At a fixed pin a decision had to be made as to which way to go, up and around the north side of the ridge or continue on the south side. We consulted a route topo which indicated continue on the south side, exposed 5.8. I mumbled to myself that the ranger was feeding us a bunch of BS, .."only a few 5.6 moves on the ridge." I put in pro and inched out onto steep friction slabs with small chaucy holds until I had enough and backed off to the belay. Upon reexamination, we had consulted the East Ridge topo which included some descent options, not the West Ridge topo! Talk about being brain dead in the middle of the night! The route goes up and over to the North side from the fixed pin. I had no trouble identifying the north side by the way. The Big Dipper pointed to the North Star. We were quite sleepy at this point and it wasn't particularly cold. We decided to crash on the small ledge below the fixed pin. We put on extra clothing and intertwined as much as possible to conserve heat. Natalie awoke with a start, shivering. I rubbed her to generate some more heat. A light breeze had kicked up altering the balance toward cold. It was time to start moving again.

8/3/98

It was starting to get light, and none to soon as my head lamp had begun to fail. A few pitches and we were on the summit, just in time for sunrise. We could see Mount Rainier far to the south and numerous other volcanoes. The more massive Forbidden glacier below us on the North side had enormous crevasses. We rested on the summit and took a few photos before heading down.

A few of the steeper portions of the ridge we rappeled. At the top of the couloir, we collected our cache of gear and located the first rappel from that point which required only a single rope. The next rappel was more interesting and Natalie took the honors. She couldn't simply walk over on the snow to a fixed rock belay. Instead she had to friction pendulum over to a belay high on the rock wall above the couloir and incidently not in line of sight of the rappel point. Soon I joined her. We had done a full length rappel with the lead rope (clipped to itself through the rappel ring) and 6 mm static line to pull the locker carabiner attached to the upper end of the lead rope.

We began pulling the 6 mm static line and not long after the main rope parted company with us it jammed. No amount of force would make it move. Trying various things I knocked loose a chunk of moss from above which thunked me in the head. I hadn't considered this possibility! With a small pull rope, if the rope jams you are left without a lead line to go back up and fix things. By extending my tie in slings I was able to climb high enough to see that the lower portion of the lead rope had wrapped around the upper portion creating so much friction that the static line could not budge it. At this point we were standing on a narrow ledge perhaps 40 feet above the top of the moat. As we stood there pondering our next move, a giant boulder of snow and the snow bridge I had contemplated using near the top of the couloir gave way and smashed into the moat, lodging under the upper snow mass! This heavily substantiated my decision not to use it the evening before.

Natalie was thirsty and the situation serious. She informed me that I had 15 minutes until she called for help on the cell phone! She also suggested that I lead out on the 6 mm static line over the wet, mud and moss covered rock to fix things! Now hey, why didn't I think of that? I doubled the 6 mm static line, it was the least I could do. Venturing out on the wet mossy rock a ways I found a placement for a 0.75 camalot behind a quarter inch flake. I took it. About 10 or 12 feet out I was in line of sight of the upper rap station, but still about a dozen or more feet from the end of the lead rope. I shook the static line from this new position and miraculously the lead rope unwrapped and I was able to pull it down! I carefully maneuvered back to the belay and we were in business again. I had even beaten Natalie's 15 minute ultimatum! Once again, Natalie led off on the next adventuresome rappel. Her job was to somehow reach the lower snow mass, reversing the wild dynamic stem we had used to get off of it. She had to traverse downhill on rappel to get into position. This exposed her to a pendulum back into the moat. She called for a #2 camalot which I slid down the rope to her. With this directional she was safe from the pendulum fall into the moat and she could use the tension in the rap line to ease herself toward the snow. She gave herself a little slack and tied off the rap line. By reaching over and planting her ice axe near the edge of the snow lip, she could pull herself over toward the snow and soon she was pounding in a snow picket for a belay. It was a great piece of work.

There were no more rock belays. The slope was quite steep and the snow soft. A fall here would be very serious. The bottom of the couloir was steep and the snow ended abruptly at an ice cliff. If one went off of this cliff and onto the rock slabs below, they would eventually end up resting in the jumble of giant ice blocks at the bottom. We rapped off of the snow picket. Natalie then led a traverse to bring us above the wet rock moves. Once again we rapped off of a snow picket. On the way down I tested the "pathetic" snow bridge alternative to the rock moves. The bridge immediately collapsed under my weight. I belayed Natalie down the steep snow below the moat and soon we stood atop the rock pyramid near the base of the couloir. We noticed a rap anchor on this formation, and we decided to use it, rather than tip toe our way back through the ice blocks we had come up. A single rope brings one easily to the glacier and avoids the ice blocks. We could have gone up this way much easier.

In the hot sun the snow on the glacier was soft, and the crampons balled up miserably in places. On the steep downhill sections I slipped a few times and had to arrest. The only disadvantage to the last rappel was that we had to traverse quite a ways to get around a couple of big crevasses. We jumped a few small crevasses and Natalie stopped to get a few photos. As we neared the rock island in the snow fields we could just taste the water we were about to filter. Our sandwich cached in the snow was gone, much to my dismay. A raven probably watched us bury it. The lead rope was soaking wet and of course weighed far more than the Mammut super dry rope which I didn't bring. We headed down, stopping at the high camp to chat with a couple of guys intending to do the route the next day. We wished them luck. The sun set as we worked our way down Boston Basin.

Our flight back was shortly after 6 in the morning. If we hurried, we might just make it. However, it was our third night in a row of substandard sleep. We actually experienced auditory hallucinations. The roar of the water at a stream crossing would sound like a lot of people talking. Natalie thought that she heard animal sounds. Finally at the car, we dressed more comfortably and ate. As Natalie went to sleep in the back, I attempted to drive us back to Seattle. Twice on Cascade River Road I nodded off, so finally I just pulled over intending to sleep until first light. Three hours later after sunrise Natalie woke me complaining about how I thoughtlessly went to sleep, causing her to miss her flight by more than 2 hours, which meant extras fees, endangering her job, etc, etc! In Marblemount we made the phone calls to work and signed out at the Ranger Station. Down the road a bit we took showers and ate brunch at Clark's eatery. At the A-frame jam place we bought espresso.

8/4/98

At the airport we had to pay no extra fees. It was, after all, Natalie's luggage being delivered on Saturday morning that set us back in the first place. I hugged Natalie goodbye, and headed back to the rat race. It was my 20th 50-classic climb, and one of the more memorable ones.

Editor's Note: The author is a Major Contributor to the North American Classics project.