Forbidden

We scan through one of our guidebooks and find a very well known climb up in the Northern Cascades. It's the West Ridge of Forbidden peak and is a part of the exclusive 50 classic climbs of North America. We are very interested in getting on this peak so with our limited knowledge given to us by the book we head to get permits. I am slightly apprehensive about the descent of this climb as it vomes down a 50 degree snow couliar. To put that in perspective a black diamond ski run typically is graded around 35 degrees, so yes this is rather steep and scary to me. After talking to the climbing ranger, he informed ust hat the snow in the coulair was begining to become out of season which means that parts of it are falling and the heat from the rocks are melting it out. Apparently lthere is a rappell route off the peak, so crisis averted and we were ready to climb!...well almost.

Putting the next few hours into words won't nearly describe the icky-ness that we endured. We got to the trailhead and jumped out to begin shuffling our packs together and was greeted with 90 degree temps, excrutiatingly high humidity and hundred and hundreds of biting deer flies. It was too hot to cover up to get protection from the flies so it was a constant battle of killing flies and then partially shoving another item into our packs. Sam defiantly endured more of this than I could handle. while he continued the epic bug/heat battle I tucked into the van to attempt packing in there. While this method eliminated the fly problem it easily raised the temp by 10 degrees. I'm fairly certain I've never sweat so much practically doing nothing. What should normally take us about 30 minutes to do unded up taking almost 2 hours due to the circumstances. Refreshment and snacks were in order before we began the up-hill slog to our campsite. Of course we were out of water and there was NO way either of us was willing to tromp down the steep valley wall to filter water in the river. Naturally, there was a very easy and logical solution to our problem: beer. Holy Batman, did that crisp beverage taste like a million bucks. One wasn't going to quite quench the thrist so we popped open another brew. We mowed down on some granola bars while contemplating whether or not we were motivated enough to begin the approach as it was getting a bit late in the day. Nah, lets drink one more! somewhere in the midst of beer drinking we had both shed down to our underwear to help with the heat. With a mixture of the heat craziness and slight drunkeness Sam began to sport the xtra large granola bar box as a hat. As ravishing as he looked it really was time to get our move on as it was nearing 4pm and we had along way to go.

Normally we'd both agree that the un-maintained, steep eroding climbers trail we were on would royally suck. Being mildly intoxicated we actually thoroughly enjoyed its nastiness. Our campsite for the night was up on a glacier and we rolled in just as the evening temps began to get chilly. Since it's high season for alpine climbing, all of the dry spots had been taken leaving us to dig out a snow platform in the glacier.

This area can easily be described as the North American Alps. Granted the range is thousands of feet lower than the Euro-Alps, the scenery is mind blowingly alike.

With atleas 20 other people heading up the same route in the morning we knew we'd need to get an early start to avoid bottle-necks behind larger and slower parties. We woke up somewhere around 2AM but with bitterly cold temps we first warmed our selves with lots of coffee before finally starting the glacier approach at about 4. We were making pretty good time up the glacier, only stopping when the cold became so excrutiating in our feet that we'd take a few minutes to donkey kick the blood back to them.

 

 

All was going smooth until we got slightly off route and hit a large broken crevasse. Crossing this took nearly an hour due to the icy conditions, and interesting circum navigation that we had to do.

working our way through the crevasse

Once we cleared the obstacle it was on to the snow couliar that may or may not let us climb it. Sam lead up the bottom part and it appears that we weregoing to be able to climb up it. In about 2 pitches of some mixed rock and snow we were headed towards the rock route.

Once in the notch at the base of the climb, we switched from our boots into our rock shoes and boy howdy was that an unpleasant coldness on our feet! The reidge was mostly easy 5th class with a small section of 5.6 so we opted to simul-climb the route. In maybe an hours worth of climbing we had reached the summit and got some great photos of the choulds circiling below our feet.

After photos and snacks were taken care of we carfully downclimbed the route and scooted over the glacier back to camp. Tired and exhausted, we were not looking forward to packing up camp and making the trek back to the van. So instead, we opted to take a serious couple hour nap before leaving. Since the weather had been scortchin hot the snow was melting causing the river to balloon up to a scary large level. We wandered the banks looking for a place to cross when sam finally found a place that he could just barely jump across with his long legs. As for me, I wasn't so lucky and had to nearly climb the mountain again (ah, ok maybe not entirely but it felt like it) to find a place where ther river was narrow enough for me to skip over. We made it to the van just before dark and made some delicious grub before heading to bed.

 

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