North Twin Sister, August 28-29th, 1999
by Jesse Davis
After a nice caffeine wakeup at the Bus Stop Espresso near the N. 65th St. Park and Ride, Phil and I took off to pick up Jeff in Brothell (also known as Bothell). We arrived to find a garage sale in the making. I was the first sucker of the day, picking up two floor mats for a cool two bucks. I had forgotten my helmet, an old bike helmet replete with lots of nice vents to help your scalp breathe and to let in falling rocks. Fortunately, Jeff's dad came to the rescue and loaned me one. After winching all of Jeff's crap into the back of the truck, and adding some steel to the truck's suspension to help handle the now oversize load, we bailed.
The forecast was for fair skies on Saturday with some late afternoon cloudiness, and then a chance of rain coast and north Cascades on Sunday. Our experiences in Washington translated this to chance of rain on Saturday, rainy and rainier on Sunday. We had already noticed the first few wispy clouds rolling. Thus, halfway down the northbound highway, and with only slight reluctance, we changed our plans from the Mt. Shuksan Fischer Chimneys route, to a nearby third class route recommended by Cascade Alpine Guide, Vol. III as an excellent route on very solid rock, "hard to equal in it's difficulty rating." This, of course, was the famous (drum roll please...) West Ridge of North Twin Sister. I said... West Ridge or North Twin Sister. Please do not begin rioting. Okay, this certainly is a mountain confined to the realm of mountaineering esoterotica. We all had lost our motivation to try a project like the Fischer Chimneys in the bad weather promised, so we settled easily.
Having finally made a decision, we quickly pulled out our various maps and gazeteers and directions to find the best way in there. Phil had been up there before, so we let him do much of the orienteering. We knew that there was a locked gate at a bridge over the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River, limiting access to the area. We successfully and leisurely found our way there. After helping ourselves to more than our share of the bounteous thimbleberries, we began loading our packs. Our initial intention was to do a North-South traverse of the Sisters. This would have involved travel over a pretty crevassed glacier, and extensive amounts of fourth class rock. Thus our gear included three ropes, flukes, pickets, ice screws, ice tools, a full rack of chocks, friends, big-bros, RURPs, knife blades, and bashies. We gave it all to our volunteer pack animal, since he had already decided to carry the kitchen sink anyway. Phil's handy- dandy little scale told the story: Jeff's pack, 70 lbs; Phil, 55 lbs; Jesse, 48 lbs. Jeff is the landslide (tucked nicely into his top pouch) winner.
At the trailhead
Somewhere about 1 PM we began swatting flies as we walked up the road at 1200 feet. It was muggy muggy, and we admired the lovely clearcut scenery through our numerous sweat droplets. After unsuccessfully hitchiking with the single passing gravel truck, we resigned ourselves to our fate, and began hiking in earnest. Eventually we found the right turn off the road, and took this through more clearcuts. We still hadn't seen the mountain, and weren't especially motivated, so our pace was slow. I had a hearty laugh as Phil and Jeff battled it out with the bugs. Phil was the new proud owner of a solid stick (no mess!) of insect repellent, so he would tell you he had the last laugh.
The logging road approach, with North Twin Sister behind.
In any case, the weather was darkening, and we were still a good way from the mountain. We began to look for a place to camp. In this vast landscape consisting of only only clearcuts, our best bet was right on the logging road. So we found a spot on a switchback that resembled flatness. I had another spot in mind, but I have to admit that it too was no less crappy than the one we chose.
By now we had seen the mountain. It was beautiful, with its orange west ridge beginning gently and then sweeping dramatically skyward. We were psyched, but aware of the occasional spit of rain.
North Twin Sister from "camp"
We cooked a nice greasy dinner of falafel and hummous, and headed off to bed. As it was getting dark, Phil spotted a light coming down off the mountain. Eventually it turned out to be two headlamps. I was already naked in my sleeping bag before they walked past our camp. We probed and probed for beta:
--How's it going guys?
--Pretty good.
--Long day, eh?
--Yep, it's dark.
--What were you all doing up there?
--West Ridge.
--How was it?
--Pretty good, some exposure.
--How'd you come down?
--North route.
--How was it up there?
--Okay, kinda hard to find our way down.
--Because of occasional whiteout?
--Yeah.
And so on... I was tired of the one liner answers, so we said farewell. We postulated that the female in the group must have had a case of 'exposure' which caused the late departure (they were still five miles from the trailhead at 9:30 PM). Of course, only women are afflicted with 'exposure.'
North Twin Sister from "camp", at sunset. The West Ridge is on the right skyline.
We woke up early to whiteout and rain. We went back to sleep. We rewoke to whiteout. We finally convinced ourselves to get up when it stopped raining. After a round of nice morning shits (some folks took more than one turn), we took off up the same logging road. A couple more switchbacks finally brought us out of clearcut, into forest, then to timberline and the narrowing west ridge. At last the scrambling commenced, and we were psyched.
Routefinding was relatively easy for the first five hundred feet of the ridge, one of the most continuous and enjoyable sections of scrambling I have done. Where the route description begins a mention of a 'gable' we encountered our first indecision about the route. We also had some disagreement over the meaning of the word 'gable,' as Jeff had forgotten his Beckey-to- English dictionary. Phil thought it meant a place where one keeps horses, Jeff thought it was a type of rodent whose pelts are often used for fur coats, and I thought it meant a thin walkway or something. Anyway, we seemed to get by this section just fine.
Nearing the false summit, we were faced with some steeper rock and a few choices. By this point, the cold, blowing fog had turned into a steady windy rain. Visibility was very poor at the time, preventing us from seeing all of our options. In any case, at a yellow overhang, we crossed a sharp SW spur toward what was described as "steep rock with bucket holds (class 3)," rather than up the more direct route to the summit plateau described as class 4. Our choice turned out to be pretty exposed class 4 with adequate holds on loose yellow rock, and was definitely the highest tension point of the day. Here Phil performed his patented graceful full-body boulder smear. I saw only the last half of this move, so thought I was about to see Phil fall to his death. Fortunately he, and the rest of us, made it through this section, up onto the long, level summit plateau. The summit and a big sigh of relief were ours just a few hundred yards later.
Jeff somewhere on the descent
We all tagged the summit and bailed. The cold south wind made us pretty aware of our position on the ridge, so we all headed for some shelter behind some blocks on the north side of the ridge. After a brief chilling break, we headed down thinking hard about how we were going to descend, all of us in agreement that downclimbing our ascent route was to be avoided. Instead, staying on the summit crest until the summit plateau drops off, we were able to make a class 3 descent via a brief trip onto the north side, avoiding a rappel. Phil is convinced this is the section described as class 4, and I had thought that it might have been the end of the north slopes route, but I think Phil is probably right [Ed. Note: Phil is right]. We then resumed very slow progress down the wet rock, Jeff electing to rap down the last steep section [Ed. Note: Contrast this to Jeff's aggressive attempts to climb a loose class 4 gully, that none of us was willing to follow, on the ascent]. In the end, the 3000' ascent took us nine hours camp to camp.
Needing only two and change hours to hike out, we took off for the luxuries of a warm meal at the Olive Garden in Bellingham, getting a 25% discount care of the Olive Garden employee in our party, Jeff. When they ran out of free breadsticks and patience for our consumption, we blew out of there for home.
Jesse Davis