Washington Pass, June 19-20, 1999.

Cormac and I arrived at Jeff's house about 7:15 Saturday morning, with Matt following on his motorcycle a few seconds later. Jeff popped out of the door. In classic Jeff style, he hadn't even begun packing.

We took 2 separate vehicles, and, a few hours later, we regrouped in Sedro Wooley, where we picked up some more food at Thrifty's, and Cormac and I got some FREE Star Wars cards.

Phil	Jeff

Cormac	Matt

We arrived at the pass at about noon on Saturday, quite a bit later than anticipated. The sun was out here though, which was nice.

Blue Lake trailhead, Silver Star mountain in the background.

 We began the slog up to South Early Winter Spire, I was the only one on skis. On the way up, we met a couple coming down, saying they turned around because they got as far as they could without ice axes. Then they pointed to the approach gully to Liberty Bell's Becky Route, and said "Don't go there", as they had just see an avalanche sweep down it. Cormac and Matt didn't have ice axes, but we knew the approach to our climb was pretty mellow.

We reached the ridge below the South Arete, and began to prepare for the ascent.........

Gettin' ready. Note Cormac's cool climbing helmet.

Jeff leading the crux of the climb!

Matt, with Kangaroo Ridge in the background.

North Cascades panorama.

"Would you like to see my nuts?"

Near the summit. The chasm behind Cormac contains the southwest couloir.

"Exposed ridge" before the summit.

Look Ma, no hands!

Jeff showing off his new tri-cam, pillaged from a crack near the summit. A few minutes later, Jeff's excitement was quelled by a voice from below, from a descending party: "Did one of you guys see a pink tri-cam in this crack?"

Matt, after having dethroned Jeff as King of the Mountain.

On the descent...

The chimney.

Three and a half hours after starting, we were back at the base of the climb. It turned out to be much easier and less serious than we thought, but it was still a very enjoyable climb on a sunny day.

Cormac and I packed up and headed further along a ridge to a couloir that would drop us straight down to the hairpin turn on highway 20 (I had brought my skis, and thought this would be a nice way to top off the day). Matt and Jeff went back to the cars.

The top of the couloir was rather narrow and strewn with rocks, but soon it opened up, and the slushy snow provided almost 2000ft of fall-line turns all the way back to the highway. We waited 15 minutes, then I hitched a ride back up the pass a mile or so, where Jeff and Matt had just returned.

Rock break on the ski back to highway 20

South and North Early Winter Spires from the hairpin turn on highway 20

We camped at Klipchuck campground that night. Jeff and I drove into Winthrop to pick up some more food supplies, and to get firewood, marshmallows and various other requested food stuffs. We finally found "the" grocery store in Winthrop, and pulled into the parking lot at 9:03pm. As I removed the key from the ignition, an employee closed the doors of the grocery store, and we read the sign that said they closed at 9pm. We asked a kid if there was another grocery store around, and he pointed to the mini-mart next to the gas station. At the minimart, we found firewood and marshmallows, but nothing else. The kid at the grocery store zipped by on a bike and almost ran me down. Back on the highway, We saw the "45mph @ night due to jumping deer" signs, and Jeff remarked he'd seen a lot of deer on the way to Winthrop. I thought maybe I should slow down. Then I saw some skid marks on the road and thought "aha! I bet that guy almost hit a deer". As I had that thought, a metal hoop jumped out in front my truck, and I swerved a little to avoid it.

 Yes, there was a metal hoop crossing the highway.

 Jeff thought the skid marks must have been from someone swerving to avoid a metal hoop. 

After dinner and a campfire, we headed to bed. I slept in the back of my truck, since the skies were clear. The following morning, it began to rain, and I hastily set up my bivi-sac, and hopped in. When we all finally got up (9'ish), we decided to bag climbing in Washington Pass, and head down the highway to some cliffs Jeff and I saw the night before. We pulled into the "town" of Mazama and walked into the 'outfitters' there, and asked about local crags. The guy quickly produced a guidebook and showed us all the climbing potential of Mazama (a book called North Cascades Rock). We drove a mile further to the roadside crags (The "Fun Wall"), and checked it out. The only close-by climbing seemed to be the small sport-route crag beside the road. Matt, Cormac and I all led a route which we deemed to be about a 5.4, while Jeff scrambled around looking for bigger cliffs. He returned quite a while later with tales of a nature experience with some deer, and said he saw a much bigger cliff further up the valley. While Cormac and Matt started up a tougher route (5.9?), Jeff and I drove up the road and got a close-up view of this cliff, about 2000ft high (we later learned it was called Goat Wall). Back at the fun wall, Jeff and I top-roped the 5.9, while Cormac asked us Star Wars trivia questions, from cards which he got FREE at Thrifty's in Sedro Wooley.

After we were done at "Fun Wall", we all went over to the big cliff, hoping to find a nice way up it. It was about 3pm by the time we left the highway. 

We scrambled up some scree and talus, on our way to one side of an inverted-V buttress, in the hopes that the ramp on the right side of the V would give us a nice way up.

Trudging up loose gullies.

Somewhere on Goat Wall

After 800ft or so of hiking/scrambling, we took a short break on a ridge next to the main gully. Then Cormac and Matt continued further up the gully toward the base of the crack/ramp. When Jeff and I were ready to continue, they were a few hundred feet above us, so we decided to wait, in case they knocked down rocks. I needed to take a dump, so I grabbed some toilet paper, and headed over a hundred feet or so, and found a nice, but slightly sloping, spot. I moved a rock to give myself more room. Then I removed my harness. Around that time, I heard huge boulders cascading down the gully. Jeff quickly moved away from the gully for safety, as the breadbox sized boulders came crashing down, knocked loose by Cormac, who narrowly avoided them himself. Everyone was fine. I then noticed a coiled up brown and gray snake 3 feet in front of me. It must have been sleeping under the rock I moved. A rattlesnake? I called up to Jeff and asked him what a rattlesnake looked like. "Is it rattling?". It wasn't, so I backed away a bit, and gently tossed a rock on it, to see what it would do. It started rattling, and sticking its tongue out at me, and moved a few inches closer. I stared it down for a few seconds, and, luckily, it then backed off, slowly, and slithered into the bushes. Needless to say, I decided against going to the bathroom there. 

 I climbed back up towards Jeff, and a second set of boulders game crashing down the gully, followed by several more smaller episodes. Cormac and Matt had turned around due to the hideous loose rock in the gully. Because of that, the lateness of the day, and the poisonous reptilian prescence, we decided to call it a day, and hiked back down to the cars.

Prime real estate in Mazama, WA.