Boston Peak Winter Ascent

Boston Peak (8,883 ft) First Winter Ascent

West Face (steep snow/rime, 5 pitch)

Eric Gilbertson and Nick Roy

Feb 10, 2024, 12:30am – 5:30pm

I’d recently been climbing in the area around Cascade Pass the previous weekend to bag Buckner, Horseshoe, and Sahale peaks. On that trip I’d taken some pictures of Boston Peak from Sahale and Horseshoe, and thought about tagging it on as a bonus point. But bonus points almost never happen on winter bulger trips, and we didn’t have enough time.

Interestingly, the snow and weather conditions looked to be stable again for another weekend. I’ve found the highest chance of success on winter bulger trips often happens when revisting the same area after a recent trip, when conditions and approach beta are known and will likely remain the same. This sounded like a good recipe to attempt Boston Peak.

Boston Peak is one of the tallest (perhaps the tallest) peak in Washington that had not previously been climbed in winter. This is probably for good reason. All routes are loose, exposed, and at least 4th class. According to Beckey “The US Geological Survey party of 1898 believed the summit inaccessible and applied the name to the present Sahale Peak.”

There are four routes I’m aware of that have previously been climbed on Boston Peak. The Southeast Face is the standard route and involves steep, loose, exposed 4th class climbing. Nick and I had each previously climbed Boston twice via this route. We remembered there were basically no protection options. We expected in winter it would likely be steep thin exposed snow on rock for several pitches and sounded sketchy to essentially solo.

The South face is the standard rappel route and has steep rock of low quality. This sounded like the most technical winter route, and would be tough with questionable protection.

The North Ridge was climbed in 2018 by Sam Boyce and Kyle Willis in their Boston Marathon trip. This would likely be corniced in winter with prevailing west winds, and also sounded sketchy.

The West face was climbed in September 1956 by Anderson and Shonle. The exact route up the face is described by Beckey as starting at the lower of two prominent gullies, then “begin from the gully and climb the west face.”

I’d been in Boston Basin in January 2022 and had gotten some good pictures of the west face of Boston then. It appeared like there might be some steep snow gullies on the face with rock walls in between. Based on topo maps the face appeared lower angle than the south face. We suspected the gullies might be protectable with the rock faces on the sides, and this face could be the best option in winter. It wouldn’t be under any cornices most likely since it was on the side of prevailing winds.

The route would definitely require stable snow, which was in the forecast for Saturday. The weather looked clear Saturday but a storm was coming in Sunday, so we decided to go for the climb as a car to car push.

Luckily I had very fresh beta about the approach for Boston. I had just driven and logged out Cascade River Road to the Eldo gate the previous weekend, and there hadn’t been any lowland snow or big storms since then. There’s unfortunately some inaccurate information online about the road conditions. The national park service website says the road is gated at the park boundary at MP 18, but that gate has been open all winter. The Eldo gate at MP 20 is locked though.

My main resource for predicting snow depth, NOHRSC, had been showing deep snow starting at MP 18, but I found in reality the road is melted out all the way to MP 22 around 3000ft. With this in mind, I planned to leave the snowmobile at home, but bring the big chainsaw and bikes. Nick has an e-bike, and we planned for him to tow me up the road with a rope to save energy. I’ve done this before on cascade river road, and the best strategy is to tie the rope to the front bike’s seat post or back rack, then the follower holds the other end of the rope in one hand.

For the route we planned to take the Cascade Pass trail all the way up to the last switchback, then cut up and left following the same route as I had taken the previous weekend. We would traverse around sahale, drop through a low-angle gully to gain the Soldier Boy drainage, then continue to the Quien Sabe glacier. I know skiers often ski up Midas Creek or Soldier Boy creek directly from the road to access this area in the spring, but those drainages were all melted out last weekend and would be tough alder bushwhacks.

Friday evening we started up cascade river road, and there were only two minor blowdowns to clear all the way to the Eldo gate. I was a bit disappointed to not get to use the chainsaw, but there was still hope for the drive out that something would need sawed out. We were the only ones at the lot.

We got a few hours of sleep then were up and moving by 12:30am. One car was in the lot by then. We strapped the skis to the bikes, then tied the rope to Nick’s rear rack. I pedaled a bit so he didn’t spin out but it was nice to get the boost on the uphills and save some energy. We had to carry the bikes over a few blowdowns but overall it save time and more importantly increased fun.

Around MP 22 there’s a huge washout at Boston Creek. We ditched the bikes there, walked a bit higher, then hit snow and started skinning. We made fast progress up the road, then continued following the trail. This time there was a few inches of fresh snow on the icy snow, but we could still barely make out my ski tracks from the previous weekend. We topped off water halfway up at a stream, then left the trail at the highest switchback.

This time there was enough fresh powder to leave the skis on with ski crampons. We angled up to 6400ft, then dropped down a low-angle face into the Soldier Boy drainage. We descended with our skins on making low-angle switchbacks for our future use when skiing out. From there we made a rising traverse all the way to the northwest corner of the Quien Sabe glacier by sunrise.

I’d never been on this route before, but Nick had crossed the Quien Sabe in July last summer and remembered some big crevasses. But there had been a safe summer route across the northern end of the glacier, which we planned to follow.

We roped up and skied across the glacier to the base of Boston. The West face looked promising with a few gullies leading up to the summit ridge. It looked like the snow was likely deep enough to be supportive and there were also exposed rock bands on the sides for protection. We decided to give it a shot.

In the summer there is a large bergschrund directly below the col south of the summit, and with this low snow year we were worried the schrund might not be well-bridged. So we cut up and right to the outcrop just righ of the schrund area. There we ditched skis and switched to crampons and tools.

Nick led kicking steps up the snow to the right of the outcrop. Then we traversed left acrosst the snow face. We didn’t have pickets, but Nick buried one ski pole as a deadman anchor. We simulclimbed to the base of a large gully that trended up and left across the face. Nick got a few pieces in, then belayed me up to an anchor.

I took over from there, kicking steps up the steepening snow. I spent some time excavating out a rock face and smashing off rime ice to find a crack. For some reason the rock on boston doesn’t have many cracks, but if you look hard enough you can usually find one.

The snow had a thin layer of wind slab but it was unreactive. Still, I felt happy to have running pro in on the steep face just in case something slid. We simul climbed on a shortened 30m section of rope from there so we could be within earshot of each other. I soon crossed over into an intersection of one gully going very steeply directly up and another going more gradual up to the left. I had to excavate out a wind lip to cross, and did a bit of downclimbing on steep snow. The direct gully looked like tough mixed climbing, and I decided to try my luck sticking to snow.

I got a few more pieces in as the gully continued up and left. Then I found a nice rock overhang with a flat snow bench underneath. I banged off 1ft long rime feathers and eventually found a few good gear placements to belay Nick up.

From there we decided to leave the main gully and follow a subsidiary gully directly up to the north ridge. Nick led the next pitch, even managing to get a piton in and one point. In general I’ve found cams tend to slip out of icy cracks but hexes, nuts, and pitons can be more solid. With the terrain steepening we lengthened the rope to 60m and decided to pitch out the terrain instead of simul climbing.

Nick belayed me up a pitch of steep snow and rock, then I took over. The snow got icier and filled with more rime. I got a few pieces in and climbed all the way to the north ridge. The wind picked up there and I probed around and luckily there were only small 1ft cornices on the ridge. The summit was close!

I banged off the cornices, got a directional piece in, then followed the direct ridge crest towards the summit. I soon reached a wider area with good gear and built an anchor. Nick then took over the last lead. He downclimbed a short bit to the final notch, then followed the narrow snowy ridge to the summit. There were no gear options the whole way, and the wind pickedup the rope and blew it pretty high off the ridge. Luckily there were no cornices for it to snag on.

Nick was able to bury a ski pole as a deadman anchor and belayed me up by 1pm. Conditions were hard to beat. Only occasional gusts of wind, but not too cold and partly sunny with great views around. I peered over to the steep southeast face and was very happy to have not tried that route. It was very exposed, with no protection, and would have been super sketchy. I think our route was the best option for winter.

I had brought my shovel up and we decided to find the summit register. Nick remembered its approximate location, and this is one of the largest registers on any Bulger peak. It is a huge aluminum rectangular case containing a full-sized notebook. Signatures go back to 1968, when it was first placed. I recalled leafing through it in 2016 and 2018 and not seeing any winter sign ins. We hoped to change that.

We took turns digging down through 2ft of snow and I eventually managed to find the register! We cracked it open and signed in. This was the third Boston summit for each of us.

After 45 minutes on the summit we decided to head back down. Our original plan was to descend the standard rap route, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. There would be three anchors that would each need excavated out, and that could take a while if they were buried as deep as the summit register was. We might not be able to find them, and it would be a lot of work excavating out our own anchors.

We had already confirmed the snow stability on our ascent route, and had already excavated out plenty of cracks in rocks. It was low enough angle that we decided to just simul downclimb our ascent route. Nick already had all the gear so he started down first.

I belayed him to the end of the rope, then started down the ridge. It took careful balance with no protection on the ridge and occasional wind gusts. I crossed to the notch, climbed back over the gendarme, then downclimbed. I carefully followed our up tracks and eventually met back up with Nick at the overhang. From there the slope was low-enough angle that we put the rope away and just downclimbed facing in.

The sun came out by then and warmed the snow enough to glop on our crampons. But we carefully made it back to our skis as the clouds rolled back in. By then the summit started getting socked in. It appeared the Sunday storm system was approaching.

For the descent we scoped out a crevasse-free route more directly down, and we had fun turns down the southeast edge of the Quien Sabe glacier back to our up tracks. We had to briefly change to skins to cross out of the Soldier Boy drainage, then skied back to the trail. With the fresh powder we skied down the switchbacks, cutting the last five or so in a big snowfield on skiers left that led back to the trailhead.

From there we skied back to our boots, walked a short ways back to the bikes, then biked back to the Eldo gate by 5:30pm.

Movie of the trip:

 

 

 

© 2024, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.