Forbidden Peak Attempt

Forbidden Peak Attempt

Eric and Duncan

Dec 28-29, 2020

It looked like a good weather window shaping up early in the week so we made plans to try to climb Forbidden Peak as an overnight trip Monday and Tuesday. Forbidden Peak is generally an extremely popular climb, especially since the west ridge route is listed in the 50 Classic Climbs of North America list. I’d climbed the west ridge route in late August, 2018 with Katie and it was crowded even mid week. We were luckily able to secure a coveted overnight permit for Boston Basin for that trip, though they are generally very difficult to get.

In the winter time crowds and permits are no problem, though. Permits are all self-issue for north cascades national park with no quotas. And we certainly didn’t expect crowds.

I’d done some research and could only find one definitive winter ascent of Forbidden Peak, by Catellani and Corriveau in February 1981 via the west ridge. There was also an ascent to the false summit in 1968. I’m sure other people have climbed it in winter but I couldn’t find their reports. We looked over aerial photos from John Scurlock and it looked like the west ridge was generally less-corniced than the north or east ridges. Given those pictures and the fact that the only winter ascent we knew about was via the west ridge, and we had each already climbed that route in summer time, we decided to try for the west ridge route.

The next question was how to get to the trailhead for Boston Basin. I’d skied up the Cascade Pass road last March and had to park at milepost 11. But the road went up to 1800ft, then down to 1400ft where it was melted out, then back up above 1800ft. Back then it was gated at the park boundary at milepost 18. Other years, though, I’ve heard of people driving to the El dorado trailhead at milepost 21 in February. So there was a lot of uncertainty in the road condition (snow or dirt) and which of three gates would be open. To cover our bases we each planned to bring bikes and I would also bring my snowmobile in case snow level started low.

We planned to ski on the snow but climb in our mountaineering boots since they are much easier than ski boots to rock climb in. We made this work by having skis with special silvretta bindings mounted. These bindings are like step-in crampon bindings so will accept mountaineering boots. Mountaineering boots are much more flexible than ski boots, though, so we needed to attach a cord from the tip of the ski to our knees. Then we can lean back on the cord while skiing.

I was initially skeptical of this setup, but I tested it out skiing laps at Mt Hyak near Snoqualmie Pass earlier in the winter and verified that the setup works and I could make it down most any ski slope.

We were unsure if we’d be fast enough to try to summit Monday or Tuesday, so we brought bivy gear in case we wanted to bivy in the notch, and tarp tents in case we camped down in Boston Basin.

Sunday evening I drove up Cascade River Road and made it all the way to the hairpin turn at milepost 16 without encountering snow. There were two trucks parked there, though, and I got a bit nervous about encountering snow higher up and not being able to turn the trailer around easily. So I parked there and mountain-biked up the road to scout it out. Patchy ice started a mile up the road and got more continuous. I biked all the way to the third gate, which is where enough snow started that it would make sense to snowmobile. All three gates were open and unlocked, interestingly.

Unfortunately I was a bit too nervous to drive the steep icy roads with the trailer to the Eldorado lot, and down where I was parked was too many miles without snow to ride the snowmobile. But the third gate was only about 2 miles from the Boston Basin trail, and it had only taken me 30 minutes to bike there, so I decided I’d just leave the snowmobile and we could bike and ski to the trailhead. Duncan arrived soon after and agreed with the plan.

Interestingly another truck headed up the road around 9pm but we never saw it return all night.

Monday morning we loaded up the bikes and were moving around 4am. Duncan had an electric fat bike but I chugged along with my mechanical mountain bike. The chain gate at the park boundary at milepost 18 now had cones in front of it and a chain clipped across, but it wasn’t actually locked. We carried our bikes over and biked to the Eldorado lot. We found the truck on the side of the road just before the lot and the two guys in camoflauge gear awake and walking around. They were friendly, but something didn’t seem right about them. They obviously were not climbers, and certainly didn’t look like park rangers. They had obviously pulled the chain across the road and put the cones up, though.

Based on some freshly cut logs behind the truck we guessed they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be and had put the chain up so nobody drove in to find them. I noticed the Eldorado gate was now closed (it had been open last night), but it wasn’t actually locked. This was also kind of confusing and the guys in the truck must have done it.

Soon we reached the third gate, which was open, and locked the bikes to a tree in the woods. We then continued on skis skinning up the road. The truck tracks ended here and only snowshoe tracks continued. We noticed it looked like markings of something being dragged in a tarp, though, which seemed odd. The snowshoe and tarp tracks led to Morning Star Creek, then turned around. It looked like someone had snowshoed up and dragged something back in the tarp. Perhaps it was the guys in the truck that were still awake at 4:30am.

Finally we reached the Boston Basin pullout and turned off the road around 6am. The rough climbers trail was not as well-defined as I remembered, probably because it was full of snow and branches were weighted down by snow and hanging into the trail. We trudged up until after a few switchbacks the old road grade ended. We then postholed up steeply until we reached a broad gully where we could put skis back on.

We zig-zagged up the slope, then traversed through the trees across Midas Creek to a broad avy slope before Morning Star Creek. Here we skinned up through thinning trees until we popped out above treeline. I think we were roughly following the route of the Forbidden Tour, but at treeline we veered away. We started traversing up and left through amazing winter scenery. The peaks looked so much different than in summer. Boston and Sahale were plastered in rime ice and Johannesburg was all covered in snow.

By 1pm we reached the standard campsite at Boston Basin at 6400ft and dropped our gear. It seemed too late in the day to try for the summit, so we decided to just bring our climbing gear to the base of the climb and cache it. Then the next morning we’d have a broken trail to follow up and could start with light packs.

We buried our gear in the snow so birds wouldn’t get it, then broke trail up the slopes to the base of the couloir below the west ridge at 7800ft. In general there are two options to gain the west ridge, the couloir variation or cat scratch gullies. I’d taken cat scratch gullies in the late summer since the couloir was melted out, but now in the winter the couloir was all filled in. The cat scratch rock route looked difficult all covered in snow, and we decided to go for the couloir since the snow was stable.

We buried the gear in the snow, again so the birds wouldn’t get at it, then began our descent. I was still a bit skeptical of skiing in mountaineering boots, but I leaned back on the knee cords and was actually able to ski down pretty easily. It was pretty amazing skiing into the sunset looking over at Johannesburg across the valley. It was very fun skiing down 1400ft back to camp, and we arrived just at sunset.

I set up my mega mid pyramid tent with bivy sack and Duncan set up his tarp and we were soon asleep.

Tuesday morning we wanted to time things so we got to the notch a bit after sunrise, so we left camp around 5am and skinned up our tracks in the dark. We soon reached the gear cache, but I continued breaking a steep skin track up the couloir to the edge of the rocks around 8000ft. There we kicked out a platform and ditched the skis. We then roped up and I started up. The plan was I’d lead the couloir and Duncan would lead the ridge.

It was tough work breaking steps up the steep slope. I put in rock pro occasionally on the side just in case of a slide, and we climbed the gully in one big simul-climb pitch. Near the top I briefly started rock climbing to get out of the couloir, but then downclimbed and found an easier way to traverse out climbers left on snow. I then encountered lower angle terrain and kicked steps up rime ice to the notch. There I stuck in a cam and belayed Duncan up.

I’m glad we hadn’t tried to bivy in that notch. It was very windy and with all the snow and rime it would have been tricky to level out a spot to sleep. Soon Duncan made it up and we transferred gear and layered up for the climb.

The ridge above looked much different than I’d remembered. I recalled it was mostly low-angle 4th-class or low-5th class. But now the north face was mostly smoothed over with snow and the rocks sticking out were coated in a sheet of rime. I guess this was to be expected, but it was hard to predict without seeing any pictures up close in winter.

Duncan is a much stronger mixed-climber than I am so he took the lead as I belayed from the notch. The first 30m were postholing through snow along the ridge crest, but then it narrowed and got steeper. Eventually Duncan reached the end of the rope and I took down the anchor and started climbing a bit. But he then paused and said he was coming back down. I rebuilt the anchor and belayed him back.

It turned out the only option for gear the whole pitch was one icy crack that wouldn’t take a cam or piton. I remembered plenty of gear options in the summer, but it was just hard to find them in all the snow and rime, and the rock had enough thin ice on it that gear wouldn’t hold. It didn’t seem safe continuing up with no gear and such exposure, especially with the thin rime and ice on the rock.

We reluctantly decided to bail. I think if there were more snow we’d have been comfortable going along the ridge with just an ice axe until it steepened. And without the thin ice layer on the rocks the cracks would have held gear better. But the conditions we found didn’t seem too safe. I’ll have to return again and see if I find better conditions.

We plunge stepped down the low-angle slope to the edge of the couloir, then simul-downclimbed the couloir back to our skis. We strapped our skis down and amazingly we were able to ski the steep bottom of the couloir from about 8,000ft. The snow was icy and crusty, and I still wasn’t super confident skiing in mountaineering boots, but we still made it down the steep part. Then it was just as fun as before shredding the powder down the low-angle slope back to camp.

There we packed up and skied back down to the trees and down the slide path to the trail. For some reason we miss-remembered the approach for the Forbidden Tour and thought we could get by just descending the Morning Star Creek drainage. So we continued straight down. Eventually the trees got too dense, though, so we took skis off and started plunge stepping. But we soon got cliffed out, so then did an hour of tiring bushwhacking and postholing. Eventually after fighting with a lot of slide alder we popped back out at the road.

We got a bit of skiing in down the road before it turned icy enough to walk back to our bikes. It looked like there were a few fresh boot prints, but luckily nobody had stolen the bikes.

We loaded up and started down. It was icy, but I managed to coast down without slipping. The upper gate was still open, but now the Eldorado gate was closed and locked. Then there was a backhoe parked at milepost 19, along with a big concrete barrier blocking the road. We biked around it, then back to the park boundary at milepost 18. Now the chain was gone but the cones were there and a big “Road Closed” sign in the middle of the road. I’m glad we hadn’t parked at the Eldorado lot or higher, because we might have gotten locked or barricaded in!

By 3:30pm we reached the cars and started unloading. Soon a truck drove up the road, and it had a big generator in the back. I think this may have been park rangers. I’m still confused who the guys were in the truck on Monday morning, why they fake-locked the gates, and why the concrete barricade got put in the road Tuesday. I think my conclusion for the future is to come prepared for snow at any elevation and for all the gates to be closed on cascade river road.

I was soon loaded back up and driving home to Seattle.

Video of the trip:

 

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