Mt Logan, Mesahchie, Katsuk, Kimtah, and Cosho Peaks

Mt Logan (9,087ft), Mesahchie Peak (8,795ft), Katsuk Peak (8,680ft), Kimtah Peak (8,600ft), and Cosho Peak (8,332ft)

Eric Gilbertson

July 29-30, 2018

Sunday: 3:30am leave car, climb Mesahchie, Katsuk, Kimtah, Cosho, descend to trail, hike to Junction Camp 10:30pm, bivy for a few hours (15 miles, 8kft gain)

Monday: 3:30am leave camp, climb Logan via Fremont Glacier, hike back to car by 12:45am (40 miles, 12kft gain)

I had just come off a big 50-mile day hike of Buck and Fortress Mountains Thursday, and two rest days was sufficient for my blistered feet to finally heal up. I headed out of town on Saturday afternoon, reaching the Marblemount ranger station just before it closed.

My plan was to climb five more Bulger mountains, all in North Cascades National Park, over the next two days. My guidebook says to plan for a week to get all these mountains, but I wanted to try to squeeze them in before I flew out to Africa for another mountaineering trip.

Four of the mountains are on the Ragged Ridge, and all involve class 3 or class 4 scrambling. It looked possible to combine them as a big traverse, though this would involve quite a lot of complex routefinding.

Mt Logan is located deep in the cascades, and is a long ways to get to by any approach. All standard routes involve glacier travel and class 3/4 rock scrambling or low 5^th class climbing (if the glacier has melted out too much). The itinerary that would minimize distance to hit all mountains would be to traverse the Ragged ridge with overnight gear, then do the Banded Glacier route on Mt Logan. However, the Banded Glacier is steep and heavily crevassed.

I was going solo, so chose to do the much more mellow Fremont Glacier route. The Fremont Glacier is more of a flat permanent snowfield with hardly any crevasses, and is quite safe. However, it is considerably farther away, and would make for a very long second day (around 40 miles with 12kft elevation gain).

I’d read reports that the summit block on Mt Logan is steep and exposed, and many groups rappel it. Also, I’d read a

report from Adam Walker that the Fremont Glacier can melt out late season, necessitating a short 5^th class rock climb to gain the standard route. This all meant I should bring a 30m rope, harness, and a bit of rock gear to be prepared for any short rope soloing sections. It meant my pack would be heavier, but I wouldn’t turn around near the summit, or feel pressured into soloing something dangerous.

Because of the extra weight in climbing gear, I tried to cut out as much other weight as possible. I would be traversing technical terrain all day on the Ragged Ridge with my overnight gear, and it was critical that my pack be light. Thus, I left the stove and tent at home, just bringing a tiny emergency bivy sack (basically a trash bag), and my ultralight 17oz sleeping bag. I skimped on food a bit too, planning to eat big meals before and after the trip. I had a whippet instead of an ice axe, and light aluminum crampons for the glacier.

Because I would be camping in the park, I needed to pick up a permit at the ranger station. I briefly explained my

plans to the ranger, and he sounded very skeptical. He warned me that the Ragged Ridge is very loose and has complicated route finding. He also warned that my second day would be very long. Unlike the people in line in front of me (also picking up backcountry permits), he spent time making sure I had an inreach satellite texting device, explaining who to contact in case of an emergency and what to say, and getting all my emergency contact information. He did give me a permit in the end, and asked me to stop by when I finished to say how it went.

I walked out of the office, picked up a bunch of junk food at the Shell station in town, then drove to the Easy Pass trailhead by 6:30pm. It was early enough in the day that I thought I probably could have put some miles on, but my blisters still hadn’t completely healed from the previous 50-mile hike, and it was critical that I give them one more night’s rest. I ate the junk food, packed up, crawled into the back of the car, and went to sleep around 8pm.

My alarm went off at 3am and I was moving by 3:30am. In the trailhead register I saw one other party climbing Ragged Ridge from a few days earlier, and I wondered if I would run into them on the route. I reached Easy Pass around 5am as it became light enough to turn off the headlamp. From the crest of the pass I started following a faint user trail traversing right, but the trail soon disappeared. From here I roughly followed Wyatt Freeman’s GPS track from Peakbagger. I traversed at roughly 6,600ft – 6,800ft across scree, talus, grass, and blocky terrain. The only tricky part was crossing one waterfall almost directly beneath Mesahchie Peak. The critical crossing point is at 6,500ft on an easy bench, while any other point above and below would be very tough.

After the waterfall I scrambled up to the snowy basin, then up to the crest of a shoulder originating between Katsuk and Mesahchie Peaks by 7am. Here I met two other climbers who had camped out for the night and were planning on climbing Mesahchie. We knew rock fall might be a concern, so they decided to take their time getting out of camp while I summitted first and tried to get down quickly.

I dropped all my unnecessary gear near their camp and started up moving light. I pretty much went directly up the crest of the ridge separating the peaks, scrambling some class 4 moves to reach gentler but loose terrain where I encountered cairns. I followed the cairns to the base of the small peak between Masahchie and Katsuk, and turned right. From here I traversed over slightly-exposed slabs, leading down to a col at the base of Mesahchie. Someone

had constructed a spectacular bivy site here, and it would indeed be a fun place to camp.

From the col, I crossed talus to reach the base of the first obvious gully leading up the west ridge. The gully was steep class 3/4 at the bottom, but then entered a broader and gentler gully after passing a bunch of cairns. I scrambled up this gully to the ridge crest, then followed the exposed ridgecrest to the summit by 9am.

I then downclimbed the route, traversed under the middle separating peak, and scrambled easily up Katsuk by 9:45am. There are glaciers on the north sides of these peaks, and I bet it would be fun to do a big ski traverse here in the spring. I descended back down the route, meeting up with the other two climbers near the lowest class 4 section, and gave them some advice on the route. Hopefully it worked out for them!

Back at my pack I gathered my gear and started the traverse at 11am. This was the part I was most nervous about for the day. Summitpost recommends traversing through complex terrain at about 7,400ft for quite a while, and then the terrain gets very complex. It’s impossible to predict how long something like this might take, so I was glad to be prepared to bivy pretty much anywhere. Luckily there was plenty of water en route from melting snow patches, but later in the season I bet it’s very dry.

I soon began encountering successive sets of ribs and gullies to traverse. Every time I approached a gully it looked like I’d get cliffed out, but I always managed to find a class 3 way down and up the other side. I eventually reached the base of the first col west of Katsuk and

scrambled up a gully to the col. I passed a bivy site on the way, and I bet another party was not as lucky as I was with route finding and perhaps got benighted.

 

I traversed around some gendarmes on the ridge, before finding the critical red ledge described on summitpost. It

seems improbable, but if you can find this correct ledge, as shown in the pictures on summitpost, you can basically bypass all the complicated routefinding. This ledge is amazing – it cuts across all the ribs and gullies and is almost like a trail. It would be tough indeed to traverse this terrain much lower.

The ridge is at times narrow and exposed, but eventually leads to a gully directly below Kimtah. Here I stashed my gear under a boulder and started scrambling up. There’s a lot of snow in the gully, but it’s not too hard to scramble class 3 terrain on the sides. Eventually I reached a broad scree slope between the east and west summits, and then scrambled up to the true east summit at 2pm. There was a pvc pipe register, but it was stuck shut. I sent a quick inreach message to say where I was, then headed back down.

 

At the pack I kept traversing on the ledge until it petered out, then followed cairns to downclimb the last ridge before the Thieves Peak rib. The Thieves Peak rib looks very difficult to cross, and requires dropping way down to find a way. But there is an alternative. The Kimtah Glacier on the north side of Thieves Peak is very mellow and crevasse-free near the top. I scrambled up to the col at the east side of Thieves Peak, put on my crampons, and stepped onto the glacier. It’s quite flat, and there’s not really any risk of sliding far. A quick traverse and I was on the west side of the peak, at the base of Cosho.

I dropped my extra gear hear and scrambled up the east ridge to the summit by 5pm. This was the last peak on the ridge for me, and Bulger number 4 for the day. It looked like I might actually have a chance of following the itinerary I gave the ranger after all. I soon dropped down to my pack, packed up all the gear, and started the descent. I basically plunge-stepped down scree, then scrambled down a talus-choked gully that separated Thieves Peak and Cosho Peak. This would have been quite tedious to climb up.

Eventually the gully cliffed out and I was forced right into the trees. The bushwhacking started out mellow, but before long I encountered heinous slide alder and vine maple. Down low a slide path fanned out and I was forced to battle my way through the thick mess. Perhaps there are easier paths, but I didn’t find them.

After an hour or so of battle, losing a snow basket, breaking a hiking  pole, and getting some new holes ripped in my pack, I emerged at Fisher Creek and crossed at a fallen log to the trail. I felt like kissing the trail, but restrained myself. At 8:15pm I started hiking down the trail, and reached Junction Camp by 10:30pm. I laid out my bivy sack, scarfed down a 9 oz Rueben sandwich from the Marblemount Shell station, and started thinking about my next day. The Ragged Ridge had seemed like a big day, but it was lopsided as more psychologically difficult with all the route finding and less physically demanding. Mt Logan would be different. Because I was doing the Fremont Glacier route, it would likely end up being a 40-mile day with 12kft elevation gain.

My constraint was that I needed to be back in Seattle that night since Katie needed the car the next day. So I would have to start early and move fast. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should just keep hiking through the night and not sleep. However, this would probably make me move a lot slower during the day, and wouldn’t necessarily be a net time savings. I did need some sleep, but I could probably get by without a full eight hours of sleep. Four hours seemed like it would be enough to rejuvenate me, so I reluctantly set my alarm for 3am again and was asleep by 11pm.

The alarm came way too soon, and I quickly packed up and started moving. I wanted to leave any unnecessary gear to pick up on the hike out, since I was returning the same way, but the only gear I could justify leaving was my sleeping bag. I was worried, though, that I’d be so tired hiking back that I might forget it. It’s not like a tent you can leave and throw all your extra gear inside. It’s just a tiny 17oz little ball that could get forgotten.

So I decided to hike with it. The trail unfortunately dropped way down to Thunder Creek at 2,200ft, before climbing back up again. I passed by a few campsites and old mining equipment before climbing into Thunder Creek basin. Mt Buckner towered above to my right, and Mt Logan up to my left. I had to make one knee-deep creek crossing across Thunder Creek, and got soaked from dew-covered plants on the heavily-overgrown trail.

Eventually by 8am I reached the last switchback before Park Creek Pass and turned left at a big cairn at the edge of treeline. Here I ditched my sleeping bag in an obvious spot I would certainly not miss on the hike back.

It looked like there was an excellent climber’s trail traversing at this level, but it disappeared at the base of a talus slope. I ascended the scree and talus slope to a bench, then traversed left through heather slopes and across many streams at 6,600ft. I eventually rounded a ridge and started ascending when I was below the Fremont Glacier. As I neared the glacier I stumbled across some very fresh boot tracks descending. It looked like another party had climbed the route on Sunday, and now I could follow their tracks.

As I crested the steep slope to the edge of the glacier I got my first view of the summit. It looked like the hogsback snow ridge was not quite melted out, which was a relief. I ditched my extra food under a rock, put on crampons, and started across the glacier following the tracks. It was a very mellow glacier, mostly flat with no visible crevasses. It was actually quite safe going solo.

Before long I reached the base of the hogsback snow ridge that gave the easiest access to the south ridge route on Logan. The top of the hogsback was starting to melt out, but the snow still reached high enough along the ridge to grant easy passage. I followed the steps up to the edge of the snow, took off my crampons, and left my whippet and hiking pole there.

I scrambled up some third class rock, then reached easier terrain on the ridge. The ridge route was fun and easy to follow with numerous cairns along the way. It soon crossed over to the east side, where it was a bit exposed to Douglass Glacier far below, though not enough to warrant a rope.

I traversed narrow ledges, and soon scrambled up talus to the false summit. From here I downclimbed along the ridge to the base of what I thought was the next false summit. This one looked steeper, and I switched into rock shoes. I had read reports that described multiple false summits, so I expected this would just be another false summit. I had also read that many parties rappel the summit block since it’s quite exposed. The next local maximum I saw didn’t look terribly exposed, and I couldn’t see any rappel anchor. I planned to rope solo the summit block if it was exposed, but since I thought this was just a false summit and it looked easy, I soon scrambled up it.

On the top I looked farther north and saw another point that was about the same height. There was an obvious rap anchor on top, so I assumed this was the summit. The summitpost description mentions making one 4^th class move to descend from the last false summit, but it looked considerably more exposed than 4^th class to get farther along the ridge. Moreover, the rock was all free of lichen up to this summit, but heavily covered in lichen farther along the ridge, like nobody ever goes there.

I started downclimbing anyways, but it got more exposed and I returned to the last maximum point. I retreated back down the ridge to find an easier crossing point, but it also didn’t look any good. I was perplexed. How do people get to that summit and keep it at 4^th class? And why is all the rock so lichen covered?

I decided to double check my route beta. I turned on my GPS, and it looked like I was at the end of both tracks I’d loaded, and I was on the summit. Though, it’s hard to know for sure when false summits are so close together. I pulled up a picture from summitpost of a person sitting on the summit, and the rocks actually matched the peak I was currently on. I was on the summit after all! That was a relief that I didn’t need to make the sketchy traverse over to the farther north point. Someone must have climbed it at some point, though, to put in the rap anchors. Too bad there’s no summit register on the true summit to make it more obvious.

After a short break I downclimbed back to the notch around noon. It didn’t seem steep or exposed enough to me to warrant a rappel. So it turned out I’d hauled my rope and all my rock gear the whole way in and it never got used. Oh well. It’s always hard to judge a rock route rated as 4^th class in the cascades. If I hear 4^th class I generally assume anywhere from 3^rd class to low 5^th, so it’s a good idea to come prepared.

I retraced my route, downclimbing back to the Fremont Glacier and returning to my stashed food at the edge of the snow. On the traverse back I picked up a climbers trail that actually does traverse most of the way to the real trail around 6,000ft.

By 2:45pm I was back on the main trail. I sent a satellite text to Katie to tell her I had 23 miles left to hike out and would probably be back late. I tried to hike quickly and efficiently, only stopping every hour or so to refill my Nalgene bottle. It was a hot day and I must have drank at least 8 liters of water.

By 6:30pm I was back at Junction camp and stopped by Fisher Creek for a break. While I was eating, I noticed a rustle in the woods across the creek, and a bear and two cubs emerged. The mother was brown, with one brown and one black cub. When the mother saw me she immediately retreated back into the woods, but the cubs didn’t seem to care, and didn’t follow their mother. Instead, the black cub wandered over to the tree fallen across the creek and started walking across. Then the brown cub followed and caught up to his sibling. The mother bear was in a predicament. She wanted her cubs to follow her away from me, but the cubs were coming towards me! The mother quickly darted across the tree to find the cubs. By this time I’d gotten my shoes on and quickly headed the opposite direction along the trail. I didn’t want an angry mother bear anywhere near me.

I hiked up Fisher Creek to Cosho Camp, sent another update, then put the headlamp on and hiked up to Easy Pass.

By now my feet were starting to get pretty sore, and the final 3.7 miles down from Easy Pass were brutal. I eventually staggered back to the car at 12:45am and immediately took the shoes off and scarfed down some food.

 

I started driving around 1:15am and made it about 20 minutes, before deciding that I was just too tired to continue safely. I’d done a 19 hour day, then a 21 hour day, with only 4 hours of sleep in between, and it was catching up to me. So I pulled off at the next trailhead and took a nap til 5am.

On the way back I picked up a red bull and some cookies in Darrington, and this kept me alert enough to make it back to Seattle around 8am. This puts me at 97/100 Bulgers now. Unfortunately I’ll have to wait til I get back from a few weeks in Africa to finish the last remaining mountains.

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