Winter Hard Mox Attempt to 8100ft

Winter Hard Mox Attempt to 8100ft

Feb 17-20, 2023

Eric and Nick

30 miles hiking, 29 miles boating

Nick and I set out for another attempt at a winter ascent of Hard Mox, generally regarded as the toughest Bulger peak in Washington. I’ve been working on planning and scouting for a winter asent of this peak for several years and through much trial and error have finally settled on what I think is the best approach out of a dozen or so options. My solution is to use an inflatable zodiac-style boat with outboard motor and retractable wheels to approach via Ross Lake. The boat and motor can be double carried down the 0.6-mile hiking trail from the ross dam trailhead to Frontage road. Then it can be assembled and dragged a half mile on the retractable wheels to put in at the lake.

It then takes 3 hours of boating to Little Beaver. From there the ideal mode of travel is to snowshoe up the trail to the Perry Creek shelter. Next the route is to scramble and bushwhack directly up the creek to the old growth forest, then bushwhack up the south side of the creek to upper Perry Basin. From there use snowshoes and ascent plates to climb the Perry Glacier and meet up with the standard summer route of the peak.

This past October I tried to replicate this exact approach and climb as a trial run for a winter attempt. Talon and I boated to Little Beaver, bushwhacked up Perry Creek, climbed the Perry Glacier, and were able to find a gully that connected the glacier to the standard summer route. We then climbed the route and returned the same way, on the way recording a valuable GPS track for future use. We also gathered valuable information about timing, which is critical for a successful winter climb.

For a winter ascent to work I’ve found that six stars need to align:

1. Three day weekend is required. The approach up Ross Lake is long and currently I’m not comfortable doing it completely at night, as would be required for a two-day ascent. As the lake level drops between fall and spring old stumps get exposed farther up the lake. These are very difficult to spot in the dark, even with my custom jeep headlights mounted on front. The problem is Ross Lake is generally very foggy at night, and if a stump is barely submerged it is very difficult to see.

I’ve found that for lake levels above 1,550ft the stumps are submerged enough to not be a problem (graph of current and past lake levels here: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/12175000/#parameterCode=00065&timeSeriesId=285479&period=P365D). But below that level the stumps become problematic. Perhaps if I can go at the lowest water level in late april and chart a safe course on my GPS, then I will feel comfortable going in the dark in winter following that exact course. But for now the upper 2/3 of the lake needs to be done in the daylight, which means a two day trip is tricky. I only have two three-day weekends in winter (MLK day and Presidents day), so the winter attempt has to be one of these weekends.

2. The lake must be ice free the whole way to Little Beaver. It is not sufficient for it to be mostly ice free. Traveling along the shore on foot to get around the ice is too time-consuming to be practical, as I’ve discovered.

3. Snow must be stable on Sunday of three-day weekend. The route goes on steep snow slopes, so avy conditions must be safe to proceed.

4. Precipitation must be less than a few inches of snow on summit day, the sunday of a three-day weekend. A bit of snow and clouds is ok, but not too much. Sunny weather is actually not necessarily ideal, since the approach goes up a steep south-facing snow couloir that could get heated up in the sun. Ideal conditions would be overcast.

5. Wind must be low. High wind can cause wind slabs to develop up high, make climbing dangerously cold, and can make the water conditions on the lake too choppy.

6. Partner must be available.

This past January it looked like five stars aligned on MLK Day long weekend. The only missing star was the ice-free condition. The latest satellite image showed ice starting 1.5 miles miles from Little Beaver, but there was a warm rain event forecast before the weekend. We optimistically hoped the ice would melt by then. Unfortunately it hadn’t. To get the last 1.5 miles to Little Beaver ended up taking 6 hours of difficult bushwhacking around cliffs on the shore and packrafting across Little Beaver river. That was too much time to add 12 hours round trip to the trip over what could have been 20 minutes of boating, so we had to bail.

On that trip we did learn that skis do not make sense for travelling up Perry Creek. We had tried to ski up the creek but encountered very challenging conditions with icy breakable crust down low and too-low snow coverage to safely ski. We resolved that snowshoes would be the best mode of transportation to get up Perry Creek. I also learned my propane outboard motor gets 7.5mpg in the cold conditions with a heavily-loaded boat, instead of my usual 10mpg in fall and summer conditions with less-loaded boat. This is important because my 5-gallon propane tank then just barely has the range to get to Little Beaver and back (around 30 miles).

This February Presidents Day long weekend appeared that all six stars would align. Recent satellite images showed the lake ice free well beyond Little Beaver. Snow was forecast to be stable Saturday and Sunday morning, with a storm coming in Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning looked like a feasible summit window with minimal precip and low wind before the storm. Nick was available and we decided to go for it.

Friday evening after rush hour we drove to Ross Dam by 9pm and hauled our first load down the trail. I carried the 60lb boat slung over my shoulder in its carrying case. Nick carried the 50lb propane tank in hand and the 60lb outboard motor strapped to my big gregory denali pro backpack. I’ve learned it’s important to strap the motor on rightside up. In october I had carried it up and down the trail strapped on upside down (since that made it more stable). However, this allowed oil to leak out and mess up the spark plug and other components. I would later take it to a repair shop and get it fixed.

The trail was snowy and we wore micro spikes with light hiking boots. We soon made it to the road and inflated the boat. We turned the boat upside down to not collect snow, then leaned the motor upright next to it on a tree and headed back up. We were back at the truck by 10:30pm and went to sleep inside.

Saturday morning we were up and moving by 4:30am. We carried our climbing gear and boat accessories down in a second, final trip. We chose this timing so we could start boating approximately an hour before sunrise. This would allow us to have daylight by the time we hit the stump section, though we could boat in the dark down lake for the first 6 miles when it was safer.

This time to save weight on the trail section we decided to leave my jeep headlights and motorcycle battery at home and instead use a few bike headlights. The jeep headlights are great when I go up and down the full length of the lake in the dark and need 6 hours of strong headlight time. But with only one hour of night boating in relatively safe waters it made more sense to just bring the light bike headlights.

We soon got to the boat and put the motor and wheels on. We then rigged up a rope on the front, loaded all the gear far in the back over the wheels, and started pulling. The road was covered in a few inches of snow but the wheels made it through no problem. We were soon down the switchback and wheeled around a truck parked at the edge of the water. I then changed into my drysuit and we arranged gear under a tarp in the middle of the boat cinched down with bungy cords.

I got in first, retracted the wheels, then Nick jumped in and pushed us out. I then paddled to deeper water and turned open the propane. It took quite a few pulls to get the engine started, and I think the trouble this time was that I overfilled the motor oil chamber. I’ll have to be more careful about that in the future. But the engine eventually started and we were moving by 5:45am.

We cruised past the resort, through the water fence, and up past Ruby Arm. The skies gradually got lighter and by 6:20am we could start to see to navigate. I looped around Cougar Island (which was now a peninsula in low water) and cruised past Roland Point. We had a light tail wind and maintained a constant 5.4mph in mostly calm water. I had loaded on my GPS watch a track following the deepest water level based on online topo maps, and tried to stay approximately on that course. It’s not always in the middle of the lake, so is sometimes counterintuitive.

We made good progress up past Little Jeruselum Island and May creek, but then by mile 7 at Devils Creek we started to see stumps sticking out. There was a big field of stumps on the east and a smaller field on the west. We threaded the needle staying in the deepest water and had no problems. Farther up rounding the corner around Skymo Creek across from Tenmile Island I noticed a submerged stump directly ahead and swerved to avoid it. I guess I had been cruising a bit closer to shore than the deepest channel, and was more careful then to stay on course.

Around then a snow squall came and we were in moderate snow showers for an hour. We soon passed Cat Island and were relieved to see ice-free water all the way to Little Beaver. The water was perfectly calm then and made for great boating. We noticed the cliffy section near Arctic Creek we had bushwhacked around last time where the ice started. It was so much easier this time we could boat directly to Little Beaver.

By 8:45am we made it to Little Beaver. I slowly lowered the boat speed, then turned it to neutral and then off. I then pulled up the motor and rowed us to shore. The water was very shallow and I’m not sure how a bigger boat could make it, but with the wheels and motor retracted I could just get us to shore. We aimed for a rocky section since we knew the muddy section could be deep and problematic.

We pulled onto shore, tied the boat to a stump, then unpacked. I left the drysuit and boat accessories wrapped up in a tarp and we hauled all the climbing gear up to the shelter. I had packed all the sharp things inside the pack so had to repack a bit. Soon I was in my hiking boots and we started up the trail.

The trail was snow-free for a while, as we expected from our trip in January. On the rightmost switchback we could barely glimpse ice on the lake around the corner from little beaver. This is where we’d seen it on the Feb 16 satellite image. Interestingly, when we got up a higher switchback with views of the lake we saw a large boat cruising up lake. It looked like maybe the water taxi from the Ross Lake resort. They don’t officially run in the winter, but we guessed it was maybe some workers cruising up lake to go fishing or something.

We made fast progress up the trail and encountered continuous snow after 1.7 miles. There we ditched the microspikes and hiking boots and I changed into my Olympus Mons 8000m double boots. They were overkill for this trip but I was looking to get a little more testing with them with some battery-heated socks before an upcoming expedition this spring. Also, I’ve found it’s very important on multi-day trips in the cascades in winter to have double boots. That way the inner boot can be kept in the sleeping bag overnight to keep warm and unfrozen. Usually I ski and have double boots for skiing, but for snowshoeing my double boots are all big 6000m-8000m boots. I probably need to invest in a lighter pair like Nick has.

We continued up the trail and, interestingly saw old posthole and then ski tracks. We had last been there a month earlier, but I’d heard another group had canoed up and followed our tracks to go try for Spickard the week after our trip. This could have been their tracks. They had turned around the same place we had just above Perry Creek shelter, though, for the same reasons we had turned around there.

We made good progress, reaching the Perry Creek shelter in 2.5 hours from Little Beaver. We took a short food break there and then started up the creek. We followed our old ski tracks up a little ways to where we had turned around, and the fresher tracks stopped there also. Based on my trip in October I knew the forest around the creek was dense young-growth but the creek itself was very wide and open. So we stayed on the left side of the creek.

The snow was way too thin to even imagine skiing or skinning, but that was no problem with snowshoes. We generally stayed next to the creek, though occasionally had to do short bushwhacks around obstacles. There were a few times where we had to scramble up and over melted-out boulders, which was interesting in the snowshoes. Higher up we crossed over the creek a few times, but this was no problem.

As the creek turned more west it got more shaded and the snow got deeper. This generally made travel easier. There were a few sections I recall being tricky slide-alder bashing in October but they were well-covered with snow and no problem this time. By 3,400ft we reached the obvious start of old-growth forest on the left and this was our cue to leave the creek. I recalled travel being quick and easy in the open forest in October, with only knee-high blueberry bushes to slow progress. These would be no problem in winter, though.

Indeed, we make quick progress through the woods roughly following my October GPS track I had loaded on my watch. We alternated leads staying on the south side of the creek in the flat sections. The snow got deeper up higher and progress slowed. I was a bit surprised at the depth of unconsolidated snow given the low avy danger rating mid week in that zone.

By 6pm, just before sunset, we finally reached the upper Perry Creek basin at 4,500ft. It had taken 5.5 hours up from Perry Creek shelter, the exact same time it took me in October! I guess this time I knew the route better and wasn’t slowed down by the slide alder.

We got great views of Lemolo poking through the clouds above camp in the waning sun. Luckily we found a melted-out section of creek in the flat basin and camped nearby. We pitched our small tent and fished water out of the deep canyon with my nalgene on the end of paracord tied to my hiking pole.

After a nice dinner of Ramen, cheese, and salami we were soon in the tent. I had set my NWAC-scraping python code running before leaving home and as planned I got a set of inreach messages at 7pm. The updated forecast for our zone was basically unchanged, with just a small risk of shallow windslabs in the morning before a storm came in during the afternoon. It still seemed like our plan was still solid and we could dig some pits to test for windslabs on the way up.

We wanted to summit as early as possible to get down before the weather deteriorated. Our limiting factor was we wanted to do the roped climbing in the daylight, which would start around 6:30am. The standard route up Hard Mox has three pitches of technical climbing. The first is a short chockstone to get around at 8100ft requiring a bit of 5th class climbing. Then there is a long 3rd class gully up to the 8200ft notch. From there it’s one 5th class pitch then one 4th class pitch to the summit. I’ve done this route twice now, and was quite familiar with it.

I expected the lower pitch to be filled in with snow based on a picture taken by John Scurlock in Feb 2006, so I optimistically hoped we could solo up the long snow gully all the way to 8200ft in the dark. Based on my timing from October plus a bit of extra time for trail breaking in winter we figured if we started up by 2:30am we could be to the notch by near sunrise and hopefully the summit shortly after.

We managed to get a few hours of sleep before getting up and moving around 2:30am. Progress was very slow and we were sinking in deep in the snow. We followed my course from October and the slope gradually steepened. From a few pit tests there was either no wind slab or only a few inches, so it seemed safe enough to proceed. With the tough snow conditions we rotated out trail breaking duties every five minutes.

We gradually made it up the steep lower slope and then cut up and left onto a lower-angle bench. Then we went straight up to the toe of the Perry Glacier. The snow was still stable with only isolated pockets of 3 inch wind slab which was no problem.

We kept alternating and by sunrise we were around 7800ft. Our pace had been a bit slower than hoped for with the trail breaking, but we were still close enough to our schedule to continue up. As the slope steepened we noticed that if the leader went straight up then enough loose snow filled in the tracks that the second would also have to break trail. So it was most efficient to zig zag up. The snow was deep enough that it didn’t make sense to use ascent plates, so we stayed in regular snowshoes. At times I would have to clear with my knee, then make two or three kicks with my foot before getting a solid step stomped out.

At the base of a rock outcrop there was a direct and steep gully on the right leading directly to the summer route and a lower-angle gully on the left that also connected. Talon and I had taken the left gully in October so we took that route this time also.

At the top of the gully we met up with the summer route and stopped to ditch snowshoes at a small flat spot. This is where the summer route crosses right below a rock rib. There we put on harnesses and crampons and got out our ice tools. Above that point the snow was scoured down and icy, which made for easy cramponing. I led the way kicking steps across the face then up to the base of the first rock pitch. As I was digging out the rope my food bag slipped out, rolled down the slope, and was gone! Luckily I had stashed a few cliff bars and trail mix in my pockets, and had a bunch of food left in the tent, so this was not a big deal.

Unfortunately the rock pitch was not filled-in as I had hoped. I stomped out a platform, flaked out the rope, and started belaying Nick up. To get around the chockstone there are three options I’m aware of. The first is to climb up to a ledge on the right then traverse back into the gully to gain the rap anchor on a bench above the chockstone. This is the way I did it in July 2018. The second way is to scramble to just below the chockstone, then climb a short 10ft wall to gain the same traverse ledge to the rap anchor. I did this method in October. The third option for us appeared to be to ice climb directly up and over the chockstone.

Nick decided to go with the first option. He made good progress up, but then hit a dead end. I then lowered him off a piece and he found a better way up and around. The final traverse to the rap anchor involves a bit of slab climbing that had been no problem in October in rock shoes. But it’s a bit trickier in crampons. I don’t recall placing any protection there in October but the protection is important in the winter. Unfortunately Nick couldn’t find any gear placements and needed to be lowered down to try another option.

By then the wind was starting to pick up. We could hear it howling loudly through the notch above. Every few minutes a huge gust would blast spindrift down to us and cause a momentary whiteout. The gusts would also knock us a little off balance.

I lowered Nick down and then he went up to try option two. Unfortunately that option reached the same traverse spot with no protection options. The direct route up and over the chockstone was unfortunately sugary snow instead of solid ice. I went up to take a look also and was getting a bit nervous about the weather deterioration.

It looked possible to maybe excavate out an icy crack to protect the traverse. Or it looked possible to maybe climb up left of the chockstone. But we had already burned through precious daylight trying to figure this pitch out and it appeared the forecast afternoon storm was coming in ahead of schedule.

With another monster gust of wind and spindrift we made the call to bail. The weather had deteriorated too soon for us to have a window to get up and down safely. We packed up the gear then downclimbed to the snowshoes. We quickly packed those up and downclimbed the gully to the mellower slopes. By now the wind gusts were causing brief periods of whiteout and we put our goggles on. Our tracks were still visible to follow, though.

Amazingly, we found bits of my food scattered exactly in our tracks! It was the best food too – a bag of cheese and salami and a pack of gummy fruit. We even found my nylon food bag too! I think only a small bag of trail mix migth have remained on the mountain.

Down lower the tracks got drifted over, but I easily navigated by the GPS track on my watch. As we rounded the corner to some NE-facing slopes the wind intensified and visibility dropped. The 3-inch wind slabs were now getting deeper and we were very happy to be getting off the mountain. It was amazing how quickly the snow got transported there in the few hours since we had ascended.

We soon made it safely off the glacier and back to our tent by noon. It was very windy at camp, and I imagine it would have been miserable up on the summit. We quickly packed up and headed out. Our up tracks were blown over in the open, but once we reached the trees we could follow them again. We then made quick progress down through the open forest.

As we got lower the snow and wind got heavier. We were able to follow our tracks back down to the creek and then down the creek bed. A lot of snow had melted in the warm morning and some of the boulder scrambles got a bit tricker. But by 5pm we made it to the shelter to take a short break. Our goal was to push back to Little Beaver that night, so we soon got moving.

The trail down to Little Beaver is a bit demoralizing because it seems to mostly gradually gain elevation on the way down! This is because there is a cliff band near the bottom the trail needs to go up and over. We hiked down in the light rain and eventually reached my stashed boots. It felt great to get out of the 8000m boots into some more comfortable shoes. We then made quick progress down the remaining bare trail to the Little Beaver shelter by 7:30pm.

It was great to have a shelter to go to in the rain, and there was even a picnic table inside! We ended up just laying the groundcloth down and sleeping on that instead of inside the tent, since the tent was pretty damp from all the tent snow the previous night.

Unfortunately we hadn’t vented the tent the previous night and I had also forgotten my vapor barrier liner. So my sleeping bag was pretty wet from my sweat and from tent snow. I think Nick’s was similar. So it was a bit of a cold night. We boiled nalgenes, ate dinner, and got in the wet sleeping bags.

By sunrise Monday we were up and moving. We hiked down to the boat in the light rain, then loaded up and pushed off. Interestingly, the lake level had dropped about a foot overnight. I guess the level is controlled by the dam more than by precipitation.

It took quite a few pulls to get started but I eventually got the motor running. This time we had a headwind, but it was daylight and the water wasn’t too rough. As we got farther down-lake, though, the conditions deteriorated. The wind picked up and the waves got bigger. After rounding the point near Skymo creek we started hitting whitecaps and 3ft waves. The splash went completely over the boat. I was fine in my drysuit but Nick was getting drenched. He managed to cover himself in a tarp that maybe helped a little bit.

The zodiac was tough, though, and is very sturdy and stable. It was kind of fun getting a little air after going over some of the bigger waves. Though it was problematic when there were two big waves back to back since the second wave would crash over the bow and get a lot of water inside. As we got near the stump forest at Devils creek the water inside the boat was getting deeper and the boat was starting to ride a little lower. The boat has a 1300lb capacity so there way no risk of getting too full, but it was becoming more tricky to maneuver. At times the waves and wind were so intense that had I had to be continually wiping water off my face to see, which was problematic with stumps lurking ahead.

So we decided to pull over and take a break. We reached a nice shore just south of Devils Creek and I turned off the motor. Nick jumped out, tied us up, then did a bunch of jumping jacks on shore. Meanwhile I took my helmet off and used it as a scooper to bail out all the water from the boat. This actually helped to warm me up a bit too. With the water bailed out and both of us warmer we got back in and pushed off.

This time the motor started on the first pull, and it was probably a combination of it still being warm and I had burned off some excess motor oil by then. This time I hugged the east shore since it was a bit more sheltered by Rainbow Point from the stiff south wind. After Rainbow Point I had to get back in open water again and the waves were still rough. I think if I could rig up a small tarp spray shield on the front that would keep the water out and make it much more pleasant in rough conditions. I feel like there are endless possibilites for improvements to the zodiac. (Other ideas are motorized wheels and GPS autopilot).

We found more calm water sheltered behind Roland point, then made a final crossing over to the west side across more choppy water. Once we reached the west side we hugged the shore and the rough waters finally eased. We rounded Cougar Island and the water was back to nice and relatively calm. It was amazing how much difference a few miles made! We easily cruised down past Ruby Arm, through the water fence, and back to the takeout.

We pulled the boat out, deployed the wheels, then dragged it around the parked resort truck and up the road. By now all the snow was melted, which made pulling it up the road much easier. We soon made it to the crest of the road at the trail. Nick then took a load up of climbing gear and the propane tank while I worked on deflating and packing up the boat. Luckily now the propane tank was nearly empty so it was a little lighter.

I soon had the boat deflated and ready to go. I then ratchet strapped it to my big backpack and started up the trail. It was still rainy and windy and I actually just hiked up in my drysuit. We both dropped our loads off at the truck then continued back down. For the next load Nick carried my pack plus the boat accessories and I strapped the motor to the big pack. We were very efficient and got it all up in two loads.

By 2:30pm we had all the gear back to the truck. It was a miserable cold 37F rain with heavy wind, even at the trailhead. I bet the storm was really bad on the summits. We were soon all packed up, changed into dry clothes, and heading home.

Movie of the trip:

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