Scarface

Mt. Stuart in the distance

Every year my goals and aspirations for alpine grandeur grow exponentially. Right or wrong, and without regard to previous successes or failures, I make more plans that are increasingly complex. My time is always tight due to the various obligations I have accrued, and the plan for this day was not outside of my distorted “normalcy”. I had to drop my kids off at the airport with their mom in the morning, and then pick up my partner and head to Leavenworth to climb Scarface (III 5.10+) in the Enchantments. I was not certain that we would even attempt the climb, as the weather forecast was looking rough. The Spring had been warm and sunny, so I expected the hike and approach to be mostly snow free. We leisurely made our way east, arriving at the Stuart Lake trailhead around 11 am. We grabbed our gear intending to hike up to the lake, but not intending to climb. Turns out that carrying a pack of climbing gear to the base of a climb makes it difficult to walk away (who would’ve guessed!).

Colchuck Lake, Dragontail Peak at center

The hike was simple enough and with no intentions of climbing the route, we took our time.  This was early in the season, and neither of us had developed the conditioning required for Washington alpine rock yet. In fact, my partner for this day, Cassandra Marohl was a new partner to me and a new alpine rock adventurer. Two weeks prior we climbed Outer Space (III, 5.9) on Snow Creek Wall to test the waters. We cruised it, passing two parties and making the best time I had ever put up on that classic line. I knew that she would be able to handle the approach and decent, and I had great confidence in her demonstrated climbing ability.

The deceptively steep approach

During the entire hike up, the skies were mostly blue. We did not encounter any snow until the base of Colchuck Balanced Rock. There was admittedly more snow than I anticipated at the base, and navigating to the bottom of the climb required kicking steps in firm snow up a thirty-degree slope for about 100 meters in my Guide Tennies. They were soaked through by the time we hit the rock band which was another 60 or so meters of 3^rd and 4^th class scrambling on icy loose rock. I do not know what possessed me to scramble up there. I thought about leaving the gear at the base and coming back the next day to climb the route, but standing at the base of that climb in the sunlight was rewarding. I considered the options. Scrambling back down the way we came seemed improbable and dangerous. Up the gulley, it seemed feasible that we would find a non-technical path around the summit, and down the proper decent. The other option was climbing the route and then doing the standard decent. It was 2:00pm, there was about five hours until twilight, and we chose to climb.

Cassandra following the first pitch

We threw on our gear. Cassandra flaked out the rope as I racked up the widgets. We moved efficiently, as daylight was now a major consideration. All tied in and ready to pull off the ground into the steep first pitch, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t start snowing. I launched into the climb with a sense of urgency now. The first pitch had a 5.10 roof and good gear. I was not exactly sure where to end the first pitch, but I found a decent stance with a moderate anchor. Had I gone much higher, the drag from the roof would have been unmanageable. I was able to get a good ½” cam placement and two moderate small stoppers (BD 3 and 4). I did not look at that anchor and think, “this is a great anchor” but I did think it was passable. I threw in a clove hitch and leaned back onto the anchor. The #3 stopper ripped out. The shift of weight and cracking sound that resulted as the piece pulled out a chunk of granite was disturbing. I took a deep breath, placed the stopper in a deeper placement and leaned back a second time. Cassandra made short work of the pitch and I was off on the second, a little bit apprehensive now.

Cassandra following one of the lower pitches

The next few pitches went fast. The rock was stellar and the climbing fun. Mostly steep hand cracks on splitter granite with the occasional roof or bulge crux to pull through. There was a bit of slick lichen, and the snow continued to fall in intervals offset by sunshine accompanied by falling ice. It had the distinct feeling of an alpine climb, and I was loving every minute of it! Cassandra seemed to be having a decent time, though I would say she mainly experienced relief, which later became fun. Type 2 fun you might say. On the fourth pitch I was pulling past a small roof when a golf ball sized rock blew out from under my left foot and fell 15 meters, directly into Cassandras helmet. She was un-phased and we continued our progression upward. We climbed through the crux pitches up to the “5.9” pitch at the top.

Tilted world! 4th pitch belay

I have no doubt that this pitch would go at 5.9, but it is an unprotectable traverse on a slick slab above a #4 RP. Complete commitment to the climbing shoe is required for this section. I somehow got through it, lunging for the hand sized cracks across the slab and for the solid gear they would provide. This was the last guidebook pitch, but above it we had to find our way up two chossy low fifth pitches. While this loose and mostly unprotected climbing was not foreign to me, it was new to Cassandra, and she was uncomfortable.  We had been on route longer than I figured we would be, and so our light was fading fast. The coming darkness brought with it a new problem, we had to find a way down from this thing. We summited to a breathtaking sunset. The clouds had passed and we had open views of the full Stuart range.

Beautiful lady, lovely granite 5th pitch belay

After a very brief stint on the summit, I located the single rap into a gully on the backside and we were off. More friggin’ snow! We down climbed at least 500m of 30-35-degree firm snow with no axes or crampons, both of which would have been nice. I literally kicked steps in my Tennies until the soles completely delaminated, and then continued to do so until we were in terrain unexposed enough to glissade. I found that taking off my pack, sliding it down the slope, and then kicking steps to it travelling from rock outcrop to rock outcrop was the most efficient. This process took a long time. When we finally got to the base of the climb, the light had gone. As if by design, the next thing that occurred was discovering my headlamp had turned on in my pack. Side-note: BD headlamps will turn on by themselves 100% of the time; I now use Petzl headlamps.

Sun setting on the Stuart range

The climbers trail which we had travelled up to get to Colchuck Balanced Rock had enough of ice, snow, and 4^th class rock to scare me off in the dark. I knew there was an old approach trail off to the south, toward Asgaard Pass. We opted for this option. Hindsight being 20/20, NEVER TAKE THIS OPTION. I have been back since that first trip, and the new climbers trail from the north end of the lake is both easy to follow and a straightforward hike. We were so mixed up in the slide alder on the old “path” that I ended up taking us down the wrong drainage. We decided to keep on pressing it. I figured that if we made it to the lake, we could just circumnavigate back on to the trail….DO NOT TRY TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE LAKE. LOL. It didn’t go. We rapped about 7 times through scrub brush and slide alder down to the lake. It was treacherous in the dark, and the daylight revealed the fact that it was impassible anyway. You read that right, THE DAYLIGHT. We bushwhacked, with one working headlamp, and clothes for a daytrip for hours. We finally succumbed to the slide alder around 3 am, knowing that the sun would be up in a couple of hours.

To recap: 

• My shoes were falling apart and completely soaked
• It was twenty-eight degrees out
• We had an R-1, a synthetic puffy, a softshell, and a raincoat between us
• We were stranded on the wrong side of the lake with a mile of slide alder in one direction and an impassable rock wall in the opposite

We finally made the decision that continuing to forge blindly through the slide alder was too dangerous. The other two options were to swim for the opposite side of the lake, or to wait until daylight came. Swimming, which we discussed for a moment, was quickly taken off the table. We joked about making a raft, and then decided to wait for daylight. I was in rough shape, certainly hypothermic, and Cassandra was not much better off. I knew that stopping movement was going to be dangerous, so I decided to build a little fire. I was carrying an emergency blanket at a lighter, so we were in business. It is technically illegal to build a fire in that zone, but I was more concerned about freezing than a ticket. Plus, no ranger I know would be dumb enough to get all the way out to where we ended up. We moved inland a way to minimize the impact of our fire on the lake, and found a nice boulder cave. I set up my blanket like a curtain and built a very small fire in the cave to try to warm up and dry out my feet. After about an hour of this, my feet were reasonably dry and I was no longer feeling hypothermic. I laid out our wet rope like a bed in the sheltered cave, laid down on top of it, Cassandra laid on top of me, then we covered ourselves in the emergency blanket. This was enough to keep us warm(ish), and certainly enough to fight off the hypothermia. As soon as we had enough daylight, we cleaned up our bivy, and started slipping through the slide alder. An hour and a half brought us back to the climber’s trail, and thirty minutes later we were back out on the main trail. A quick 5 mile walk from Colchuck Lake to the trail head and we were making coffee and oatmeal, excited to be wearing down parkas and dry clothes. The emergency bivy and the epic experience solidified our partnership. Throughout the summer we went on to climb many more fun alpine routes and developed a bond beyond a climbing partnership.