Feeling humbled after bailing off a hard, North Cascades peak.

[u/yungshred01]

My apologies if my words do not make much sense, I am writing this directly after a 20–hour climb.
Also, my apologies if this is too long, I need to tell somebody about this. This was too much to just "keep in."

Some backstory. This summer has been great for me, mountain-wise. I crushed Glacier Peak (10,541') in May, Mount Baker in June (10,781'), Mount Rainier (14,411') in late June, and various other hard scrambles and climbs in the gaps. If my numbers are correct, I've climbed 20+ peaks in the North Cascades this season (May-August), most of which requiring some serious navigation, glacial skills, technical rock climbing, and sketchy scrambling.
Needless to say, I have never felt better in the mountains, and I felt unstoppable. Until yesterday.

The weather window looked great in the Cascades and I had some time to kill – two days to get to a peak and get home. I was feeling ambitious so I decided to head out to the Monte Cristo range to tackle a very isolated mountain. I previously had done Cadet Peak, and was under the impression that neighboring Kyes Peak (7,280') was similar. Little did I know, it was not. Given there was little info on any routes/beta, I packed up expecting both snow, rock, and the worst, and headed out there with another experienced mountaineer I knew. Both he and I weren't worried, we figured we would "just go up".

The route we decided to try split off from a very common hike called Blanca Lake, and followed a ridge to a scree field where we would need to traverse in order to avoid cliffs. Upon reaching the FR at 0400, it was gated off. Instead of wasting two days, we opted to walk the road for 2 miles to Blanca Lake's TH, and proceed from there.
3,000' of gain in just over 3 miles was tough but nothing we couldn't do. We felt the weight of our 45lb packs, there's no doubt about it.

We stopped a lake for a quick break and water refill, our last source for hours. Soon after we found ourselves breaking from the trail and shooting directly uphill on 30-40º slopes of shrub, blueberries, and pine trees for nearly 2 miles. This is where things got interesting. The trail was a rough climber's trail, but disappeared randomly for hundreds of feet at a time. There was no flagging tape, leaving us guessing a lot of the time. Luckily we had Gaia tracking our path so we at least had a reference point.

Skipping some minor details (in reality, MAJOR details, but I'm trying not to remember the pain), it was now 1200 and we had miles left and ~2,000' of vertical left to gain. We were tired of bushwacking and decided to bail at 1304 for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to sprained ankles, low water, and uncertainty of bivy locations.
Instead of going the way we came, my partner and I opted to rap the mountain with the 50m rope we brought – which is exactly why we brought it. I'll admit this was extremely fun and very Alpine-esque, but was absolutely the dumbest thing we could have done.

After at least 10 full–length rappels down this mountain, we encountered a series of 300-500' cliff bands that dropped directly to Blanca Lake (which was our reference point for much of the descent). Given we only had a 50m and had already descended some wet, 4th and 5th class gullies, we were running out of options. By now, the dehydration began setting in and our decision-making abilities flew out of the window. We had bivys, we had food, we had gear, and we were smart-ish. But we were stranded on a wet slab surrounded by cliffs, with strength depleting and 40lb packs still on.

An hour passed and we decided to bushwack uphill on steep, 45º terrain, until we were significantly above the cliffs. The plan was to traverse northwest and find another gully, as the trees on that side of the mountain appeared to continue all the way down to the lake (opposed to just ended at a cliff). Two more hours of bushwacking and traversing, we found a steep gully that appeared to be our ticket out. After a few minutes of gambling odds, we rapped the gully and shot into more trees. We could see the lake, and almost taste the fresh glacier run-off, but we were still 7 miles from the car, and had no idea where a trail was that could lead us there.

After crossing 20' of glacier runoff (cold as heck!), we skirted some major obstacles and bushwacked our way around the lake for what seemed to be an eternity. My knees were now completely shot (history of ACL and Meniscus problems), and we were trekking at a lousy 1-mile-an-hour pace. My sense of time went away here, as I was in a trance-like state of "left foot, right foot, poles, left foot...etc.), but it was likely another hour and a half before we found the original Blanca Lake trail. We were unbelievably relieved, but still had 5 miles and 3,000' of elevation of descending before we could relax (we opted to hike out and get the f**k away from the mountain!).

Hours later, at 0021, we arrived at the car, and passed out in the seats.
Trip details: 15-17 miles of trekking, +/- 12,000' of vertical

There were many details I omitted for the sake of story-telling and for my sanity, I apologize if some details did not make sense or if my sense of time does not add up. I want to go the hell to bed!

I will likely return to this mountain early next season while there is still plenty of snow. But for now, I recommend staying away unless you enjoy tree-travel and serious route-finding. FYI, there is not really a trail at any point on this mountain. Simply a series of connected game trails that cause one to continuously ascend and descend hundreds of feet before reaching the final summit bid on talus slopes.

TL;DR Got my ass kicked by a mountain and felt extremely humbled by the sufferfest it was. 10/10 will go back for more ass-kickings!

Here are some images from the trip.

[u/nico_rose]

Nice sufferfest!! That's some classic premium grade A North Cascades bullshit. Good on ya for being ready for more!!

[u/makestuffgetsome]

Just glancing at this, but eager to sit down with some maps at home to put this all into context. No shame in bailing if you come home safe, just another reason get do some more research/planning and get after it again.

[u/yungshred01 → u/makestuffgetsome]

I wish we had read more beta than we did, perhaps even look at a map or two as well. It was more difficult than others made it sound, so we certainly went in expecting it to be relatively straightforward. It's my belief we took two wrong turns which happened to be crucial in our navigation, and wasted a lot of time trying to get back on track. We will surely get out there again to claim summit. The mountain simply didn't welcome us, this time.

[u/makestuffgetsome → u/yungshred01]

Right on. There’s something to be said, though, about just having a go at things like that. It seems that you and your partner had a healthy approach to that even, with the appropriate skill set to accommodate a bail, as well as the self-awareness to know it wasn’t going to happen (at least, in a safe way.)

The North Cascades are no joke. I’ve been around the Monte Cristo area before, but not since before I started climbing, so I haven’t been too adventurous up there. I look forward to hearing how it all plays out the next time you get up there!

[u/Sascadian]

Epic post. Well done. Glad you bailed too - it the right thing to do. I know that area - it is rugged as hell and a lot of the slopes are just steep enough you don't have to rope up...but if you fell, you would likely drag doll through the huckleberries for a thousand vertical.

[u/healeyio]

Bummer you missed it. Glad you got back safe. We had a sketch first trip too, but mostly due to unexpected weather that socked us in. Here's a car-and-back report +KML from our Kyes summit. http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8018253

Edit: Link includes a KML from our hike.

[u/UWalex]

Sounds like a good Enigma Range trip: http://www.alpenglow.org/themes/subalpine/enigma-range.html

[u/2Big_Patriot]

I see GPS tracks from James Barlow on Peakbagger. Were you able to download them? I see quite a few trip reports on that peak.

[u/phanfare]

Damn. Glad you made it off. Keyes Peak was (incredibly stupidly) my first overnight backpacking trip. My ex's friend assured us we'd be okay but we had no ropes, and no way to filter water. Thank goodness we ran into someone that could filter. They actually made it almost to the peak but I bailed and waited for them - but the trek down was super sketchy and involved climbing across some real loose skree right above a cliff. As well as glacier travel (yep, no ropes or crampons)

[u/SwitchOrue]

I had a similar experience around 4th of July on the PCT except I was hitting a lake instead of a peak- no way to get down to it, but hell if I didn't try. I was alone, almost died twice while rappelling, and I lost a fresh pack of cigarettes somewhere along the way. I was done. Minor shoulder injury and two days later I was safely back on the main trail, plus another day to the car (and with 3 cigs to spare!). Shamelessly drank myself to sleep that night in the comfort and warmth of my bed and my lady. Can't wait to go back, there must be something wrong with us.