Vesper Peak, November 7th, 1999
Saturday was spent trying to come up with an ideal peak to climb. Many pages were flipped in the Becky guides, many route descriptions were scrutinized. The weather was forecast to be wet and warm. This meant probably high avalanche danger, because there was a good amount of new snow at higher elevations... that ruled out most climbs. And technical rock is no fun in pouring rain. Whiteout conditions were to be assumed. That made us not want to travel on any glaciers.Silvertip Peak? Something in the Olympics? Pinnacle Peak? Volcanic Neck (cool name!)? Cragging at Vantage? Ice-cragging at Mt. Baker? The indecision was killing us. In the end, the choice was Vesper Peak, in (near?) the Monte Cristo "range". It was supposedly a fairly straightforward class 2 ascent. We knew not to under-estimate Cascade peaks though, and thought this would be a good match for the crappy weather that was forcast.
The valley leading up to Headlee Pass... where do you think you go?
We met at Jeff's in the late afternoon, and headed off to the trailhead to camp. We wanted to get an early morning start... the estimated time to the summit was 5 hours. Multiply that by the Becky Factor to get 7 hours, then allow about half that for the descent. That takes up all the daylight. Plus, Terry, Jeff's girlfriend, had invited us over for dinner and Triopoly Sunday evening.
Jeff and Greg on the The trail up to Headlee Pass.
At the trailhead, we each set up our own sleeping shelter... Greg in his tent, Jeff in his new bivy sac (had to test it), and me in my new tent (had to test it). The skies were... suprisingly... clear. We tried to ascertain the snowiness of the dark mountain silhouettes that surrounded us, but it was difficult.
We arose around 5:30, and left the parking lot about an hour later, headlamps on. I had positioned my truck "interestingly" in the parking lot, to provide illumination for setting up the tents. I thought about reparking it as we left, but the keys were deep inside the pack, and we decided no one else would show up, so I left it parked diagonally across the road.
Shortly thereafter, we passed what would turn out to be the first crux of the climb... getting over a fallen tree. A few minutes later we came upon a stream we had to ford. Though Greg and I crossed it unscathed, opting for delicate submerged boulder hopping, Jeff actually got his boots quite soaked, taking the flying leap approach. Jeff joked that this was the crux of the climb. As we would find out later, he was actually right.
Phil at the pass
The trail climbed up through beautiful terrain, a large, wide slidepath headwall, over which we climbed into a long gently-rising canyon. The terrain on either side was very rugged, though the peaks barely exceed 6000ft. There is an infinite amount of climbing rock here, although its quality may be dubious. As we proceded further up the valley, past an old mine, the great ski potential of this place was slowly revealed, too.
Jeff
The skies were mostly clear. Where was the bad weather?
The trail we were on leads to Headlee Pass. We hiked towards the head of the valley, wondering where the hell the pass was. All we could see in front of us was a sweep of vertical rock, with one vertical-looking gully in it. As we climbed higher, we rounded a buttress and saw one of two secret gullies leading to the ridge crest... aha. The couloir we hiked up looked like more great ski terrain.
Jeff at the basin between Vesper and Sperry peaks
We took a short break on top of the pass, admiring the sweeps of knife edge rock extending on either side of us. You could do some fun traverses on this, I thought. I scrambled up onto the sharp thin ridgecrest to the south of the pass... the slightly overhanging arete vibrated as I stepped on it, so I came down.
We left the pass and crossed some talus, and started up a shoulder of Vesper Peak. The route was very straightforward.
Big-blue-bug-eyed Greg.
New views continuously revealed themselves, and we were all impressed at the incredible scenery; the peaks in this area are extremely rugged. Despite the extensive steep rock, there's also an abundance of ski-touring terrain. We walked up the final summit slope, and looked over the edge... it dropped off in a long 70 degree sweep of smooth rock and ice to the Vesper Glacier (which looked like another great ski slope! Can you tell what's on my mind?). Four hours to the top. Hmm... we beat a Becky time, what's up with that???
Jeff on the final summit ridge. Del Campo is one of the peaks in the background.
We relaxed on top, out of the wind, for half an hour. The scenery in this place is incredible. And the sun was shining! As we headed down, we saw some people... the first ones we'd seen so far. They were a mountaineers-like group of five. I think the rope and pickets were carrying might have scared them (or else they thought we were wimps), but we didn't know what to expect up there.
Jeff cutting his bagel
We arrived back at the lot at around 2:30pm. It was a happening scene compared to when we left. 5 or 6 other cars there.
Looking down the north side of the peak, to Vesper Glacier and Copper Lake
Seeing that there was so much time left in the day, we drove to the Big Four Ice Caves trailhead, and engaged in some serious tourist hiking. 20 minutes later we arrived at the ice caves, sat on a rock and opened up the green Becky guide to study the routes up the north face of Big Four, which rose 4000ft above us in a continuously steep sweep of snow and rock. The routes were all listed as about Grade III class 4, taking up to 15 hours one way. The beginnings of the routes looked like they climbed up wet, nearly-vertical, unprotectable-looking, slabs, with overhanging steps on them. Class 4, huh?
Some clouds reflected in Copper Lake
There were signs everywhere not to enter the caves. We obeyed them, but oh boy, it was tempting. Some old guy passed by and said that the deeper into the caves you traveled, the larger they got, and when the sun was shining, it shone down through the top (through the waterfall) and illuminated this huge cathedral-like room with green mossy walls. I bet that guy's had some interesting "trips" in those caves.
Small peak between Vesper and Sperry. This picture makes me think of skiing.
Greg went up under the entrance of one of the caves and looked in. When he came out, I chucked a rock on top of the roof of the entrance. It made a dull thud. "Sounds solid" I said. The three of us turned around and started walking away... then there was a crash, and we looked around. A chunk of ice from the ceiling fell right where Greg had been standing.