North Face of Vesper Peak, June 25th, 2000
It was not meant to be. We ignored suspicions that the North Face still had snow patches on it, but Cormac and I set out to climb it anyway. We crossed the stream with difficulty (I got my boots soaking wet. I had reminded Cormac to bring sandals, but then forgot my own). We headed up the hanging valley towards a snow-filled gully leading to hidden Headly Pass. We chose the wrong gully and ended up one notch over, but no big deal. There were two guys camped at the top of the gully, also doing the North Face. With such a short approach (3 hours), we wondered why these guys had bothered packing in all this extra overnight gear. We proceded to the base of the climb well ahead of them.On the way there, we met yet another party also doing the North Face. Was it always this popular, or did Jim Nelson's new guide have something to do with this?
Judging from all the snow around, we began to get the feeling this climb wouldn't be in shape. We finally reached the notch overlooking the glacier on the north side, and had a view of the climb. A large snow patch was situated right in the middle of our route. Veering from our route might lead us onto more difficult rock, rather than the claimed 5.6 of the standard route. More over, it looked like several other large patches of snow were sitting precariously on the upper slabs, ready to let loose on unsuspecting climbers. Too bad, the route looked nice, and apparently the rock is solid. We climbed up to the peak in between Vesper and Sperry for a better view.
Here's where things got more interesting.
We watched as the other two climbing parties slowly approached. We expected them to retreat at the sight of the face. Nope.
They both began the steep snow descent of the glacier, towards the base of the face. We had a great view of everything. Cormac and I were extremely puzzled over the direction of descent of one of the teams. So were they. Eventually, they called out to the second team, their shouts echoing among the valley walls:
"Don't go this way!"
"What?"
"Were you planning to start from the traverse, or the base of the face?"
"Base of the face."
"Oh." pause... "Well, if you were planning to do the traverse, don't come this way"
At this point, I chimed in from across the valley with an extremely helpful "The traverse is above you."
After a short pause, came the slightly angry reply "We know that now..."
Apparently they had planned to take the ledge traverse across the face, thereby skipping the lower half of the climb. They could easily have backtracked and done that, but instead, they went up to the base of the face to look at it, decided it was too difficult, and bailed completely on any attempt.
The second team went down lower. Cormac and I were enjoying the view and watching these two teams' antics from several hundred feet away. We only wished we could hear what they were saying.
Just as it started to get a little boring, a large chunk of snow broke loose from the slabs above, and began sliding down the face. It reached the end of the slabs, and the beginning of the steep dihedrals that make up the lower half of the face. At this point, it was a loud, roaring avalanche, the largest Cormac had ever seen, and probably bigger than anything Matt and I had seen on the North Face of Shuksan a month earlier. The bulk of the slide came down in the next gully over from the two climbers, but ice chunks were bouncing in all directions, and several came down right near the pair. Had they been only 100ft further over, they would have been seriously injured or worse. If they had been up on the climb when it hit, they surely would have been swept off the face.
Cormac and I now knew that we were right in bailing. It was still mid-morning, and the sun was only beginning to start to bake the slopes. We expected the climbers to pack up quickly and get the hell out of there... but no. They stayed right there, and 20 minutes later, started up the climb.
Cormac and I left our perch, and continued up the standard route to the summit, where we met the other party that bailed. They were unaware of the avalanche, so its possible the other pair didn't realize what had happened either. They probably just saw a few chunks of ice land near them and thought nothing of it. Amazing that an avalanche so loud can be muffled by a rock rib when you are so close to it.
Also on the summit were two skiers/boarders who used really hip language. "Whoa, dude, check the peakage to the north".
We saw many more skiers on the way down... this is a crowded mountain. Seeing how it was still fairly early when we hit the trailhead, we headed over to the Big Four ice caves, green Beckey book in hand, and marvelled at the "class 4" routes up the wet, slabby, overhanging headwall at the bottom of Big Four.