Vesper Peak, North Face - July 19, 2003

Many routes here, up the lower wall, then up the slabs.

3 years after my last attempt, time for another go at the North Face of Vesper.

Matt examines a tree he swears was firmly planted and growing in the ground. It's in the middle of a snowfield in mid-July in a dry year, with no other trees around, except there is a grove of trees a few hundred feet above, at the base of an avalanche slope. You do the math. But Matt will tell you "it really looked well attached". We weren't going to dig it up, so our vicious argument (we almost came to blows) was never settled, and left a bitter taste in our mouths the rest of the day.

Matt and I ascended through the heat and bugs to the notch overlooking the Vesper glacier. Pretty much from the trailhead, We had been continuously about 200 yards behind another N Face party. However, at the notch, they headed up further - either to take the ledges approach to the upper slabs, or the alternate route down the glacier, which I thought was steeper.

Matt starts down the Vesper Glacier.

The bugs followed Matt and me down the glacier - the snow was already quite soft, but crampons were nice to have. Lower down, we traversed over to the route.

After the last time with Jesse, when we bailed, I was sure I had the beginning of the route nailed - we had been too far right. From what I remembered, the line in the Nelson guide was right in the center of the "deep depression" of the face. However, now face to face with the face again, the "Nelson route" seemed to have an overhanging section halfway up. The right - exactly where Jesse and I had been - looked easier.

Here's where we got on the rock.

In the end, the moat, or lack thereof, forced us to the right. We walked trivially from snow onto blocky rock.

Then we climbed another 150 feet or so up 3rd and 4th class rock to where the gully got dirty, and there seemed to be a way onto the face on the right. Here we roped up - oh, except Matt's heavy boots didn't lend themselves well to the frictiony moves I made to the ledge, and his alternate route didn't lend itself to soloing, so I threw the rope down to him, and belayed him up. Pitch 0, 10 feet.

Matt moves gingerly from the gully to the face.

The climb onto the face was exposed, so it was Matt's lead. It took him a while to work out the moves, and finally he descended a little, and got onto the face. Unfortunately, he was invisible for the whole pitch (above and behind me), so I didn't know how it was going. Except that the rope payed out slowly at first. There was also the sound of metal grinding against rock, and the occasional patch of moss flying down to the glacier. Interesting.

Ok, my turn. I moved out onto the face, and pretty soon there was kind of a sketchy move - at least without climbing shoes, it felt pretty stiff, among excavated dirt steps, not really any pro. Glad I didn't lead this pitch. In fact, there were a number of non-trivial moves on this pitch, though most of it was low 5th.

During this time, a party of three had appeared at the notch, descended the glacier to the base of the wall, and were trying to get onto the rock. They held some sheets of paper in their hand, and noted that I was not on the route marked in Nelson. I told them it looked steeper, and they asked about the moat... I had a great view of the moat and shouted down describing it to them. A few moves later, I looked back - they were approaching the moat, heading for the line drawn in Nelson, and I kept shouting down where it looked good (pretty much nowhere). Finally I realized I was probably just being annoying, so I shut up.

Anyway, back to climbing: I came to a decision point. Grovelly chimney, or smooth face with no holds? Which way? Hmm... ah, then I remembered Matt's metal scraping sound, and worked my way into the chimney, my axe making its own grinding sound.

We interrupt this climbing, to bring you some heather and little bushes and stuff.

I reached Matt at the belay, a full 200ft pitch - and we were already at the heather slopes! Wow, the entire lower wall went at only 1 roped pitch!

We now return you to rock.

We simuled up from here on blocky heather slopes, and finally onto the slab (where I found a perfect pink tri-cam placement - always a good thing) where we continued the running belay for a couple of pitches to a large ledge. Actually a whole series of ledges. A "belay terrace". You could hold a belay barbecue here.

The other party starts up the dihedral from the belay patio. Other than the first pitch, the first few moves here are the only tricky part, since the slab is smooth. It might be easier further right in the middle of the face.

We met up with the other party here (this was the first party of 2 we saw, that ended up doing the ledge traverse into the slabs). Apparently one of them had read my trip report about me being lame and bailing on this climb 3 years ago, and then being even lamer and top-roping the top of the slabs. Twice. These slabs are super-sweet, I wish they went on for longer.

We enjoyed the short "forced wait" as they led up the dihedral, and took the time to drink/eat/chill out on this beautiful day.

Copper Lake, lower Vesper Glacier, Matt, slabs.

Time to continue up... the first 30 feet off the belay were a little tricky, the slab is very smooth here - some liebacks were in order. I continued about 2/3 of a pitch to a belay in the dihedral, then Matt and came up an finished off the remaining slab, which was an entire rope-length, even though it didn't look it. He trended right where it was more textured - fun cruising.

Matt leads out on the final pitch, Phil mucks around with Photoshop.

I think we took about 3 hours from glacier to summit, including a half hour break at the base of the dihedral. Solid, fun rock.

A breeze had come up, so the bugs weren't bad anymore, and we took in the views from the summit, including a large plume from a forest fire in eastern Washington. A guy on the summit knew about forest fires, and said you could tell how the fire was doing by the shape of the smoke. He said this one was roaring.

Glacier Peak, and a ptarmigan looking at me. If I'd moved a few feet to the right, I could have taken a picture of the ptarmigan in front of the Ptarmigan Traverse. How cool would that be? Pretty cool, I think.

Action-packed foot glissading instructional video

We arrived back at the trailhead at 5pm.

Matt surveys his kingdom.

I would say less then half the cars at the trailhead had NW Forest Passes (and instead had yellow "please pay 5$" notices). Nice to see some resistance. Someone had hung an obviously old (from last year) NW Forest Pass, and they seemed to have avoided the yellow envelope.