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THE MONTE CRISTO TRIANGLEBy Jeff Smoot |
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During one week in late August 2000, I climbed Cadet Peak, Columbia Peak, and Kyes Peak, the three highest summits in the Monte Cristo region of the North Cascades. It was an eventful week, not only for me and my climbing companions, but for the entire Washington climbing community, which mourned the loss of Michael Wessels, an enthusiastic climber who was killed in a fall from Monte Cristo Peak.
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| Cadet Peak from Glacier Basin Trail |
I drive a pickup truck, so naturally I became the designated driver for our trip to Monte Cristo. After all, we had to lug along three mountain bikes for the ride in to the trailhead, and I had the only vehicle that would accommodate three old men and their bikes. That was fine with me. Doug and Morgan would owe me a ride after this, and they would pay dearly later for my feigned largesse. Monte Cristo was not so far away, really, just an hour or so from home. Perhaps a trip up to Cascade Pass or over to Leavenworth would be appropriate quid pro quo.
Our goal for the day was Cadet Peak, the third-highest of the Monte Cristo peaks but seemingly insignificant compared with other more rugged peaks nearby. The route described in the Cascade Alpine Guide seemed pretty staightforward and easy. None of us had ever climbed it, so it was worthy of a day's exploration. Consulting Beckey's guide on the drive to Barlow Pass, we figured it would take us about five or six hours from the pass to the summit. It was a crapshoot, like always when relying on Beckey's time allowance. But we estimated generously, an hour for the bike ride to the trailhead, two hours for the hike to Glacier Basin, and another two or three hours from Glacier Basin to the summit. So we started late, at six a.m., and arrived at Barlow Pass just past seven. There were a few cars at the Barlow Point trailhead parking lot, and a couple of cars parked across the road, but no other hikers or climbers in sight.
It was a cold morning, and the bike ride in to Monte Cristo was brisk. The first mile was mostly downhill, but not too bad. We coasted along, Morgan out front, Doug in the middle, me bringing up the rear. This was the first ride on my new bike, and I wasn't yet confident enough to air it out. I took it easy, bumbling along like I'd just had my training wheels off, riding just fast enough to keep Doug and Morgan in sight. Once across the bridge, the going got really bad. The road was all rocks, and Doug and I dismounted and walked a good distance while Morgan pedaled on ahead, oblivious. Soon the road started climbing away from the river and kept climbing steadily for about three miles. It was never quite steep enough to get off the bike and start walking, but always strenuous. I pedaled on ahead of Doug, legs churning and lungs burning, but never did catch up with Morgan until I got to the campground turnoff, where Morgan was waiting patiently. Doug caught up in a few minutes, suitably winded, and we rested a moment before continuing on to the trailhead.
As usual, we did not go the right way. Doug and Morgan had been to Glacier Basin before, but not recently. They remembered the trailhead being up to the left, before the town site. Having never been to Monte Cristo before, I had no opinion on the matter, and followed merrily along, trusting blindly to their memory. We went left at the campground fork and followed an old mining road that led through brush and alders to the edge of Glacier Creek. The road was not well traveled, and there were no signs marking the trailhead, which seemed odd. But then, this was Monte Cristo. To be sure, I asked if they were sure this was the right way. They had no doubt, they assured me. We soon reached the end of the road, where a footpath led along the edge of the creek. We stashed our bikes in the bushes, covering them with bushes to hide them from imagined thieves, then started hiking up the trail.
At first it seemed like we were on a trail, but it soon vanished in a tangle of brush. An old road grade was evident, but it was overgrown and untrammeled.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" I asked Doug, who was leading the way.
"Of course," he said confidently.
Morgan and I shrugged our shoulders and followed Doug. We passed a sign that said "No Trespassing." A bit farther was a sign that said "Trespassers will be shot." At this, I think even Doug finally realized we might be going the wrong way. Doug and Morgan seemed to think we should have crossed the creek already, and that the trail was just up the hill on the other side. So we bushwhacked to the edge of the creek and crossed. While they hopped boulders and nearly fell in, I changed into my sandals and plodded straight across. Of course, the changing in and out of my boots took time, and by the time I was up and hiking again Doug and Morgan had vanished. So much for efficiency. I heard an occasional twig snap, and low voices, and followed through the alders. After awhile, I couldn't hear anything except the roaring of the creek. There was an opening to the right, so I aimed for it, and came out amid the ruins of an old mine. There was no sign of my partners.
"Hey, where are you guys?" I yelled.
"We're on the trail," Doug yelled back.
I looked up to where the voice had emanated. There was Doug, at the far end of the ruins, waiving down at me from the trail. I scampered up through the rotten logs and rusty cables and joined Doug and Morgan on the trail. We made good time after that. The trail was steep and rocky, a lot like the old Lake Serene trail, beat out by boots of miners, hikers, and climbers, often climbing straight up slick rock slabs, with nary a switchback. We made good time up the trail, Morgan still out in front, a man possessed. We missed a turnoff somewhere high in the canyon, but scrambled through the big talus blocks beside the creek until we picked up the trail again at the entrance to Glacier Basin.
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| Monte Cristo Peak from Glacier Basin |
Glacier Basin is one of the loveliest subalpine basins in the Cascade Range. It is a flat, circular glacial basin framed by rock walls rising thousands of feet to sharp spires. Glaciers, snowfields and scree slides drape the upper slopes of the basin. Huge boulders dot the meadows. Cold, clear streams meander amid the boulders. Thank goodness hikers must begin from Barlow Pass; otherwise, the basin would be overwhelmed with well-intentioned but ultimately destructive visitors. As it was, we only saw one other person in Glacier Basin all day.
Beckey's guidebook described the route as beginning from "the" house-sized boulder in Glacier Basin. We looked around and saw at least three boulders matching this description, but assumed he meant the big block on the left side of the basin, since it was the closest to the base of Cadet Peak. It wasn't really as big as a house. Maybe about 20 feet high and 30 feet long, more like Katie's cabin in the Icicle, if that big. Doug and I lounged for a few minutes in the rocky meadows below the boulder, preparing for the climb to come, and scoping out the Wilman Spires and the massive east face of the Wilman Peaks. Morgan, like an attention-deficient child, scrambled up the boulder.
We had to hike up the basin a distance to find a spot narrow enough to leap from one streambank to the other. Once safely across, we scrambled up a long scree slope beside a narrow snow gully. By now, the sun had already penetrated the basin, making it uncomfortably warm. We plodded up determinedly, if not rapidly. Near the top of the talus, we crossed the gully and scrambled up a dirty rock slope to gain the base of a gully that looked like the way to go. The gully was rocky, with some loose blocks. We climbed carefully, and only set loose a few small rockfalls on each other, which was a good thing since none of us had thought to bring a helmet. At the top of the gully, we picked up a faint trail traversing leftward to a ridge, and followed it up the ridge and adjoining slopes. As during the bicycle portion of the event, Morgan pushed ahead, I took the middle, and Doug brought up the rear. We climbed for some distance, eventually leaving the trees behind and plodding upward through steep rocky heather meadows and scree gullies. There was always a faint trail to follow, and Morgan was always in sight above me, so routefinding was not difficult, although the steepness of the slope made the hiking fairly strenuous.
I caught up with Morgan at the base of the summit rocks. He had tried to climb an inviting gully, but had decided it was more difficult than the Class 2 scrambling Beckey promised we would encounter here. We looked left, and saw nothing that looked particularly inviting. Off to the right was a ridge with a pile of rocks that looked suspiciously like a large cairn. We scrambled over to the ridge and inspected the rock pile. It sure looked like a cairn. After some debate, we agreed that's what it was, and scrambled up the ridge, confident that we had unlocked the secret of Cadet Peak and would soon be standing on the summit. The secret was that we were off route, and the mountain kept it from us for awhile. Ignorant of our blunder, we scrambled gleefully up scree and loose gullies and slabs high on the craggy ridge, expecting at every moment to break through the cliffs and find ourselves on open heather slopes with nothing but the summit above us. But the Class 2 started to seem a bit like Class 3, and a few moves seemed like Class 4. Naturally, we figured Beckey was sandbagging and continued on. But when the Class 2 started feeling like Class 5, and handfuls of rock threatened to come loose with every move, we realized we must be off route. We scrambled carefully down to the cairn and retraced our steps back to the base of the summit shoulder. Our false variation had cost us almost twenty minutes. Luckily, Doug had only just arrived.
After a water break we decided to traverse leftward and see what might happen over that way. About 100 meters to the north was a big gully that seemed to offer a route to the summit ridge. There were also some ledges that might offer a feasible route up through the cliff bands. So Doug and I traversed low, beneath the remaining snow patches, while Morgan stayed high along the base of the cliff band. Morgan thought a little gully and ledge he had spotted would get him past the cliff band and up to the summit slopes. It looked a little dicey to Doug and I, so we opted for the longer variation, even though from a distance it didn't look any more promising.
It turned out we were both right. While Doug and I traversed the slope, we saw Morgan climb easily up his gully and across his ledge and vanish on the summit slopes. Our route was no more difficult, only longer. We reached the edge of the gully and determined it would be unwise to climb the gully, given the steep, loose cliff we would have to descend to reach the snow. But a broad ramp angled rightward, allowing relatively easy access to the summit slopes. After a few minutes of slogging up scree and heather slopes, the summit rocks came into sight. There was Morgan, scrambling up a gully to the highest point. I traversed over and followed him up the gully, and we waited together on the summit for Doug, who was not too far behind.
The view from the summit of Cadet Peak is fantastic. John Muir would have called it sublime. A panorama of high peaks presented itself. To the east was Glacier Peak in all of its glory, with Sloan Peak to the northeast, Mounts Baker and Shuksan to the north, a plethora of peaks to the west and south, including Mounts Rainier and Stuart. Most impressive were the close views of the other Monte Cristo peaks, including the Wilman Spires, Columbia and Kyes Peaks, and Monte Cristo Peak. We feasted on these views for half of an hour, basking in the warm sun and light breeze. It had not been a difficult climb, nor a particularly enjoyable one, just a steep meadow hike with a little bit of loose rock scrambling. But all of that was forgotten now, as it always is when presented with a glorious view on a perfect summer afternoon. A friend once told me that if climbers had good memories, they would quit climbing. I don't think so. But then, he had taken up hang gliding, so maybe he knew what he was talking about.
I had wanted to traverse over to the north summit of Cadet Peak, since the topo map showed it as being slightly higher than the south summit. The USGS had labeled the south summit a mere 7,186 feet above sea level, whereas the northern summit was listed at 7,197 feet, despite the fact that the south summit was considered the summit of Cadet Peak. This anomaly was made more curious by the fact that we could plainly see the summit of Bedal Peak jutting up directly beyond the northern summit. Now none of us professed to be a rocket scientist, although Morgan, being a highway engineer, seemed to have the proper credentials to theorize that if you could see a 6,554-foot summit from a 7,186-foot summit, an intervening summit must be lower. Bedal Peak was not so far away from Cadet Peak that curvature of the earth would factor in, and even then, it would have had the opposite effect of making Bedal Peak seem lower - not higher - than the supposed highest peak of Cadet Peak. Of course, none of us had the math skills necessary to prove this theory on the spot, but later I tried a rudimentary geometry formula and calculated that the height of the northern summit of Cadet Peak was really about 7,147 feet. Perhaps a cartographer's error or some cryptic scribble on a map led to the mistaken elevation. No matter. The summit register resides on the 7,186-foot summit, so we decided that was summit enough for today, and abandoned our plan to climb both summits.
We reluctantly left the summit, after taking in one last view and finishing another roll of film, and scampered down the mountain quickly in the afternoon sun, careful to follow our route of ascent to avoid becoming lost amid the brushy cliff bands. Doug and Morgan swung from fir limb to fir limb down the rock gully, and were soon across the gully and trundling down into the basin. Being a bit more cautious, and not wanting to start rocks down on my friends, I proceeded slowly. By the time I reached the bottom of the gully, they were already halfway down the slope.
When I crossed the snow gully and started down the scree, I saw a lone figure hiking up into Glacier Basin, toward Monte Cristo Peak. He was the only other person I saw all day. Doug and Morgan hadn't seen him, they said. I figured he was just a day hiker exploring the basin, and didn't give him another thought until days later.
Wednesday, August 23, 2000
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| The Wilman Spires and Cadet Peak from Twin Lakes Trail |
After climbing Cadet Peak on Sunday, I was afflicted with Monte Cristo fever. Despite the approach difficulties and rugged trails, and the rotten rock and reputedly crazy locals, I found myself longing to get back out there and climb one of the other enigmatic Monte Cristo peaks. But which one? As I drove through Granite Falls and Verlot, I debated whether to try Monte Cristo Peak or Columbia Peak. The former seemed like a real challenge, with steep snow and exposed rock scrambling. However, everything I had read and heard about the peak left me with the impression that there was too much loose rock to justify a solo ascent. Then there was that story about Quinn Koneg falling off of Monte Cristo peak and tumbling 700 feet down the snow slope to Glacier Basin. He had miraculously survived without a scratch, which some took as a sign that God is merciful if not just. Yet Columbia Peak seemed no less hazardous, except that I had a vague recollection that it was a Class 2 scramble, about like Cadet Peak, and therefore much easier than the Class 3 or 4 routes up Monte Cristo Peak. Still, even as I pedaled up the road to Monte Cristo, I had not decided which peak to climb, although as I neared the townsite and saw the west rib of Columbia Peak in profile rising above a clearing in the valley, I made up my mind. Columbia Peak it would be.
I stashed my bike in the bushes about 100 meters before the campground fork and hiked to the trailhead. Two men were busy constructing a new bridge across the creek. I crossed the temporary bridge below them and came up on the other side. One of the men looked like he had lived in the woods for a good many years, kind of grizzled with a scraggly gray beard and dungarees that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine for a good many days. He saw me and stopped his work.
"Where you headed?" he asked gruffly, as one might ask a trespasser cutting through one's back yard.
"Columbia Peak, I guess."
"Which way you going?"
"Poodle-Dog Pass."
"That trail's pretty rough," he advised. "You should go up through Glacier Basin. All snow that way. Nobody goes the other way."
"I didn't bring my crampons," I said.
"Well, good luck," he said.
The disappointing fact that I had forgotten my crampons at home only justified my decision to climb Columbia Peak instead of Monte Cristo. Via the west rib, Columbia Peak had only a short snowfield, whereas Monte Cristo had a long, steep snowfield and gully on its north side, which was sure to be icy in the morning. Without crampons, it would have been suicide to try it. Either that or I would have been cutting a lot of steps. Having suffered through that experience recently on Mount Daniel, I wasn't about to try it again. If I had brought my crampons, I might have taken the old guy's advice and climbed Columbia Peak from Glacier Basin, up the Wilman Glacier and over the notch to Seventy-Six Glacier. That route seemed interesting, although it was a bit longer, and I had it on good authority that the west rib route was very direct from Twin Lakes Trail. So I headed up Poodle-Dog Pass Trail.
The old guy was right about the Poodle-Dog Pass Trail. It was a rocky mess, like walking up a streambed. After some miserable hiking, the trail got steep as it switched back up a forested slope, and did not level off again until it reached the pass. I had always imagined that Poodle-Dog Pass got its name from some miner who had a poodle, or maybe some curly headed miner who was given an unfortunate nickname, but apparently the miners referred to marmots as poodle dogs. Perhaps once there was a large population of marmots here, but this morning they were conspicuously absent. Instead, a solitary hiker passed. He looked as if he had spent two weeks in a cave and badly needed a bath and shave. I said hello; he scowled and marched on. A real friendly guy. Perhaps another Monte Cristo local?
A trail led off to the south from the pass, and I followed. It was a muddy, root-bare mess at first, obviously trampled out by boots. It climbed briefly, then leveled out and followed a lovely subalpine ridge, with mesmerizing views of the Wilman Spires and down to Silver Lake. The trail dipped and climbed, then traversed the west side of the ridge through grassy meadows strewn with aster and lillies of several varieties, and climbed back to the ridge crest. Here was the first good view of Columbia Peak, and it was impressive. From this vantage, the west rib had a very intimidating aspect. It seemed quite high and steep, not at all the Class 2 scramble I was anticipating. For a moment, I though perhaps I should choose another climb. But I pressed on, determined at least to get a close look before turning back. Those who quit early never succeed. Or so I hear.
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| Columbia Peak |
I had no idea about the route other than that it traversed the long ridge connecting Twin Lakes saddle with the west rib. Even this ridge appeared daunting from a distance, with several rocky buttresses and a cliff band that seemed impassable. I followed the trail to the saddle, and lingered briefly to enjoy the view of the deep blue Twin Lakes sparkling below. I expected to find a climbers' trail here, leading up the ridge, but no such trail materialized, so I just hiked along the ridge slope, skirting steep granite cliffs here and there before regaining the crest and finding a faint tread. Shortly along, the rock morphed from granite to tuff. Big round boulders and buttresses of seemingly conglomerate rock. This was turning into quite the geology field trip. The next part of the ridge seemed unlikely, but the impossible looking headwall was easily bypassed via a steep trail which led up and over the ridge and past a series of flat little grass meadows. Columbia Peak loomed closer and even more imposingly. The upper west rib seemed to be very steep and exposed. Still, I continued upward, not quite ready to turn back, at least not until I encountered something really difficult or scary.
After a gravelly traverse, the ridge again flattened out at the base of the west rib proper, just below a dark rock buttress. I sat on a flat block and gazed out over Seventy-Six Gulch, visualizing Beckey's retelling of the mining-era story of a fully laden mule losing its footing and falling into the gulch, and surviving the ordeal. Del Campo and Gothic Peaks stood out to the west, still snowy white even so late in the season. Smoke filtered up from a miner's cabin high in the gulch. The Count of Monte Cristo kept his silent vigil.
After my respite, I returned my attention to Columbia Peak. Ice ax in hand, I hit the snow slopes. At first the snow was soft and gently angled, but it firmed up and steepened soon above. Lacking crampons, I opted for scrambling up the scree beside the snowfield, but this turned out to be a bad idea because I had to traverse the slope near the top, where it was steepest and shaded, an unsettling prospect. I hacked steps as I crossed the crusty slope. A few tenuous moves above a moat led to a loose gravel slope. Bad to worse. A slip here would be disastrous. Fortunately, the ground firmed up in a few moves, and I was back on terra firma, looking down a steep rock slope to the deep blue waters of Twin Lakes.
Upon close inspection, the upper rib was not as steep as it had seemed from below. I had to pass a short rock step via a little boulder problem move. Once above this, I entered a broad rocky gully that rose some 200 meters to the summit block. The gully had a lot of loose rock, especially on the left side, but on the right side it was fairly solid. However, it was smooth and mostly unbroken here, and required great care and delicate movement. Not that it was steep or difficult. On the contrary, it was joyous, like an endless easy friction climb. But one slip could have led to a long, tumbling fall over a cliff. The left side of the gully was less exposed, but with much loose rock and gravel, a far less pleasant prospect.
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| Looking down the gully |
At the top of the gully I arrived at the base of the summit block. A slabby cliff of some fifty feet blocked further progress. Actually, a couple of lines up the face seemed feasible, but I opted for the easier route. I traversed leftward to a small cairn, and followed a very exposed ledge leftward around the summit block. The ledge was covered with gravel. If I slipped here, I would get my name in the paper. After the ledge, a dirty little gully with some broken blocks led up to a ledge, from where broken ledges continued to the small, flat summit. Another perfect day, another Monte Cristo summit. I read the summit register, forged an entry, then sat down and took in the view, which was equally as impressive as from Cadet Peak, perhaps more so. This summit offered a new perspective of Monte Cristo and Kyes Peaks and the Columbia Glacier, and the unnaturally turquoise blue waters of Blanca Lake. This view of Monte Cristo Peak only added to my respect for that mountain. It was a very rugged, craggy volcanic peak of an orange hue, with a rounded summit and a flat block at the very top. Steep cliffs fell away on all sides, particularly on the south side. Deep gullies on all sides underscored the instability of the rock. Yet it had an inescapable appeal. Despite its obvious dangers, it was a beautiful mountain. Its most repulsive aspects were its greatest lure. I thought I might come back and climb it the following weekend, although Kyes Peak, being the highest of the Monte Cristo summits, seemed like a better idea.
Despite injuring my leg slightly during the hike out, I made good time. The man at the bridge was impressed that I had climbed Columbia Peak already, but he was not impressed that I felt the need to filter water out of the stream. "I've been drinking out of that stream for thirty years," he told me. From the looks of him, I have no doubt that was true, especially now that I have considered what lies upstream.
I retrieved my bicycle from the bushes and started riding out in the early evening. A cool shade had come over the valley. It was refreshing and familiar to ride down the road and back to Barlow Pass. I stopped in the clearing and looked back at Columbia Peak, glowing in the fading sunlight. Sublime.
Along the way, I passed a group of serious looking young men. They were pedaling hard up the road toward Monte Cristo, as if very intent upon getting somewhere as soon as possible. No smiles. No hellos. I thought it odd that they were riding in to Monte Cristo so late. Judging by their packs and ice axes, they were climbers, but they had day packs, and no sleeping bags. Did they have a cabin in town where they would spend the night? I wondered about them all the way home. They were on a mission. What was it?
(Read Michael Stanton's trip report about his climb of Columbia Peak.)
Saturday, August 26, 2000
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| Kyes Peak from Columbia Peak |
After seeing the news on Wednesday night, and again on Thursday and Friday nights, I had changed my mind about climbing Monte Cristo Peak. A climber was missing. The talking heads on the news stations were referring to him as an "aggressive hiker," the worst kind according to the Snohomish County Sheriff's spokesperson, because they tended to believe they could travel safely on any terrain and often hiked alone. Like me, I guess. So on Saturday, instead of Monte Cristo Peak, I decided to climb Kyes Peak. Doug came along. It was his turn to drive anyway.
When I first asked him about Kyes Peak, Doug corrected my pronunciation. Doug said Kyes as if it rhymed with "freeze"; the way I said it rhymed with "skies." I asked a few friends, and they pronounced it both ways. Not wanting to mispronounce it, I looked up some people in the phone book named Kyes and called them up. I was fortunate to reach a nephew of the peak's namesake, who told me the story of Jimmy Kyes, a boyhood buddy of Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who had been the first to climb Kyes Peak, was an avid climber, and had been the commander of a naval destroyer. Kyes was killed in a plane crash during World War II, and Senator Jackson had the peak named in his late friend's honor. According to Beckey, Kyes Peak is the only summit in Washington to be named after a member of the first ascent party, a rare tribute. I was pleased to be able to give a little history lesson during the drive up to the Blanca Lake trailhead.
We began hiking up the trail at about the same time as an older couple who had a little dog. The dog was excited to be out in the woods, and ran up and down the trail. Eventually, Doug and I had hiked far ahead of the older couple, but their dog was right on our heels. Such loyalty. After awhile, we heard a faint whistle from far below, and the dog's ears perked up and it turned and ran down the trail, and we never saw it again. The trail was steep and strenuous, climbing through lush hemlock and fir forest to subalpine meadows on a high ridge crest before dropping down to little Virgin Lake and eventually to Blanca Lake. It was a cloudy day, and drizzly, so we never had a good view of anything all day, just trees and brush and fog. Virgin Lake was disgusting. A frothy scum floated on the surface, and we saw several dead frogs. Perhaps this lake needs a new name? We offered a few suggestions that remained faithful to the "virgin" theme, but which will not be repeated here so as not to offend our more modest readers.
A blazed hemlock tree at the north edge of the lake marked the start of the climbers' trail to Kyes Peak. The path was faint, leading up through hemlock and fir forest and brush. Occasional flagging kept us on course until we reached a round grassy meadow. Above the meadow, the brush opened up and the tread was easily followed up the ridge. We traversed the ridge, sometimes on the crest, sometimes on the slopes on either side. Clouds rolled across the ridge, sometimes reducing visibility to almost nothing. It was very quiet, very surreal. We hiked along silently. Near the upper end of the ridge, we reached an impasse, an exposed rock point that offered no simple passage. It appeared possible to traverse directly along the crest, but the rock was wet and exposed. In the clouds, we could not see the bottom of the cliff on either side, so neither of us was willing to try it. Apparently we were not the first to balk at this prospect, as we found a well-worn dirt gully that led down to a boot path that traversed around this obstacle. After that, it was easy scrambling and hiking to a notch, from where the real climbing began.
Well, it wasn't exactly "real climbing," just some more hiking up the climbers' trail, until we lost it in a thicket and plodded straight across a wooded slope into a rocky stream basin just below the snowfields of Kyes Peak. This was a lovely rock garden. Countless multi-hued blocks of various shapes and sizes lay scattered amid heather and little streams, like a perfectly executed rock garden. Enchanted, we stopped for a snack and to refill our water bottles. The clouds rolled by, not far overhead. The cloud ceiling was lifting. Peaks above us were still obscured, but we could now see the Columbia Glacier and its moraines, and the eerie blue waters of Blanca Lake in the valley below. This was when we first heard the whir of the helicopters circling Monte Cristo Peak, the drumming beat of their rotors echoing off of the walls of Columbia Peak.
Near the edge of the snowfields, we climbed to the top of a rock buttress overlooking the valley. Looking down over the edge, I noticed several bones scattered down the face. Small bones, white and yellow. Two long, fang-like teeth and several shards of skull. I scrambled down and retrieved a few bones and showed them to Doug. Noticing more bones farther down, Doug scrambled down to get them. Suddenly he slipped and started sliding down the rock slope. He had started a small avalanche of gravelly rock, and could not stop his slide. I stood there watching from above, helpless to do anything to save him. I fully expected Doug to slide over the edge and down a cliff to the boulders below, and for a moment visualized myself trying to carry Doug back across the ridge and down the trail. If he survived. Luckily, the sliding stopped a few feet short of the edge, and Doug scrambled to safety, but not before gathering those few scraps of bone that had lured him to his near death. Upon inspection, we decided the bones belonged to a marmot. A helicopter crossed over Monte Cristo Pass and disappeared in the gully between Monte Cristo and Kyes Peaks.
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| Approaching Kyes Peak |
We plodded up the snowfield to a saddle in the summit ridge, then traversed a gravelly ridge and shelf around to the summit snowfields. This was the scariest part of the climb. It was easy, but we were walking on ball-bearing gravel that threatened to roll out from under our feet, like walking on marbles. A slip here would result in a painful slide down and over a cliff into a deep moat. Once past this slope, the climbing was much easier. A steep snow slope led to the ridge crest. From there it was gentle snow hiking and rock scrambling to the base of the summit rocks. We were up in the clouds again, unable to see more than a hundred feet in any direction. The summit rocks loomed in the distance, phantom shadows in the mist. A helicopter passed close overhead. The thundering of its rotors was disconcertingly near. The chopper descended into the chasm on the other side of the ridge. Then it was quiet.
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| Scrambling to the summit of Kyes Peak |
The summit scramble was uneventful. Leaving the snowfields, we scrambled up easy ledges and corners, then up a gravelly slab to the ridge, crest. This was real scrambling, finally. The rock seemed solid, and the moves were interesting, but so easy that it took only minutes to gain the summit ridge. A narrow ledge led to a final rock step. I already had the summit register open when Doug arrived. We sat there, gazing out into the fog, unable to see anything but diffuse light and shadows. The sound of helicopters echoed in the void below us. They seemed to be hovering now, two of them. We could only guess that they had spotted something down there. We knew what it might be.
On the descent, we realized that perhaps we had overestimated the simplicity of the summit climb. On the way up, the scramble had seemed easy. Going down, we moved slowly, laboring over every move, wary now of the quantity of loose gravel on every ledge, of the steepness of the face, of the exposure. Perhaps we were merely unnerved by the lack of visibility, of the eerie aspect of the descent into suddenly unfamiliar terrain, or our thoughts about the helicopters hovering above a dead climber's remains so nearby. Whatever it was, we inched downward with exaggerated care, retracing our route until at last we had reached the safety of the snowfield and could plod downward at ease. There was little joy in it now. We spoke little on the descent. The helicopters still hovered over Monte Cristo Peak. We turned our backs and departed.
A memorial page for Michael Wessels has been established by the University of Washington Department of Environmental Health.