Morning Trail Run

Climbing at G1 w/Stefan

Mt Huron w/Homie

Climbing at G1w w/ Stefan and Sheryl

Green Mountain Loop

This is the second adventure this year where my wake-up alarm has gone off before I even went to bed. Both trips have been with Derek.

Derek put the idea of Mt. Goode into my mind. It was a long adventure with a long alpine ridge rated 5.6. Alpine climbing at a moderate grade (for me, that is 5.8 and easier) has become my sweet spot, though my window for trips this long is rapidly closing. Mt. Goode is the highest peak in North Cascades National Park, yet it is not visible from any road. To bag this peak by any route involves over 11,000 of vertical gain and nearly 40 miles of travel. My buddy Ryan, the Little Monster, did the peak just ten days ago, over three days — the standard method. Doing it this way, you’d do a 10-mile approach/de-approach, but that still leaves a monstrous summit day. We elected to go for it “in a push”, hoping to break 24 hours and complete the GIAD.

Why make a hard thing so much harder? Time, for one thing. We saw that Sunday had a great weather report, but not on Saturday. I had to fly out Monday afternoon, so even though it was sort of forced upon us, it was really our desire to give it a try. To see if we could do it. We both carried tiny emergency bivy bags, just in case we couldn’t keep going and needed to sleep.

We drove to the trailhead Saturday night, with a stop for pizza for dinner…and breakfast and lunch on Sunday. The alarm went off at 2 a.m. My bag was covered in dew (I was sleeping on the ground while Derek slept in the back of his car), and it was 46 degrees. I hopped into the car to change into shorts and eat breakfast. We started up the car to warm us up before heading off, which we did at 2:30 a.m.

We covered the first ten miles quickly, in around three hours, as it was mostly downhill. This was all on the Pacific Crest Trail. There, we turned off on the North Fork trail. Soon after making this turn, we could shut off the headlamps. Five miles later, with one dicey stream crossing on a super slick log, we were below the 4-star Northeast Ridge of Goode. We took off our shoes and forded the creek, using poles to stabilize ourselves. The crossing wasn’t as bad as I expected. I have very wimpy feet and have suffered some seriously cold crossings in Canada. This was relatively short and, while it hurt my feet, it was a cuss-free crossing.

On the other side, we ate and loaded up on water for the climb. Loading up on water was a mistake, as there was tons of water above us, but we were still strong at this point in the day. Heck, we’d only done 15 miles and not much vert. The latter would change in a hurry. The summit was six thousand feet directly above us. Derek led us up the talus, slabs, scrambles, and an incredibly dense brush section. It was a grind, but we did it nonstop. We would not take a sit-down break until the summit, 11 hours into our day.

We donned harnesses and crampons at the toe of the glacier. We were both in running shoes. Derek in Mutants and I in Prodigo Pros. We got out our rack (singles to #1 - 0.2, with doubles of 0.3 and 0.2, plus a single ice screw and a picket) and roped up. We carried the screw and the picket as a “leaver” gear. We thought we might have to rappel down into the randkluft (this is a new word for me that I learned from Ryan) gap between the glacier and the rock and then climb out of it. 

I led up and across the glacier, trepidatious about what I’d find on the far side. My soft shoes precluded any step kicking, and eventually I had to swing the pick of my ultra-light axe for purchase as the axe shaft wasn’t penetrating enough. The first possibility looked terrifying, and I moved up to the only other crossing. Here, I was elated to find that the edge of the glacier had collapsed into the gap and formed an easy bridge connecting me to the rock and the Northeast Buttress. I put in a couple of pieces and brought Derek up.

Next, I led rightwards, trying to get to the buttress proper. The rock here was a bit rotten, and tons of loose blocks covered the terrain. I explored a couple of options before finally piecing it together. I arrived right at a small ledge with some rappel slings. After Derek joined me, I led off again on our first block of simul-climbing.

The summit of Mt. Goode is listed at 9200+ feet. We gained the rock at around 6800 feet. We carried just a single 40-meter rope per Ryan’s suggestion. Shout out to Ryan for his advice on the rope, rack, footwear, and general strategy. And to Danny for lending me his rope. 

Once on the buttress, the rock became much better. The first hundred feet of my block was super solid granite at a gentle angle and peppered with small dikes and jugs. It was like an alpine Flatiron, only easier. I led until I ran out of gear and belayed at 7400 feet. Derek took over and did a brilliant link, getting us to 7950, also stopping when he ran out of gear. We had three Micros with us, and Derek would place all three. I usually just placed two and then used the third to belay Derek up. My second block gained us another 400 feet, and then Derek led to 8700 feet. My last block got us to the start of the descent traverse at 9000 feet. We dumped the packs here and the rope! Dumping the latter might not have been the best choice, as the climbing to the summit was amongst the hardest on the route. We passed three rappel anchors on the way to the summit. I think I misinterpreted Ryan’s comment about dumping the packs to dumping everything. It all worked out, but I was supremely focused on the way back down, as was Derek.

We took maybe 15 minutes on the summit. Derek finished off the pizza he was carrying, and I ate one of the sandwiches I was carrying. I carried a tremendous amount of food and, between the two of us, we ate most of it before returning to the trailhead. We were also drinking on a schedule. I had set an alarm to drink every 10 minutes when I Everested Flagstaff, and it worked so well that I used the same technique on this day, only I set the alarm for every 30 minutes. This worked out well, and neither of us ever bonked and moved well the entire day. The limiting factor for both us, by the end of the day, was our feet, which were starting to blister and get very uncomfortable.

Once back at our packs, we roped up for the exposed and scary-looking, though not-too-bad traverse to the Black Tooth Col, where we’d do our first rappel. I led on the way down, doing a 20-meter rappel (the full length of our doubled 40-meter rope) down a loose corner to another anchor. Here, we knew we couldn’t go straight down, as it required a 60-meter rope. I rappelled, skier’s left, down a loose (this is going to be the theme for us for the next four hours) gully. At the bottom, I didn’t find any anchors, and very steep, loose terrain below me. I descended a bit and then traversed, skier’s right, all the way across the steep wall we didn’t rappel down. This was exposed, but easy-going. At the end of the traverse, I had to down climb an exposed slab, but it went okay, and I found myself at an old rappel anchor. I encouraged Derek to follow my path, and he started down.

The anchor I arrived at consisted of a rusted pin, buried and looked solid, connected to a well-placed nut with a rusted cable. We backed up that anchor with another sling and a black totem, unweighted, for my descent. Derek then pulled our gear and followed me down. We were now in the 3rd-class, loose gully, and this descent went smoothly. Once out of the gully, we descended at about 1000 feet of talus with the top couple of hundred feet being very loose and then pretty solid. We followed Ryan’s track and traversed hard skier’s right. I used to be able to match Derek walking on talus. I’m not even close now. But he’s a patient guy.

Finally,  off the talus we found a faint “trail” down very steep, grassy slopes. We stayed on this trail mainly by following the track, as it was so faintly defined. This terrain was very slippery, and I fell at least ten times on the descent, but didn’t hurt anything besides my pride. Derek was more surefooted, but even he slipped many times. It was 5000 feet down to the real trail, and the bottom, flatter section was probably even worse, as it was covered in deadfall, and any sign of a trail disappeared.

We were very thankful to be down onto a trail and knew that we just had simple hiking to complete our adventure. But it was 5:30 p.m. and we still had 18.5 miles and 3000 feet of climbing to go. We got to the PCT around 7:15 p.m. and still had 5 miles to complete just the loop portion of our day, back to the North Fork junction. We had headlamps on before we got there, but took a short break to eat and take some Advil. My knees were pushed to their limits on the huge descent and ached, but my feet were the most uncomfortable.

At 9:30 p.m., we started the last 9.5-mile section. Here we finally succumbed to headphones. We had exhausted our capacity for conversation. Derek would pull ahead of me here, but never too far. He was always within hearing of my 30-minute drink alarm. He’d stop and we’d help each other retrieve our water bottles from the back of our packs. 

With one mile to go, Derek stopped again, just to let me catch up. Then, with just a tenth of a mile to go, he ushered me in front, ensuring that we’d finish this adventure as we started: together.

I don’t need to tell many of the likely readers of this report how great of a partner Derek is. Sure, I’m biased, but every one of his partners will say the same thing. Derek is rock solid on the route finding, leading, rappelling, and being safe. Those are requirements of my partners. But Derek adds his ability to carry the majority of the weight, be indefatigable, always remain positive, and patient and kind towards his partner. And with me, a nice dose of love. These days I only want to climb with partners I love. Derek’s at the top of my list. 

Each time I write up a report like this I wonder how long I’ll be a viable choice of an adventure partner for Derek. With Derek’s kindness and strength, I think it will be me, not him, who turns down a joint adventure. It will be me realizing what he has in mind is too much for me. I’m on the ragged edge now.

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Bill Wright

GIAD -- Mt. Goode, Northeast Buttress w/Derek

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Morning Trail Run

Climbing at G1 w/Stefan

Mt Huron w/Homie

Climbing at G1w w/ Stefan and Sheryl

Green Mountain Loop

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