July 29 – August 1, 2004

MID-SUMMER OUTING NO. 2:  AMERICAN CHILLIWACK MOUNTAINS

Mt. Redoubt & Mt. Spickard Climbing Trip

Monument 65
Depot Creek Falls
Ouzel Lake
Redoubt Glacier
Mount Redoubt (8969′)
Mount Spickard (8979′)

Trip Report Summary

Region: Northwestern Washington Cascades

Sub-Region: American Chilliwack Mountains

Area: North Cascades National Park

Starting & Ending Point: Depot Creek Road washout

Way Points: Monument 65 & Lower Depot Creek & Depot Creek Falls & Depot Creek Meadow & Upper Depot Creek & Ouzel Lake (road hike & trail hike & rock scramble)

Campsites: Ouzel Lake & Depot Creek Meadow

Summit: Mt. Redoubt (ascent & descent via Redoubt Glacier—South Couloir—Southwest Shoulder—Southwest Chimneys—Cannonhole—Upper East Face)

Summit: Mt. Spickard (ascent & descent via Southwest Glacier—South Slope—Southeast Slope—Southwest Ridge)

Approximate Stats: 25 miles traveled; 11,300 feet gained & lost.

Full Trip Report

For our second annual Mid-Summer Climbing Trip, Jon, Eric, Ryan, and I headed way up north to attempt Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Spickard.  We had been admiring these twin giants of the American Chilliwack Mountains from various viewpoints during the past year, and their allure was strong.  Even though they are often climbed in three days, and sometimes in only two days, we allotted four days so as to better savor the whole package.

Our mountain trips have generally emphasized socializing, photography, flexibility, and caution over speed and rigid scheduling.  In this spirit, wake-up alarms are often ignored, breakfasts frequently run long, ill-timed jocularity is encouraged, and the potential for any short break (such as to apply sunscreen or don crampons) to result in a 45-minute discussion on physics or philosophy is tacitly accepted.  This year, Ryan decided to take this free-form spirit one step further by wearing a microphone to digitally record strategic portions of our trip!

Day 1 – Depot Creek Road to Ouzel Lake:

After crossing the border into British Columbia and heading east to the Chilliwack Lake Road, our first challenge was to find the Depot Creek Road and the start of the climbers’ path.  We followed directions from various sources and found them to be helpful but not crystal clear.  The key turned out to be staying on the Chilliwack Lake Road for about 30 miles until encountering a yellow-painted steel bridge that is both gated and blockaded (obviously, someone doesn’t want you crossing here!).

This bridge spans Depot Creek and is about 100 yards beyond the unmarked Depot Creek Road, which forks to the left.  We were initially misled by the unmarked Paleface Creek Road, which also forks to the left about a mile before the correct road.  Paleface Creek can be identified by tandem bridges, one of which is also yellow-painted steel.  As we found out, it would be an error to head up this first road.

Depot Creek Road is very rough and heavily overgrown.  I needed four-wheel-drive to get over several rocky areas, and I will be needing a new clear-coat finish on my vehicle as a result of crashing through the branches.  Progress came to a sudden halt after 1.7 miles, due to a major washout.  We parked and started walking up the sandy road for about 9 minutes until encountering an inconspicuous spur road heading up to the left.

We then followed this spur for about 4 minutes until coming to a T junction, at which point we turned right and walked down an extremely overgrown and sporadically muddy road for 35 minutes.  This brought us to the international border (0.8 hours from car), clearly marked by an obelisk (Monument 65) and a North Cascades National Park trailhead box.  We had to chuckle at the incongruity of finding a permit registration book way out here, at the end of an abandoned Canadian logging road!

On the American side, the route up Depot Creek follows something that could be described as either a crude trail or a nice climbers’ path.  It appears that this route was maintained as a trail up until a decade or so ago;  hundreds of logs have been cut out, but dozens of newer logs remain uncut.  Nonetheless, travel is generally easy and quite pleasant in this mossy old-growth forest.  After about 3 miles, we came upon the famed Depot Creek Falls (2.8 hours from car), which consist of an upper plunge that dog-legs into a long waterslide.  Despite all the raves we had heard and read, we unanimously felt that this waterfall far exceeded its reputation;  the word “spectacular” truly applies here!

Implausibly, the path (it could no longer be considered a trail beyond this point) ascends slippery boulders and slabs across the base of the waterfall, only a few yards from the roaring froth.

We appreciated the cooling mist on this sweltering afternoon, as did we appreciate the fixed ropes that had been placed at two vertical steps.

The path continues up steep forest alongside the amazing waterslide, then veers away and follows a steep, narrow talus band.  Eventually, we popped over the lip and entered a flat meadow, passing a small campsite along the way.  The path led us leftward over to the toe of a talus slope and then along this slope for a ways before disappearing in the broad washout plain of upper Depot Creek.  We hopped over cobbles and boulders until reaching Ouzel Lake, where we established camp on a flat sandbar (6.0 hours from car).  I was quite pleased that our entire route from border to lake was virtually brush-free.

Taking quick advantage of the waning sunlight, we all enjoyed a double-dip in the frigid lake.  It became a test of will power to see who could go underwater without emerging in full scream!  While warming up afterwards and waiting for dinner to cook, Jon produced one of his trademark food offerings: buttered garlic bread.  His other trademark food offering is an 18-inch-long summer sausage, but this would not appear until later in the trip.

Day 2 – Mt. Redoubt Summit Climb:

We awoke to low clouds that truncated the summit of Mt. Redoubt.  This was surprising, since the weather forecast called for nothing but clear, sunny weather all weekend.  Banking on mid-day clearing, we felt justified in having a leisurely breakfast and not leaving camp until 7:30am.  We were stopped in our tracks only minutes later by the lake outlet, which did not seem to allow a dry crossing point.  In a scene reminiscent of a Monty Python skit, we all tromped back through camp and walked around the head of the lake.  Steady progress resumed thereafter as we scrambled easy rock steps and slabs to the Redoubt Glacier snout (0.9 hours from camp).

We used a rope and crampons for the mile-long walk up the expansive yet gentle glacier.  The famous “flying buttress” on Redoubt’s south ridge provided an unmistakable landmark for navigation, and soon we reached a jagged ridge at the glacier’s head.  Ryan dropped his pack and demonstrated a reasonably solid Class 3-4 scramble route to the ridge notch;  the rest of us followed with packs.

From the notch (3.0 hours from camp), we descended loose rubble and then traversed firm snow northwestward, crossing underneath the massive buttress.  Visibility above was poor, so we had trouble deciding where to head up.  The second snow gully beyond the buttress looked somewhat promising, so we climbed that until entering a large snow bowl below a menacing cliff.  It was impossible to tell where the summit was, due to the lingering fog and the complexity of the summit ridge.  The only definite route feature we knew of—a so-called “cannon hole”—was nowhere to be seen.

Having read in several photocopied descriptions (all of which I had absent-mindedly left in camp) that the standard route trends to the left, we angled leftward up the snow bowl and continued onto a broad talus ridge.  At this point, we were greatly puzzled as to our next move;  none of us recalled any reference to such a feature, and the cliffs ahead seemed to offer no feasible scramble route.  Group morale hit bottom as our options faded away.  Out of frustration, I suggested that we simply push straight up as far as possible, then re-evaluate the situation.  I was hoping for a lark but truly feared that we might be hopelessly off course.

Upon reaching the base of the big cliff, we could discern a rightward-ascending ramp, which matched a description that Eric had photocopied (thankfully, he remembered to bring his).  This ramp showed evidence of foot traffic, and it led easily to a series of steep Class 2-3 gullies and chimneys.  Expectantly, I kept scrambling upward until my eyes beheld a most wonderful sight:  the cannonhole!  Actually, it is more of a “cannon slot,” but who cares?  Jon, Ryan, and Eric quickly joined me and then continued up toward a chockstone that divides the cannonhole into two separate holes.

Both holes are fairly large, and contrary to our preconceived notions, we could see that no lubrication would be needed to squeeze through them.  I came last with the rope tied over my shoulders, expecting to set up a belay to the chockstone.  However, my partners’ zeal propelled them up before I could catch them.

In fact, Eric was so overcome with zeal that he had already scampered up the final exposed Class 4 rock face by the time I reached the chockstone!

He let out whoops of glee upon seeing the summit cairn only 10 yards away.  Within minutes, we were all perched on the compact summit horn (6.0 hours from camp).

Clouds continued to blow in from the west, obscuring our views in that direction, but the sky was mostly blue to the east.  Mt. Spickard, our next day’s objective, stood proudly across the Ouzel Lake basin.

Three of us could see our campsite beside the lake.  We snacked on German cookies (in honor of an awol German cohort) and perused the summit register, which indicated about four or five ascents per year.

After a glorious hour on top, we began a careful descent.  This involved a belayed downclimb of the upper Class 4 face, an aided downclimb below the chockstone (there is a fixed sling here), a single rappel down the highest chimney, and some one-person-at-a-time scrambling down the loose gullies.

Later, while descending the glacier, Eric mentioned that “redoubt” comes from a French word meaning “fortification” or “fortress.”  Mt. Redoubt most certainly does look like a fortress from this perspective, owing to its turret-like rock towers, vertical facades, crenellated summit crest, and flying buttress.  Why, it even has a cannonhole, probably resulting from some ancient siege!  We arrived back in camp by early evening, with just enough sunlight for a double-dip in the lake.

Day 3 – Mt. Spickard Summit Climb & Partial Exit:

Unlike the previous morning, we awoke to completely blue skies that unconditionally promised a gorgeous day on Mt. Spickard.  Our climbing route took us straight up a broad talus couloir and stream drainage toward the Silver Lake saddle, then rightward across heather and moraine slopes to the Southwest Glacier.

We donned crampons here because the glacier had frozen overnight.  Although this glacier seems to be treated as nothing more than a snowfield by many climbers, we roped up and put on crevasse gear.  I led up along the right-hand edge, which consisted of hard, 30- to 40-degree snow/ice slopes that offered perfect cramponing conditions and only a few crevasses.

About halfway up, we had to cross one inhospitable-looking crevasse on a marginal snow bridge, so our use of a rope became justified.  A short but steep and loose rock gully at the glacier’s head took us to a low col in the southwest ridge (2.5 hours from camp).

We descended 50 feet of rubble to a south-facing snowfield, then traversed due east to a sandy gully that handily took us to the mountain’s large southeast slope.  From there, we kicked steps up a steepening snowfield (35 degrees at top) until the snow gave way to a series of short gullies, chimneys, and rock ribs (Class 2-3) ending at a high notch in the southwest ridge.

Only then did the summit present itself.  In an unexpected and interesting twist, the route crossed over to the western side of the crest, finishing with a short traverse above a remnant snowpatch and then an easy scramble up a steep scree chute.  We all topped out by 11:30am (4.2 hours from camp).

The clear weather showed us what views we had missed from the summit of Redoubt.  Everything from Mt. Baker to Glacier Peak was visible today.  To the east, Castle Peak sat squarely in the gunsight-like “V” formed by the two peaks of Hozomeen Mountain (I love that sort of chance alignment!).

The summit register dated back to 1993 and, not surprisingly, repeated many of the names we’d seen in Redoubt’s register.  One notable entry was by Pete Schoening and Cliff Leight in 1995, with a memorial reference to someone named “Spick”;  we presumed this to mean Warren Spickard himself.

After spending a good 90 minutes on top, we reluctantly headed down, retracing our steps back to camp.  The mandatory double-dip in Ouzel Lake was our first order of business, followed by a debate over whether to stay put a third night or move camp down to the meadow.

Moving camp won out by a slim margin, so we packed up and hiked down to the little campsite near the top of Depot Creek Falls.  This put us an hour closer to the car and gave us a better view of Mt. Redoubt but (quite surprisingly) did not come at the expense of more mosquitoes.

Day 4 – Depot Creek Meadow Camp to Depot Creek Road:

We broke camp at 7:00am and had a fairly relaxed hike back to the car (4.0 hours from camp).  Our only excitement came at the base of the falls, where we had to “batman” down the slippery rock step.  Upon reaching Chilliwack Lake, we stopped for our now-customary swim.

During the long drive home, we all reflected on our wonderful alpine adventure, which Eric summarized in two words:  flagrantly bodacious!  As a kicker, Ryan rigged up his tape recorder to my car’s stereo system and replayed audio excerpts from the previous three days.  He also promised to turn these excerpts into a “trailer” to wet our appetite for next year’s adventure.  We can hardly wait.

Photo Gallery

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