Anderson Butte
April 13
By Ryan Budnick
I tell friends one of the things I like about the mountains is that on every trip you learn something new, sometimes through observations, sometimes by just thinking while on that 10-mile approach, other times by stupidity, like falling through a snow bridge into a creek.
This winter as some of you can attest to, I’ve had a slight obsession with getting up Welker Peak. Mind you it’s not a very impressive summit to achieve, more so it wasn’t so much that peak in general but more of an excuse to get myself out of the apartment and do something when the weather might be, well, Washington-like.
Twice I had made plans to head up there. Twice Tasha and I met people to do it. And twice we wound up climbing around on the bouldering wall in our bedroom instead. So while at the Mount Erie class, I hit up some people to see if they might be interested in what would be my final attempt, weather be damned. The more-seasoned climber knew better and remembered, summer will get here sometime. But maybe Steve Trent is just as off-kiltered as myself and agreed to go. He also talked his friend Sandy into coming as well.
So the next morning slightly groggy from not getting much sleep the previous two nights, we’re driving up the Anderson-Watson Lakes Road. We stopped at 2,900 feet at some patchy snow and began getting ready under a steady rain. At this time I realized that we drove past the Anderson Creek drainage and we would need to backtrack 500 vertical feet to start our bushwhack. Considering there was no snow coverage at this point other than on the packed-down road, a wet and very green bushwhack did not seem to savory. So up we walked (Steve skiing, having brought his AT setup) the road figuring we’d just get some exercise. Well before long, the three of us, as well as Steve’s dogs Angus and Sky saw Anderson Butte, something both Steve and I had done before, but I only on the trail in the summer. It seemed like an objective, but nothing serious, if we got it, we got it.
Sooner still we found ourselves at the base of Anderson Butte. We climbed higher than the freezing level on our trudge up and were no longer getting rained on. Also the snow was so packed, there was no need to use the snowshoes. Well we brought the bloody things let’s put them to use. On they went, and finding a suitable route, I began the up the steep forest, until we interested another snowmobiling route and slightly-easier travel.
Looking at a pair of northwest-facing couloirs leading up to the false summit, we saw recent avy debris and we made our way up more steep forest. Poor Sandy. In my sick sense, I picked the steepest slopes, 45-50 degrees, and satisfied my addiction to kick-stepping. And since I broke trail, she followed. But she did wonderful for being a San Diego native. After about 900 feet of some fun steep snow we found ourselves at a small col, 80 feet short of the summit rocks, but greeted with deteriorating weather and pseudo-white out conditions.
Proud of our high point, we toasted on some 150 proof rum Steve brought (and which kept me warm all the way back to the truck) and headed down.
So what did I learn? I learned that in certain weather, you’re going to get wet no matter what you wear. And also, that sometimes the objective isn’t what you climb.