sept 08 Newsletter

Skagit Alpine Club mission statement: "To promote the use and prevent the abuse of outdoor recreation areas"....SAC Articles of Incorporation

Our very own program coordinator, Jason Griffith, will present about climbing in the Northern and Southern Picketts. You may see some familiar faces in his photos!

Here's a big thank you to the folks who participated in the August 9, 2008 Park Butte Work Party – Ginny Darvill, Paul and Laurie Sherman, Peggy Ratermann and her niece, Annie, Lynn Postler and Sancho, Gabby Riggs, Debby, Brian, Lisa and Emily Peterman and Matt Ziegler. The weather was rainy and cold but that didn't dampen the spirits of this great group. The rain may have kept us from doing any outside paint touch ups, but our most important reason for heading up to the Lookout was accomplished. We mounted the plaque honoring and remembering Fred Darvill, Jr., MD., the first President of the Skagit Alpine Club and the long time steward along with his wife, Ginny, of the Park Butte Lookout and the Hidden Lake Lookout. We shared a nostalgic time remembering Fred and all that he did for the Lookout.

The group also fixed the door latch, changed the generator on the Coleman Stove and work was started on epoxying some wood rot on a window sill. We plan to get back to the Lookout on a sunny day and finish the window sill and do some touch up painting on the railings. If anyone gets up there and is looking for something to do, we brought up a quart of Primer and quart of exterior Platinum Gray Paint. Both quarts are labeled with a black marking pen. Let us know if any of you get up to Lookout.

1. Hiking Through History In Northern Spain
October 12 - 28th, 2008 submitted by Janell Werner

Hike the famous Camino de Santiago trail beginning at Burgos and finishing at
the Cathedral in Santiago. We hike the most scenic and interesting parts of
the trail.

Call Helen Hansen, 503-254-9465 for information and application. Come join us,
a mazama outing. www.mazamas.org

2. Little Mountain Trail Work Party! Saturday September 13th. Come join us on Fred and Ginny Darvill's trail on Little Mountain. We will be building a turnpike, pulling ivy, and general trail maintenance. Bring raingear, tools, and a lunch. We will meet at Ginny's house at 8:30 AM. For more details contact Lynn at sancho999@comcast.net or call 428-4237.

3. PACIFIC NORTHWEST TRAIL ASSOCIATION GOTOBUTTON BM_1_ Http://www.pnt.org 24854 Charles Jones Memorial Circle #4, Sedro-Woolley WA 98284 360-854-9415

Want to do some trail work? No matter where you work, wear long pants, have work gloves, have plenty of fluids to drink, and bring a lunch. Each person working will have to sign a liability release form. Parents or guardians of those under 18 must sign for the minor.

For information call 360-424-0407 anytime up until 8 a.m. the morning of the work party. Tools will be provided--hazel hoes, loppers, McLeods, Pulaskis, chain saws, brush cutters. You may bring your own tools if you wish.

If you can only work until noon, please call ahead to see if the work site will be conducive to your leaving early. Sometimes we will be working behind locked gates or far up logging roads and it would not be convenient for people to leave early.

Meeting place is the Cook Road Park-n-Ride, exit 232 from I-5 north of Burlington. Exit the freeway, turn right and then immediately turn right onto Old Highway 99. We meet across the street from the 76 gas station. Meeting time is 8:15 a.m.

GENERAL TRAIL WORK

2008 Skagit Trail work schedule for April through October

Trail work will be done on the FIRST and THIRD Saturday of each month

April 5 and 19 August 2 and 16

May 3 and 17 September 6 and 20

June 7 (National Trails Day) and 21 October 4 and 18

July 5 and 19

It has long been a goal, nay, a lifetime dream of mine to climb every peak in the Repulsive 69. The Repulsive 69 is a list of the sixty-nine most obscure and unappealing peaks in the Cascades. Inclusion in any “Selected” or “Classic” guidebook is an automatic disqualifier for this list. No one has completed the Repulsive 69, as two of its peaks are as yet unclimbed. As far as the race for completion goes, Dallas (aka Obi Wan) has a comfortable lead with sixty some odd. Scott (aka The Moat Master) is a distant second with twenty-twoish. I am unsure of the exact number, he keeps his count secret. Jason (aka Snaffle Bait) is in the running with nineteen. I am trailing the pack with a measly fifteen. Jill (aka Dr. Jill) has climbed twelve, but she has a lot of spare time and could easily catch me. I needed a few of the grand boys ticked this weekend to pad my lead over Jill and gain on Scott.

I pulled out the cell phone and started calling prospective climbing partners. What would it be this weekend? Seapho Peak? Berge Mountain? Canadian Border Peak? Or the ever-elusive South Hozomeen? Damn caller ID. Ever since I set my sights on completing this list, most of my regular partners won’t answer the phone anymore. Just when I was ready to give up, the phone rang. Caller ID listed Scott. “Wanna go climbing this weekend?” he asked. “What, couldn’t find anyone else?” I retorted. “Shut up and be at my house at seven AM, and make sure that you are not followed”, was the answer. “Where are we going?” I inquired. “I’ll tell you on the way. I have an FA route scouted on one of the 69”.
An FA on one of the 69! This would be our golden ticket to Cascade mountaineering history! I could hardly contain myself. I arrived bright and early at Scott’s place packed to the gills for anything. “Lose the rock shoes.” he said. What was I thinking? This was one of the Repulsive 69, not exactly known for their quality rock. Once out of cell range, he finally revealed the objectives, Meulefire and Indecision, with the added possibility of Little Johannesburg or Repulse! This would be an epic weekend indeed!

After a quick march over Easy Pass and up Fisher Basin to the Silent Lakes, we dropped our packs and ran up Fisher Peak. To enjoyable for inclusion in our list! The next day we set out for the crown jewels of Grizzly Basin, Indecision and Meulefire. We summited Arriva to check out our prospective route, the North Ridge on Meulefire. The ridge looked good, but getting on it looked difficult. Too many gendarmes and notches. Well, we would have to get this mighty one via the dog route.

After traversing down heather slopes to Grizzly Basin, the real business on Meulefire began. We started climbing what quickly became fourth-class scorist. For the uninitiated, scorist is a combination of forest and blocky scree that is common on sub-alpine slopes in the Cascades. Scorist has ratings from class one to class five, and further gradations reaching 5.9. The rating system is quite similar to the commonly used YDS. I watched Scott pull a figure eight over a u-shaped fir tree, spraying needles everywhere. “Nice move!” I yelled. After the scorist, we emerged to a seemingly never ending field of steep heather interspersed with steps of unusually shattered rock balanced precariously at their angle of max repose.

We finally reached the summit ridge and followed to a notch just NE of the summit. Beckey says one lead of 5.2 to the summit. Who needs rock shoes for 5.2? And what exactly is 5.2? Well, in exploring my low fifth-class boundaries, my grade-inflated head was certainly wishing for some sticky rubber! The next 30 meters were enjoyable climbing on surprisingly solid rock! I guess that it can’t all be bad. We topped out and looked over at Indecision. To our untrained eyes, the summits looked to be the same height. A ten-minute scramble took us to the top of Indecision. The last entry in the summit log was from Roger Jung, on a solo traverse from Fisher in 2003.

Joe and Joan Firey and John and Irene Meulemans made the first ascent of Meulefire in July of 1966. However, Indecision, the higher peak according to Beckey, was not climbed until 1972. The question arises, why didn’t the Firey and Meulemans crew, who were prodigious peak baggers and FAers in their day, climb both peaks when the other summit was only ten minutes away? Beckey’s guide lists Meulefire as a lower sub-summit of Indecision massif. Perhaps this is comeuppance for the Fireys and Meulemans, who nabbed the first ascent of Arriva the day prior in 1966, when Beckey and crew had climbed the slightly lower East Peak in 1940.

After a rap off the summit, and an interminable steep scree, slab, and heather down climb, we got lucky and rapped through the scorist to Grizzly Basin. The next day, unable to recall what the traverse to from Fisher to Repulse looked like, we climbed Fisher again. It would certainly be a coup to pull off on ascent of Repulse, the namesake of the Repulsive 69! The traverse had been done the opposite direction by Roger Jung back in 2003, but it was too involved for us on our last day. Oh well, this is how the ball bounces when you are bagging the big boys. We decided to get Little Johannesburg on the way out.

But like so many of these Repulsive climbs, the mountain had other ideas. On the traverse down to Fisher Basin, Scott slipped and took out a chunk of his palm on a talus block. We limped our way back over Easy Pass under the scornful gaze of Little Johannesburg and to the car for some warm beer. Little Johannesburg patiently awaits our eventual return and conquest. Another two of the proud giants vanquished, and my list closer to completion!