Trip Report: Ptarmigan Traverse	...back to home

Ptarmigan Traverse by Wade Bassett Completing long-awaited goals can lead to that relaxed feeling that lacks of need to do something “big” for a while. It’s been two weeks since Will Guckenburg, Steve Trent, Andy “Digger” Gorzola, and I stepped out of the wild land between Cascade Pass and the Suiattle River Road known by all Cascade Mountain climbers as the Ptarmigan Traverse. Well, the malaise is nearly over. Sometime soon I’ll feel the need to go climbing again without regard for weather reports, ominous events, or comfort. After all, the traverse did produce a wealth of laughs, stunning vistas, excellent cuisine, and a wonderful camaraderie that will linger for a long, long time. The difficult parts of the trip are becoming fond memories, so it’s time to write them down and move on (after one more Saturday night of wine and comfort, of course). The idea to do the Ptarmigan Traverse was hatched about a year ago when Will and I were discussing his move to San Antonio. Now, for anyone who thinks that San Antonio is a good place to prepare one’s mind and body to climb in the Cascades, give Will a call and ask him about what you can expect for results. If not for his will power (and our expectation that he to continue to suffer with us and carry some group gear)he would not have finished. Will is aptly named. Steve was immediately enthralled with the traverse idea as well as all the peaks along the way. Andy came aboard due to Steve’s recommendation and by mention of his superior digging skills. ‘Digger’ previously worked as a grave-digger when he was a teenager. These skills paid off during a serious downpour. When small rivers were flowing through our floorless tent (Kiva), he jumped out, shirtless, into the dark saying, “Ok guys, I’m going digging” and created a marvelous ditch. We believe his performance was not due so much to heroism not to save us from a soaking, but for a post-dig hot chocolate and Bacardi 151. Ok, back to the trip report… We decided to do a 7 - 8 day trip with the primary goal to simply to finish the traverse, but with hopes of climbing 4-6 nice peaks along the way including Mixup, Formidible, LaConte, Spire Point, Dome, and finish with a 5.6 route on the SW face of Gunsight. In reflection I’m very satisfied have done the traverse, climbed Mixup, reaching the east peak of Formidible (the west peak is the true summit about 100 feet higher), never seeing the top 500 feet of LeConte, climbing one pitch up the 5.6 route on the NE face in rain, hail, and in boots, seeing parts of Dome in the clouds from a distance, and having absorbed the breathtaking view of Gunsight and other peaks from the stunning campsite near White Rock Lakes. Friday: Our plan was an easy day of dropping off a car at the Downey Creek trailhead, driving to Cascade Pass, and hiking to either Cache Col. However, we forgot to plan for a crazed 18 year old driving a big white 4-door Dodge sedan like he was on “The Dukes of Hazard”. The result was Steve’s car on it’s side in the ditch. Over the next 8 hours the kid was caught and let off with a ticket for driving without insurance (what the sheriff deputy thought would stick in court - how? what? eh?), and we were thankful to escape unscathed. Saturday: We left the Cascade Pass trailhead at about 10 am and quickly humped out 60-70 lb packs with bowed heads and inward thoughts. We lunched at the often visited pass in a slight breeze. It really is an excellent view and my first time there. I was surprised by the lack of mosquitoes, black flies, and deer flies. We met a park ranger and he quickly described the recent failures of several parties in recent weeks to make it more than two nights into the traverse; an accident (a big gash on the arm of a person who fell I somewhere around the Spider-Formidable Col) turned one group around and foul weather did in the rest. What a nice guy to have done his best to instill confidence in us that we would have a safe, fun, and successful trip! The climber’s route began here, ascending quickly to the ridge with a high-stepped narrow trench and then traversing the mountainside through snow and rock fields. We dropped packs on the fairly flat snowfield directly below Gunsight notch at about 2 pm and climbed the sleep snow to the first pitch. We brought only a single rope for the four of us since the route description called for a short 4th class section at the beginning and end of the route. Fourth class my butt! Those two pitches are a good 5.4. Between these two pitches is a wonderful 3rd class scramble well described by Becky as “a wide staircase with considerable route flexibility”. It did take a long time to make it back to the packs at about 8:15 due to several rappels. It was now 8:15, beginning to rain as it would to some extent each night of the trip, and “Digger” began to dig us in for a moist sleep. Sunday: Morning drizzle. Who wants to pack up in the rain and get everything wet? That day provided plenty of practice route-finding and traversing in rain or whiteout conditions. The practice continued in the three days to come. Getting to Kool-Aid Lake seemed to take longer than it should have, but soon we were filling up water bottles from a clear trickle on the rocks nearby. The first “crux” of the traverse appeared not long afterwards and we easily stepped up the steep snow to the Red Ledge and walked the precipitous boot track without incident. A couple of hours later we found ourselves at what we thought was the Spider-Formidable col. Just before descending, Steve pulled out the route description and corrected what could have been a very bad mistake. We were actually at what Becky describes as “the most obvious” col and had to backtrack 100 yards east to the proper one. The decent was a bit hairy in the poor conditions (raining, hard snow beneath two inches of wet mushy snow from the previous night) and we down-climbed the first 300 feet facing into the slope. The mist cleared some and soon we saw Yang Yang Lakes in the distance with a long traverse in between. The snowfields and rocky patches moved quickly under our cold wet feet and soon we were at a great dirt campsite on the south rim of the south lake. This was the very spot that Andy performed the trench-digging heroics mentioned earlier. Monday: We stepped out of the tent into glorious sunshine! After a couple of hours of photographing Formidable and Spire, drying gear, and eating breakfast we took off at 10 to climb Formidable via the south route. After a couple of saddles and several bands of rock and snow we reached a point about 300 feet below the base of the rock 3rd class scramble. The mists had set in again by now and we were not quite sure we were at the properly location. Andy decided that camp would be more fun than climbing in inclement conditions. Steve and I continued and scrambled the first 200 feet of rock quickly. We were still not sure about the route, but there was a gully that looked passable above and so roped up for a pitch and kept moving forward in the whiteout. After the 5.4 pitch of loose rock we scrambled another 200 feet and found ourselves on a promising ridge. Still in a whiteout we took the ridge left and slightly up to a point that we hoped was the summit. But our altimeters said we were about 100 feet low, and in a clearing we saw the true summit a long rappel and 5th class pitch up. Out of time, we headed back. Several boot-skis later we were back in camp and within 5 minutes the heavy rain and thunderclaps hit. A group of 5 climbers were spotted by Will and Andy about 1 mile away on the traverse from the Spider-Formidable col and they were stuck with finishing the evening in the rain. The thought of those wet souls humbled us. Tuesday: We left the lakes and ascended an easy snow ramp to within 200 feet of the ride north of LeConte. The last 200 feet of loose rock were miserable and tiring, but walking the next hour up and down humps on the ridge were wonderful. If only it were clear and sunny we may have stayed right there. Just think, a beautiful heather ridge 100 feet wide at 7000 feet in the heart of the traverse with peaks we longed for all around us! But we were wet and tired, and the primary goal now was the next camp, not peak bagging. We saw our first Ptarmigan, a juvenile that was too trust worthy of hungry climbers like us. We descended to the LeConte glacier, snapped a few pictures beneath the clouds of the turquoise-colored LeConte Lake, which warmed our spirits. Roped up we traversed and then ascended the glacier to the proper col just north of Sentinel in a whiteout and descended glacial ice to the traverse west of Sentinel. We traversed too high, about 7200, and luckily had a clearing just before a steep rock ridge. We boot-skied and glissaded down to the huge South Cascade glacier and walked across the last col of the day to descend to White Rock Lakes. We saw the research station on the ridge running on the west side of the glacier, perhaps sitting at about 6300 feet. Reaching the col and seeing rock lakes was another milestone; we were more than half way along and it would be faster to finish the traverse than turn around now. We had about 15 minutes of views to the east, seeing Gunsight, Agnes, and parts of Dome for the first time. Steve and I got a bit excited seeing the sharp pretty peak we’d hoped to bag as a culmination of the trip. Reality returned in the form of heavy drops of rain and we found a nice camp on the east side of the lakes. Another trench was dug by all. Wednesday: Sunshine in the morning, as well as an incredible number of marmots! It seems we camped in the middle of the New York City of marmots. They chewed on clothing and bags, snitched food, and just generally got us going by 10 am after much needed gear drying. We had a difficult decision to make today; 1.) Do we go for Dome while we have a chance, 2.) Do we go for Itswoot Ridge to camp and climb Dome the next day, or 3.) Do we simply traverse to Cub Lake for an easier and faster exit the following day? We discussed the issue at length before leaving camp and decided to make a decision later. We ended up climbing up to the top of the Spire col without completely making up our minds. The weather had turned misty/cloudy again, but Steve, Andy, and I decided to try to climb the “easy” 4th and 3rd class NE route (30 minutes on the rock according to Mr. Becky), and unknowingly passed the “easy” gully. I led a pitch past two rappel stations on slick, loose downsloping rock that seemed at least mid-5th class. Steve climbed up and it began hailing and raining intermittently. We gave up and rappelled down to Andy. On the 3rd class scramble back to Will we saw the proper route and 4th class section and 3rd class gully to the summit. We had actually climbed the first pitch of the 5.6 route. Together we chose a col and tried to follow Mr. Beckey’s route description to Itswoot Ridge. We never found a “3rd gully” but eventually saw the ridge. Then the hardest rain of all hit us and continued for an hour. We descended from the ridge, following a climber’s path down treacherous deep clay trenches, heather, and crappy down-sloping rock to the traverse to Cub Lake. We all agreed it was the true crux of the traverse. Camp was made on the east side of Cub Lake and soon we were huddling inside, trying to stay dry for what we knew was our last night and settled into an awesome feast which must be written about in a separate report to give it due respect and an adequate number of words. Thursday: Radiant sunshine greeted us for the 3rd morning in a row. Blue skies and the thought of a hot shower and bed to sleep in that night ignited our spirits into a festive mood. We gorged again for breakfast, and began our last large ascent of the traverse. Towards the top of about 600 feet of a steep heather hillside we were greeted by a true gem of a view to the south of Glacier Peak. At the top of the col we took a group picture and began the long 10 mile descent to the trailhead. The first mile after the col was a very pleasant climbers path. The next mile was horrible avalanche debris up to 8 feet in depth which may have been avoided (possibly) by a high traverse above the mess. Another mile rambling the hillside through old-growth was again relaxing and exciting because we knew the weather would stay wonderful and diner at a pizza parlor was soon to be had. The USGS map shows a trail begins at about 4100 feet at the edge of Bachelor Creek and we found it. This is no ordinary trail; tough climbers of a different generation pounding this “trail” through a jungle of bush, tree, and boulders. Black flies chased us to Downey Creek and we were so joyous that we lost our good sense to check the map we inappropriately crossed Downey Creek on an old large log. After a quarter mile of bushwacking the creekside through old-growth devils club we decided to check the map and learned the error of our ways. It was the only true routefinding mistake of the trip and we regretted it. Another log was found to cross on and all of us got wet to some extent. Steve and Andy seemed to cruise the last 6 miles of rolling trail along the EAST side of Downey Creek. We trudgers wallowed among black flies and subsisted on mints and dried apricots. After a foot soak in the Suiattle River we began driving out. Was the trip over? The Gods were not done playing with us yet. My car’s gas tank was punctured and we leaked about 8 gallons along the 20 miles of Suiattle River Rd. After checking the failing tank, noticing gas pouring out about 5 inches from the hot exhaust pipe, and decided to go for it and make it to Darrington. We left the car (there is a lot more to say but I’m on my 4th glass of wine an need to get this to Leigh right now) and retrieved Steve’s car at Cascade Pass thanks to Andy’s wife. The next two days consisted of retrieving my car and finding open-healed sandals for Will. The Ptarmigan Traverse is a wonderful experience that any Cascade Mountain climber should experience. It will make all other climbs a little easier and give you enough memories to last a lifetime. . . so you can sit at home and watch television and drink beer instead of climb.

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