Burgundy Spire, North Face

My new work situation is the best!

I have every other Tuesday off.  Yes, off.  I've reached out through CascadeClimbers.com and found a new local climbing partner in Mount Vernon.  His name is Eric Krumland.  He is a little younger than me, also new to Mount Vernon having recently returned from a yearlong stint in Belgium as a missionary.  As a result of spending a year in Europe, he's done a ton of sport climbing, but is now psyched to push his skills in the alpine realm.  And he happens to have a love affair with Washington Pass, kinda like me!

I'd never done the random partner thing, aside from doing countless Mountaineers trips with people I didn't know.  So in our initial exchange of emails, I lowered the bar from my current tick list.  I suggested something easy like Spontaneity Arete, Kangaroo Temple.  He countered by suggesting something harder.  We agreed upon Burgundy Spire.  I had a little trepidation, but ultimately agreed once I realized that no matter how bad he was I could get us up the route by leading every pitch.  All he needed to be able to do was belay me safely.  And it turns out he's not bad, he's actually super good!

We met up at 4am Tuesday morning and hit the road in my father-in-law's Mazda Miata.  We had a really nice conversation on the way out.  We had the usual exchange of climbing history in current interests.  But then we talked about God.  It was really cool to finally be heading out into the mountains with someone who shares my worldview.  When we were ready to head out onto the approach from the car, it was simply natural to suggest that we stop and pray for our day, and it felt so good!

This shot was taken on the hike out, but you get the idea.  Burgundy Spire is on the far left.

The Wine Spires are a group of granite towers that exist in a tight group extending along the ridge coming off the Northwest spur of Silver Star Mountain.  There are four of them: Burgundy, Chianti, Pernod, and Chablis.  Burgundy Spire held a unique position for many years.  It, along with Nooksack Tower, was considered one of the most technically difficult summits to attain in the Cascades.  Its easiest route is the North Face, which goes at 5.8. 

We started off the day by losing the approach trail in the woods.  Note to readers who intend to do this climb: descend the talus from the road pullout, then head solidly left into the woods to the creek.  If you're not on a solid trail, you're not in the right place.  We wasted 30 minutes brush-bashing after crossing the creek in a different place before heading cross-country back East and finally encountering the obvious trail.  From there the approach went smoothly.

A lot of people consider the Wine Spires to be too hard to get to to do in a day.  I have no idea why.  We made the approach to Burgundy Col in 2:20 despite 30 minutes of being lost.  We did the entire route and were back to the car around 3:30pm.  I consider this to be a very doable one-day route.  And with longer days, I'd consider doing two routes in the area in a day, such as Paisano Pinnacle first.

View of the North Face route, following polished lighter line.

 We decided to save on time by soloing the first two pitches to the broad ledge between Burgundy and Paisano Pinnacle.  This was mostly 4th class, with a few moves of 5.5.

Eric solos the first pitch, 5.easy

 From there, I led out on the first pitch, probably 5.7.  There are lots of options.  Just pick the path of least resistance.  Some parties head left toward the arete of the North Face.  I chose to head straight up toward the slight notch until I ran out of rope.  Eric took the next pitch, which has a fun 5.8 hand crack section.  This leads you to a giant ledge which slope down to the West.  You crawl through a huge tunnel and then are staring up at several options up.

Start of the technical portion of the route

Eric leads the 5.8 second pitch

 Climber's left has a 5.10a offwidth that looks scary.  Straight up from the end of the ledge is an unprotectable slab that leads to the 5.8 dihedral to offwidth finish.  We couldn't see the offwidth, but could see the obvious dihedral.  But the slab didn't look like it went for sure, so Eric headed up easier but lichen-covered terrain to the right.  The climbing wasn't hard, but a little unsavory, so he ended up building an anchor and bringing me up.  I decided to traverse left to get back to the really fun-looking dihedral.  I think that was a good choice.

Slightly off-route on lichen-covered terrain.  I think this is the 5.7 variation described by Beckey.

 I felt a little guilty, as I had wanted to let him have some of the harder leads on the climb since he was really gunning for them.  But I ended up getting to lead the most aesthetic, challenging, and fun pitch of the climb.  The dihedral was really clean and nice.  The offwidth that followed felt hard to me.  I kept asking if he thought we were maybe on the 5.9 variation described between the 5.10a and the 5.8.  It turns out we were on the 5.8, but maybe I just climbed it poorly or I'm a wuss, or it's sandbagged.  Oh well.  I made it up, and that led us to the true summit.

Fun 5.8 dihedral on the last pitch

Offwidth section at the top of the last pitch

Gruntfest for Eric

 Nice little summit!  We couldn't find a register.  There is a little ridge that leads back West.  I traversed over to take a look, to see if I could see the 5.7 finish.  I think I did, but it looked slightly overhanging at the end, and not as clean as the line we climbed.  I think we made the right choice.

Josh on the summit, with Hwy 20 and Early Winter Spires, Big Kangaroo, and lots of fire haze.

Eric on the summit

Wine Spires, Silver Star Peak

 The haze from the recent forest fires was pretty significant by this point.  We could barely see the Early Winter Spires.  We enjoyed a quick lunch on the summit, then headed down.  We thought we might be able to rap straight back down toward the North Face, skipping the broad ledge traverse.  But we couldn't find an anchor to head down that way, so we ended up reversing the route by a combination of rappels and downclimbing.

View of the fun 5.8 dihedral while rapping the route

 We did have one stuck rope on the second-to-last rappel.  That enabled Eric to extend his enjoyment of the 5.8 crack a little by re-leading it to retrieve the rope.  At this point we saw another party of two that had planned on doing Stuart but got rejected by the fires and this was their backup plan.  Didn't expect to see another party on the route on a Tuesday in late September.

Eric was a great partner.  He is a strong climber and a good guy to have around to rope-gun.  But certainly a little less experienced and slower when it comes to alpine and anchors, etc.  Really enjoyed his company, and hope to climb with him a bunch in the future.

NEWS and SEWS in a Day

Two alpine summits in one day.  Dope.

Now, they were Washington Pass Early Winters Spires alpine summits.  But all the same - two Grade III routes, 5.9 and 5.8+, for one approach.  That was pretty fun.  One was new for me (NW Corner of NEWS), and both were new for Jillson.  He had never climbed in the Early Winters group - pretty sweet way to start!  He is my only partner that I'd consider trying an outing like this with at this point.  We are pretty dialed together.  We know each other's strengths, we move fast, and we trust each other.

Originally we'd come up with the idea to start with the East Face of Lexington Tower (5.9, Grade III+), which then descends toward the Blue Lake TH, putting us right at the base of NEWS.  We would then tackle the NW Corner of NEWS.  That would have been a killer combo.  From what is reported on the webs, only done once from what I can tell.  In the end we wussed out.  The crux pitch on Lexington is a large 5-6" 5.9 offwidth with a 2x4" block of wood lodged as a key piece of pro.  The crux on NEWS is of course the long offwidth 5.9 corner.  We decided that that was a little too much hard offwidth climbing for one day and opted for this combo.  Not two new routes for me, but still pretty rad nonetheless.

We decided to start with NEWS as it was the harder route and the one that neither or us had done.  I wish we had started with SEWS.  NEWS was cold in the morning!  We could feel the beginnings of Fall as there was a bite in the air despite good weather.  We both elected to do the route without fleeces or puffys, just thin nylon shells for warmth.  That was mistake #2.  But we survived.

The day started with quite a unique encounter.  In the parking lot we saw one young couple that was going to try to combo Liberty Bell's Beckey Route and SEWS S Arete.  About a mile up the Blue Lake Trail we rounded a corner and found them squatting with an elderly gentleman and a middle-aged woman on the ground in sleeping bags.  I asked if everyone was okay and if they needed any help.  They said no thanks as I walked around them I realized that the elderly gentleman was Fred Beckey!  "Hey Fred," I said.  His female companion said "see Fred, you have quite a reputation!"  I have no idea what he was up to.  My theory is that he was heading out climbing, and that he chose to bivy in the middle of the trail as opposed to the parking lot like the rest of us do.  But hey, he's almost 90 and bivying on trails with women half his age, so more power to him!

After that we blasted up to the obvious first pitch on NEWS.  The first two pitches are essentially the same as the 5.11- West Face route.  The first pitch is a fairly nonesthetic 5.8ish chimney.  It didn't feel that hard to me.  I led the low 5th-class 2nd pitch up to the base of the big flakes that mark the third pitch.  Jillson got that pitch, which was super fun and quite physical.  At this point, I was still getting warmed up.  And by the amount that I was huffing and puffing cleaning the 5.8 flake system, I was quite worried about my ability to lead the next pitch.

Matt tops out on the fun 5.8 flake on the third pitch

Oh well.  Fate would have it that I was up for the money pitch.  The one we came for.  The 5.9 offwidth sustained corner that is the distinguishing feature of the route.  What an amazing pitch!  It starts off quite wide.  It would have taken a #5 if we had brought one.  We hadn't.  That was fine.  You can get by with a #4.  I leapfrogged it a few times before I was happy enough to move up.  There are really no feet for the first 50 feet of the pitch, which ended up being the most demanding part.  Then, mercifully, the crack narrows to hands and fists, and you get a few small ledges for feet.  By this point I was pretty worked and had to rest on a piece for a few minutes.  But I did send it without falling, which was the best I could do.

The super-rad 5.9 corner on pitch 4

Jillson endures a chilly belay as I work the fist to off-fist crack system

Matt rewarms with some delicate footwork

Matt came up and was so chilled from the belay that despite the work of cleaning the pitch he was still frozen when he arrived.  He got the last hard pitch - 5.7 face climbing, followed by a short 5.9 roof.  Also very fun and quite exposed.  Matt led it clean and in good style.

Matt heads up the 5.9 roof on the fifth pitch

From there it was a full ropelength of low 5th-class climbing to the summit.  We signed the register and headed down the series of rappels into the SEWS/NEWS notch.  It took 4 rappels to reach the base of the climb on a 60-meter rope.

Yours truly atop NEWS

Jillson on the chockstone free-hanging rappel

We took a few minutes to rewarm in the sun that had now reached the base of the route at our packs.  We ate some lunch and then made the arduous 10-minute trek to the base of SEWS.

Since it was a repeat for me, I decided to give Matt all the fun/esthetic or hard pitches on the SW Rib.  Especially since the other time I was on the route I did it with my brother, and so I'd actually led all the pitches.  I told Matt he at least was going to do the 5.8 flaring crack and the 5.7 bear hug cracks.  He had no problem with that and launched off into the first pitch, the crux of the route.

Matt grovels up the 5.8 flaring crack on the first pitch on SEWS SW Rib

I took the second pitch, got greedy, and managed to get us lost on the route.  Go figure!  Our only route-finding issue of the day was on a route I'd done only a year ago!  I went up too far and wound up just below the huge roof on the Boving Route.  I knew that the third pitch traversed around to the right over some slabby terrain with little pro, eventually gaining the big ledge below the bear hug cracks.  I sent poor Jillson out around the corner from the Boving roof, which was lichen-covered, had absolutely no pro, and was quite spicey.  He retreated, and thankfully didn't fall, which would have been bad.  After quite a bit of misguided wandering, I eventually led back down and found the correct traverse much lower down.  This led to extremely easy slabby traversing around the corner to the big ledge.  The way I'd sent Jillson would have gotten us to where we wanted to be.  It just would have been way way harder than necessary.

Finally back on track, I sent Matt up the twin cracks.  He paused for a good while at their base.  A lot of the beta you read suggests bringing a #5 to protect the wide cracks.  In fact, I'd purchased my #5 specifically for my first outing up this route.  But it was my impression at that time that it is not necessary.  I still feel the same.  After embracing the wideness of the cracks, he eventually shoved the #4 up as high as he could and stepped up into the system.  Once you step up, you get great feet, and it is only about 10 feet of pretty easy climbing up to a huge horn and the top of the feature.  He sent it without a problem.

The uber-fun and hardly 5.7 bear hug cracks

From there it is all 5.easy to the top.   We shortened the rope a bit and I led the simul-climb to the top.

Boulder summit move on SEWS

From whence we came - NEWS summit from SEWS summit

We descended the South Arete route by downclimbing most of it, and doing 2 rappels, starting from the top of the chimney.  There is a really nice new bolted anchor with chains for the final rappel.  It's on skier's right, in case you miss it, as we almost did.

The "whale back" is really not hard.  No hands required.

Matt was really glad after having descended that route that we hadn't wasted our time climbing it just to get the SEWS summit.  It's not horrible, but it's really not very esthetic.