South Early Winters Spire - South Arete 7.1.17

The WA Pass Bash was happening again for the Fourth of July, so Aaron and I decided to join for the weekend. Since I've been having issues with my lead head we decided to climb the South Arete of SEWS again, something within my ability. The plan was for me to lead it. Since I was leading I decided to bring my rock shoes because I knew I'd be much more comfortable and confident. Aaron convinced me to bring a smaller rack - or smaller for me at least. I brought a set of nuts and singles of cams #0.3 through #2. I also brought 4 single draws and 5 doubles - 1 double for my anchor since I knew there were either bolts or slings at every spot and I didn't need to build a gear anchor so I didn't need my cordelette. Justin was nice enough to head out early and snag us camping spots so Aaron and I left Seattle about 7pm on Friday. A few other pairs were also planning to climb something in the Liberty Bell group on Saturday, although not the South Arete on SEWS.

We woke up around 8a and leisurely got ready before driving the ten minutes to the Blue Lake trailhead from the Lone Fir campground. There were still a few spots in the parking lot although quite a few cars were parked on the road too. We geared up and hit the trail about 9:30a. I voluntarily registered us and noted a few other groups heading to the southwest rib on SEWS, but no others for the south arete. Then again I was near the top of the page and didn't look at the other page - but it didn't seem like it should be too crowded. Although, we knew the south arete is the descent for all the SEWS routes so we potentially would have that to contend with.

Mud pit of a trail

We hit small patches of snow and mud pits on the trail almost immediately. There were several blow down sections too - the trail is definitely in need of some TLC. I wore my mountaineering boots expecting snow, although we didn't bring ice axes or anything. Other than the sporadic patches of snow, the trail was snow free until we were up the climber's trail a bit. The snow obscured the trail so I'm not sure we were following it, but we eventually made our way right to head towards the base of SEWS at the saddle. Rose, Justin, Doug, and Priti all caught us on the climbers trail as they made their own approaches. Justin and Rose were climbing the southwest rib on SEWS so we figured we'd see them again. There was another guy hiking up by himself with a large bag - turns out he was planning to do a little flying. I appreciated the steps he kicked as we headed up the same direction for quite a while.

Heading up the snowfield to reach the base of the south arete

Finally the base of SEWS seemed near. I finished kicking steps up the snow until we reached the dirt. It's the loose, chossy stuff I remembered from the last time I climbed the south arete in 2014. Luckily the majority of it was under snow but we still got to deal with 50 feet or so of it. At the saddle we noted all of the packs hung in trees. We could hear a group but didn't see anyone on the first two pitches at least. We geared up for the climb.

Looking up at the first couple pitches on the South Arete

I wanted to pitch out the route through the three rappels, while Aaron only wanted to through the chimney. I started up heading climbers right up the ramp. I know I went that way the last two times I had led the route but it seemed more difficult than I remembered. I'm not sure Aaron was too happy with my choice of route in his boots - apparently he usually heads left instead. I placed a 0.4 up the ramp, then made a move onto the slabby face before pulling over a dead tree. I slung a rock there as there weren't any good cracks and continued up. I placed a 0.5 and 0.75 before reaching the chains at the top of the first pitch. Aaron followed me up and made it through the slabby move in his boots. He suggested we scramble up to the base of the chimney so that I could pitch out the section of the climb I wanted to - up to the top of the third rappel. That sounded good so I carried the rope as we scrambled to the base of the chimney.

After getting the gear back I started up the chimney. It was more fun having Aaron belaying right there as we looked for the good feet together and he offered encouragement. I made a few moves up and placed a 0.75 above the tat on the rock. After that I made a couple more moves to the left and pulled out of the chimney. At the top of the chimney I clipped the rappel webbing and continued up, slinging a tree and then placing a 0.5. I found a crack I really wanted to put my 0.75 in but I had already used it, so I kept climbing. I stayed climber's left heading up through the final section and then slung a tree to bring Aaron up. We decided to scramble the rest unroped so Aaron coiled the rope and I took all of the gear back. I continued going climber's left while he headed right in his boots - the correct call as my route was definitely better with rock shoes.

Crossing the Shark Fin

Looking up at the rest of the route above the shark fin - head up the blocky terrain to the right of the gully, then traverse across the top of the gully to reach the balancing rock on the summit

We met up at the shark fin where a group was pitching out the top with a rope team of three climbers. There were another four individuals also scrambling the route together so they found a way around the shark fin. The group said we could cross before their second rope team started so we piled our gear together and I just took a water bottle and my camera with us for the top. When the gap emerged we hurried across the shark fin and then scrambled up climber's right to try and stay out of the way of the rope team as much as possible. They were super nice and let us climb through them! It felt like Aaron was running up as I was breathing hard. The rope ream let us traverse the top of the gully through them and then we got to enjoy the summit rock to ourselves for a little bit. The views, as always, were spectacular. We lucked out with a sunny day and I just soaked up all of the mountains. We were keeping an eye on the southwest rib route but no sign of Rose and Justin yet - there were several other groups ahead of them though. When the first rope team got up to the summit we headed down so they could enjoy it as well. We also wanted to get down before the descent got really crowded.

Summit view to the south-west-north

Summit view to the north-east-south

We scrambled back down to the shark fin, backtracking our route up. On the downhill side of the shark fin we hung out on some nice rocks for a while hoping to catch Rose and Justin. Finally we saw Justin on the ridge and yelled over to him. We took a few pictures as Rose followed the pitch. We also saw the guy from the hike up flying around on his green wing – he covered a lot of ground!

Rose following Justin's lead

The hiker flying around

We wanted to get down before the big groups so we grabbed our stuff and headed for the rappels. A couple of guys from the southwest rib passed us as they scrambled down to the top of the chimney. I wanted to do all three rappels so we set that up. As we made it down to the chimney the first pair of another six were heading up the route so we did a little waiting as to try and not get in their way too much. The next two rappels went fine and we made it back down to our packs. I grabbed another thing to eat and put on my little gaiters for the descent in the snow. Aaron had picked out a flat rock he wanted to wait on for a while so we made our way down there and took a nap for a little bit.

Looking down at the flat rock we took a nap on, enjoying the views of Whistler Mountain and Cutthroat Peak across the way

Finally we got up and headed back to the car. We were able to mostly follow our trail down and soon popped out on the hiking trail. There was one large group of 12 that wouldn't move off the trail very willingly for us to pass, but after dealing with that it was clear sailing. We waited in the parking lot a while longer, playing a game of bocce ball even, before heading back to camp to get some naps in. Turns out Justin and Rose got stuck behind the bigger groups when trying to head down so they got down a lot later than they had hoped. Overall it was a great day. It was fun to get some climbing in and I felt good about it. The cherry on top was the amazing views, one of the reasons I love spending time in the North Cascades.

GPS track

Our trail to the base of the South Arete on South Early Winters Spire