Forbidden Love - North Ridge 8/12/2008
Trip: Forbidden Love - North Ridge
Date: 8/12/2008
Trip Report:*After writing this out, I realize its longer than I expected, but I find that fitting since that was true with this trip as well. Enjoy.
So...where to start? Bala (pup on the mountain), was kind enough to respond to me plea for mid-week alpine clilmbing partners. After throwing around some ideas, we landed on the complete (not using the snowramp or whatever was described in Nelson's) North Ridge of Forbidden. Forbidden was one of the first peaks that caught my eye when I started alpine climbing last year, and as it turns out, Bala had been turned back once from Forbidden - thus adding to the ambition to climb this peak. Finally my friend David joined us, making the party a total of three ready for some good adventure - and that is exactly what we got.
Day One: August 11 
For various reasons, we got a later start than we originally planned. Not leaving the car til 2ish made for a short day. But hey, the weather and views were great, with Bala visible in the lower right corner:
We planned on taking the alternate gulley instead of the true Sharkfin Col, however we forget to hang a left at the notch after in the gulley. We reached the top of the gulley, so no rap slings and realized our mistake. After some down climbing and kicking loose rock at each other, we found the proper rap station.
The moon rising over Sahalee Peak?
Sunset on J'berg:
The rappel was fine, you just have to make a little leap over the moat to get onto the snow, which thankfully held our weight. We roped up for the glacier and started moving, however darkness moved in quickly and after finding a flat, crevasse free spot, we opted to bivy there and finish the glacier tomorrow. While, not nearly as far as we had hoped, it was time to relax, take in the views and enjoy the shooting stars.
Day 2 David took some masterful shots of the sunrise:
The Boston Glacier is just so damn big:
We eventually gained the ridge, and I got to lead the "lower crux," which was invigerating. After that we just started simulclimbing forever it seemed. The rope drag ended up being quite annoying with the three of us and really seemed to slow us down. We came to a col and then continued up the steeper section:
The climbing was never difficult and was just so much fun.
Who needs running water when you have snow?
Just living the dream:
We could hear thunder in the distance, and the clouds rolled in, slowly at first first, then relentlessly. David, barely visible on the ridge:
We soon lost most/all visiblity and after getting to the top we just got the heck out of there. The raps went fine, however it was getting late. The traverse on the ledges was tedious at first, and got better as we got closer to thet exit gulley. By this time it was dark and little did we know, we were too low when we entered the gulley, which led to sometimes wet and mossy chimney climbing. We made it out and were greeted with this view:
We started descending quickly, however the gulleys we thought we could take down to the glacier were not connected and looked too cliffy and wet to safely down climb in the dark. We opted for a fun unplanned bivy - just a tad colder than the night before. The clouds threatened but it never actually rained.
Day 3 We awoke to this:
Thankfully after a little scrambling around we found some old rap stations. Two wet rappels down a waterfall gulley got us onto the lower snowfields and easy hiking out.
This was really our last semi-clear view of Forbidden:
After leaving the snow we were greeted with lots of Marmots:
Down lower the clouds started to part and we were left with a suprisingly pleasent hike out:
Just want to say thanks to Bala and David for a great trip!
Gear Notes:We brought yellow, orange, red TCU's and red and yellow camalot, set of nuts and long runners. Worked fine.
Bring more food! We ended up with a bag of trial mix for the three of us to eat for the last like 16 hours of the trip.
Approach Notes:Easy to spot the gulley once out of the trees. Just remember to veer left once in it.
