Kulshan North Ridge

Day 1: Sunday, July 6th.

Having just returned to Seattle after visiting my family in the midwest for July 4th, Aiden and I planned for a late start on the north ridge. Day 1 would consist solely of the climb up to the Hogsback camp from the Heliotrope Ridge Trail. We packed bags and started the 2hr30min drive to the trailhead at 11am. Between lunch stops and a trailhead rendezvous with our third party member Eli, we were on trail at 3:30pm. We reached Hogsback camp at 5:30pm.

There are two notable creek crossings on the Heliotrope Ridge Trail. The creeks were relatively low when we crossed, but the “big creek” about 2000ft of vert from the trailhead has a large waterfall below it so I ended up with wet feet from shuffling securely across. The second creek was low enough for an easy cross via rock hopping. No snow on the trail until camp, as would make sense given this point in the season.

We shared camp with two other parties. One set of two tents (2-4 people?) who must have been asleep when we got there because we did not see them at all, and a group of six tents in a guided group. We didn’t speak directly to anyone from either party but speculated that the guided group was there for the Coleman-Deming route or potentially a crevasse rescue course. It was kind of surprising to me how few people were at camp, given the cloud-free warm weather that day and the following day.

Day 2: Monday, July 7th.

Summit day began with an alpine start at 2:25am. We roped up and put crampons on pretty much immediately, as there was a large moat ~200ft above camp we noted the night before and the high route to avoid it would make finding a convenient place to transition to roped travel somewhat difficult. We stayed on the C-D route to gain the first ridge above the moat, and then split off towards the eastern Coleman glacier.

The next mile and a half was spent traversing the Coleman. This began with uneventful flat fields of ice and easy cramponing, but the yawning crevasses in the distance eventually approached and we found ourselves snaking through a maze of fridge to automobile sized cracks. This culminated in one particularly spicy crevasse crossing with a snow bridge which, despite being eight feet deep and comfortingly solid, was only two feet wide. With careful steps, we continued upwards towards the base of the ridge.

We took our first break at sunrise on the rocky outcropping that marks the base of the north ridge at around ~2380m. Another party caught up to us here, three people doing a single-day push. The next few hundred feet was a ~45 degree snow/ice slope up to another rocky outcropping, followed by another hundred feet of 40 degree snice. We short-roped this section, but later lamented the lack of protection – a fall here would have meant tumbling over the rocky cliff we took our break on. The snice gave way to a flatter section at 2580m, where the other party passed us (for real this time) at 8:15am. From this section we could see the crux pitch, a steep blue headwall.

Another longer break here for some food (and a bathroom break) and we began what would be a deceptively long trek up the wide ramp to the base of the crux. This started as easy but tiring snow climbing and then quickly transitioned to more consequential snice. I was leading the rope team. We started with the full seven armlengths between people in the lower part of the ramp and then transitioned to our short-roping configuration from earlier.

We followed the tracks of the earlier party around a large crevasse, where the snice steepens to 40-50 degrees. At this point, said party had reached the crux pitch and proceeded to fling gratuitous amounts of ice down onto us. Unprotected, we traversed quickly to the left to the only shelter we could find, a moat underneath a small section of exposed rock. We placed a picket here, and Eli claimed the first leads of the day. We had a 70m rope with Eli tied in at the midpoint and the two followers at the ends for 35m pitches. This was unfortunately not a good move – everything seemed to look closer than it was, and it took us four 35m pitches to reach the base of the crux, eating up precious time. We had only two pickets, so protection was minimal: mostly just one anchor to another. We reached the base of the crux at 12:30pm, cold and bickering. Somewhere in this time frame there was an enormous thundering, which I predicted (and I was right) was an unstable serac falling off Colfax peak onto the Coleman-Deming route that I had seen the previous weekend climbing C-D with some other friends. So far as we know, no parties were hurt.

Eli was exhausted from the numerous snice leads getting up to the crux, so Aiden took the crux pitch: a solid AI3 ramp curving to the left over a dip in the headwall and then straight up the 60 degree ice above. We made a fatal mistake here in that we only had six ice screws, one of which was incredibly dull. In an effort to quickly protect the crux, Aiden switched the dull screw for our brand-new and sharper 22cm screw, which we brought for making v-threads. He continued to climb, hoping to place a picket in softer snow above, and instead was met with more ice with only the dull screw for anchor building.

Back at the belay station, our radio promptly died. Go figure. We waited in the meltwater coming off the headwall, slowly getting colder and wetter. After 15 minutes passed, Eli and I tried yelling to Aiden. No response. We yelled louder. No response. We waited for another 15 minutes, getting grumpy. By the time 50 minutes had passed, we were both shaking and had fully numb hands and feet. We wondered if something bad had happened to Aiden. We devised a plan to have Eli lead up the first crux section and try to communicate with him, and prepared for the possibility of a SAR call. Just as I had Eli on belay, Aiden started to pull the slack out. We were free! Cresting the headwall and seeing Aiden sitting at the belay gave me an intense feeling of relief. Approaching the anchor, I saw that he had painstakingly bored two v-threads with the short dull screw and equalized them. He was worried that one wasn’t enough with the reduced screw length (and no other screws for a screw anchor). We laughed and then cried, and then laughed again.

Despite the welcome reunion, our work was far from over. To keep things simple, Aiden led another two pitches up 60 and 50 degree ice after the crux to our final obstacle, the bergschrund at ~3200m. We cut left here to avoid the gaping glacial abyss and up a funny looking 50 degree ice slope onto the flat plains of the summit. Aiden placed a picket and microtraxion at the top of this step for running protection. From here, it was a calm trudge to the summit, with only one dubious and well trodden snow bridge. Elated, we reached the summit of Kulshan (3280m) at 4:47pm. We didn’t spend long here, as we still had the entire descent to go and the daylight wouldn’t stick around forever.

The trek down Coleman-Deming was one of the slogs of all time. We mistakenly followed a bootpack for the Easton Glacier route, and found ourselves traversing the Roman Wall in waist-deep slushy snow. This made for slow, arduous, mashed-potatoes postholing. We gained the ridge at the bottom of the Roman Wall after much cursing and complaining, gaining the bootpack as well. Soon after, we came upon the aftermath of the Colfax serac fall, and ran through the debris to minimize any further exposure. After what felt like infinite plunge stepping, we were back at Hogsback after a grueling 18hr push.

We packed up camp and headed down that night, opting for continued slog in lieu of another night on the mountain without food for a three day trip.

Debrief:

Mistakes:

• Shortroping instead of simul climbing with protection on the first snice sections leading up to the crux pitch.
• 35m pitches instead of simul climbing on remaining snice sections leading up to the crux pitch – I later saw a video of someone using the “flying-Y” technique on this terrain which I think could be a great idea. If I find a good youtube video I’ll link it here.
• Using v-thread screw as protection on the crux instead of another screw and running out of protection to place for the anchor.
• Not having enough ice screws – we brought 6 ice screws and wished we had 8-10.

Victories:

• we made it!
• good ice movement (as far as we were concerned)
• no issues with altitude or injuries

Other Comments:

Since completing this climb, I’ve struggled to figure out exactly how I want to describe my feelings about it. For starters, I think it’s a good thing every year or couple of years to do something that you just barely meet the skill criteria to do. I think this practice has kept me humble in the mountains and encourages me to keep my basic skills fresh in addition to the big, flashy objectives that make me want to write blog posts. Eli said North Ridge felt like a final exam, and I think his description fits the most. We were tested over new skills, but also basic skills and fitness, not to mention team dynamics and decision making.

In the aftermath, I’m grateful to my team members for being people I can trust so wholly. I’m grateful to Kulshan for allowing me to learn so much unscathed except for a couple of blisters. I can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of a whole world of mountaineering opening before us. Regardless of where the stoke takes us next, the climb was amazing, and I’m so glad I did it. You’re going to love it.

-M