Cathedral Peak, WA
Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 6:46 pm
I'm currently on a shift at work with Sky and don't feel like working, so here is the epic backcountry alpine climbing adventure that I had with Ryan shortly before his arrival in Vancouver.
On Labour day weekend Ryan and I planned a 3 day trip to climb Cathedral Peak in the Cathedral Provincial Park. It was a 12 mile hike to get there and we thought we were armed with enough information to make it there, climb it and come back.
We had a printout of a small section of the area we were supposed to hike. Not all trails were drawn on it and Cathdral Peak isn't even on the map - it's just southeast off the map. We took a wrong turn off the first day and ended up going north on a trail not drawn. I think I forgot to tell Ryan that I was very bad at reading maps and not to listen to my suggestions.
We ended up two valleys away from where we wanted to be. Cathedral is somewhere behind that rocky ridge. Our first day was a 12 mile detour of our original plan = LOW STOKE.
At least we were able to have a nice fire later at our first camp site close to the turn off where we went wrong. Oh, and I guess seeing a black bear on our first day was exciting too.
On day 2 we got back on course of our original plan. We were stoked to see Cathedral Peak (the left most large peak) in close view finally. We decided to camp here and walk the rest of the way the next day without our overnight gear.
Finally our objective in full view. We climbed up the right side.
We started in the gully and headed left. On the right is the Monk which also can be climbed.
Ryan and I lead in blocks. Most of the rock was stellar. Only once did we really go a bit off route and found ourselves climbing scary crumbly stuff. Here are some picks of Ryan climbing.
10 pitches later SUPER STOKE at the top!
In the morning I thought we'd be able to hike 3 miles, climb 10 pitches in no time and get back to camp early afternoon. EEEEEH, wrong. It took us almost 3 hours to get there, then I forgot my food at the base of the climb and cramped up climbing, we were exhausted from having hiked 24+ miles to get there, the mosquitoes were seriously annoying the hell out of me and on the way back to camp we hiked up to the wrong saddle point and did yet another detour.
The 'chill' weekend we wanted it to be turned into a bit of an epic, but despite a day late, we returned unbroken and with lots of stories to laugh about.
Thanks Ryan for the seriously eventful weekend.
On Labour day weekend Ryan and I planned a 3 day trip to climb Cathedral Peak in the Cathedral Provincial Park. It was a 12 mile hike to get there and we thought we were armed with enough information to make it there, climb it and come back.
We had a printout of a small section of the area we were supposed to hike. Not all trails were drawn on it and Cathdral Peak isn't even on the map - it's just southeast off the map. We took a wrong turn off the first day and ended up going north on a trail not drawn. I think I forgot to tell Ryan that I was very bad at reading maps and not to listen to my suggestions.
We ended up two valleys away from where we wanted to be. Cathedral is somewhere behind that rocky ridge. Our first day was a 12 mile detour of our original plan = LOW STOKE.
At least we were able to have a nice fire later at our first camp site close to the turn off where we went wrong. Oh, and I guess seeing a black bear on our first day was exciting too.
On day 2 we got back on course of our original plan. We were stoked to see Cathedral Peak (the left most large peak) in close view finally. We decided to camp here and walk the rest of the way the next day without our overnight gear.
Finally our objective in full view. We climbed up the right side.
We started in the gully and headed left. On the right is the Monk which also can be climbed.
Ryan and I lead in blocks. Most of the rock was stellar. Only once did we really go a bit off route and found ourselves climbing scary crumbly stuff. Here are some picks of Ryan climbing.
10 pitches later SUPER STOKE at the top!
In the morning I thought we'd be able to hike 3 miles, climb 10 pitches in no time and get back to camp early afternoon. EEEEEH, wrong. It took us almost 3 hours to get there, then I forgot my food at the base of the climb and cramped up climbing, we were exhausted from having hiked 24+ miles to get there, the mosquitoes were seriously annoying the hell out of me and on the way back to camp we hiked up to the wrong saddle point and did yet another detour.
The 'chill' weekend we wanted it to be turned into a bit of an epic, but despite a day late, we returned unbroken and with lots of stories to laugh about.
Thanks Ryan for the seriously eventful weekend.