High Pressure Adventures: September 29, 2012

After dealing with knee issues for 5 weeks of the most glorious late summer / early fall weather in WA state, I finally felt ready to head out and climb in the alpine! Burgundy Spire had long been on our ticklist, and armed with Steph Abegg's ridiculously good trip report, Skye, Ryan and myself headed out on Friday night to get some climbing in. We stopped by the turnoff to check out where we'd need to head in the morning, and got a glimpse of the Liberty Bell group lit up by the moon and stars dazzling above:

Stars and clouds over Liberty Bell group

We drove up and camped nearby the turnoff. A light rain woke us at 3AM as we slept out with just sleeping bags on the ground - yeah, it's almost October and the weather was THAT nice. The rain was light enough that we didn't care much and all rolled over and snoozed on. Fortuitously, the cell phone alarm was also moved, and somehow switched off, though the actual events here are highly disputed. Rising at 6AM, an hour after we had intended, we beat feet back to the turnout, and after a bit of IT band foam roller action and gear rearranging, we were off.

The approach was navigationally straightforward... lots of uphill!

Burgundy col is the notch (lowest point) in center.

We had watched a few groups bound for Chianti head off before us, so we knew the general tack down the hillside, but we also heard them get a bit lost in the woods trying to find the creek crossing. We must have lucked out, however, as we easily followed a carined trail to a large crossing, and a legit climber's trail on the other side. From there it was up. Up and up. I knew the approach wasn't insignificant, but I hadn't really looked at the details that carefully....it was a good bit of climbing! Eventually we popped out onto a bench; with beautiful larch trees beginning to dominate, it really felt like fall.

larches were starting to turn

Arriving at the col, we stashed some extra food, arranged our packs for the climb and scrambled down to the base of a class 4 gully system - though we felt it was 5th class and worth of being roped up, for sure. Ryan led the pitch (~65m) and Skye and I followed up. The breeze was picking up, the sun was still behind layers of clouds, and my shorts were feeling like a poor choice. It's not summer anymore!

Hoping to warm up, I took the sharp end and started off on pitch 2 after crossing a sandy gulley that was right behind our first belay. A few moves of vertical climbing led to a 30m long uphill scree slog. I was warm, but it wasn't much climbing! Approaching the base of the next large wall, I veered a bit left and climbed up until we ran out of rope (60m). Skye then led off and got up to the intermediate rap station on the face before I finished the face off and brought us up to the large ledge where you can traverse right (under a block) to the final slabs and off-widths (that's why you're here... right??)

First pitch after traverse. Up the obvious crack in center, then right out of picture...

I was glad to let Skye take the off-width pitch, so I lead up again after the traverse (as far right as you could get!). I think I avoided what most refer to as the "lichen traverse" as I found a fairly easy weakness to climber's right that allowed me to get up above the bolts. I hadn't seen them on the way up, so I built an anchor a bit above and to the right. After Skye and Ryan came up we made a quick (and by quick I mean should have been quick but really took the same amount of time as any other pitch) pitch over to the bolts, where we finally launched Skye at the summit, which he led in fine style.

Armbar Chickenwing from Erik Turner on Vimeo.

Larches appeared to avalanche down the slopes...

staying warm at the last belay... shorts... not a good idea after Labor Day...

Unfortunately with fading light, Ryan and I made the call that getting the two of us up the last pitch and adding a whole additional rap wouldn't let us get off the rock before dark, so we decided to just have Skye rap down quick and get the descent underway. I was bummed to miss out on the summit pitch, but it was certainly the right call, as we were still rappelling as the sunset. Though at least we were still above treeline, and were able to witness one of the best sunsets I've seen in the mountains!