Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Silver Star

I’ve been a climb leader with the Mountaineers for a while, leading all sorts of climbs that I’ve never been on before. They’ve all gone amazingly smoothly until my first climb of the season this year. I should be clear, though. In the past, the problems have been related to people. This time, it was route finding…

We started out with a clear idea of the route. In fact you can see most of the approach to Silverstar from the road:

Vasiliky Ridge on the left, leading to Burgundy Spire and finally Silver Star on the right

We did quite well at the beginning, getting to camp within 2 hours. (The route description I had said 2-4 hours.) Here is where our problems began. Instead of heading straight up Burgundy Col, a nasty-looking pea-gravel filled gully, we went in search of mysterious “heather slopes” to the side of the Col. Our search added about 4 hours and some stupid off-route bush-whacking. The great thing about mistakes like that is you’ll never make them again.

Katherine, Rod and I got to the Col and set up tents/bivys. There was no water at the Col (another mistake in the route description), so we had to descend about 400’ to a trickle flowing over a rock. Rod built a dam and filtered. Katherine helped where she could. After cooking dinner we went to bed with about a liter and a half each. Thirsty. And wondering just what tomorrow would hold.

In most mountaineering tragedies, this is the point in the story where people usually shake their head and say, “Things were already going wrong. They should have turned around here.” Fortunately for us, the story is a little different.

6 a.m. came quickly enough. Katherine decided the siren song of her sleeping bag was too irresistible, so she stayed in bed as Rod and I dropped down on the other side of the Col. In no time, we were wandering in the sun on a pleasant snow slope.

ascending the Silverstar glacier; summit on the left

Getting to the top took no time at all - a mere 2 hours. Rod and I were pleasantly surprised after yesterday’s route finding debacle.

We had the mountain to ourselves and could have relaxed in the sun for quite a while. Remembering that Katherine was hanging by herself, though, we didn’t dawdle too long. An hour later we were back at the Col. Katherine was brewing hot chocolate and all was well.

Our descent from the Col took a bit longer than we’d have liked, owing to the treacherous conditions. One slip and you’d be 800’ further down and banged up for sure. Below the regular camp, the snow was sloppy. We all punched through, but Rod took the cake when he went in up to his waist.

Clear of the snow, we hop, skipped, and limped back to the cars, where the roar of motorcycles leaving the Methow on Hwy 20 was deafening.