LEEEEROOOYYYYYYYYY JEENNNKKIINNNNSSSS...er...Creek? ICC Alpine 2 - North Face of Mt. Maude

For alpine 2 I found myself on a team heading to climb the north face of Mt. Maude in the Entiat range. Maude is one of the three prominent peaks at the head of the Entiat basin and the north face is rather impressive. While the standard route is a scramble at best, the north face provided us with 45-60 degree snow and ice in some pretty exposed conditions.

General NF Route

We started off from the Phelps Creek trailhead and hiked over quite a number of creek crossings, one which was pretty deep at Box Creek.

Justin waded while I tried jumping

The Phelps creek trail was pretty much covered in snow in from Box creek, so it was a long few miles slogging through snow until we got to Leroy creek. I couldn't help but laugh to myself about Leeroy Jenkins as we turned up the trail to Leroy basin where we would make our camp.

Niki crossing Leroy Creek

After crossing the creek, we gained about 2000 feet of elevation until we reached the basin. We decided to camp a little higher than the basin since we had the time and didn't want to wake up quite so early the next day, so we booted up to 6800ft, found a nice flat spot by some trees and set up camp for the night.

Camp with Maude and 7FJ in the background

Seven Fingered Jack from camp

To bed by 8pm and awake the next morning at 2am, we set out for the 7FJ-Maude col around 3:15.

On the way to the col

Once at the col we were treated to views of a beautiful sunrise coming over the Entiat river headwaters

Alpenglow on Maude

We pulled out our second tools and roped up and soon we were off on the traverse from the col over to the NF.

The snow was pretty good; firm enough for your crampons to dig in and to hold a picket, but not full blown ice. We moved our two rope teams in running belays, the second team using the first teams pro. This let us efficiently move across the traverse. Rick lead out first and brought us in on a bunch of rocks halfway to the base of the NF route.
It was quickly made apparent that routefinding on the traverse was going to be the crux of the climb. Most descriptions talk about going over the col and then dropping down to the glacier before traversing. We looked at this option but the steepness and exposure looked to be about the same and we felt that it wouldn't really save us any time to lose the elevation and then gain it again. Maybe in the summer when a significant amount of snow was melted out, a ledge system scramble down to the lower parts makes sense, but it wasn't apparent to us this time of year.
I led the second pitch and was treated to rapidly steepening terrain, a little bit of mixed climbing, and rockfall. After a kegerator sized boulder (as Niki called it) whizzed past me, I decided to pull everyone in at a protected spot and make sure we moved quickly through the next section as to not get hit by any rock falling off the mountain.

My rope team leading out

Jason belaying his team in under cover

Of course, BK had to take a dump in the area where the mountain was throwing rocks down at us

"This is the most exposed dump I've ever taken" - BK

After relieving himself, BK lead out onto the actual route and we started gaining elevation. Finally!

Niki and BK starting to ascend the north face

Jason cleaning the route, I think he had 12 pickets...you could hear him clinging form 100ft above

"The Death Cornice" was present and in a glorious way. I've never seen a cornice as big or scary as this one as we quickly crossed under it's path. We could see fracture lines in the top of it once above, so it's getting ready to go

"Death Cornice"

Side view of the death cornice

 One last lead change and we were at the summit ridge, followed by a short 100ft walk up to the summit. The entire traverse and face were done in 4 leads with 12 pickets and a 37m rope.

 

Niki leading out

BK and Niki after topping out

 Once on the summit, I broke out the 6lbs of fried chicken I hauled with me the whole time as a surprise for the team. It's the best two day old, cold fried chicken any of us ever had.

Rick getting after the chicken

"least we have chicken"

Glacier Peak - next weekend's objective

Summit pano looking W-N-E

After taking some time to destroy some chicken and take in the views, we headed back to camp via the slog route. This proved somewhat difficult as the "trail" was hard to find up there. We ended up turning off the ridge into a gully marked by a carin. We followed this down and with a bit of cleaver traversing, we made it back to camp. Refilled on water and packed up, we headed down for the slog out that to me felt like an eternity. Back at the cars by 8:30pm and in bed by 12:15am. Long weekend, but definitely an awesome climb.

Stats:
Elevation Gain: 5560ft
Distance: 18mi
Pack Weight: 35lb
Chicken: 6lbs