Gallery: SlesseSWFace

(Click on thumbnail for larger image)

This is a climb done July 14, 2002 with John Augenstein and Sean Sirutis, both who had been in my 2000 mentor group. Mick Scott was also to join us but he got his dates confused and double booked himself for the weekend.

	Trying to find the start of the trail
	We never did find the proper start so we figured we would walk up the logging road then bushwack.		We got about 1000 ft on the road and the initial forest was pleasantly open.
	Then as we climbed onto a rock ridge things began to get difficult.		Sean
	John Augenstein.		We descended the far side of the ridge through thick brush.
	Coming out in a steep rocky creek.		This was one of the more desperate places I've ever bushwhacked into.
	The far side exit supported my theory that you can bushwhack up any arbitrarially steep FORESTED slope. Steep slopes moderated then lead to a forest ridge. That eventually lead to open forest. We kept working right, toward where the trail should be.		We broke out above trees and picked up the trail about the same time.
	From camp we have a view of the summit. The NW face is toward the camera and the SW face is over the right shoulder.		A closer view. We ascend the little snow finger toward the notch at left, traverse ledges back toward central gully, and climb to mid-heather benches. From there the NW face goes up to the left. SW face traverses ledges around the right shoulder.
	Camp was buggy.
	But had good views.		John on climber's trail to route.
			Traversing ledges from snow field.
	Looking up at the NW face. We decided to not climb the face.		Instead we traversed to the right.
	This is about where you turn the corner to enter the SW gully		And ascended the SW face.
	Me leading a pitch.		John traversing to the summit.
	Sean on summit ridge.		Sean
	Me.		John.
	John.		A flag left by a previous mountaineers group.
	John and Sean.		Looking down the NW face.
	Descending the central gully.		We took the trail down. It was steep and very hard work, but better than the alternatilve. About 1,500 ft below camp we could smell smoke and had some ash falling on us. We sat and talked about what to do: descend into a vally that could be on fire or return to camp and wait it out. We decided to decend. The air cleared and the fire turned out to be a small slash pile. Later John said that while he had heard that burning to death was unpleasant he would rather that than hike 1,500 ft back up to camp.
	The trail was very steep and relentlessly down hill. That was followed by a much longer than expected flat walk along an overgrown road. When we finally came out we could see that the roads had changed from our route description, the trail head was over grown and difficult to find.		Here's the turn out and parking.
	Closer view of the spur road (left) that leads to the TH. It's over grown and not worth driving.		A short ways down you come to this turn out. Take the left road (right no in picture).
	Walk a very overgrown road for 30 to 40 minutes. You come to this junction where the climbers trail takes off up into the forest. There is an old sign on the ground and some flagging		The climber's trail. This climbs steeply for about 3,000 ft through forest then climbs some more to camp.
	As I remember, the old road ends about here.

Back to Gallery Index

Images © 2010 Tom Unger

[Back] [Home] [Trip Journals] [Climbing] [Kayaking] [Flight] [Photos] [Food]

Page last modified:  Sep 05 19:07 2010  by  Tom Unger