Day 2:  The West Ridge of Forbidden Peak

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After a quiet night out on the ridge, I slowly pushed my head out of the bag to see that the sun was coming up.  I sat up a little to see Aidan waking up as well.  I grabbed the camera and took a couple of shots.  Only a few seconds later, the sun popped over the mountains and started heating up our alpine pad.  After a leisurely breakfast, we strapped on the 'pons and headed down the snow slopes.  At a small crevasse, we started turning up the steep snow.  There were tracks to follow.  Not that it made much difference, but at least we didn't have to put in the complete effort of kicking new steps.  The snow was easy and was great to get us back on the ridge in a short amount of time.  From here, it was 3rd and 4th class ridge running on the crest for a half mile at least.

At another gendarme, the climbing steepened and the exposure increased.  We opted to rope up here and simul-climb to the base of the West Ridge of Forbidden.   Beyond 80 feet of the difficulties, most of the climbing was again 4th class.  I was leading and, trying to stay on the ridge crest, I led us up and over another gendarme.  The downclimbing was quite tricky and I slowed down quite a bit to find the best route and to protect well for my buds.  I kept thinking that it wouldn't get any harder, but it did.  But, I could see the base of the ridge where we needed to be, so I persisted.  In retrospect, it would have been easier to just retreat and find an easier way down (both Robert and Aidan eagerly pointed out there was one!).  Oh well, we all got down safely after a couple of alpine 5.8 downclimb moves. 

Some easy scrambling got us to the base of the West Ridge where folks had left packs, boots, and the like.  Aidan opted to take the next lead on the understanding that I'd get to take the second!  He zipped up the mountain making very fast progress.  After a little more than 15 minutes, we were nearly halfway up where he stopped and we swung the lead.  We were just below the 5.6 move and there was another party just above it.  "You're a southern gentleman, Theron.  They'll let you pass.", quipped Aidan.  Yeah, ok.  So, I headed off.  Now, apparently there were a couple of pins that I was supposed to see, but instead, the step was so fun and I thought it would look neat on film that my only thought was, "Hey Robert, get some footage of this!".  I climbed up a steep traversing crack to the left, placed a solid cam, and pulled around the corner where I saw a big rappel anchor.  The other party had gone on the move again, apparently it was a guided party.  The guide would go about 50-100 feet and then belay the clients in.  I tried to find a place to pass, but I couldn't really.  When I caught up to them again, there was another party descending and we were simply forced to hang out on the ridge for a while.  Finally, we were on the move again, but I still couldn't pass.  Then, the party opted to go up to what looked like the true summit.  Robert then hollered, "Hey, go left!"  So, I traversed around the steep false summit to the spot where all the pictures are taken, just below the true summit.  A couple of easy moves saw us at the true summit.

Our descent decision was down the east ledges.  That way we'd get a full tour of Forbidden and could also avoid the crowds on the West Ridge.  I've heard all sorts of rumors about the east ledges descent route, that's it's really scary and exposed and so on.  Then again, I've also heard that it's not that bad.  So, after doing it, my opinion is it's no big deal at all.  I had the benefit of being with two people who had already descended this way.  But still, it's pretty straightforward.  We had to make five, maybe six, rappels straight down.  We had a 50m rope and the first rappel sent us straight to the next rappel station.  However, all of them after that required a little downclimbing.  Robert hypothesized that they must have been recently reset because the beta we had talked about a 50m rope being enough.  No matter, the downclimbing was always only 4th class.  At the base of the last rappel, we headed straight across crossing various ribs.  About 100 feet below the solitary gendarme, we headed up alongside a prominent gully.  There was no reason to get in the gully; it was much cleaner climbing above it.  At the top, we were finally back on walkable terrain where we put up our gear, harnesses, and rope.

The descent back to the upper camps was time consuming but easy.  We did have to retrace our steps once when we boot skiied too far down and got cliffed out.  Downclimbing another steep ridge saw us to more snow where we were able to boot ski down to the basin.  After lots of traversing and descending on slabs, we arrived back at the stream under the waterfall where we had breaked the day before.  We rested here for a long time, our friends the horseflies were back in force.  Aidan and I dunked our feet and heads in the water - what a relief!  Everyone then put on mp3 players and hiked down.  The hike down at first was pleasant and I gawked at the views of Johannesburg directly in front of us.  Man, I can't believe I was on that thing last year!  Boston Basin is truly one of the most beautiful spots in the Cascades.  It was a treat to see it in full sunlight.  However, down lower, I'd be cursing that sunlight!  The black flies came back again and started harassing us.  On top of that, it was so abysmally hot!  I wondered if I'd ever been this hot before.  It was nearly impossible to stop though as the flies would swarm and nearly eat us alive.  Thankfully, this approach is an "easy" Cascades approach and we were back at the car after not much time.  But, changing clothes and sorting gear was hell with those damn black flies not giving us a moment of peace.  What a great trip this was...I couldn't think of that at the time though.  It didn't come soon enough that we were in the car with the windows open trying to get every last fly out!