Pirate Peak Recon

February 20th, 2010

TR by Brian

Avast ye scurvy dogs! Gather round as I tell you a tale of maidens fair, monsters foul, and heroes bold!

*cough*

Wrong story. Kris, Evan, Dave and I set out to climb Pirate Peak on Saturday, but were stymied (in no particular order) by stupidity, loose rock, poorly consolidated snow, and Fred Beckey. Pirate Peak has been of interest to me for a while because (1) it's in the Monte Cristo range and (2) no one ever reports going up there. The sole "trip report" I could find for the area was for S. Gemini Peak (an adjacent summit), and consisted of six pictures taken by Mike Torok, a prolific peakbagger. Perhaps these factors should have encouraged me to look towards a different summit or for Kris, Evan, and Dave to run screaming, but neither of these things happened.

We departed from Barlow Pass by bike around 0800 and made good time in to the Monte Cristo townsite. The road has been logged out, so the ride up and down is quite enjoyable. We parked our bikes at a rack before crossing in to the townsite proper, where we got a good view of Pirate and Gemini. Both appeared to have limited snow cover and so we stashed our snowshoes with our bikes (stupidity). If you're a Fred Beckey aficionado, and have ever considered climbing some of the Addison Ridge peaks, you're familiar with his 5-6 different approach options - "suggested by reconnaissance". This phrase is normally taken as a Beckeyism for "I haven't tried any of these, but from the ground or across the valley, these look like they might work." We chose approach (3), a "thin scree gully" running parallel to a large ravine. We ascended open timber from the Monte Cristo campground, then cut to climber's right where the timber intersected an open, stable talus slope fanning out from the base of the large gully. If one is careful about rough selection, it is possible to entirely avoid brush (note: in the dark on the way down, we were not careful and ended up forcing our way through a patch of alder).

From the top of the open talus slope, we bore left onto very consolidated avalanche debris to enter the "thin scree gully". There is definitely a fair bit of loose crap in the gully, but fortunately only about 100' of it was exposed - the rest trapped securely below avalanche debris. Definitely the right conditions to climb it - solid snow in crampons with a pair of tools made the vert fly by. Until we encountered deep snow near the top and the wallowing began. I was able to stay on the surface in places, Kris and Evan were less successful, and Dave had some type 3 fun. We stopped for lunch at ~5200', at the head of the gully on a rib with good views of Pirate, S. Gemini, and Pt. 6600+. Through binoculars, we could see that the summit block on S. Gemini looked fairly impassible (steep flutings guarding the approach to a thinly snow covered slab), so we chose to focus on Pirate Peak. Beckey suggests two routes up Pirate: (1) swinging to climber's left and ascending the south face or (2) ascending to the head of the large gully to climber's right and crossing the south face to the 20' of 4th class below the summit block. We chose the second option, which appeared more probable from our lunchtime vantage.

During lunch, the sun had additional time to work its magic on the slopes and, as we headed up, we all managed to engage in a lot of Dave-style misery. On one steep section through the trees, we ascended a steep slope with 1" thick ice plate over powder. Kick, collapse, wallow. Kick, collapse, wallow. (repeat ad nauseum) Eventually, we were able to gain the top of the large gully and traverse beneath an imposing rock buttress to reach the ridge crest via a shallow gully. Unfortunately, on reaching the ridge crest, I discovered (1) from the notch I was standing on it was straight down to Ida Lake and (2) continuing up the crest would involve navigating around a series of gendarmes, interspersed with steep fluting. Kris and I backed down and met up with Evan and Dave to discuss our next move.

The rock below the gully looked easy and solid, so we roped up and and pulled out the racks (perhaps I over packed a bit - mine was a tad large and included cowbell). I had the pleasure of taking the sharp end first and rather gingerly made my first trad lead of the season. There were good opportunities for protection and some of the rock was quite solid, but this was interspersed with snow and "rock" that was not particularly solid. I made it up about a half rope length to a narrow snow ledge below a chimney and (slings depleted), built an anchor and brought up Evan. From the belay, I could not see Evan, but this was perhaps for the best, as he managed to dislodge considerable snow and loose rock. (He says the only pitch he's had less fun on was the single pitch we climbed on the N. ridge of Mt. Chaval - that's really saying something)

Around this time, Dave and I decided that we'd really headed in to Type 3 fun territory and so, once Evan was secure and off belay, Kris, Dave, and I engaged in a bit of a three-way cluster that involved transferring both of them to my anchor (Kris had built an anchor about 3' to the left to bring up Dave), breaking down their anchor, redirecting the cordalette to take pull from a different direction, and having Dave and I rap off on one of Kris' half ropes. Kris then broke down the rap anchor, tied in to Evan's rope, and followed the pitch. At this point, Evan thought that they were perhaps 1 or 2 pitches from the summit, but as Dave and I descended and swung back around the south face, we could see that they were nowhere near the summit. Fortunately, Evan and Kris independently discovered this and rapped off after a brief reconnaissance. During this time, Evan located an older looking piece of tat on a loose block, so it turns out that we're not the first idiots to try this route.

While Kris and Evan descended, Dave sacked out to enjoy some food and the afternoon sun (now 1615) and I descended/wallowed a hundred feet down and then started back up the south face to get a better view of the route for future attempts (see notes below). Around 1730, we all regrouped and began our descent. Wallowing downhill is considerably faster than wallowing uphill and we reached the bottom of the gully in darkness around 1900. The trip back down through the talus went quickly, but we entered the forest too early and engaged in a little alder bashing before finding open timber and emerging at various points along the road. Ride back was uneventful, aside from Kris' rear tire developing a slow leak. Left Barlow Pass around 2030, tired but in good spirits.

Evan and I rounded out the evening with two slabs of homemade apple pie at the Mtn. View Cafe. Two thumbs up. Dave ordered enough food for three people at McDonalds. No comment.

Thanks for a day out in the Monte Cristos with various types of fun, guys. Who wants to go back?

Suggested Route:

From the top of the thin scree gully, make an ascending traverse through the path of least resistance to climber's left
Eventually you will break out in a wide bowl directly below the summit of Pirate Peak
Moderately angled slopes and ramps run continuously to about 200' below the summit (estimate), but the continuation to the top is unclear.
It is possible that if the south face were fully melted out that the ridge crest might make for good climbing (as is the case on nearby Foggy Peak). But by the time the south face is melted out, the approach is probably loose misery.

Starting up the trail