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Mountain Madness
Forbidden Peak with Mountain Madness

Adventure on the Torment Forbidden Traverse

Last sum­mer Chris came out to Wash­ing­ton in mid June with plans to climb the west ridge of For­bid­den Peak. How­ev­er the weath­er was a bit unset­tled on our West­ern Slopes, so to increase our chances of not being shut down by weath­er, we changed the plans, and climbed the West Ridge of Mount Stu­art in the Enchant­ments. Climb­ing the awe­some West Ridge of Stu­art solid­i­fied Chris’ sus­pi­cion that he would enjoy long mixed alpine rock routes. When we fin­ished that trip he said, ​“that was incred­i­ble, but I still need to climb the West Ridge of For­bid­den.” I replied, ​“We should do it when we climb the Tor­ment For­bid­den next year.” And with that the seed was plant­ed. Chris worked on his rock game all fall and spring, and returned to the cas­cades fit, and con­fi­dent on rock. The result was an extreme­ly pro­duc­tive 4 days in Boston Basin. 

Pho­to by Alan Rousseau

We enjoyed a warm up climb on Shark­fin Tow­er our sec­ond day, and found great con­di­tions and per­fect climb­ing tem­per­a­tures. Shark­fin only took us the morn­ing, and we relaxed in the sun on some rock slabs near camp to get ener­gized for the big tra­verse the next day. It was gen­er­al­ly a care­free after­noon with the excep­tion of one crit­i­cal equip­ment mal­func­tion. The soles of Chris’ boots were begin­ning to delam­i­nate in a major way. Lit­er­al­ly the lug sole was falling off the boot! But what could we do?
Answer: The only thing we could do; climb until we fin­ished it or his boots fell apart! 
Pho­to by Alan Rousseau

We left our high camp in Boston Basin at 3:30 in the morn­ing and start­ing rag­ing the tra­verse. Three and a half hours lat­er we stood on top of Tor­ment via the south ridge. Although a mile of steep tech­ni­cal ter­rain lay between us and the west ridge of For­bid­den we were feel­ing quite con­fi­dent with our pace. Descend­ing Tor­ment went smooth­ly as the moat had not real­ly opened up yet, and we were pleased to find fast snow con­di­tions. A mix of simul climb­ing, short rop­ing, and pitched climb­ing weaved us through var­i­ous snow fields, pock­et glac­i­ers, and gen­darmes to the base of the west ridge of For­bid­den a few min­utes before noon! We took a moment to heave a sigh of relief that we had arrived sev­er­al hours before our turn around time. After some water and ditch­ing some weight at the Col. the climb­ing resumed. The clean gran­ite on the west ridge was a wel­come change from the vari­able rock qual­i­ty we had climbed over the pre­vi­ous sev­en hours. After reach­ing the sum­mit we reversed and used famil­iar footholds and retraced back to the col and descend the couloir back to camp. Arriv­ing back in camp at 4:50pm made for a 13 hour 20 minute day, a pret­ty quick time for the tra­verse, and Chris’ longest route and first grade V! 

Pho­to by Alan Rousseau

As for Chris’ boots they sur­vived the tra­verse but are like­ly in a trash can some­where, although Chris joked he was going to have them pre­served in brass. I look for­ward to climb­ing with Chris again lat­er this sum­mer in Wash­ing­ton Pass, and hope­ful­ly beyond. Thanks for a great time and safe pas­sage through some seri­ous terrain!

Pho­to by Alan Rousseau