Forbidden Peak (West Ridge) with Dave Ahrens

Much to our delight — and Dav­e’s relief — the day dawns dry and sun­ny. Fol­low­ing anoth­er of Andrea’s knock-out cof­fee kicks, we dri­ve to the begin­ning of the hike-in. It starts off under the north­east face of Mt Johan­nes­burg with its mul­ti­tude of hang­ing glac­i­ers, couloirs and glis­ten­ing glacial water­falls. The hike, which is only 3 miles, but gains 3000 ft ele­va­tion, pro­ceeds to cross sev­er­al streams and take us through tun­nels of under­growth which seem specif­i­cal­ly designed to spike, impale, hang or oth­er­wise inflict bod­i­ly harm! ANDREA: Don’t for­get about the fresh avalanche shoots sooth­ing our sens­es with earth­ly scents dom­i­nat­ed by the evergreens.

After an hour or so we get our first glimpse of For­bid­den Peak and its every bit as tan­ta­lis­ing as I’d imag­ined. Only rather more so: the couloir looks far steep­er than I’d thought it would be, the rock even more jagged and strik­ing.… ANDREA: I’m think­ing ​“couloir” — what that? Wow, that’s a lot of rock!

Final­ly we reach Boston Basin at around 5500ft and its so beau­ti­ful: wide green mead­ows full of wild­flow­ers and lit­tle mar­mots lead onto the Quien Sabe Glac­i­er which itself is sur­round­ed by the peaks Mt Tor­ment, Shark­fin Tow­er, Sahale Peak, Boston Peak, Mt For­bid­den and Mt Johannesburg.

The camp­site is emp­ty so we pick a great spot and set up our tents. Dave gives us a les­son on anchors, glac­i­ers, walk­ing and climb­ing in snow and ice and then cooks a big pas­ta din­ner (sup­ple­ment­ed by my favourite cook­ies, hot choc­cy and mini-marsh­mal­lows) and we go to bed ear­ly. Of course I can’t sleep and so get up to watch the final embers of sun­light turn cold over Forbidden.

ANDREA: I couldn’t sleep either, but I was­n’t mov­ing, I was meditating.

Day 3 (Climb)

Dave wakes us with hot oat­meal and cof­fee around 3:30am and we get going around 4:30am.

This is one of my favourite moments: each of us climb­ing silent­ly, turn­ing every now and again to watch the alpen­glow light up the faces of the sur­round­ing peaks. There is no wind and the sun slow­ly ris­es into the most sub­lime of sum­mer day.

We put our cram­pons on, rope-up and leave our trekking poles at the base of the couloir. We ascend the couloir which is steep at around 45 degrees but are helped by the tracks of pre­vi­ous par­ties. We scram­ble up a rock tow­er while Dave belays us from above and soon we climb up and onto the west ridge where an awe­some view of the sur­round­ing moun­tains and Moraine Lake awaits us.

Then we change into our rock shoes and move onto the ​“notch”. Dave tells us to just climb over it and not look down the thou­sand ft or so of north­west face, but who could resist tak­ing a peek?

ANDREA: A height­ened sense of anx­i­ety starts to rise so at the next big move, I freeze and tell Dave, ​“I just can’t do it.” Then I tell Emma, ​“I’m sor­ry, I think this is as far as I can go.” As promised, she says okay, she assures me most gra­cious­ly that get­ting as far as we did was good enough for her. As we speak, Dave is busy manoeu­vring his gear and rope, comes back to us, gives us more direc­tion, then turns to me and said, ​“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Andrea,” and off we go for the summit.

We con­tin­ue climb­ing for a few hours – the ridge is full of flakes and horns and looks as though the entire peak might just sud­den­ly crum­ble under our feet, but in fact it proves very sol­id and feels great and secure. Dave cheer­ful­ly, patient­ly and tire­less­ly belays us, talks through moves where nec­es­sary, and always has a wicked smile for us. The expo­sure is won­der­ful ANDREA: (scary) and as we work our way high­er I keep look­ing around to see if I can see Mt Bak­er, where Andrea and I met. ANDREA: What I find as we move for­ward is the more I move the more I love it, I just don’t like look­ing down.

Final­ly we reach the west sum­mit, pause for a moment and then make the final moves to the true sum­mit at 8,815 ft: it’s a spec­tac­u­lar moment as we can see Eldo­ra­do, Glac­i­er, Shuk­san, Bak­er and even Rainier far off in the dis­tance. We almost can’t believe we’ve made it and I’m inde­scrib­ably hap­py. ANDREA: Although I am hap­py, I’m a lit­tle shaky and seek to cap­ture for­ev­er in my mind the mag­nif­i­cent 360 degree view.

We take a zil­lion pho­tos and then its time to head back. We down­climb por­tions and Dave low­ers us over oth­ers until we are back at the notch again. This time its fun and we jump across. We down climb the couloir and head back to camp in the set­ting sun. ANDREA: Going down that couloir, all of a sud­den, I find myself in a gul­ly. I’m proud I did­n’t pan­ic too much and climbed out rather quickly.

I fall asleep smiling.

ANDREA: Me too, I’m also exhausted.

Day 4 (Hike out)

I awake ear­ly and chat to some oth­er climbers who are now camped at the camp­site and are get­ting ready for their climb. I already wish I was going back up. ANDREA: If giv­en the chance, she would have, me, well I had enough climb­ing for this adventure!

With sad­ness we pack up and after a final glance at For­bid­den, we fight our way back through the under­growth and down the trail. Back at the car, it’s so good to remove our moun­tain boots and change. We dri­ve up to Cas­cade Pass to cel­e­brate with a mix of chips, sal­sa, oranges and cherries!

ANDREA: Then the rain moved in and we moved on out but not before Emma chides us one more time about let­ting the rain dic­tate what we will or will not do.

Vital Stats:

Andrea’s favorite moment: reach­ing the true sum­mit, I real­ized I man­aged to achieve a dream of tra­vers­ing the ridge­line of moun­tain. Okay, okay days lat­er it hits, but still a dream come true.

Emma’s favorite moment: step­ping out onto the ridge­line, see­ing the view and feel­ing the exposure!

Our favorite moun­tain meal: close call between the cream cheese, salmon and basil bagel and the riga­toni pas­ta dinner.

What we like about guide Dave Ahrens? his total ded­i­ca­tion in respect­ing the envi­ron­ment, being pre­pared and prepar­ing his clients, enabled us to have the courage to meet this chal­lenge head-on and mov­ing us from begin­ner to more inter­me­di­ate lev­el climbers. Many thanks Dave!

Oh and are we still friends? Of course! … And plan­ning our next Cas­cades climb. ANDREA: I recall dis­cus­sions of climbs on oth­er con­ti­nents too, so my new goal just might be one climb on each con­ti­nent with Emma! Dave, we want you there too, so good luck get­ting your IFM­GA status.