Climbing Adventures in Canada: Washington Pass, WA - North & South Early Winter Spires

WA Pass Spires - S. & N. Early Winter Spires 1st two from left

After the weekend with KC the spires in Washington Pass were stuck in my mind and so I hooked up mid-week with Kevin to do a double header. North and South Early Winter Spire in a day. We left Monday night and camped at the pass. The mosquitos were numerous and hungry as usual during this time of year. It was nice to escape the 90+ temps back in Seattle and we slept soundly at 5000+ feet. 5am and the ex-Marine was shaking the van to go but not before we fueled with some of my morning oats. The approach is a gentle 1.5mi and 45 minutes to the climbers trail which is past the Liberty Bell cut off and at about 600' elevation from trail head and beside a well running melt off fed creek. About another 900' to the base of the spires and about ~1.5hrs total approach time.

N.Early Winter Spire on left and S.Early Winter Spire on right - looking from west

Evening sun on Liberty Bell the night before

Gear sort and prep while avoiding loss of blood to mozzies

Cut Throat Peak Panaroma on approach - note the shadow of the Liberty Group Spires

Covert Goat

I did notice that the goats here in WA Pass are a little more sneaky than the Snow Creek Wall goats. They try to quietly stalk you using the shrubery as cover!

North Early Winter Spire - North West Corner Route 5.9

A view of the obvious sickle on the NW Corner route
(photo credit: Eric & Lucie)

Kevin leading off p1

Higher on P1

Moi on the crux off-width - grunt!

This pitch likes to eat larger cams so 2 to 3 four inchers would be nice. We linked pitches 2 and 3 and summited in a relaxed ~3 hours. Rappels with twin 60m ropes got us to the packs at noon ~6 hours from car departure for lunch and then off to the next route.

Thru with the grunt fest

Kev coming up to the summit

Summit Panorama

After lunch activities had us chasing some guided party of 2 up the SW Rib that we saw earlier that morning on their approach to the South Spire. We caught up with them 2-3 pitches from the summit and exchanged hi/byes. Summit took us about ~2.5hr and we down climbed the South Arete and rapped the last 200'. Back at the car in ~11 hours total. Great day and time to burger up in Marble Mount.