Forbidden Fourth of July

Kristin Kaupang and Jeff Watts have been wanting to climb Forbidden for a while, and Kathy and I got to join them for a 4th of July attempt. Another group of WACers was also heading up: Denny, Joanna, Liz and Carlos, so we would have a lot of friendly company.

After getting the last permit available, we hiked up to Boston Basin and set up camp. The other WACers were going to head up the mountain in the wee hours of the morning, so we decided on a 6am start to give them a head start, as the mountain was sure to be crowded.

At 6am, we got moving, heading up across the glacier to the snow gully that led to the ridge. We climbed the 50 degree gully for a few hundred feet (don't fall) to reach some rock 4th class ledges. A few exposed moves got us up on the loose rocky ledges, and we headed left up a steep gully another 150 feet to the ridge proper. Leaving our packs, we scrambled a short ways up the ridge before setting up a belay to start the roped climbing.

Kathy and I quickly finished the first pitch behind Kristin and Jeff, only to wait for almost an hour while they finished the second pitch, then someone else came down from above, then a pair simul-climbed past us. I realized that we probably would not reach the summit, as it was too busy, and we had three other rope teams that we knew about ahead of us (all of whom planned to downclimb the West Ridge), as well as several groups of simul-climbers who would occasionally speed past us up and down the ridge.

The ridge itself was mostly very low 5th class climbing. Pitching it out like we did slowed us down a bit, but we were stuck behind Kristin and Jeff and the other two WAC rope teams ahead of them in any case. Kathy and I finished a few more pitches. Kathy was worried about having to downclimb the ridge, so I suggested that we turn around early. We let Kristin and Jeff know that we were turning around and then headed back, taking our time to downclimb the ridge.

Down in the gully, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to belay ourselves around the sketchy moves coming up. Only after a lot of delay did we discover that there was a rappel station that allowed us to skip the sketchiest section that came right off the snow, and we rappeled a very short rappel down the last ledge to the snow gully. During this time, we saw a two foot wide slab of rock spontaneously let loose and slide down the snow gully ahead of us as the day warmed up.

Kathy and I downclimbed the gully. Halfway down, we heard a roar of rocks coming down a gully to our left, and we instinctively ducked and covered. We made it down safely, then hiked across the very low angle glacier back to camp. We made it back for dinner at 7pm, a long day. We ate dinner and kept our radio on, listending to how the others were doing.

Kristin, Jeff and others reached the top at 2:30, about an hour and a half after Kathy and I had turned around. With so many people on the mountain, they took a long time to get down, and were still trying to do double rope rappels down the snow gully when the sun set. From our campsite, Kathy and I watched them, like little ants, coming down the snow gully. A rope got stuck and they had to climb partway back up the gully to deal with it. With headlamps on, they trudged back home, tired and weary, making it back to camp at 11pm.

The next morning, everyone was too tired to do anything else, so we slept in, packed up at a casual pace, and headed home.