[cartman]

After the big trip Oyvind and I were going to do with Greg and Jon got nixed due to the lousy weather this past weekend, I was workin' it to come up with some other ideas. Within 6 hours last Wednesday, I was able to organize a great trip up Porcupine with Mike C. on Thursday, the West Ridge on Cutthroat with Brent turned back by showers Friday, and this...fine...escapade up Ballard Tuesday with Oyvind and Jeff. Now that's retrieving the weekend. Thanks guys! CAUTION: Ballard is a very loose, dangerous peak. Be very careful of rockfall and loose holds with extensive steep Class 3 and 4 terrain. The East Face route on Ballard is quite complex. No real trail, brush, short line of sight up much of the route, very poor and loose rock, complicated routefinding, a couple of thousand feet of junk strewn on anywhere from exposed Class 3 up to low Class 5 terrain makes for a long day even though the route is just under 11 miles RT. To be direct, this peak has very little to recommend it regarding aesthetics. Excellent party management is essential to avoid party-induced rockfall. We did not bring climbing gear for this trip. To give some perspective of the route, if you have done the neighboring Azurite, that peak is a pleasant walk in the park compared to this one. Ballard is a full grade more difficult on worse rock for a lot longer. We drove up Monday evening to the gate at the end of the Slate Creek Road down from Harts Pass to get an early start in the morning. The road to Harts Pass is in very good shape. We decided not to try to camp on this trip since the mileage and gain suggested this should go well as a day trip, and the lack of water available on the route this year. Both turned out to be true.

First view of Ballard

Matt has good generic directions in this report. You get to figure out the specifics. Good luck... We left the road about 100' past the bridge and immediately found a bit of a path beaten into the duff in the forest. The 1.5 miles of gradually rising route in the woods is easy, and we exited at 4900' with only 10' of alder to push through into the first talus field.

View from first talus field

We crossed the talus aiming for the middle of the first brushfest.

First tree slope

Jeff heads for the brush

There really isn't a great route through this; even though it looks like old growth, there is plenty of brush under the trees, but it's a little better to go far on climber's left, which is what we did on the way down. We struggled up to the second talus field and more views.

View from second talus field

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Second tree slope

We crossed the talus and went left around the small buttress. On the other side of this is a dirt gully. Don't go up this--it looks decent from below but it has many very loose rocks in the dirt. The better route is to stay away from the buttress altogether and go high to climber's right from the talus field; if you hit it correctly, there is a good game track crossing high into the greenery which will lead up to where Matt camped. The track crosses into the vegetation a couple of hundred feet above the more level talus. I found the track on the way up after exiting the lousy gully to the right and we followed it on the way down, worked great.

Views

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Summit complex

At ~6300' we continued straight up toward the grassy ramp.

Grassy ramp and rock rib

Oyvind in the grassy ramp

We went up this short ramp. Now the real climbing begins. Jeff and I went up the rock rib directly above the grassy ramp while Oyvind explored right in the gully clefts. The rib quickly transitioned from steep Class 3 to more exposed Class 4 on blocky rock with plenty of loose junk and some friable holds. Soon we heard Oyvind say "Don't come this way, the gully sucks" so we continued on the rib. The rib leads to a large, complex face.

Complex face

Oyvind was already crossing here and Jeff and I carefully followed on more third class junk,

Jeff on an easier section

then to Oyvind and around a corner.

Oyvind waits

We continued working our way up the face, mostly up and left. We never entered the huge gully still holding snow to the left.

Typical junk

Big wall

I don't remember the details for this part, only that we continued higher on more Class 3/4 terrain until the upper slopes came into view.

Upper East Face

The route transitioned to just tedious loose talus and scree as we traversed up and left toward the notch on the ridge.

To the notch

Hanging out, ready for the finish

The final 600' or so horizontal and couple of hundred vert crosses the West Face. The first ledge begins immediately from the notch. Though it is loose, I was relieved to finally be walking on relatively level ground--it actually felt like pleasant travel compared to what we had just done.

First ledge section

This ledge leads around a corner to another ledge,

Second ledge section

which leads around another corner to a third ledge,

Third ledge section

which leads to the summit gully just past the summit itself.

Summit gully

The gully is easy; if we aren't experts on choss by this point, we should retire our boots. The chockstone is bypassed on the right with a couple of Class 4 moves,

Gully chockstone

then to the notch just right of the final summit block.

Summit block

The summit block is about 40' of--you guessed it--Class 3/4 climbing to the top. The register has the same scraps of paper with not much space left for signing and could use a proper pad. Many views to be had,

Azurite

Goode to Logan

Inspiration Traverse

Eldorado

Snowfield group

even a Ballard native...

Oyvind

...which was appropriate as he is from Norway. Our down route varied here and there from the route up, as it was much easier to see farther on the route going down to pick the path of least resistance without wandering into more difficult terrain. Oyvind did an outstanding job of pathfinding and we all did well to avoid kicking rocks down on one another as we efficiently downclimbed the nearly 2000' of junk. If nothing else, this peak will hone your skills combining climbing, scrambling and choss with exposure. Below 6200' we found the game trail and followed it all the way this time as it went down then traversed down and left, exiting high in the higher (second on the way in) talus field which we then dropped several hundred feet to the lower brush slope. We went farther to skier's right going down the brush which seemed a little better, though we had to traverse more to the left lower in these woods to avoid the alder below at the first talus field. Ballard does have the virtue of keeping your attention, though it is lacking in most others. The route has a variety of Cascades junk to keep one entertained, and plenty of climbing mixed in. Water availability: right before the bridge crossing Slate Creek; one good stream in the woods after; and one good stream at the far side of the second talus field. Nothing higher. Thanks to Oyvind and Jeff for being fine partners, to Oyvind especially for the route-finding and to Jeff for the long drive. And Greg and Jon salvaged the weekend by climbing...Azurite! ~11 miles, 4700' gain Eric J. Johnson

[Jetlag]

Great detail! And I love the picture of Eldorado from that angle. If I ever decide to tackle Ballard (extremely unlikely after reading your TR) the route description would make it so much easier in a dry summer like this one. Thanks for taking the time to write it all up!

[puzzlr]

Congrats on this one. Is there a peak named Phinney too?

[raising3hikers]

nice, i've been trying to find time to get there. thanks for the road update and report.

[cartman]

[Shred]

Looks like a fun pile of crap! Stuff like that, makes me appappreciate the clean climbing of the Cascades, that much more. Nice work, Eric.

[Roald]

Congrats, Eric! You made a lot out of that weekend. I am glad Greg and I went up the easier mountain on Monday.

[Matt]

That's a tough undertaking for a day trip in hot weather with the slopes bare of snow. Glad you were able to endure it. The route's much better earlier in a normal summer when there's some snow on it, since the snow accumulates on the gullies or lower angled slopes, and covers up most of the loosest rock. https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8007375