[dicey]

Many lessons were learned on this trip The first lesson is a) always bring a real rain jacket backpacking in NCNP no matter what month it is. The weather report looked stellar for fri-sun, until friday morning. Luckily, I did a quick check in the morning before my ride arrived, and swapped out my flimsy lightweight rain shell for the goretex one at the last possible moment. Laurie, Karen, Anne and myself, drove to the Marblemount ranger station to secure our permits for 2 nights in horseshoe basin. No problem, but we can only camp in upper horseshoe basin. Ok, we'll have to take our full packs up there. Not a big deal, since our objective was Buckner. We arrived at Cascade Pass trailhead in the rain. We actually sat in the car for an hour, hoping it would let up, but it didn't. We sloshed up to the pass (no views), and down the other side, heading for the turn off to Horseshoe Basin. Lesson b) make sure you are not the only one with a map, and if for some reason you are, make sure the plastic bag holding the map does not have holes in it.

wrecked map

By the time we make it up into horseshoe basin, the rain has stopped, and the clouds are breaking up, allowing for blue skies and sun to peek through. Horseshoe basin is a steep walled cirque, filled with numerous waterfalls dropping down from the upper basin. Views of Sahale, ripsaw ridge and Buckner from here are a little humbling.

horseshoe basin

We make our way up the brushy trail, which becomes a creek in many places, to break out into the open. Here the trail degrades into piles of boulders, which we followed up towards black warrior mine, nestled at the base of the cirque wall, to the left of a fairly large waterfall. A peek in the mine reveals items suggesting that people have in the past or currently do use the mine for something - gallon container of stove fuel, and other misc. stuff. It was kinda creepy in there, so we didn't stick around too long. Info on the mine here

mine

Climbed up some ledges to the left of the mine, crossing over a waterfall to reach some steep brush on the far side. This turned out to be a little sketchy with full packs, so we climbed back down and tried to spy the route to the right of the mine. I seemed to remember Becky saying to climb up from the mine trending east (right). The hardest part of this plan, was finding a way across the waterfall this high up. Down we headed, scouting a way across the steep gully which became less steep the further down stream we went, but became more problematic due to snow caves on the other side which were undermelted enough to drive a truck through At this point, we were running out of time for anymore screwing around, and needed to get to camp. So we gave up for the evening, resolving to solve this puzzle in the morning with lighter packs I could go on for a long time about the various route finding skirmishes and vertical brush jungle gyms/waterfall slab playgrounds we encountered saturday morning, but in the end, we were unable to gain upper horseshoe basin. Now we were really in a pickle. We had a permit for upper horseshoe basin for tonight, but no realistic way to get there. We considered our options which were to 1) bail completely, hike back to the cars and try to get a permit for somewhere else(lame), 2) go home(really lame), 3) continue with our current trend of becoming the scourge of the North Cascades - unwilling rogues, if you will (kinda lame and illegal - therefore somewhat appealing). So we headed back to Cascade Pass, stopping for a refreshing dip in doubtful creek along the way. Upon reaching the pass, we acquiesced to the hordes and their constant demands of, "could you take my picture?" over and over. We fairly ran up the trail past the bathrooms (side note here - on the way back, Karen stopped to use this privy, only to happen upon a goat with it's head stuck down inside it. She decided to hold it ) We followed the beaten path below Mix Up, crossing some streams and some ugly steep dirt/rock gullies, marveling at the views of Eldorado, Torment, Forbidden, Sahale, Ripsaw ridge and stupid Buckner. We saw a herd of about 6 or 7 goats and a kid - cute!

goats and eldorado

We topped a knoll and found a discreet, but well used campsite with some running water from snowmelt. It was only 4pm, but we didn't know what was on the other side of cache col, and views from here were not so bad. We watched a roped team of 4 heading up the glacier to the col, and watched little ants descending from sahale arm. Laurie and I scrambled up towards gunsight notch in the evening, then settled down to a clear but windy night.

eldorado, torment, forbidden and sahale arm

In the morning, we cramponed up the glacier to the col, breathless with anticipation. After about an hour, we were rewarded. There it all was, laid out for our impatient eyes. Formidable, Spider, Le Conte, Sentinel, Dome, Sinister, on and on, peaks for as far as we could see in all directions. A well defined trail continued on, down and then up over a knoll and out of sight. We dropped our axes, crampons and helmets at the col and set out. The trail from the knoll descends some talus fields, some steep dirt and heather slopes, then traverses over to Kool aid lake. We could see a tent perched above the lake, and it turned out to be the same group of 4 we had watched the night before.

heading towards kool aid lake from cache col

We hung out at the lake for an hour or so, lounging around. No one opted for a swim, probably because the lake was only about 2/3rds melted out. Getting back to the col seemed to take less time than the descent to the lake. We scrambled up some higher points for better views, lounging around for a while here too. Eventually, though, the lounging and viewing had to come to an end, and we finally headed back down the glacier to our camp, where another herd of goats stood posing in front of Sahale for us. After the 'goat with it's head in the privy at cascade pass' incident, the walk back to the parking lot down the 50 thousand switchbacks seemed pretty uneventful, but long and hot. At least it wasn't raining!

[Tazz]

very entertaining and enjoyable TR. and beautiful pics

[Jeff R]

I really like the way you compiled your report, real nice! A+

[Stuart]

Thanks

[Don]

Nice TR Dicey. Sorry to hear about your Horseshoe Basin experience. I got stuck in Upper Horseshoe Basin once, unable to find a route down! I had traversed over from Sahale. I finally got down, but was too far to the east and was downclimbing class 4 and low class 5 rock with a full pack (1 week trip, to exit Thunder Creek). I kissed the trail when I finally got down. A couple of yeas ago I went back and climbed Buckner again, but approached via Horseshoe. It was sunny and I found the walk-up route with no problem, east of the creek. I think I did it in late August, so conditions may have been different for me. Don't give up - it's there! (Beckey says to look for the old cable - don't do it!) Anyway, doesn't sound like you suffered too much after getting to see the first stage of the PT!

[mike]

I've camped in the lower basin too. Really sucks as there isn't a level boulder free brush free spot in the whole place. Didn't get to the upper basin that trip either. We were coming from Thunder Ck. On a later trip we found a route farther to the east than the place it sounds like you tried. Still our route up wasn't a walk up and would be difficult with full packs. If Don says a walk up route exists I believe him but we sure didn't find it. We were earlier in the year so maybe that matters. The skree slope below the summit wouldn't be any fun late in the year I think.

[Don]

Good point Mike - I should clarify "walk up" to be class 2 IMO. The route gets easier and more obvious the further you climb. I camped on the snow in the upper reaches of the upper basin to avoid the bear problems of my previous visit, and had snow all the way up to the bare summit ridge. I can't imagine climbing Buckner in scree either - yuk.

[mike]

Yeah, a class 2 would be great. Our route was a class 4 maybe a section of 5 especially considering the wet miserable rock. Lots of vegetative belays. Probably to the right of dicey's photo but it's hard to tell.

[dicey]

Here are a couple of shots of the 'route', for clarification

purple = routes we tried that didn't work. orange = route i think would work

the purple shows the routes we tried that didn't work, and the orange shows the route I 'think' would work.

taken from waterfall to the left of the mine

this is the route I think would work. It is taken from up and to the left of the mine. It had a lot of water flowing through the red notch though...hmm.

[Don]

Dicey, I have drawn what I believe the route to be into your pic (yep, I desecrated it). I wish I could see the slope after the furthest waterfall to the right to be certain. But I believe this to be correct. You leave the trail a few hundred feet before the mine and cross the creek for the proper route, coming out on the eastern side of the upper basin. The brush in the center of the pic is where the cable is that Beckey refers to. It is a jungle in there.

[dicey]

Wow, that is way farther east than I would have even thought to look!! Thank you guys for your insight into my bumbling, route finding faceplants. Maybe I'll go back with a read-able map sometime! I honestly don't know what we would have done if we had gotten up there with that mess of a map. Probably would have ended up climbing something else altogether anyway I think everyone in the group was happy to bail and end up in the beautiful place we did. I almost forgot.... Last lesson learned on this adventure: A broken toe apparently takes more than 3 days to heal

[wbs]

What timing! I have a 4 day wkend coming up and had been wrestling with that all too common so much to see where to go syndrome. Prospects in no particular order a.) Horseshoe Basin b.) Shucksan Arm c.) Boston Basin d.) somewhere off in the far reaches of Pasayten Thanks Dicey I think you just may have made my decision for me

[Don]