This one kicked us around last year in the fog and rain and we never ended up making it to the top. Actually, we weren't even that close as I found out yesterday. With the clear skies I figured I could make a nice 6 hour round trip out of it, but once again the mountain beat me up even though I eventually made it to the top. I figured I could get to the top in 3 hours. I should have read Mike Collins' report as he mentioned it took him 5 hours to ascend, at least that would have prompted me to start earlier than 0930...
So anyhow. I left my truck at the tiny parking spot and headed on up the steep Green Ridge trail which went fine for a few minutes. After two hundred feet of vertical I was accosted by a swift moving Hello Kitty helium balloon as it rode a stiff breeze through the forest. The whole scene has to rank in the top three strangest things I have ever seen. Nevertheless, I continued up the trail which ascends (more or less) a steep rib straight up the hill. At 3450' or so there is an intersection where I kept straight and followed the remainder of the trail to the ridge crest at roughly 4600'.
From here I went NW over two 4800' high points and then dropped down to Lake 4662. I lounged a bit at the lake before heading up and down to the SW while I negotiated the increasingly inefficient ridgeline. Instead of ascending to the top of Point 4962' I traversed around to the south at 4860' which was a quicker means of accessing the pass to the west of Point 4962' - Dreisbach refers to this as "East Pass". From the pass, I could see the bump to the west where our trip had ended a year before and I was intent on avoiding another ascent of it if at all possible. Instead, I traversed to the north of it by dropping 150' from the pass down a steep grass gully then across much talus, and up again to a more subtle pass at the base of the east ridge proper of East Garfield.
The east ridge rises abruptly from the pass and I ascended a hundred feet of steep duff slopes before getting on to more comfortable rock. I found the rest of the ridge to within 200' vertical of the summit to be pretty horrible (travel wise). Class 3 rock choked by a thick layering of pine trees. The route was rarely in view and more than once I had to down climb stuff I had just climbed to get back on route. Finally, around 5250' the way opened up and the final climb to the summit was on enjoyable (and at times airy) class 2/3 rock. After a tiring 4.5 hours of up and down climbing I was finally on top. As impressive as Garfield is from the MFK valley it is much more so from East Garfield. Equally impressive, commanding views are had of the entire MFK drainage from Summit Chief to Russian Butte. The original summit register from 1951 remains on the summit although it is water soaked and not easily read except for a few words like "First Ascent", "April 1951", and "Richard". Per Beckey, the first ascenders were Richard Berge and Pete Schoening. Mike Collins' party from last November left a new register and a few scraps of paper to which I added part of my quad for additional signers.
I descended my same route back along the ridge and after seemingly hundreds of tree rappels and countless ups and downs it was nice to be back at my truck even if I was 2.5 hours late. Overall good trip, but with a very high suffer to payoff ratio.
Randy,
Are all the, ah hem, parts still functional on my Kitty?
Seriously, I've picked up at least 4 or 5 deflated ballons in past few months. Are ballons that much more popular or are people just careless?
Never got around to testing that functionality you speak of. Darn it. I had my mind on other things.
I've picked up a lot of balloons on my trips, but I've never actually come across one still intact and "floating".
I found a deflated weather balloon with its instruments attached when I climbed East Garfield last year. It is one of my favorite King County peaks and I had hoped to make it a yearly event. Next year is the earliest I could hoep to return however.
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