[Earthbound]

Myself (Doug Walsh), Scott Kindred and Andy Luks set out from Easy Pass on June 20th for a north side summit attempt on 4 peaks of the Ragged Ridge – Mesachie, Katsuk, Kimtah, Cosho. We planned an aggressive 3 day itinerary, with the middle day involving summiting all 4 peaks. In retrospect, summiting all of these peaks in a single day would require perfect route-finding in complicated terrain, excellent endurance, the right conditions, and long days. We had 3 of those 4 conditions intact, but imperfect route-finding forced us to settle for just Kimtah and Cosho. Still, it was an amazing trip in stunningly beautiful country. I am surprised more people don’t climb these peaks from the north side, as it is WAY prettier and the climbing is more esthetic than the south side routes. If I were to do this trip again, I’d plan on 4 days. From our camp, Kimtah and Cosho make a perfect day trip for one day, and then Mesachie and Katsuk would go on another day quite well. You gotta go early in the year though. Otherwise, moat issues at Mesachie/Katsuk col could be prohibitive. Scott and Andy were both commenting how great a ski trip this would be, as all the unpleasant scree/talus we experienced (it wasn’t really that bad actually) would not be an issue when snow cover is adequate.

Tour de Ragged Ridge. Intended itinerary on day 2

With a 9:30am start, we cruised up to Easy Pass in slightly under 2 hours. It took us another hour and a half to get from Easy Pass to the col just west of Kitling Peak. This section required a fair amount of somewhat unpleasant side hilling on talus and scree. It really wasn’t too bad, but it would have been nice to have more snow. Unfortunately, this slope melts out quickly in the spring with a direct sun hit.

Fisher Creek from Kitling Col

Panther Creek from Kitling Col. "X" marks our camp.

From the col beside Kitling, we could spy the rest of our route to camp on a bench at 6,100 ft. below the Katsuk glacier. From this col, we dropped onto the Mesachie Glacier on moderately steep snow. We kept the right side of the glacier on the descent and encountered no crevasse danger, so we didn’t even bother roping up here. Once below the snow, we headed down the panther creek drainage towards our camp. This section involved some very mild brush and somewhat unpleasant talus. Minus the talus, this section went smoothly, and we arrived at camp at 4:30pm.

Spying the Route

Waterfalls off Katsuk Glacier

Water from Katsuk Glacier

Sunset on Katsuk Glacier, with Mesachie and Katsuk visible

The morning of day 2 at around 6:30am, we headed up snow to a col on the north ridge of Kimtah. From here, the route to Cosho along the top of the Kimtah Glacier looked deceptively casual. We were soon to discover a hidden serac field that guarded passage along our route. Navigation through this serac field required some significant route finding. We almost gave up, but spied a dicey crossing on a bridge that ended up going fairly easily.

Seracs on Kimtah Glacier

Scott below dicey snow bridge crossing. Our prints in snow behind Scott.

Kimtah from Cosho

Once through the serac field, the rest of the journey to Cosho Peak went casually above crevasse danger on the upper slopes of the Kimtah Glacier. We followed snow as high as we could to climb Cosho, and then got on fairly easy rock to summit around 10am. After a half hour break, we headed over to the col between Kimtah and Thieves Peak. From this col, we contoured under the west ridge, using various gulleys and ledges, until we got directly below the summit. From there, an easy class 2 slope lead to the top. We summited Kimtah around 1pm.

Mesachie and Katsuk from Kimtah

Summit of Kimtah

The route from Kimtah summit to the col leading to Katsuk Glacier proved somewhat elusive. We should have reversed our course off the summit of Kimtah until we had dropped to where we could continue our contouring through the growtesque gendarmes over to Katsuk glacier. Instead, we tried to head down the east ridge of Kimtah. That was a mistake. After an hour or so of descent, we got cliffed out somewhere in the grotesque gendarmes. By this time, it was 3 pm, and we realized that the other two peaks were not going to happen. It took us an hour to reclimb Kimtah. We considered getting back to camp via the Katsuk glacier, but ultimately decided against this for three reasons: it was getting late in the day, we were tired, and we didn’t know if a moat guarded the entrance to the katsuk glacier. As a result, we simply retraced our steps from earlier in the day back to Kimtah-Thieves col, and headed back to camp from there, arriving in camp at 7:45pm.

Mountain Reflections

[scottk]

Thanks for the great trip, Doug and Andy. For folks comfortable with a couple of short sections of steep snow on the Kimtah Glacier this is a much more elegant approach to climb Kimtah and Cosho in particular. It would be even more elegant on skis. The seracs and crevasses on the Kimtah glacier would be no issue on a normal snow year in June. Given that we couldn't find any trip reports that crossed over the col leading to Katsuk Glacier I'd really like to go back and see if it goes. Perhaps there's a ski trip in my future...

[Magellan]

Sweet trip fellas. Something to consider for the future.

[DIYSteve]

Sweet We traversed the N side glaciers on this high route in 2012, going lower than OP, and camping on the precipice of a promontory c. 1.5km NNNE of Kimtah summit. We named the spot "Camp Wow!"

[Earthbound]

Thanks BigSteve. Your trip report was what gave me the idea for this trip.

[DIYSteve]

Cool Gotta get in there with skis one of these years

[raising3hikers]

great way to do those peaks

[JoshK]

"Elegant" is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. Count me as the odd one who thought the long south side traverse, levitating above Fisher Creek, with Logan and Goode across the valley was sweet! Not to mention goat trails across rocky buttress, covered in cool dry-side flora. More engaging than yet another glacier walk imo. Awesome trip though, certainly not trying to disparage! I just have to give the south side some respect, it's super beautiful and everybody always bags on it.