[raising3hikers]

American Border Peak 7994' Josh H and I met up at the Twin Lakes for a TH camp on Friday night. We woke early and were hiking by 5:45am on the Winchester Mtn trail. We took the trail junction towards low and high passes and were greeted with a hazy sunrise to the East.

hazy sunrise

We passed but then quickly realized that we probably missed the trail down towards the old Gargett mine. We found the trail and headed down to the stream crossing and filled up on water. This would also be some of the last firm, solid ground we'd be on for quite some time. We did a slight descending traverse around the 5400' level. Steep side hilling on talus and green plants were getting a bit annoying.

steep traversing

We rounded a rib to slightly better terrain for a little while at least. We headed for a notch at another rib at 6300'. The final 300' was extremely loose as every step resulted in moving rocks. From the notch, it was another down hill traverse over a large talus slope. Everything moved under foot but we kept at it. We didn't fall below 5800' and found a gully with a forested rib on the other side. We headed up and whenever there was anything too steep, we traversed left. All of that seemed to work out good enough and soon we were on our way to the saddle at 6840'. At the saddle, the views were kind of disappointing due to all the smoke in the air. Baker and Shuksan were barely visible. Now it was time for some more loose rocks and scrambling up the slopes of ABP. We did a rising traverse over towards a gully on the right side of the peak. Climbing was easy enough and soon saw some more interesting areas. Above the "nose" a bench traverse was mostly blocked with steep, hard snow, so we slowly traversed slabby, gravel ledges above to reach the next gully to take which had a large snow block in it. We reached it as it entered the tight gully and decided to crawl, mantle, and claw our way beneath it on climbers left. It was tight but it went.

looking back down the snow filled gully, we scurried up on the pics right side

Once that battle was over, we went up and down some small ledges over to the chimney areas. We bypassed the first chimney chockstone, which didn't look too bad. We used the class 4 route just to the right of it and got into the steep chimney. We went one at a time as anything that would fall would certainly hit someone below. The 2nd big chockstone was a little tough to get around. The rock to the right was covered in dirt and sand making the bulging 5.2 moves tricky. Then it was onto the last chockstone which can't be climbed over but is where the tiny tunnel is. I'm a skinny guy but I had a tough time getting through there. I shoved my back pack through as I uncomfortably hung on with my legs in various positions keeping me up. I squeezed through and yelled back at Josh that it was now his turn. Another problem was that there is so much loose rock above the hole, I didn't want to risk grabbing his pack and sending rock down. So he had to do the same struggling moves, too.

Josh looking like a marmot getting out of the hole

Once that was over, there was a little more scrambling to the right of another mellower gully to reach the ridge. Then it was easy boulder hiking to the top. The views were still really hazy and we did not find a summit register.

Josh reaching the summit

Tomyhoi

Larrabee

We headed down and decided to rappel the loose gully because it had some steep snow near the top. Then it was the chockstone gully rappel. My 60m rope was barely, and I mean barely just enough to reach close enough to the bottom to get just below the 1st chockstone. This was probably the most awkward and worst rappel that I've done. First of all, it's a really tight gully. Then throwing the rope in the right spot is tough, it got caught up on a ledge mid way down that I had to free up mid rappel. The start off the chockstone is awkward because it's almost immediately free hanging for a bit. My pack and poles kept getting wedged in the tight gully(I should have left my poles down below in the first place) Anyways, it was a slow rap and I had a few scrapes on my hands and legs because of it. Josh followed and pretty much felt the same about it being a sucky rappel.

Josh rappelling the crux chimney

Once at the snow gully, we did an interesting rap below the snow. Since we couldn't throw the rope down under the snow, Josh started the rappel while I fed out rope from above as needed until he was at the bottom and the rope was in place. I followed, packed up the rope and we headed back down the loose mountain. As we headed back down the steep slopes, it seemed as if the skies were clearing a little to the North but still low visibility to the south. More loose, steep traversing was just as annoying as earlier in the day. We were happy to reach the trail again and didn't have many good things to say about American Border Peak.

looking back at American Border Peak

interesting series of waterfalls

back on a nice trail

We reached the trailhead happy to have climbed the peak and maybe even happier that we don't have to do it again. Thanks Josh, for climbing that loose pile of rock with me! 9.5 miles 5800' elevation gain 10hrs 15min

[gb]

Glad I never climbed that peak. Larrabee, though far easier, is another choss pile of mostly little square loose rocks at a pretty high angle. Tomyhoi and the Pleiades are the only climbs in the area worth doing, although Dallas Kloke fell to his death on the Pleiades. A good general rule in Washington is if it has red rock don't bother doing it. The Twin Sisters and Ingalls are exceptions but they are both of Dunite/Serpentine which is intrusive igneous.

[rbuzby]

[iron]

must feel good to have that one done. definitely a DNR kind of peak.

[Matt]

Looks even more interesting with that big block of snow in the lower gully.

[joker]

That is clearly a route where you want to trust your partner's loose rock management. It's lovely to look at but I've never had a shred of desire to climb it.

[raising3hikers]

[cascadetraverser]

Looks like one of your more enjoyable climbs!!

[mbravenboer]

Unless there were multiple parties on border peak that day, we met briefly at Low Pass. I was heading up with my dog. Wish I recognized you! I headed back soon after that for dinner, and noticed you guys were very fast so late on the day. I should have guessed it was you .

[Brushbuffalo]

[Gimpilator]

Nice job guys. I have a failed attempt on that one. Not sure if I'm going back. It's nice to see some more photos of the upper route.

[whoami]

Fond memories of that one there. Congrats Josh and Eric on a fine climb. How do you think I felt climbing through that chimney?