Where: Devils Peak & Devils Thumb, near Granite Falls
When: April 18th/19th, 2009
With: BoeAlps BCC Team 7
Goals: Survive winter camping, climb/rappel with harness/ropes
I woke up at 4:00am (for some reason this no longer freaks me out like it used to) to put the final touches on getting my stuff together for our trip and eating a hearty bowl of oatmeal.
We got to the meeting spot of the Verlot Ranger Station before 6:30am and were at the trailhead before 7 and were on the trail by 7:10 (about half an hour earlier than the scheduled time, and previous years). The other team (here on referred to as: Team Black / Commandos / Frat Boys) got on the route slightly before our team but we were all headed to the same camping spot.
There is a bunch of team gear and it was (perhaps unevenly!) split up. I carried my 2-person tent (to share with Evelyn), pot/stove (Evelyn carried the fuel), and team rope. This was in addition to my extra few pounds of summit treats and camera. Otherwise all our gear should have been about the same weight. Because of aforementioned weight I think my pack weighed more than 75% of the other people’s packs—and I’m the smallest!! I wish we figured out pack weight to human weight ratios. Although I found the extra weight to be a challenge (bruising my hips for sure!), I didn’t really think it was a total burden or crippling. I just kept telling myself it was only a few miles to camp! Once we got moving, about a mile in, I hardly noticed the backbreaking weight!
The beginning of the trail was just an unplowed road. Not very steep, but we were pretty much all carrying the most weight we’ve ever carried before, and our steady pace soon proved a little too fast for we were all breathing quite hard on this relatively flat trail.
After we got off the unplowed road, the trail opened up to a very green section. It was really easy walking with the fact that there was no snow on the ground, but the amount of downed trees and streams to cross added to the challenge level.
A few hundred feet in elevation later we were back to snowpack. The Commando’s had already created a bootpack through this area (not too challenging, the steps only sunk in about 6” or so) so we just followed in their steps. At a switchback we traded first place and our team made steps through a much deeper area. The snow was still far more pleasant than the last BoeAlps trip—sinking to your waist is so discouraging. Right before we got off the main switchback trail to go straight up the mtn our two BoeAlps groups combined in a single line and we worked as a large team to go up the steepest section. This meant after you kicked your steps, you got quite a long break, for you waited for about 35 people to pass you!!
I thought we made great time up the mountain. We got into camp around noon and while our team set up our tents the Commando’s decided to go to head to Devil’s Thumb. We were about done setting up the tents by the time the Commando’s had pulled out all their gear of the bags to head up to the Thumb. The Thumb is the further of the two peaks and Team Black thought the only chance of summit was if they did it the first day. We left about an hour after they did (very happy that we had time to take a break, eat some food, and set up all our gear) and continued on to Devil’s Peak.
As an aside: Evelyn and I set up our tent the fastest—by far.
I dropped at least 30 pounds from my pack before continuing (tent/stove/extra food and Matt felt bad about not taking rope up the original pass so he offered to take that from me as well). It made me feel so light I just wanted to frolic up the trail! We were only going to kick about 30 steps a piece, but I felt so good I kicked 70 steps my first 3 turns—and they weren’t slow steps either. I claimed I was just trying to compete with Leonard—our instructor who seems to be able to kick steep steps forever! My 4th turn I kicked 150 steps! It was an epic journey. I got to 90 steps and was like “well, I’m pretty close to 100, I might as well continue.” I was still feeling really good at 100 so I figured I could get to 125, when I got there I thought ‘I’m not breathing too hard, I could double my last steps if I got to 140” and then 150 steps just sounded like an epic number. At that point I knew I could continue but it would be with a cost of slower steps—and the point is not to get the most steps, but to be most efficient, so I stepped out.
The last 100 yards of our trip really felt like we were breaking trail straight up. Even with a few switchbacks it was still like you were walking up a ladder. When we got to the top of the ridge (minus the rock face actual summit) we were told to set up a platform for we’d be waiting a little while. We ended up waiting over 1.5 hours for the instructors to set up the ropes for us to safely climb to the summit and then repel down.
Fortunately the summit view was worth the wait (good thing there was basically no wind!!). We could see Rainier, Baker, Puget Sound, what we thought was Whidbey Island, and tons of other peaks such as Glacier.
The rappel wasn’t as exciting as we had built it up to be. We had two rappel stations and one of them was a free rappel and the other one was a rappel down a steep rock face. For the sake of time (since the free repel wasn’t set up yet) Matt, Ken, and I went down the first repel station. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t get the free repel, but the free repel was also with thicker and older ropes, so all the people who rappelled off of the cliff said that their belay devices kept sticking so it wasn’t the anticipated smooth ride down.
By the time everybody got down from the rocky peak it was just about dark. I handed out peanut butter fudge for a sugar high on our way down (aka our summit treat) and we donned our headlamps before traveling a direct route home. While plunge stepping we were extremely careful to stay away from our route up so the other team could use our perfectly preserved steps the next day.
The interesting part of plunge stepping is the faster you do it, the easier it is. It may seem like it’s taking more energy to frolic or prance down the hill, but the constant momentum helps keep your motion of traversing down. The unfortunate part is it sometimes feels like way more work to be constantly moving. So, sadly, as you loose energy, you’re more apt to slow down, and this slowed pace uses even more energy! I can only imagine how depressing it is when you’re only getting more tired, and the lead people only seem to be gaining more energy in their decent.
The other team made it to the false summit and then decided to turn back. Because of this they ended up getting home first. When we were still near the top our Peak we could see that they were setting up their tents, and starting their dinners. For quite awhile it seemed that these lights weren’t getting any closer until all of a sudden we could see full sized people and headlamps!
On our way home, Matt, Stephan (team lead) and I picked out our course. We wanted to get home in the most direct route possible while not stepping in our old steps and not falling off any cliffs (although that does sound fastest). As we were moments away from stumbling into camp we were blocked by a huge wall. It would have taken extra time to go around (using our previous steps up to camp) so we went straight up the wall since we still had ample energy. Matt kicked steps until we hit a completely vertical wall of snow. We ended up traversing along a super sketchy ridge (held up by trees, so if you didn’t walk on a tree branch (invisible under the snow) you would fall in super deep. We finally were able to scale the vertical snow wall and as we did, we found ourselves directly in our backyard (we knew we were close, we didn’t realize we were about to walk into one of our tents).
Ken and I quickly stomped out a kitchen area, and Matt kindly shoveled us some feet holes. Soon enough we had 3 stoves going and dinner was ready in no time. While feasting on dinner we melted snow to refill out bottles. Nobody needed a ton of water because it had been such a great melting day. The temp was above freezing and most of our walk was in the sun, so once you drank a little water you could fill your bottle up with snow and by the time you were ready for your next sip all the snow was already melted! How perfect! Ken also had brought some double stuff Oreos for dessert.
We went to bed after dinner and woke up around 6:30am. The other team was already packed to head to the summit of Devil’s Peak. We decided we didn’t care about the summit of Devil’s Thumb, especially if the Commando’s didn’t get it. We did walk up most the route, and got right below the false summit (to continue we would have had to rope up, which is a cumbersome process) so we went down shortly after.
It’s worth noting that the Commando team did NOT preserve their route up. Not only did they plunge down the same route up (making it so the route was now incredibly deep steps since the weight of walking down crushed the steps) but they also glissaded down their tracks!!! (Glissading is when you do a controlled slide down the mtn—so they left us a snowslide where their tracks once were). We felt gypped.
On the way down from the thumb, we also had a fun glissade (NOT on the uphill route tracks!). We packed up camp efficiently *cough Evelyn and I once again getting our tent down the fastest cough* and were soon on our way to the parking lot. The way down was going kind of slow, you’re only as fast as the slowest person on the team, so we unloaded one of the members pack and split up the heaviest items. Stephen got rope and I got the tent poles from the 4-person 4-season tent.
We made it to the parking lot slightly before 5pm—the earliest of any trip yet! It was more than a blessing to get out of my sopping shoes. (Interesting side note: if it wasn’t for my wet shoes I would have been super comfortable the entire trip, at times the wet boots were completely miserable—but, while writing this trip report a day/two after the trip, I almost forgot about the wet shoes altogether!). The main reason my shoes were wet was because I had the side zips on my snowpants open, and a few steep kicksteps let some snow down my pants that melted into my shoes).
We ended the trip at a Mexican joint and we all talked about how much we love our team. Our team is like a quirky family. Mostly we’re quiet, although we all interject with witty comments, and we’re all really laid back. For us it’s not about summits, but about having fun, enjoying the solitude, and company of our team. Granted we all really like summits, we’re not going to destroy ourselves or our morale if we don’t make one. We’re all happy to be outside and enjoying the outside air. [The Commando Frat Boys seem to have a different agenda, and especially in comparison, we love our team even more. They’re super loud, it seems that everything they say is in a screaming manor, and they have this holier-than-thou attitude. I feel bad for the one girl on their team.]
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