May 23-24, 2005, Mt Goode

Ross and I decided to use the finally-improving weather and make a two day trip to Mt Goode.  We spent much of the very stormy, wintry week previous to the trip debating just how much of a rain shadow Goode gets from all the big peaks to its west.  The truth is neither of us knew, but we decided to give it a go.  One thing was certain, I wanted to climb the thing before it got any sun.  

We didn't leave Seattle too early, and we got to Bridge Creek Campground about ten in the morning.  Half an hour packing and we began a splendid hike.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our fourteen mile hike on a beautiful, partly cloudy day in the mountains.  There are many open views along the Bridge Creek Trail, and it leaves quite an impression to see a mountain in a basin, hike further and see a whole mess of mountains, and keep hiking until those mountains are no longer visible.  Repeat this fascinating process several times, and you too could stand four miles up the North Fork of Bridge Creek, gazing across the creek and getting whiplash from constantly jerking your head to get another view at the monstrosity standing 6,000 feet above you.  The monstrosity is properly known as Mt Goode.

We found ourselves pondering the north side of Mt Goode at four in the afternoon.  It's always deceptive to look up so much vertical relief.  We hiked avy debris across the north fork and followed fields of debris  to a waterfall and some shelves to bypass the lower cliffs.  The hanging glacier looked very small from below, which later proved not to be so much the case.  We camped next to the highest tree we could find, near 5,000'.  It was a very pleasant night to bivy.  

We shook ourselves from slumber at 2am.  It was cold, but not too cold, it is late May after all.  We crunched over crust that mostly supported our weight, up to slabby rockbands below the glacier.  The icefall of the glacier was nicely filled with small amounts of new snow.    The snow on the glacier was fresh but still crusty, so it took us no time to reach the bergschrund below our route.

The goal was to climb and ski the snowfield-supporting steep, protected faces between the SE summit and the true summit.  The big runnel system that marks the intersection of the faces leads directly to an 8,600 foot notch.  It's 600 feet below the true summit, but it's still a full vertical mile above the valley floor.  That's right, 5,300 feet.

To our astonishment, there was a foot of cold, new powder up almost all of the 2,000 vertical feet from the berschrund to the notch.  It must not have received any sun the day of our approach.  We were able to keep the climbing exertion somewhat reasonable by finding nice, icy runnel snow to climb.  The sun just crested the horizon as we were making way above the bergschrund.  We hurried up the route as much as possible; I don't like to be climbing these big steep routes with the sun hitting fresh snow.  It was all right though, we hit the notch close to 8 am.

Summit considerations were immediately discarded, as we had a big descent we needed to ski before it turned into a death trap.  Goode is so massive and craggy, I simply must return to climb it.  After ample enjoyment of the views, and cursing of a few clouds that floated by us, we skied after 9 am.  

There was astonishing powder that would kiss our faces with every turn.  I might have more to say about the steep, sustained nature of the route were it not for the pacifying powder.  We stuck to the shaded, northwest-facing slopes on skier's right of the runnel as much as possible.  Our logic was justified when huge bombs started crashing off the sun-washed, northwest-facing cliffs opposite us.  After a handful of big wet slides in rapid succesion, we negotiated the runnels and hopped the bergschrund at the bottom one at a time.

The snow on the glacier went from corn to wet spring mush.  We negotiated the rock bands and skied on some grabby slop, happy with 4,200 vertical feet of skiing in this 'terrible year'.  We made a rappel next to a waterfall, did some scrambling, and then we could have skied avalanche remnants across the north fork if we weren't so keyed to hike.  I was practically skiing in my shoes, sliding from stride to stride like I was on a nice cross country track.

The fourteen mile hike went quickly, but it was very painful.  Both Ross and I experienced new levels of shoulder mutilation.  Luckily I can walk and carry stuff just fine today, so now I'm off to Los Alamos.