West Ridge of Forbidden Peak | North Cascades Alpine Climb

Date of climb: July 16-17, 2021

To provide a brief summary of the trip, we left our car around 8:00 PM on Friday and biked up to the trailhead. There, we slept (you are not allowed to pitch a tent at the trailhead, just FYI) and woke up at 3:00 AM to get ready. We left the trailhead around 3:30 AM and bushwacked our way on the very narrow trail. There were a lot of down branches and thick fog, so the tree section was pretty strenuous.

After getting out of the trees, it started to get light and we made good time up to the start of the snow. When we started encountering more snow, we switched from trail-runners to proper climbing boots for the added grip. From there we made our way across some of the lower snowfields and rocky sections. Eventually, when the angle of the snowfields got too steep and we began to enter crevasse territory, both my partner and I put on crampons and roped up.

Getting across the upper snowfields was no problem, but it was slightly icy early in the morning. Upon assessing the quality of the West Ridge Couloir from below, we decided to take the couloir up to the ridge instead of the gully. The couloir was steep and definitely on its way out, but felt really good in the morning. At the top, there was a very large moat, but we were able to safely transfer onto the rock. We climbed in our crampons and boots up as far as we could and then transitioned into our rock climbing shoes. From there, it was some easy climbing to the ridge.

After dropping our unneeded gear, we simul-climbed up the ridge, with my partner leading and I following. Unfortunately, a lot of the footage from this section didn't come out because of the sun in front of us, so that is why there aren't too many shots from the ridge section haha. We reached the summit in roughly 8 hours (~11:30 AM), which included lots of rests and gear transitions. For the time of year and both of our first times climbing the route, I'd say this was probably about average.

We descended the ridge in the same manner as before. Once again camera issues (this time battery related) prevented me from getting a lot of footage on the descent.

Because it was getting warmer, we chose to downclimb the gully instead of climbing down the couloir. The gully was a bit sketchy, but we eventually made it to a good place to rappel. We brought a 70m rope, which I would recommend (as compared to a 60m). From there we boot skied down to the trail and got back to the car within a few hours.
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