With Rainier only a week behind me, I'd had my fill of snow objectives for a while and was ready to get onto some alpine rock. Zach Holt and I decided to head up to Washington Pass for a big car-to-car push on a link-up of Paisano Pinnacle and Burgundy Spire. Leaving Spokane around 5:30pm put us to the pullout below the Wine Spires around 9:45, where we got our packs together and hunkered down in the back of Zach's Outback for a few hours of sleep.
Starting our approach at 4:25am, we each carried around 3 liters of water and plenty of food for the long day ahead. The hike to bench camp is a stout way to start the day, gaining over 3,000 feet before getting onto any technical rock. Around 7:15am we were racking up at the base of Paisano Pinnacle, ready to take on the Ridge.
The notoriously aesthetic granite of North Cascades climbing had me excited and Zach agreed to let me take the first lead. An easy crack system proved an excellent start, with the climbing feeling much easier than the given 5.8 rating. I anchored onto a tree and brought Zach up to me. Scrambling the next pitch, we moved to a stance beneath a nice 5.7 crack. Zach fired into the next pitch while I enjoyed picturesque views from the belay.
Pitch 4 set me into a pair of steeper cracks leading into a 5.8 dihedral with some awkward moves but solid gear placement. Around this pitch I felt the route had settled into a more accurate feel for the grade. The climbing quickly mellowed out into some rambling that brought me climbers left and onto the face of the ridge. I was regretting several gear placements from the belay as I cranked against bad rope drag.
Moving easily through the next couple of pitches, Zach got up and through some 5.6 climbing and cruiser terrain while I completed another wandering pitch around a gendarme and into a good belay stance at a decent ledge. Having completed 6 pitches by this point, we had no route-finding errors and were moving through terrain that matched our beta. Nonetheless, Zach's next lead through a wide crack system put us atop Paisano Pinnacle and we were enjoying lunch and great views by 12:45.
Shortly after starting the final pitch, the usual silence of the alpine was interrupted by a massive explosion. I called up to Zach to try and make sense of the experience, but the distance between us made it difficult to communicate. It sounded way too big to be rockfall, so we shook it off and refocused on the climb. Not 15 minutes later a lone military fighter jet rolled low and slow through the valley above the road, adding to our confusion. I spent the following week talking to friends in an effort to figure make some sense out of our experience, and ideas ranged from aliens to a government coverup of an attack from North Korea. Not satisfied with any of these answers, I learned from a friend who works as a ranger based in Mazama that what we had heard was 100lbs of C4 explosive. A 10 foot rock had fallen near the road and the rangers were using C4 to break it—apparently it's common for the military to send a flyby after explosives are used (or so I'm told).
While our pace wasn't breaking any speed records, Zach and I felt good about our efficiency and enjoyed a long lunch before starting the first pitches of Burgundy Spire's North Face around 2:15pm. A short down-climb from Paisano's summit put us onto sandy ledges below a few pitches of slabby, slightly precarious rock. With Zach not particularly stoked on the rock quality I was all too happy to oblige on his offer to let me lead the block of pitches to the summit.
A couple pitches of "choose-your-own-adventure" climbing got us through the looser rock and onto a large ledge. After a 200 or so foot traverse below a large block, the summit came into view and I wasted no time before climbing. A rope stretcher pitch got me through some fun moves of 5.8 slab, flakes, and liebacking and into a half decent belay with 15 feet of rope left.
The next pitch followed a cruiser 5.8 hand crack, with a short break at a ledge hosting a rappel anchor. I ditched my backpack here and sunk into the 5.8 off-width separating me from the summit.
The protection was sparse but I felt secure bumping a wedged thigh up the widening pitch. I was able to put a #5 C4 in just before the summit moves, and before long Zach and I were atop Burgundy Spire soaking in all the North Cascades had to offer.
We snapped some photos, organized gear and wolfed down a much needed snack on the summit before we retraced our path via rappel back down the spire.
With rappel anchors in spades, it's hard to go wrong on the descent here. We hit the ground without issue at 7:54pm, changed into our approach shoes and settled into the heinous hike down loose kitty litter gullies to bench camp. This was my first experience with the infamous Cascade's gully descents and the disdain I now carry for them is testament to their lousy nature.
At 10:31pm we were putting on clean clothes at the car and fighting off sleep. 18 hours of movement had us feeling fully worked, so we drove to Omak for some hot McDonalds burgers before passing out in the Walmart parking lot. Around 4am we got up and finished the drive home - it was 7:30am on June 18th when I finally got into bed.
I spent my 24th birthday tired, sore, and happy. I can't imagine a more incredible way to celebrate another year than with a great adventure in the mountains.
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