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Mt Slesse 8002ft (2439m)
Southwest Buttress
September 20-21, 2003
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Matt's trip report and some great photos are here.
Mt Slesse has been on my "A List" since I first read about it in Beckey's Cascade Alpine Guide III. So when my friend Matt
Mussallem sent an e-mail earlier this summer looking for climbing partners for a trip to Slesse, I immediately replied "YES".
Also in the group were Matt's fellow Canadian Jennifer Nageli, and veteran American climber Fred DeHaven, balancing out our
international team!
Fred and I met Jennifer and Matt at the Costco just across the border near Sumas at 10:30am and headed into Chilliwack to grab some lunch at
Tim Horton's. After the soup and sandwich, Fred and I were ready for a nap not the 1000km approach in 2km. The Alpine Select guidebook
describes this as an "unrelenting hammer" and I would have to agree. From the trailhead we had a great view of American and Canadian Border Peaks,
with their broken glaciers that provided a stunning background throughout the weekend.
The beginning of the trail was hidden behind a large pile of dead trees at the end of the parking area. (Matt earned the "Hero Award" for this climb
by hiking in just three days prior to cache 12 liters of water and to scope out the approach) The hiking at first is easy enough; an overgrown road with
little elevation gain. Then at an old weathered sign that barely reads "Slesse Creek Trail" the trail sudden changes direction. It goes UP!
Up, up, up through a young, dense forest whose canopy blocked out much of the sunlight. We tried to keep a nice steady pace but Matt zoomed ahead,
unfazed by having just made this hike a few days earlier. We stopped near a rocky area to grab a bite to eat, thinking that we still had an hour or so to go, but
much to our surprise we were only a few hundred feet from the large flat ridge where we would camp.
Matt found the cache of water safe and sound where he had left it. Since there is no water in this area in late summer, this water was crucial to our success.
We unpacked our bivy sacks and looked around for flat spots in the grass and heather. From this bench the south face of Mt Slesse towered above us. When we arrived
clouds were blocking our view of the upper mountain, but after setting up camp the clouds parted offering us our first clear view of our climbing route. We all gathered around
Matt's photocopies of the route and picked out the route. It was difficult to pick out some of the gendarmes but we could make out enough of the screefields, couloirs, and cols
to give us an idea of where we needed to go.
After a cold dinner the sun started to drop behind the mountains and we quickly settled into our bivy sacks. Around 7:20pm Fred called out that he heard voices
approaching our camp. We were surprised to see 4 climbers coming down off the mountain, not hiking in as I first assumed. The three men and one woman explained
that they had climbed the NE Buttress and were hoping to get a ride from us around to their truck on the other side. We felt bad as we broke the news to them that we were
heading up, not down and that we wouldn't be able to help them out. They told us that they did have a mountain bike stashed at the trailhead that one of them would use to bike the 25km
down and around to their truck. So they weren't totally out of luck. We congratulated them on their successful climb and wished them luck hiking down the trail by headlamp.
It was a clear cold night and when I got up around 11:30pm to water a bush I put on my glasses and was amazed by the brilliance of the Milky Way spanning the sky directly overhead.
If being out in the middle of nowhere, at the foot of a huge mountain isn't enough to make you feel overwhelmed this site sure was! The frost glittering on the grass in the beam of my
headlamp was matched by the twinkling stars in the sky. I crawled back into my warm coccoon and dreamt about open star clusters.
My watch alarm went off at six o'clock in the morning and I could hear Matt unzipping his bivy sack a few yards away. It had been a fairly cold night so I dressed quickly and put on my boots. Soon Jennifer, Matt, Fred, and I were all packed up and heading up the trail. To cut back on weight we didn't bring stoves, so I ate a few bites of my power bar for breakfast.
There was a pretty good trail up along the ridge with alpine firs both living and dead. Soon we came to the large scree field and made an ascending traverse up to the main gulley. We scrambled the gulley until it became narrow and we were able to access slabs on the right hand side. I think
we all took different routes to get up to the top, but
balanced rock.....around corner....more slabs to terraces...trail...cairn?....traverse to other large gulley...downclimb...exposed....up gulley to rock...steep 3rd and 4th class to notch. scramble up put on harnesses and rope up. Asked Fred if I could lead the pitch. Matt lead with Jennifer.
left ropes and scrambled left up notch, then down other side and up a corner to more scrambling up to the summit ridge.
Elevation Gain: 6142 ft
TH to Camp: 4.5 hr
Camp to Summit: 5.5 hr
