PRINT: Rock Climb East Ridge Direct, Northwest Region

East Ridge Direct

5.8-, Trad, Alpine, 6 pitches, Grade III,

Avg: 3.3 from 73 votes
FA: 1958 Fred Beckey, Joe Hieb, Ed Cooper, and Don Claunch
Washington > Northwest Region > Hwy 20 & N Casc… > N Cascades > Boston Basin > Forbidden Peak

Access Issue: Seasonal Raptor Closure at Newhalem Crags March 1st to mid-July Details

Peregrine falcons select nest sites on cliffs in the Upper Skagit Valley, including the Climbing Management Areas of Newhalem West (Ryan’s Wall) and Newhalem East. As required in the NPS Superintendent’s Compendium, these areas will be closed to all public from March 1st to July 15th of each year, or until the young falcons have fledged or NPS staff have determined that nesting will not occur on a specific wall during this period. Access Fund, Washington Climbers Coalition and NPS partner on a volunteer raptor monitoring program to determine nesting activity. Contact the NPS and/or WCC for updates.

Description

A great alpine climb easily accessible (~4-5h from car park).

From camp, ascend north towards Forbidden's South Face. Reach a notch in the ridge and go left around the first gendarme. You'll reach a bivy spot where you can leave your boots+crampons,etc.

From the bivy spot climb a few pitches of low class 5. Climb up a second gendarme and knife edge ridge. After climbing the third gendarme you'll need to rappel into a narrow notch, there's plenty of tat. The third gendarme can be avoided by climbing around it on the north side. The second last pitch is the crux pitch, 5.8 (nothing difficult).

The great rock provides awesome holds.

Descent the north side by rapping and traversing climber's right. We made 5 rappels and simul climbed until we reached the bivy site where we stored our gear.

Location

Forbidden Peak, located in Boston Basin, east of Marblemount on the Cascade River Road

Protection

A set of cams, half a set of nuts (small nuts), lots of slings.

Photos [Hide ALL Photos]

The East Ledges from the North Ridge. Route in Red, Ledges in Yellow

Near the top of the ridge on July 4th

The last gendarme

On the East Ridge.

Pretty cool setting.

Exposure looking back at the ridge line from below the summit. The route goes up and over this knife edge, then a rappel into the notch.

Looking down on the belay from the top of the crux pitch. Can see the rap tat on the previous gendarme at the top of the photo.

Traversing roughly halfway through the route.

Near the start (X) of the east ridge in August 2019. There were some moderate snow slopes below where this photo was taken--approach shoes and aluminum crampons (without glacier rescue gear) would…

Rapping down the East ledges

Finishing the crux pitch. Fun moves with great exposure.

East Ridge climbin.

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

Daniel Coltrane
Seattle, WA

5.8

Why would this be rated PG-13? The gear is good and there are no substantial runouts on hard ground. Aug 19, 2011

Eric Fjellanger

I found the rock to be pretty good with ample gear. The climb is largely a rising traverse, so there's nearly equal risk for the follower as for the leader.

Note that you can bypass both Gendarmes on the right/east side. Done this way the whole climb can go at 5.6 or so.

Have your descent figured out!! There's no easy way off Forbidden, so whether you descend the East Ledges, or downclimb the West Ridge (or some more obscure option), when you reach the summit, you are no more than halfway through your day. Aug 25, 2011

lucander
Stone Ridge, NY

5.8- PG13

I actually thought this was a better route than its famous neighbor. We went directly over each gendarme, there's some suspect rock at a few points. Note that descent via 5 raps down east ledges gets very dangerous once "3rd classing" begins. Aug 5, 2013

Nick Seaman
Denver, CO

Classic route in a classic setting! We stayed true to the ridgeline the whole climb and found the rock to be of good quality minus one or two loose easy sections. The real fun (type 2) begins after leaving the summit. I've read that some climbers find the descent down the East Ledges "loose and stressful", and I totally agree. Intense exposure and unprotectable loose scrambling in the no fall zone make for a full-on descent. However, if you can keep your sh!t together it's not that bad, and I would use this descent option in the future. Mar 6, 2014

Liz Donley
Boulder, CO

5.8 PG13

Fairly safe but time consuming to descend the west ridge. Good judgement and route finding skills needed! The exposure and position were great, but the rock quality was sometimes not the best (in my opinion). I agree with the type II fun comment! The approach and descent were quite strenuous for the number of pitches of technical climbing that you get on the climb. Great exercise, for sure! Jul 9, 2015

Nick Drake
Kent, WA

5.8- PG13

I felt there was very sub par rock quality in quite a few places though and I didn't find any of the technical climbing to have memorable movement (the complete NR of Stuart may have ruined ridge climbs for me). However this was compensated with great position, lots of exposure, and a beautiful setting.

We did a carry over with our boots/pointy bits and simul climbed down the west ridge as the east ledges were thinly snow covered and quite sketchy. This made for a much more interesting alpine climb than late in the year when you're doing more choss dodging. You'll get some steep snow, if it's nearly melted out maybe some mixed climb stemming to get up a vertical moat too :) Jul 5, 2016

Zak Krenzer
Auburn, WA

5.8

Climbed this recently and pitched out the entire ridge. The climbing took around 5 hours for approx. 8 pitches of ridge scrambling. We brought doubles fingers to #1 camalot, a single #2 & #3 with a handful of wires. Finger sized pieces were very helpful, the hand sizes weren't as useful. Maybe ditch the #3. Lots of double length runners, and a few singles, we brought 4 double length runners and used them frequently. Big loose triangular block on the crux pitch, be careful what you pull on!

We descended the East Ledges, which are not as dramatic as everyone makes them out to be. I will say, that it is a no fall zone and there is plenty of loose rock on it. There are 5 raps, each of which are between 25-30 meters, don't quit rapping too soon. Scramble and traverse a series of sandy, grassy ledges for several hundred meters until you see the first gendarme. Once you reach the gully, simply ascend 4th class blocks to the beginning of the route, no need to actually enter that loose gully. Descent took ~2 hours unroped from the last rap. Jul 6, 2016

Steve Guillian

I did, to my unhappy surprise, pull a 5'x3' block off of the ridge (mid July). Beautiful ridge. I would definitly go back. Aug 16, 2017

Sandy Dash
Beaverton, OR

We did this route on Aug 4th, 2019. The gully that takes you to the ridge was the most precarious challenge (in my opinion), struned with several microwave sized loose rocks. Despite being lichen covered the rubber sticks to the blocks on the ridgeline, quite well. Here's the link to a detailed TR: dashertonclimbs.com/2019/08… Aug 6, 2019

M R

(August 2019) The approach was straightforward. The climb was fun with short pitches of awesome rock, including some knife-edge, blocky ridge, and a bit of face climbing for the 5.8 pitch; the latter was readily protectable and consisted of about 1-2 moves on an exposed, slightly overhung bit of rock. We descended the north face (since we left gear at the start of the east ridge). Took about 4.5 raps with a 60M rope--go a bit lower that you think, basically down to where it cliffs out. One can either solo the return traverse on loose 4th class, or if needed, simul-climb it (there are plenty of gear options to make it safe and low stress). Aug 21, 2019

Jacob Wolniewicz
Seattle, WA

Did the east ledges descent, 5 raps down and started traversing. On the last rappel we started getting rained on, windy, soaked and with low visibility. We opted to simul the remaining ledges back to the gully to be safer with the wet rock and conditions. There isn't bommer pro every where, but with a 30 meter simul length you can usually have 2-4 bomber pieces in at any point. If you or your partner are feeling nervous I'd recommend simuling like we did. Aug 27, 2019

Garrett A

Following up on Jacob's Aug 2019 beta. He hosted a talk with The Mountaineers on April 23, 2020. Worth the watch if you're looking to climb the east ridge. youtube.com/watch?v=e9X62TW… May 20, 2020

polishbob

Just did it yesterday (07/15/20). Still lots of snow, pretty much snow all the way to tree line, and continuous snow about 300 ft above lowest camp. Crampons and ice axe for the approach are a must.
Crux are 2 river crossings, due to volume of water.
Route itself is pretty much a scramble, with about 40 ft of real climbing. Crux is way easier then 5.8- more like 5.6, with good gear at the waist- literally 3 moves. Mostly it's just exposed ridge scrambling.
Raps to East ledges have nice slings and rings, rope falls clean. Ledges are snow free, still a bit of snow in the gulley to get back up, but you don't have to touch it. Jul 16, 2020

Derrick Meyers
Indiana

I soloed this 23 aug 2020 and then descended the west ridge. I felt the rating 8- was fair, maybe just 5.7 but what's the difference. all the cruxes were very short. excellent route. Amazing ridge, literally a knife edge, a single inch in places! Descending the west ridge makes for an extremely ascetic traverse. Descending the WR is just as good as ascending it so if you are debating on which ridge to do, I say why not both? I have a 360 video on my IG I just posted of the knife edge bit if you're interested @midwest_mountaineer Aug 24, 2020

Reuben W
New York, NY

5.6

Outstanding setting and fun ridge climbing. Thought the climbing was easier than 5.8- with the real crux being the East ledges descent in wet whiteout conditions. From the starting gendarme, we did it in eight pitches with a small rack. Only needed singles to #1 plus ~5 small/medium nuts and a handful of double-length runners. Rap tat was in pretty decent condition as of late August. Aug 28, 2020