{"id":1370,"date":"2010-08-31T14:31:12","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T22:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2010-09-01T07:21:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T15:21:54","slug":"torment-forbidden-traverse-trip-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/2010\/08\/31\/north-cascades\/torment-forbidden-traverse-trip-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Torment-Forbidden Traverse Trip Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 31, 2010<\/p>\n

IMG Guide Justin Merle<\/p>\n

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Torment-Forbidden Traverse Panarama. (Photo by Justin Merle)<\/p><\/div>\n

On August 16th<\/sup> I met Ari and Brook in the town of Marblemount to prepare for 4 days of challenging alpine climbing.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking at the great weather forecast, we pared down our gear to make our packs as light as possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Our objective was to climb Mount Torment, then traverse the mile long alpine ridge to Forbidden Peak.\u00c2\u00a0 The route involves a lot of 4th<\/sup> and low 5th<\/sup> class climbing in an awe-inspiring alpine setting.\u00c2\u00a0 We planned to spend at least one night and possibly a second on the ridge.<\/p>\n

After sorting out our gear we drove to the trailhead, enjoying the great views of Mount Johannesburg across the valley.\u00c2\u00a0 The trail gave us a taste of the classic North Cascades approach.\u00c2\u00a0 Below treeline the vegetation was abundant, and the trail was slightly overgrown\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat times it felt like we were walking through a tunnel.<\/p>\n

After spending a night in Boston Basin, we started our climb toward Torment, over glacial moraine, polished granite slabs, and finally the Taboo glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 Our route on the South Ridge of Torment involved several hours of climbing over varied terrain: solid rock, 4th<\/sup> class heather, and some loose climbing.\u00c2\u00a0 As we reached the summit of Torment, we saw the spectacular views to the north that would accompany us for the rest of the traverse\u00e2\u20ac\u201dturquoise lakes in the remote Thunder River drainage, broken glaciers and icefalls, and of course, the knife-edge ridge connecting Torment to Forbidden Peak.\u00c2\u00a0 A bit of descending brought us to an exciting rappel across a gaping bergschrund to the north side glacier, after which we decided to bivy.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Torment – Forbidden Traverse. (Photo by Justin Merle)<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

We started early the following day, traversing the snow until we could regain the rock farther east.\u00c2\u00a0 Fun, blocky, 5th<\/sup> class climbing took us back to the ridge crest, where we climbed for the bulk of the rest of the day, opting to take the more challenging climbing over some easier options to the south of the ridge.\u00c2\u00a0 The climbing was exposed, fun, and physical.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather was perfect.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than trying to cram it all in to the one day, we bivied again at the start of the West Ridge of Forbidden, saving this classic climb for the final day.<\/p>\n

We woke with the dawn to a cooler and windier day\u00e2\u20ac\u201dominous lenticular clouds would build over the peaks, then disappear.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather was still good, but we wore all our clothing to stay warm as we climbed.\u00c2\u00a0 The climb to the summit of Forbidden was the perfect way to end\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgreat climbing on more solid rock to the summit of one of the more sought after peaks in the Cascade Range.\u00c2\u00a0 After a few hours of descent, we were back in lower basin where it was warmer.\u00c2\u00a0 We were tired, but psyched to have completed the Traverse\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthree full days of fun and challenging climbing.\u00c2\u00a0 Like horses to the barn we scrambled down the trail toward burgers and beer.<\/p>\n

Thanks for a great climb guys!<\/p>\n

-Justin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 31, 2010 IMG Guide Justin Merle On August 16th I met Ari and Brook in the town of Marblemount to prepare for 4 days of challenging alpine climbing.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking at the great weather forecast, we pared down our gear to make our packs as light as possible.\u00c2\u00a0 Our objective was to climb Mount Torment, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-cascades"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1377,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}