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A record

Jen and I both hike and backpack. I used to do a small amount of rock climbing, she was more extreme than me. Two local people Mike Layton and Erik Wolfe just bagged the last great unclimbed route in Washington State. They are active on Cascade Climbers and their trip report is here: [TR] South East Mox Peak- The Devil's Club, First Ascent of the East Face 9/1/2005 Here is where they went:
Click for full-size Image Amazing story -- 70 pound packs, bushwhacking in to the base camp, rappelling down only to have the ropes tangle. The last person known to attempt this climb was Fred Becky in 1968. Our local newspaper: The Bellingham Herald has the story as well:

Bellingham men are first to scale Mox wall
When Erik Wolfe and Michael Layton finished climbing a 2,500- foot wall in a remote corner of Whatcom County, they pulled off a feat no one had attempted in 37 years.

"Incredible! Absolutely astounding!!" wrote Harry Majors, a historian of North Cascades exploration and climbing, on www.cascadeclimbers.com. Majors added that their first ascent of the east face of Southeast Mox Peak was the most important North Cascades climb in 50 years.

John Roper, a Bellevue-based veteran climber who has climbed all but one named peak in the North Cascades, says Majors wasn't exaggerating.

"It really really is impressive."

The adventure pushed the climbers to the limit. Wolfe, 43, a Bellingham carpenter, says he'll never do anything like it again.

"It took me to the absolute end of my emotional and physical abilities," he says.

The climb was his partner's idea. Layton, 28, is a Bellingham resident when he's not in chiropractic school in Portland, Ore., or performing technical climbs. He decided to try the huge slab of banded gneiss after spotting it in a Web site of North Cascades photographs taken by Bellingham firefighter and pilot John Scurlock.

"The thought of climbing it pretty much just ate away at me until I climbed it," Layton says. "It's just so breathtaking, I wanted to be a part of it." North Cascades climbing legend Fred Beckey, now 82, gave up part way up the face in 1968. He was the last to try. In an e-mail, he told Layton it was a good place for a funeral.

One danger of the face is its sheer size: half a mile high, with the last 1,500 feet vertical. Another is the quality of the rock. Unlike the granite that forms such climbing landmarks as Yosemite and Liberty Bell, the gneiss of Southeast Mox has few stable cracks that would allow climbers to place anchors for their ropes. And where it isn't solid, climbers must expect falling rock.

And it is so remote that rescue would be unlikely.

As Jen said earlier this morning -- these are two people who will not have to buy their own beer for a year or so... Just Damn! Posted by DaveH at September 11, 2005 10:54 PM