The Fellowship of Choss Ross Peak

Since Kevin gotten to town, he'd had a list of climbs to complete this summer, and the Fellowship on Ross Peak was at the top. Since we hadn't actually finished any of the list yet, and we had most of a Sunday off together (he had to be back at work by 1730), we decided to camp at Ross Pass and knock the peak out in the morning.

We settled down on the town side of the pass, inserted the earplugs, and set the alarm for 0445. Right after we laid down, a bird of prey flew not ten feet over our heads, and a shooting star immediately followed (at a different altitude, of course). We took the shooting star as good luck... still not sure about the bird.

It was certainly smoky when we woke up. We set off from a quick breakfast of oatmeal at 0535, hiking around the side of Ross on a doubletrack path for a while. When it turned downhill and south again, we cut off of the road and headed for the ridge in between us and the face.

We arrived at the wall at about 0625, crossed the near-solid snowfield, and racked up the draws. Kevin started the first pitch right at 0640. He cruised through it! It was definitely a 10c, but he's used to climbing hard and this pitch was all small holds and not much routefinding. We both enjoyed it immensely.

Pitch 2 was a bit more confusing. Definitely not as technically hard as 1, but the bolts were on top of a roof that I was under, and I just couldn't find any darn holds up there. I ended up just staying low and climbing up to clip.

Kev lead pitch 3, a runout traverse to a funky "overhung" chimney. If you are planning to climb this route, stay climber's left at the chimney! There is a bolt on the right of it, but that's where the 11c direct variant of the 2nd pitch comes in. It looks pretty darn hard.

The second half of 3 was more straightforward. When I got halfway up leading pitch 4, we had some good excitement. Kevin and I both heard a whooshing sound, and after only one second of thinking, "Dive-bombing bird?", we realized that there was a barrage of large rocks headed our way. We ducked down into the wall and started screaming up at whom we thought might be trundling rocks down the side. After maybe eight or ten basketball-sized chunks whizzed past (luckily none too close), the shower stopped. I finished the pitch very quickly and brought Kevin up in record time. Luckily, the ledge had a bit of a roof, and so did a few places on the next pitch. We reasoned that instead of trundling, the rocks were probably sent down a chute by accident by climbers on one of the saddles above, so we decided to just climb with our eyes up and always be near a roof.

Aside from that, the rest of pitch 4 and 5 were fun, with bigger features and good holds. Pitch 6, however, got a little funky. I lead, and when I got to the final bolt before the 10a face, I lost track of where the bolts went. I scrambled back and forth on a ledge about 6 meters above my last draw, but I just couldn't pick out the next part of the line. I finally gave up and scrambled across a dirty traverse into a chossy gully, where I was lucky enough to be able to place one of the two cams we had brought. Scrambling up some dirty class 4 / low 5 terrain, I stretched the rope until it was almost out (Kev said I had about a meter left) and built a belay on a big tree. When Kevin followed, he said the next bolt was above my ledge of confusion, straight up from where I had clipped the last one. Oh well...

While being fully off-route, this part turned out to be pretty fun. We found a cool mini-buttress to climb, hanging off of the rest of the wall, and then descended that and crossed some scree to the base of pitch 8.

The final two pitches were... hard to decide on. Definitely nice, straightforward climbing, easy holds and (thankfully) more closely bolted, since they had been put up by a different party than P1-6. My arms were just burning pretty bad by that point, so I was very glad to finally find the anchor at the top of pitch 8, especially since I had almost completely run out of quickdraws.

I was very glad that Kevin was up for the final pitch, and despite saying he was tired too, he killed it - with the backpack on, no less! We topped out, pulled our aching feet out of our shoes, and sprinted up to the summit. We had finished climbing at 1240, exactly six hours since we had started. After a summit beer and some tobacco left by some generous previous peakbaggers, we started the long trek down.

The south side of Ross pretty much entirely choss. We got a little off route, having not seen the way up on our approach, and ended up needing a rappel and a lot of traversing to get back on track. If you climb it, when in doubt on descent, stay skier's left!

We made it back to the packs just about an hour after leaving the summit, packed up, and started trekking back to the car. With an hour drive back to town, Kevin just had time for a bowl of cheesy mac, a quick shower, and a nap before work, which kept him until 2300. We were both feeling the alpine hangover the next day. So worth it!

Climb gear list (shared):
8 quickdraws
2 double-length alpine draws
3 single-length alpine draws (could have subbed 2 more QDs for these)
1 C4 #1 (P1)
1 C4 #2 (P3 chimney, but not necessary; P6 where we got off-route)
1 full set BD nuts, unused (but probably useful on actual P6)
1 60m 8.1mm rope (could have been thicker, not a long enough approach to be concerned with weight)
Helmets (NECESSARY!)
Harnesses
Climbing shoes
Approach shoes
Summit pack, with:
2L water,
2 Snickers bars
1 bag strawberries
   and, as always...
Summit Beer.