Mt Redoubt, 8956

Mt Redoubt, 8956
September 12, 13 2006
Summit Attempt & Approach Notes
North Cascades National Park

After being rained out the first time, we decided to try Mt Redoubt on the US/Canada border one more time. The weather forecast was a bit questionable, but we went for it anyway. Unfortunately we awoke Wednesday morning to low clouds and very limited visibility…..leading to a non-summit.

Leaving Seattle after a brief stop at Noah’s Bagels and Café Ladro for coffee we were on our way at about 6:30am, arriving at the Sumas border crossing as the only car in line. My climbing partners are Australian citizens here on work visas which of course requires a little more questioning and time at the crossing, no problems though. We followed the directions of a previous report, but discovered a few inaccuracies, which I’ll correct here:
Drive East on Canada Rte 1 to Exit 119 (Vedder Road). Continue south through the town of Chilliwack for 3.4 miles and turn left on Chilliwack Lake Rd (immediately before crossing a bridge over the Chilliwack River). As soon as you turn, set your trip odometer to zero!!! Drive this road (turns to dirt with numerous potholes after 27 miles) for 32.8 miles and take the road to the East (left). Along the Chilliwack road you will cross a bridge at approximately 31 miles. We had originally stopped at this bridge thinking it was the one everyone talked about and hiked the road there for 2 miles until deciding we were on the wrong road….bummer. The Chilliwack road ends at 33 miles at a bridge with large concrete blocks and a gate across it. If you drive to this end, simply turn around and drive back up the road 0.2 miles and take the road to the East (right). The road is driveable by car for about ½ miles and then gets really overgrown and rocky. You can make it to about the end if you don’t mind scratching the hell out of your pant and have 4 wheel-drive. After about 1.5 miles on the road (stay left at forks), you will reach a clearing with a broken bridge about 50 yards to your right.

Continue along the road/trail for another 200 yards, turning left onto a washed out logging road.

Stay on the logging road for about 5-10 minutes, trending up-hill, once you reach a T junction, turn right onto another logging road (there was pink flagging at this T junction when we went through). Follow this mainly level logging road, muddy in several spots, for about a mile until you reach the US/Canada Border. We looked through the National Park register and noticed that its about 50 people a year who go through that spot. Not bad, no wonder we saw no one and the trail is so well overgrown.

After about 2-2.5 miles of rolling trail hiking, through old-growth, fallen trees, etc we reached the Depot Creek headwall. A somewhat intimidating slope to climb, especially from the base of the falls.

Much thanks for the ropes that help you up and across the slippery rocks below the falls. Once passed the base of the falls the trail heads up STEEPLY for about 1400′-1600′ with lots of root pulling, hands and knee climbing, and some route finding, but as soon as it levels out there’s a camping spot in a swampy area with a nice view of the NE face of Redoubt.

We decided to continue on to Ouzel Lake for our nights camp. The faint trail follows the left/north side of the valley at the bas of a scree slope and alongside a stream. Once out of the trees the trail disappears in a huge talus slope.

We followed the along left-hand side of the slope, following the occasional cairn until reaching Lake Ouzel just before sunset. The approach took us about 5 hrs, we think it could have taken us less if we hadn’t wasted about 6 miles of our hiking energy on the wrong road earlier in the day.

After the typical getting water, having dinner and chit-chat we headed into our bags around 9:30pm in lightly cloudy skies and plans of a 6am start, 4 hr climb, 3.5 hr decent and 3.5 hr hike out. The alarm sounded at 6am and we all awoke to cloudy skies, fog in the valley and white out conditions on the glacier above camp. Not a good sign

After a lazy start and a lot of debating about what to do, we decided to head out and see if the conditions would change for the better. After finding a crossing of the stream/lake we scrambled up the easy slopes to the south heading for the glacier. The clouds rolled in and out, the sun would occasionally pop out but never for long.

After climbing to the head of the glacier in about 45 minutes, we took a little break to see what the weather would do….NOTHING. It stayed cloudy and windy. We decided that the summit was out of reach without any visibility and a forecast that was on the negative. After a short little treck on the glacier we turned around and headed back to camp.

We packed up the tent and gear, had a little lunch and started the hike back to the car. As we got closer and closer to the car the weather seemed to get worse and worse. It finally rained a little about an hour from the car and then poured as we were driving out.

It was very disappointing to not make the summit, but it was an excellent trip nonetheless. It’ll be a lot easier when I try it again next year and go for the North Face now that I know the approach better and what to expect on the hike. Until next time.