 | Route overlay of the Northeast Buttress of Goode, on a John Scurlock aerial photo from June 2012. |
 | Route overlay of the Northeast Buttress of Goode, on a photo taken from the North Fork Bridge Creek valley the day before our climb. (CORRECTION: This photo incorrectly labels the East Ridge of Goode as Memaloose Ridge. Memaloose Ridge is actually further to the SSE, as it is correctly placed on USGS Topo maps. Google Earth (which is the resource I used when labeling this photo), however, gets it wrong.) |
 | This photo was taken the next day from the summit of Storm King, looking down on the lower NE Buttress. At least at the time this photo was taken, it sure looks like the approach to the right side of the buttress poses a lot less crack and 'schrund issues than the more standard left-side approach. Update: Shortly after I posted this TR, I had 2 separate parties confirm that they had accessed the buttress from the right (one party had climbed the route a week before us, and the other party had climbed it a decade before). |
 | Brian approaching the morning-sun-lit NE Buttress of Goode from the standard left side approach. |
 | The notorious bergschrund was indeed gaping. There was no way we could get across this. |
 | Another view of the 'schrund. There were giant man-eating gaps between the snow and the rock. |
 | Fortunately, we found a snow bridge to the left that allowed us to get above the gaping 'schrund and onto a snow/ice ramp that led right onto the rock. Photo by Brian Walkenhauer. |
 | Looking up the NE Buttress from where we accessed it from the glacier. The first ~2 pitches are low 5th; the rock is not that great. The goal is to get on the crest. Photo by Brian Walkenhauer. |
 | Brian on the crest of the NE Buttress. From here, there is a long section of easy stepping 3rd/4th class with much pro available and positive holds. |
 | Simulclimbing the long stretch of Class 3/4 terrain on the lower half of the NE Buttress. We climbed halfway up the buttress in two long simulclimb pitches. Photo by Brian Walkenhauer. |
 | Brian was quite efficient with the gear. After simulclimbing for perhaps a quarter of the buttress we finally had to stop when he had only three nuts left. |
 | About halfway up, things steepen into 5th class terrain. Again, pro is good and rock is good. We stayed within 20 feet of the arête the entire way up. |
 | Exposure and views are great. Photo by Brian Walkenhauer. |
 | This was the crux section for us, where we traversed left about 20 feet on ledges to get to class 4 terrain that led back up to the buttress crest. I think of all places on the buttress, this is where people are most likely to get off route by straying too far from the buttress. |
 | An old piton. Always fun to find. |
 | About 3/4 of the way up, we arrived at a large ledge. It was early afternoon so we took a nice break. People have bivied here. From here, you can take either the left or the right arête (they meet perhaps 150 feet above). The right looked easier (4th to low 5th) so that is what we took. |
 | I discovered that power bars coated in peanut butter (or in this case sunflower butter) tastes even better than Reese's. |
 | About level with Black Tooth Notch, we encountered a snow patch. Since we planned on camping on the summit, we filled up with water here by collecting drips and speeding up the melting process with a bit of stove-power. (This spot was about 400' below the summit and near some rap slings, which we would descend to the next day to access the SW Couloir descent.) |
 | Brian nearing the summit of Goode. The final 400' involves a rightward angling pitch and more easy 5th to the summit. |
 | Goode is one of the rare summits that actually is just flat and large enough to camp on (we could even set up my small 2-man tent!). We felt we couldn't pass up this opportunity to camp on the highest point in North Cascades National Park. Wow, what a view! |
 | From wikipedia: "A glory is an optical phenomenon that resembles an iconic saint's halo about the shadow of the observer's head. The effect is produced by light backscattered towards its source by a cloud of uniformly sized water droplets. The angular size is much smaller than a rainbow, about 5° to 20°, depending on the size of the droplets. The glory can only be seen when the observer is directly between the sun and cloud of refracting water droplets. Glories are often seen in association with a Brocken spectre, the apparently enormously magnified shadow of an observer, cast (when the Sun is low) on clouds below the mountain the viewer is standing on." |
 | Mountain shadow from our camp on the summit of Goode. Mountain shadows are immensely long tunnels of unlit air, and always appear triangular due to perspective effects. |
 | Bet not too many SLRs have ascended Goode! |
 | Just due to pure luck on the timing of our trip, the night we spent on Goode was pretty much a full moon. Exposure: 30 sec, f/5.0, ISO 400 |