| The Gardeners Scramble Trip Report |
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| The Gardeners Scramble   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Washington, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 48.51560°N / 120.5006°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Jun 23, 2007 Activities: Scrambling Season: Spring | Page By: tazz Created/Edited: Jul 2, 2007 / Jul 2, 2007 Object ID: 307162 Hits: 637 Loading... Page Score: 88.6% - 10 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Fun times!!For the second time this season our plans for Eldorado,Derado needle and or klawatti where stomped on by the weather. So the five of us headed out of the rain to find some sun. We had to drive 5 hrs to find it but we did. Garners are on the east side of the crest, which is much drier that in the NCs that weekend. We had sun, clouds and even a bit of snow the last day. It was perfect though. Good friends, beautiful mountains, flowers blooming in the meadows, a nice sunset, and successful scrambles.
After spending many hours dehydrating ourselves well. We left the Th for Gardner meadows. The trail is miserably flat (well lots of ups and downs) In 10.5 miles it only gains 2800' or so. UUUGGGHHH! The meadows are in full bloom and just spectacular. The old burn makes it even more interesting.
After setting up camp we set off up Gardner. I was very tired and my feet and bum ankle didn’t want to me in my climb boots! I was determined to make it up that damn choss pile if I had to crawl. I Struggled quite a bit. I guess I was paying for the dehydration the night before(oopsy) and the long 10 mile slog with a full pack. I painfully made it to the summit.
Views where great into the North Cascades. Abernathy was staring us in the face the whole time. Nice mountain.
Randy Don and carla ran over to scramble up E Gardner. I wanted to scramble up that bump sooo bad but my body went on strike and said NO WAY! Janet and I descended slowly taking pics of the meadows and flowers. It was a beautiful evening. Camp was fun and the sunset was beautiful.
The next morning I felt great! We all headed to North Gardner. After climbing up the meadows we started the LONG traverse through the fallen match stick forest.
We wanted to avoid climbing up the nasty scree slope to the ridge so we looked for more solid rock to the left of the hump at the end of the ridge. We found so somewhat solid class 3 rock in a gully. Some spots where quite rotten but I was in heaven cause I was not on snow. I am sooo sick of snow!
We arrived in a large broad ridge to the SW of the summit. Saw a heard of 18 goats. Took a quick break. The weather was starting to get worse. It was cold and clouds hid the sun. Then it started to spit snow.
We dropped down off the ridge did a long scree traverse to gain the summit ridge.
This was where I was in complete heaven. I have spent many months climbing snow and it was great to play on the rock!! The ridge is a fun class 2 scramble although one can find some class 3 if one wants to play....;)
At the summit we hung out and watched it snow all around. It was cool though cause the cloud ceiling never really dropped so visibility was good.
After spending quite some time on the summit we head out. The descent route is different. We wanted to get to the saddle to the east of the bump at the end of the summit ridge. This would take us down the deep scree back to the meadows. In order to do this we had to descend a steep snow slope. The snow was hard but still able to get a bite with our heals. I hate descending steep snow. Yeah I am a chicken shit but I still do it...with Lots of F-Bombs from me too me...heh.
It had me shaking in me boots...heh. Once in the saddle I saw the fun ahead!! The scree was perfect for plunge stepping. We scree skied our way down, then hit more snow and boot skied and glissaded our way back to the meadows. What a fun descent!! We had a blast!
Time for the long slog back! Made very good time back out to the TH.
Good times!! Even with the difficulties I had on Gardner. I was surprised I was not one bit sore after this trip(except for my stupid sprained ankle). Whhooo hoo I am finally in shape!! Ready to kick some ass this season!
Stats/gear
about 30 miles RT
10,200' elev. Gain
ice axe (will not be needed in a few more weeks snow is melting fast) TR linkhere is an awesome TR written by one of my partners Randy Busch
TR here Images
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