Mount Ichor via "Back of Beyond Buttress" 10b
July 27, 2024
Last week when we hiked Nlaka peak, we’d completed a small side quest which was scoping out the “Back of Beyond Buttress” on Mount Ichor that we’d had our eyes on for awhile. I’m not sure how Francis managed to dig it up from some corner of the internet but I’m glad he stumbled on this area because I just can’t get enough of how beautiful it is.
On Friday night after work, we decided to get a portion of our drive done and go camp along the East Harrison, just north of the lake along the river. As the sun was setting, we happened upon the most beautiful little campsite tucked away from the road, and pitched the tent without the fly sheet to enjoy some views of the stars and the sound of the river.
At 5:30am our sleep was rudely interrupted by the alarm I wished we didn’t have to set, and we continued our drive North towards the Kookipi. My desire to climb far outweighed that of wanting to sleep in and swim in the beautiful river, so I promised myself we’d at least try to stop at our spot on the way back to jump in.
The drive took longer than expected, and it wasn’t until 7:30am that we again laid our eyes on the beautiful rock walls of the area. From Nlaka peak we’d been able to see that a brand new road leads almost directly to the base of our route, so we followed this road as far as we could. I believe this road will quite literally get completed in the next week, but for now we walked the last 1km or so since the truck couldn’t get over the large ditches for culverts.
From the end of the road, we bushwhacked directly up the hillside in old growth forest, making for steep but very easy travel for less than 400m before breaking into the alpine on a boulder field. It was smoky but still pretty sunny out, so we stopped for a break among the rocks to snack, sunscreen, and take a second bath in our bug spray.
While we stood on a big rock, I caught a glimpse of a little fuzzy creature, curiously looking up at me.
– OMG, Francis! Look! Look! Look!
– Wow! I think that’s a Marten!
The little animal was about the size of a marmot, but with a much more long and slender body, and a very small pointy face. I know I say this about every animal I’ve ever seen but it was literally the cutest and I think it’s my new favourite. It came surprisingly close to us, for some reason curiosity outweighing its sense of danger. I snapped a million photos before it eventually darted off back into the boulder field – no doubt to return to hunting little Pikas.
Our first campsite: amazing!!
hello !
just look at him :’)
After another 20 minutes of boulder hopping around the side of the rock walls, we arrived at an unmistakably large face that some parties call the “endurance slab.” We admired the many amazing features running up the wall as we walked by, before arriving at the very obvious hand crack that marks the start of our route.
I wanted to lead the first pitch since I always feel I’m in a better headspace when I don’t start on top rope, so we organized gear accordingly. Francis was happy with this arrangement too since he was most stoked on the face traverse of P2.
P1 climbed beautifully, and I powered up the hand crack placing pretty minimal gear. The pitch then turns into 10b fingers, where you can climb as high as you want before breaking it into the next pitch. I thought carefully about these moves before committing, but eventually began delicately working my way up the thin crack. Some of the protection was a little funky, and I forced myself to think of the route one move at a time as I focused on my jams and placing good pieces. Due to rope drag and running out of gear to build an anchor with, I stopped my pitch just before a large bulge. At this spot I was able to dig out some dirt for one slightly larger cam and an excellent nut.
First views of the big wall..
Our route up the face
Looking up at P1
Francis coming up to my anchor
Francis arrived at the belay with a big smile on his face, and it didn’t take him long to start upwards for his turn on some fun. Pitch 2 becomes increasingly delicate, and he took a break on his last good piece of pro before committing to the big traverse. It seems like there is a flake that popped off in recent years right where the traverse starts, which makes me wonder if someone took a massive whip while traversing, tearing off the block and sending it down at their belayer.
Under where the block used to be now sits a collection of loose rocks stacked on each other, and a lot of dirt and sand. There isn’t much good pro to be had there anymore, but Francis placed a decent nut in the corner before starting the face moves. At one point I saw him in practically a full split, reaching from the second vertical crack over to the third, and I knew instantly that move would be too reachy for me.
When I followed up this pitch my suspicions were confirmed, and I was absolutely in awe at his brave lead since it’s not only delicate and sandy, but has terrible pro meaning he would have been in for quite a ride had he slipped. When I climbed over to the reachy move, I didn’t really see a way around it for me. I looked for other face holds to find some intermediary moves, but couldn’t see anything reasonable to try. Sometimes it’s quite frustrating having literally 7-10″ less reach compared with most guys, but I try to instead think of how grateful I am that they’ll lead things for me so I can swing over – which is precisely what I did.
Looking up at P2
Looking up at P3!!!
Francis’ view looking back down at P2. The little white dot is my helmet. Do not be fooled by the pieces he placed here.. they are just mental pro lol.
Not wanting to dwell too long on my frustration of not getting a clean send, I started up P3 cracks which were thankfully back to hand sizes for me. The term “endurance slab” makes sense to me now, since although the jams were solid, my ankles killed!! Who can complain though when you find an alpine splitter crack that’s nearly 20m long! I took a few breaks to shake out my ankles, but otherwise felt so incredible through all the moves. Looking back, I think I could have kept going to the top of the wall, but I opted to build a belay before the cracks petered out since I wasn’t sure what I’d find up higher for a good anchor.
Francis did the rest of the face climbing, making short work of small and dirty cracks, then disappeared over the top of the wall. I heard a big “Whoah!” as he first laid eyes on the rest of the buttress, and I had a similar reaction when I followed him up. It was very blocky, but it looked like there were probably 20-30 (at least!) variations of fun 5.7-5.9ish climbing. The “choose your own adventure” style climbing began, and Francis had led us up a fun layback and then little stemming corner to a nice ledge.
Me at the top of P3
Looking down at Francis cleaning his anchor
Francis climbing up P3
More of the same. This wall is so pretty
Francis heading up more broken cracks on P4
Looking up at the rest of the buttress – fun!
We broke the rest of the route into 4 more pitches. I took us up some more 5.9 blocky climbing, then Francis led up another fun pitch of vertical hands into a large blocky roof which we awkwardly moved under. We then reached a headwall that I couldn’t see a way up, so I did an extremely rope-draggy traverse to get us back closer to the original route. Francis then led one final pitch that became progressively less vertical, so we decided to unrope on a big ledge after that and scramble the rest.
Once at the top, we didn’t take much of a break since our intention for the day was to actually summit Mount Ichor. According to Francis’ research on Bivouac, the true summit is actually across from where we were standing. Even though our little high point felt like a summit, it’s actually one of three highpoints along the broad summit plateau. It’s a good thing he’d done the research since it’s not very obvious which one is the tallest, and knowing him we would have been running around trying to tag all of them, haha!
We traversed North, dropping down through bushy patches and notches until we were able to gain the ridge on the other side to the true summit. We passed a gorgeous alpine lake that was so crystal clear you could actually see the bottom, and I again debating going out of my way for a nice dip… but it was late in the day so we pushed on.
On the true summit, we finally stopped and I grabbed my first snacks of the day: a pudding cup and some gummies. I don’t know why I’ve been surviving on so little food lately, but Francis says he’s in the same boat. Maybe it’s the smoke? Or maybe we’re too focused while climbing to think about food? Either way it was nice to finally refuel, and we enjoyed the slowly-setting sun in the meantime.
Coming up to his belay at P4
Francis coming up the end of my P5
Heading up our P6
Now into scramble terrain
Waiting for Francis near the summit
From here you can see the full route we did last week: Nlaka N3 on the right and Nlaka on the left. We traversed the ridge between them then returned on the road
Me standing on our fake summit
Rather than traversing back and taking the normal descent route, we decided to complete our traverse of the ridgeline around the bowl, which granted us easy ridgeline walking and beautiful views of the buttress we’d just climbed. It was a little longer in distance but paid off dividends in being able to enjoy the area.
As we skirted around, I took lots more pictures of the Back of Beyond Buttress, hoping to add it to Mountain Project so many more climbers can come enjoy this area! It was such an enjoyable day, and I think I commented on how much fun I had more than 50 times on our descent. You can see all the info I added to Mountain Project here.
Pretty gemstone lake down there!
Francis scrambling down past the lake
I took this photo for the color of the rocks: so white!!
Me coming down the rock field
Francis with the lake & the buttress behind. I won’t ever get tired of the scenery in this area.
Francis standing on Ichor true summit
Coming down some slabs, you can see our climbing route in the back now
A more zoomed in view of the route: my approx topo line that I posted for Mountain Project
A few easy scramble moves down the ridge
Francis with the buttress behind
One last view of the route before we drop back into the forest
Our (much less exciting) campsite on the second night
We got back to the truck just before dark, and I insisted on spending 10 minutes to boil some pasta before starting the drive. It was horrendously buggy all day while moving, but now that we were stopped it was pretty unbearable. One of them even managed to bite my baby toe through my shoe: the one place I hadn’t thought to spray!
The pasta was an amazing end of day treat, and now nice and full I finally relaxed into the drive. In my typical style I tried (and failed) to stay awake while Francis drove us back to our river campsite. It was nice to break up the drive rather than having a 1am arrival at home, and although our previous campsite was sadly taken and I didn’t get my swim, Francis did take me for brunch in Harrison Hot Springs on Sunday morning. A perfect end to a perfect weekend outing together!
Gear
- 60m rope
- Double rack of cams, .2-3, and triples in .4-1
- A collection of small nuts and offsets that I found super helpful
- 9 alpine draws, & a 5m cord each for anchors