Basic Rock Climb - The Fin/Northwest Ridge

Trip Report

Route Grade	5.5
Number of Pitches	3
Approach Mileage/Time	3 hours
Climbing Time	2 hours
Total	9:15 car to car
Gear	Single set of cams to 2, nuts, 8 slings (single and double), 60 meter rope

The Fin is a little known sub summit on Kangaroo Ridge in Washington Pass. The only beta listing online for it is on the Mountaineers Webpage and I don't think it gets climbed very much. The Northwest Ridge route isn't even in the Beckey guide!  There are a few Trip Reports on the Mountaineers website, including a good one by Sherrie Trecker and a couple of listings on peakbagger, but I wasn't able to find all that much info on the route. It was going to be an adventure.

Our group met at the Kangaroo Temple TH in Washington Pass at 6:30am. It was light out and we had an early start to try and get back to Seattle before too late on a Sunday. We divvied up the gear, made sure we all had harnesses, helmets, food and water and set off for Kangaroo Pass by 6:50am. The initial trail through the trees from the Hairpin Turn can be a bit hard to find, but after consulting the map, we made our way up the climbers trail. The trail has a moderate pitch and several flat sections and is generally a pleasant hike. There is a "lake" about .15 miles from the top of the pass, but it was essentially a stagnant pool this late in the season. From the lake, the trail gets a good bit steeper to the top of the pass, but its a short section.

We reached the pass by 8 am and took a short break to adjust layers and have a snack. This far we had been hiking in the shade, but once we crested the top of the pass, we started to feel the sun.

Once we were re-hydrated and refueled, we turned downhill, following the Kangaroo Temple climbers trail. KT is a popular objective, but I would argue that the Fin has similarly fun climbing and is a little more alpine. Pulling into the shadow directly below KT was our queue to start heading cross country, the end of the trail.

The bushwhacking wasn't the worst I've ever done, but not ideal either. Most of the area has relatively sparse underbrush but there were sections of dense trees we tried to avoid.  In the more open areas, we crossed the typical Cascades mix of soil and kitty litter rock, some of it solid, some of it less so.

The Fin is an interesting feature, you can see the Tomahawk (which is just next door) on the ridge line on the entire approach, but the Fin effectively hides behind it the entire time. Then, when you get closer, its almost like you can't see where the summit is, because it hides behind other ledges. When we got to the saddle between the Fin and the Tomahawk (around 9:45) we weren't sure if we were in the right place because the feature only looked like a single pitch of climbing instead of the 3 that were listed in the route description. We took a few minutes to explore around the feature to the South East, before determining that we were actually in the correct location.

Even after determining that this had to be the correct location, Daniel and I were unconvinced that there were going to be 3 rope stretching pitches. It just didn't look big enough! But with nowhere else to go, I started up the first pitch around 10:20am.

We made sure to stick to the ridge proper as there were some reports of friable rock by those who veered off to the South side and the rock wasn't as bad as I was expecting. There were some loose blocks, but nothing more than I would expect on a less traveled alpine route. I took the first pitch all the way to the beginning of a large ledge, essentially as high as you could see from the base and used all but a few feet of my 60 meter rope. There was a good rock to sling as well as some cracks for the second party to use for their anchor.

I found the gear to be sufficient on this pitch and kind of fun. There were multiple chock-stones that could be slung and some interesting gear placements. With the traversing nature of the next 2 pitches though, it was important to think about placements for your follower.

Looking up at the next pitch, I still wasn't convinced that there was going to be more than 1 more pitch. It looked like the top was just too close! I ran almost a full rope length again until I was looking at a smooth triangular bulge on the ridge line that effectively hid the summit and standing on a large flat space. There was ample space in a horizontal crack at the base of this feature for a 3 piece anchor.

Going up and over this next feature didn't seem easy, but I was able to traverse a bit around to the left and found some cracks to place gear. Most of the middle of this pitch was traversing class 3, up and down over a ridge line. Be careful with your rope drag here and watch where you place gear for your follower!

The last few moves up to the summit were some of the best. There is a short section of finger crack in a corner that guards the summit block. Apparently you can go around, but why would you? Someone had placed a couple of cheater blocks to help them get up into the crack, but they weren't really necessary.

A few feet below the summit there were ample cracks for a gear anchor. The whole group reached the top around 12:30pm and we hung out for 30 mins or so to eat lunch and take in the views.

The descent was relatively straight forward and short, utilizing the class 3 scramble down the North East side of the formation. There was a fun section where you scramble under a tree that almost felt like limbo. Once you are back on the dirt, there is some scree to descend until you are even with the base where you can link up with a faint climbers trail back to the start of the route. We got back to the packs by 1:20pm and followed the same general path we hiked in from.

We were back to the cars by 4pm, which made the whole day a little more than 9 hours. We did a quick debrief, then hit the road so we could grab dinner in Marblemount on the way back to Seattle. Mondo's always tastes better when you're extra hungry!

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