Garfield Peak

Our plan was to gain Garfield's East ridge as soon as reasonably possible and scramble to the summit.

After gaining the ridge we scrambled over the first set of obstacles with little trouble.

It was the second set of obstacles that would foil our plan.

After climbing to the high point of the second obstacle (which Kristi named "Heathcliff") we decided to retreat to the standard route.

Turns out our plan was much stouter than originally thought. Upon inspection we weren't even sure if the ridge would go. The combination of intimidating terrain, uncertain weather and little beta were the factors in the decision to climb back down and bypass the ridge via the standard route.

Getting back to the standard route without dropping all of our elevation wasn't so much fun. We ended up sidehilling across a horrible scree field to the base of Garfield's northern slope. We then climbed the loose northern slope to the small saddle below the summit. The last few hunderd feet to the summit was fun scrambling on 2+ terrain.

Once on the summit it quickly became obvious that the weather was not going to allow us traverse to Grizzly. There were thick dark clouds in every direction. We opted to decend our ascent route back to the basin and back to camp.

Our route was a little over 7 miles and 3600 feet. It took us 6.5 hours.

Partners: Kristi Henes, Jim Griffiths

Here is a link for the GPX file from our trip.

GPX

Garfield 14ers.com Page