Slesse to Pierce Traverse
- Greg Luesink
- Aug 16, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 26
One of the biggest trips of Summer 2023, connecting the ridgeline of Slesse, Parkes, Crossover, MacFarlane, and Pierce in one day. Another epic linkup in the books, accompanied by Brennan.
Planning
Since climbing Slesse in August of 2022, I'd eyed up the rest of the ridge towards MacFarlane and Pierce Lake as a fun add-on adventure. My friends Nich and Ben had done it in 2021 (getting caught in the rain and still making it the whole ridge somehow), so I had a bit of beta on the ridge, but lots of mystery to make it exciting.
The main factor to consider on the route is the complete lack of water from Slesse until Upper Pierce Lake. For this reason, carrying enough water up the approach trail is a gruelling but necessary aspect of making the trip happen. The plan was to do the ridge in a day, which would require packing light (except on water...) and moving quickly. I fit everything in a 22L vest, which I borrowed from my coworker to test out. (This trip was the inspiration for a new backpack, check out my review of the Firecrest 28L.
Ascent of Slesse
We made quick work up the approach trail, getting our first view of Slesse, just under 3 hours after leaving the car. The "easy" part over, now just the scrambling and climbing left to do... good thing there is lots of daylight in August!
Note in the bottom-right photo, South Slesse summit, and down further right the plane wreckage can be seen glinting in the sun on the lower peak.
The Scrambler's Route up Slesse is not exactly aptly named. While it does require a fair bit of exposed scrambling, it couldn't be done [safely, in my opinion] without a rope, for rappelling at a bare minimum. The crux is a ~5.6 40m pitch in the middle of the scramble. Some folks like Marc Andre Leclerc wouldn't even bat an eye at down-climbing 5.6 in the alpine, but for myself its a bit too exposed and heady to execute safely. Also, it's rarely about the skill of the climber that matters but rather the quality of the rock when it comes to safety in the alpine. Slesse certainly doesn't boast of flawlessly solid rock to climb on, with many loose blocks and flakes to negotiate. Thus, while it is "easy" climbing, and we could likely make it up safely, a rappel would be necessary on the way down, so might as well rope up to ascend as well.
Above is a stitched panorama looking NorthEast to the Cheam Range and then East towards Rexford and the Skagit Valley, and the Redoubt Group.
After more than 2000m of vertical gain and much scrambling, the final obstacle to overcome before the summit was the 40m 5.6 pitch. I placed a few pieces of protection in the unlikely case of a fall, while Brennan and I simul-climbed to the rappel anchor. After about 100m of scrambling, we were standing on the summit, just over 5 hours after leaving the car! It felt like we blitzed up, compared to the 9 hour ascent (15 hour day total) with a group of 4 the year prior. It certainly helped to be familiar with the route and travel in a smaller group.
Descent off Slesse
As Brennan began making his way down to the rap anchor, I decided to check out the false summit. After I made somewhat exposed moves along the ridge, I arrived to find it infested with bugs! Gross. I quickly downclimbed to meet Brennan and we set up our rappel with the 30m RAD line and the 30m 7.9mm BD rope tied together. We had decided to practice rappelling using Munter hitches. After one rappel, we clipped in to a piece of tatter to set up the next rappel. I then made a small mishap and forgot to untie the knot as I pulled the rope, so Brennan scrambled back up to untie it! He wanted to downclimb but I convinced him to rappel with me just to be safe. We landed back on easier terrain and made our way down. I did one more 15 foot rappel later on while Brennan downclimbed, although looking back I should have just scrambled down as it wasn't very tricky. Back at our stash of extra gear, we loaded up and set off to find our way around and down Fraser Tower.
Slesse to Mt Parkes
We managed to make our first and only major time-wasting error of the trip getting off lower Fraser Tower, which involved avoidable rappels. Turns out we could have just walked around to a notch and gully rather than pull out the ropes! Other than this mishap, the going was fairly straightforward to the summit of Parkes. The only thing of note is to avoid the rappels, which we could have done by staying on the West aspect of Lower Fraser Tower rather than go over it.
Ridge travel was pretty straightforward to get to Mt. Parkes. In the photo is Brennan, with MacFarlane above left and Crossover to the right. We decided to take the West flank to drop off Parkes, rather than the exposed, grassy ledges on the East side.
Mt Parkes to Crossover
Coming off of Parkes was relatively uneventful, just the typical gully systems and loose dirty ramps. We crossed a loose boulder field and chose a seemingly simple gully to gain the saddle between Stumpy Hill and Crossover. It ended up being quite loose and steep, but we managed to scamper up without sliding back down! I ran over to check out Stumpy Hill, which proved to be a pretty average hill afterall.
After catching up to Brennan, we had about 200m left to scramble to the summit of Crossover. In front of us, was a rather vertical looking section to overcome. After some humming and hawing (mostly on my part) about if the rope needed to come out, we chose a tricky but somewhat protected option. The move was low-5th to mid-5th class but didn't last long, and above was much easier terrain all the way to the top of Crossover.
Crossover to MacFarlane
The summit itself was hard to distinguish, since the ridge is made up of many towers. We found the tallest one, snapped some photos, and then realized we would have to bypass most of the ridge, once again on the West aspect, to avoid the undulating towers.
All that remained between us and MacFarlane was a pretty exposed and jagged ridge, but it ended up being relatively easy. At last, we were on familiar territory! Eight hours after summiting Slesse, we were standing on MacFarlane, looking back on the ridge, 13 hours after leaving the car. Upper Pierce lake had been motivating us for hours, and was an absolute treat to cool off in and refill water.
MacFarlane to Pierce
The last summit on the ridge that remained was Mt Pierce, which neither of us had done before... we had the daylight, so we decided to just tack it on or else we'd regret it. It turned out to be a rather bushy and prickly addition, and we didn't hold back from complaining about how atrocious it was. Oh well, the ridge from Slesse to Pierce was complete!
The view with the setting sun was pretty majestic as we descended down to the car for Jas to pick us up. Eventually, we had
to turn the headlamps...
The last bit of adventure was while hiking down in the dark, and I saw a pair of glowing eyes low to the ground ahead. My heart lurched, but it turned out to be a German Shepherd. It's owner was close behind, wielding a machete and no headlamp. He complained about the brightness of my headlamp, and warned us about a momma bear and her cub, which his dog has just treed.
Reluctantly, Brennan and I started down the trail, calling "HEYYYYY BEARRRR" until just before the bridge. At which point, Brennan concluded the "maybe he was just pulling our legs, there's no bears and it's been like 20 minutes"....
Just after this comment, I looked uphill and saw a pair of eyes looking back about 150m up from us. I heard a "Chuff", and immediately called out "heyyy momma, we're just passing by, you stay right there!" She crashed in the brush away from us some more, looking back again to make sure we didn't follow her. We carefully made our way to the bridge and felt a sigh of relief to have some ground between us and the potentially flustered mother bear. The next hour of so was agonizing, it felt like the trail would never end. But it did, and 17 and a quarter hours after leaving the car. Jas treated us to burgers as we rode back to pickup Brennans truck.
Epilogue
Brennan was a fantastic partner for this trip. He is an incredibly strong climber, much more so than me, and impressively undeterred by exposure and technical terrain. To his credit, he was willing to adjust his risk tolerance to meet my lower limits of comfort, and we worked as a good team in route selection and execution. Not to mention, Brennan pulled a 17+ hour day out of a hat without a ton of training beforehand - the man is a legend!
That was one for the books.
Gear:
30m RAD Line
30m 7.9mm half/twin rope
Rack of superlight offset nuts
3 cams (.4, .5, .75)
4 alpine draws
Several locking biners.
2x bail grenades (5mm and 6mm)
180cm sling and 240cm sling (sacrificed 240cm sling 😭)
Alpine harness
Helmet
Distance 22 pack
Strava Activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/9663804141
Stats: 30.8km, 3,288m of elevation gain and loss, 17.25 hours*** (Strava moving time lower due to "not moving" while climbing and scrambling)
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