Last year I wanted to do this route, but got rained out (last year's trip report). This year I enlisted Bill McC as a partner, which was great luck. He'd done the route back in the 90's sometime, and was keen to do it again.

Monday, August 20th we set out from Glacier Lodge (8000') and headed up the South Fork Big Pine Creek trail. The creek crossing was a fairly tame rock-hop, in contrast to last year. Middle Pal and Norman Clyde Peak greeted us as we trudged up the switchbacks, then over and down into the meadow near Willow Lake.


The weather was looking funky -- 20% chance of thunderstorms each day of our trip. Better than last year, but not as good as I'd hoped. The clouds gathered and made the sky cool to look at, but didn't threaten rain.


The last steep section up to Finger Lake went fairly quickly, and we set up camp in late afternoon.


We reviewed the various trip reports and route descriptions we'd brought. My friends Pavel and Doug climbed it in 2006 and had posted a description online somewhere, so we went with that. We also found Rick Booth's 2007 report quite hilarious, but also useful for approach/descent beta.

The next morning at 4am my iPod sounded a wakeup klaxon, and we got moving around 5-ish. After an hour the sun came up and we got some nice alpenglow shots.


Bill led the way, and we headed up talus and scree to get on the ridge. We'd decided to forego the pitch starting directly from the glacier, which was looking, uh, interesting this time of year.



About where the Firebird Ridge and NNE Ridge routes join, we headed SE across the talus towards our goal.


We went below the snowfield and headed up the fourth class to the belay ledge noted in various route descriptions. This part wasn't bad at all really, and Bill found a couple of items of bail gear which came in handy on the descent (more on that later :) The view down this section was pretty cool.


No more stalling, we would have to start climbing here. I offered to take the first pitch. It was about 10.



I have to say I was a little intimidated. Secor described this first section as requiring stemming and jamming, which more or less worked for me. I headed left at the "obvious exit" onto an area of face climbing, as per Pavel's description, then up to a belay ledge with an old piton, savored the moment, and brought Bill up.


I was pretty scared, and the lead took me a while. Bill seemed to get a kick out of it too -- he'd led it last time.

I took the second pitch as well. Instead of going straight up from the ledge we went right and did an exposed but easier step-around.


Most of this seemed easier than the first pitch and I ended up on another big ledge, with a large chockstone. I was getting a little tired, and Bill took the last two pitches, almost to the summit. These had some loose and easy sections punctuated by short 5.7-ish bits.


The clouds seemed to clear a bit as we coiled the rope and scrambled up to the summit and found the register.




It was nearing 4pm and it was time to go down. The NNE Ridge of Norman Clyde Peak is known as being a loose, devious and time-consuming fourth class mess. After a couple of routefinding booboos, we found a rap station and started our descent.


We found four more rap stations, got our rope stuck a few times and were quickly running short on daylight. I was out of water, and tiring quickly. Bill found the ducks traversing back to the Firebird Ridge though, and we made it just as the last light faded from the moonless sky. Headlamps on !

We made our way back north along the ridge in darkness, Bill tirelessly searching for cairns that marked the normal descent. We soon found a rap station, and then another. After getting our rope stuck and unstuck again, we made it back to the moraine around 10pm.


We could sort of tell where we were going, in that it was downhill :) About two hours of talus-hopping in total darkness ensued, though I pulled out the GPS a few times to adjust course.

Back in camp we fired up the stove. Then it started raining. WTF ?? Turns out there was a low pressure system moving overhead right at that moment. We sheltered our stuff as best we could, ate dinner in rain gear, and turned in well after midnight. Phew, glad that didn't happen earlier =:-O

The rain continued on and off all night and into Wednesday morning, but at the first break we got up and dried out what we could. The clouds hovered above Finger Lake, obscuring the crest. We could just see crevasses in the Middle Pal glacier .. with the drifting clouds it eerily resembled the North Cascades somehow.


By mid-morning we packed up and hiked back down. Back at the car around 2-ish we could see big dark clouds from Glacier Lodge, and drops of rain started falling. Turned out to be quite the gully washer from what I heard.

Gear notes:
 60m x 9.5mm rope
 Purple to orange mastercams, purple to yellow BD C4's, WC tech friend 3.5
 Green and yellow link cams
 WC Rocks 1-8
 10-12 alpine draws (single-length)
 1 double length draws
 2 cordelettes

We rigged one rap and reinforced another with bail gear we found on the route.