Goat Rock is a pointy 5200' tower of Chugach crud located near Eklutna Lake, Alaska. There is no specific trail approaching it, and the two main summit routes require either exposed scrambling or outright rock climbing. It's a fun climb, but unsurprisingly, it doesn't see a lot of traffic.
Goat Rock West Ridge
I parked at the S turn just before the ice cream shop on Eklutna Lake Road, and was soon bushwacking upward through a mixed forest of deciduous and evergreen. Eventually the forest thinned out, and I emerged above treeline onto a very steep grassy slope. After a few more minutes, I reached a gentle ridgeline with a view of the task ahead - Goat Rock.
Wacking that bush
As I got closer, I began following a sheep trail through the scree. This led me below a promising gully to the West col. I started upward, picking my way through talus and bits of remaining ice and snow. The travel stayed mellow, if a tad wet and mossy, until finally bringing me to a sharp ridgeline and dropoff.
Goat Rock directly ahead. The col is down in the bottom middle - NASTY drop to my left.
I had gone a bit further West than I had intended, and missed the col! No matter - backtracking was easy, and I soon traversed into the correct gully and was on the col.
The opposing side of the col dropped off very steeply, and I could tell that the going was about to get steep no matter which way I went. The West ridge itself rose abruptly to the right, and I spotted a trickle of water coming down by an old climbing anchor. As I came up to this, I could tell I would be crossing the "no bueno" category of downclimbing if I continued up. I tried going around to the left and to the right, but came up empty. It was all steep and saturated, or a mixture of the two.
Anchor is middle left, in the middle of wet, WET rock
Not Bueno
Also not bueno
Discouraged, I backed off, and then my eye caught a snowy ramp that was about 50 feet below the col. I started tentatively up this, and was delighted to find that it stayed much more mellow than the terrain on my left. Gradually though, it did narrow, and forced me into tighter and more exposed terrain. At last, the ramp came down to cliffs on the right, and a body width crack ahead.
The crux crack
The crack seemed that it still might not be a fun downclimb, so I tested it. Not very good. It was then it occurred to me that my large winter backpack, with an ice axe and all sorts of gear, might be hindering my maneuverability in the narrow space. So, realizing that leaving my pack for a few minutes was probably fine on this deserted peak, I decided to take it off and try again.
Leaving Mr. Pack behind...
This was the magic bullet I needed! Without the cumbersome weight on my back, I fairly flew up the crevice and was soon on much easier terrain. I picked my way through the remaining rocky travel, which never again rose to the same steepness as the crevice I had passed.
Past the crux crack.
Past the crux crack. Not as steep, but still exposed.
Past the crux crack. Summit ahead. Some mean exposure to my left and milder exposure to the right.
The summit came up quickly, and I was happy to see rays of sun poking through the cloud cover. Opening the summit register proved a hilarious struggle. Whoever last closed it did a good job of it! Funny enough, I flipped open the paper and the first name I saw was Bill Finley! Hmmm... Bill's trip reports are the framework I refer to whenever I need a helping hand on a peak (and I'll admit, I did read some about Goat Rock too!!) I signed my name, albeit accidentally claiming the date one day ahead, and headed down.
Summit. Holding my helmet up for dat pano!
Struggling to open the register.
The B. Finley page!
Putting the register back.
Needless to say, downclimbing the 4th class segment to my backpack was a lot easier without the pack being ON! It was also warmer at this point, so I took my gloves off for even greater downclimbing prowess. Shouldering the pack, I made it back down to the col without incident.
Approaching the downclimb. Sun was out at this point! Nice.
Bare hands are much nicer for downclimbing.
Bare hands are much nicer for downclimbing.
As I backtracked the sheep trail, I thought it would be fun to also do a quick jog over to POW/MIA. Since leaving my pack had worked so well just a few minutes before, I left it again to make jogging easier.
I snapped a few pictures from POW, then headed back to the pack, and from there to the car. The grass field I had come up was still INSANELY STEEP!!! (Hmmm... Exactly the same as it was on the way up, haha.)
Pano from POW/MIA. Pioneer/East Twin/Goat Rock/Eklutna/Baneful/The Mitre/The Watchman (left to right)
Closer up view of Goat Rock West Ridge (center) from POW/MIA.
Overall -
Goat Rock is an awesome early season way to get some good 'ol fashioned Chugach crud exposure with a minimal approach. There are a lot of climbing options as well - mild, medium, spicy, or very spicy indeed on the north side. I was content with the mild!!
Route info -
Watch my videos (listed below) or pay very close attention to Bill Finley's excellent trip report. If you want to scramble this peak AND downclimb it, it's important to hit everything right on the West Ridge. Downclimbing the ridge proper would be quite bad if the rock is wet. The crack/ramp go-around is definitely easier but is still exposed and narrow. As Bill mentions, it's a great way to get summer started with a nice bit of scramble practice. Be careful, and have fun on this pointy, seldom visited Chugach peak. Stay tuned for lots more peaks this summer.
Skybuster/Ice Cream Cone seen from Mt. Significant, January 2019. LONG lens! I remember the first time I saw it. Eastbound on the Glenn, just before passing Kings Mountain and Chickaloon, on a clear, flat section of road, I happened to glance south, and there it was, standing tall in the distance. I couldn't take my eyes off, and couldn't help but wonder: did that insane tower of rock have a name, and what would it be like to stand on its incredible, precipitous summit? Since I wasn't driving, I easily answered the first question with Google. That inspirational behemoth was named Skybuster. Answering the second question, however, would have to wait. Several years and lots of beta gathering later, it was time to try. Since the peak is so remote, it seemed a good idea to make this our first fly in approach. With excitement and some apprehension, we loaded up at Merrill field and flew (choppered!) out. WOCKA WOCKA WOCKA Sitting in t...
Total Time - Just about 9.5 hours. 46 minutes biking in, 7:59:37 hiking, 46 mins biking out. Civic DX ready to roll! I left my house at 5:30 and was riding around Eklutna by 6:20. There was a lot of bear crap on the trail, so I did some extra "hey bear!" in addition to my two bearbells. After 10 miles, it was time to ditch the bike - but what was this? There were already some people here! A group of two declared their intention to climb Bold, and there was a group of three trying Bashful! Riding around the lake Trusty 9:ZERO:7 Whiteout with Bashful above! The two were still busy with gear, so I started walking with the trio, glad to have some company for what I had anticipated to be a very spooky (bear-ie) walk to Stiver's. Once we arrived, I bade farewell to the group and went on ahead. My Bashful Buds :) Things went great until I took a very ill-advised wrong turn, and ended up missing the alder tu...
11.9Mi/6:10:41/3,724ft/Plus one 400lb boulder UPDATED 2020 - See bottom of page I woke up this morning not knowing that I was going to go scrambling, much less on Hidden Peak, much less try to connect the ridge between Hidden Peak/The Ramp. Interesting how plans for the day evolve, eh? Like 80% of my days off this summer/fall, the forecast called for rain showers. That means I wake up, make coffee, go back and forth from the computer to the window, and wait for the sky to reveal itself. It didn't look so bad! OK, I'm used to seeing this by now. Since it didn't look SO bad, meaning that it still looked SORT of bad, I decided to stay close to home and climb a peak that had so far slipped underneath the radar - Hidden Peak. Hidden Peak is connected to O'Malley via a ridgeline, and many a time at the O'Malley summit I have entertained the thought of continuing toward Hidden. But every time, it just loo...
Comments
Post a Comment