Neil
06-05-2011, 01:48 PM
Being a modern day explorer it was while I was comfortably enconced in an ergonomic chair with a mug of frothy brew at my side that I made an important discovery. I was perusing Google Earth imagery of the Great Range when I discovered the East Face Of Armstrong. This is what it looked like:
http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/Armstrong_east.jpg
There is a push-pin on the summit and to the right of the open rock is the newer "White Slide" on Upper Wolf Jaw.
The slide on Armstrong and the open slabs to the right (the slabs sort of look like Africa squashed in the middle) jumped to the top of my to-do list but first I needed to check the slope so I manually copied the UTM coordinates into Nation Geographic Topo! and ran a profile. The slide and slab came to an average of 80% and the exposed rock above the slide 105%.
This meant the slide and slab were in the vicinity of the Eagle Slide for steepness although the slide appears a bit green on GE meaning it could be old and moss-covered.
I was locked in to visiting these slides ASAP and as luck would have it I still needed Armstrong for my list. However, the planned route was anxiety provoking because somewhere along the way up those slabs I would reach the limit of my comfort and safety zone and would have to bail. What if if I went beyond the limits before realizing it? I woke up a couple of nights earlier dreaming I was stuck on a cliff face, all alone and unable to move up or down.
With these cheering images in mind I left the Beaver Meadow Brook trail at the AMR boundary and donned a raincoat and mechanics' gloves. The sky was covered with low-level stratus clouds and it was gloomy and dark. No one has signed out for any part of the Range so I had the distinction of being the only human around.
Before making for the face I had decided to explore a ridge that lies due east and 2 kilometers away from Armstrong. Thus, I was following a magnetic bearing of 350 and cross-sloping very slowly through very thick and steep woods. I got no views of any worth but I did manage to increase my time in the woods by one hour before saying to hell with this. I turned due west to pick up the drainage that flows out between UWJ and Armstrong, namely, the Beaver Meadow Brook headwaters. It was drizzling -perfect weather for ascending steep slabs of rock, especially those that might be covered in moss and lichens.
The brook was a charm to ascend on smooth (and at times slippery ) slabs of rock. For greater than 2 hours of bushwhacking I had had no visual clues other than the lay of the land and the brook to enable me to situate myself on my map. I couldn't even see Armstrong or UWJ and they were supposed to be right in my face. Even though I was 90% confident of where I was the other half of my brain was always wondering if somehow I had followed the wrong drainage or something embarrassingly stupid.
But, I kept plugging away and the woods were truly chaotic and steep. The drainage split repeatedly into smaller and smaller rivulets but I trusted that my compass would enable me to follow the right one. Then, after 75 minutes of creek whacking I decided I wanted no part of getting half-way up the mountain before discovering I had missed the slide so I turned on my GPS. It reassured me that I was right on track and that the slide was less than 2 football fields away. This galvanized me and in short order the woods changed.
It became brighter and I found myself in an open corridor of alders. In the Dacks I call them slide alders and these ones were very pretty. They had fresh and tender green leaves and slender, speckled trunks. They grew right out of a thick mass of treacherous rotting tree trunks covered in moss. Alders are symbiotic with nitrogen fixing bacteria and have nodules on their rooots. At that point in my dendrological musings I took a look up and my heart sank a bit. There was a lot more moss and lichen showing than rock and it was steep-looking and very wet. In fact, just then the drizzle yielded to steady rain. It was deathly silent and a feeling of being very small and very alone passed through me. I was at 3500 feet elevation. I supposed I would have to ascend the rest of the way through the trees but decided that after coming all this way I should at least give the slide a shot. Much to my surprise I was getting excellent traction on just enough fingers of grippy Anorthosite studded with feldspar crystals. The pitch steepened but the grip held so I climbed a bit more and suddenly I remembered the big slabs to the right of the slide. They appeared cleaner than the slide in Google Earth so I traversed through the woods for about 50 yards and when I came out at the slab's edge my brain got a major dose of dopamine. Even though I was cold and wet and the surrounding mountains were socked in I was in heaven. From my puny human's viewing position all I saw were great expanses of beautiful mossy rock stretching off in every direction and disappearing into the fog. Here and there small islands of Spruce trees grew and a White-Throated Sparrow broke the silence with its characteristic song.
Looking up I could see the increasing pitch but was able to keep going. The slope was punctuated by flat sections and after each flat spot the pitch seemed to increase. I took pictures but in the falling rain it was a hassle to keep the lens raindrop-free so I took less than I would have wanted to. Also, given the wetness and mossiness of the rock I decided to stick close to the edge, thereby resisting the urge to go out to the center and explore the entire slab.
When I reached the top of the slab I made a hard left to the top of the slide and bushwhacked straight up to the final cliffs you can see on the GE image. These were most impressive and I managed to climb up a short distance and traverse under them along a nice horizontal crack. I had a hunch that in dry conditions you could get up fairly high on them before bailing out but not today.
I entered the steep woods and noted that the trees were growing quite close together and that their small trunks did not grow straight. The ground was strewn with large rocks that lay hidden under thousands of years of decaying vegetation. The woods were also very cliffy and it took me some time to weave my way up to the final ridge-line. As usual, it was impossible and futile to hurry. My hands and feet were quite cold for an early June outing and under my rain jacket I only wore a summer t-shirt that was fully saturated. I was definitely chilled, especially with the lengthy picture taking and lens cleaning procedures down on the slides.
The wind was whistling across the ridge, which was a contrast to the heavy stillness earlier. I knew the trail was very close but my GPS informed me I was still 150 yards from the summit, due north from me now. I practiced trail-avoidance-behavior as part of my 46-er Bushwhack protocol, which definitely slowed me down (Armstrong is one tough cookie of a mountain). This also greatly enhanced the heat loss effect of my soaking-wet state. I was wearing nylon pants whose every interstice was saturated with flowing water - I was thus a walking catch basin. Finally, I saw the great summit block of rock and I hopped onto the trail as if it was a passing bus and decided that 1 minute of trail walking was not enough to threaten the legitimacy of my bushwhack ascent of Armstrong. Car to summit = 5 1/2 hours.
Out on the viewing rock the wind and rain threatened me with instant hypothermia and I only lingered for 1 second before hieing it out all the way to Wolf Jaw notch before stopping for a full change of clothing, a bala-clava and woolen mittens, I wore a down hoody while eating my lunch.
It snowed for a couple of minutes while I was descending Armstrong which impressed the hell out of me and made me chuckle out loud in spite of the fact that I was freezing. From Armstrong back to the car it took about 3 1/2 hours down the Wedge Brook Trail.
Hey Armstrong! I'll be back.
Pics that require hitting F11 to avoid .....yadayada.....scrolling (http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/armstrong/index.html).
http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/Armstrong_east.jpg
There is a push-pin on the summit and to the right of the open rock is the newer "White Slide" on Upper Wolf Jaw.
The slide on Armstrong and the open slabs to the right (the slabs sort of look like Africa squashed in the middle) jumped to the top of my to-do list but first I needed to check the slope so I manually copied the UTM coordinates into Nation Geographic Topo! and ran a profile. The slide and slab came to an average of 80% and the exposed rock above the slide 105%.
This meant the slide and slab were in the vicinity of the Eagle Slide for steepness although the slide appears a bit green on GE meaning it could be old and moss-covered.
I was locked in to visiting these slides ASAP and as luck would have it I still needed Armstrong for my list. However, the planned route was anxiety provoking because somewhere along the way up those slabs I would reach the limit of my comfort and safety zone and would have to bail. What if if I went beyond the limits before realizing it? I woke up a couple of nights earlier dreaming I was stuck on a cliff face, all alone and unable to move up or down.
With these cheering images in mind I left the Beaver Meadow Brook trail at the AMR boundary and donned a raincoat and mechanics' gloves. The sky was covered with low-level stratus clouds and it was gloomy and dark. No one has signed out for any part of the Range so I had the distinction of being the only human around.
Before making for the face I had decided to explore a ridge that lies due east and 2 kilometers away from Armstrong. Thus, I was following a magnetic bearing of 350 and cross-sloping very slowly through very thick and steep woods. I got no views of any worth but I did manage to increase my time in the woods by one hour before saying to hell with this. I turned due west to pick up the drainage that flows out between UWJ and Armstrong, namely, the Beaver Meadow Brook headwaters. It was drizzling -perfect weather for ascending steep slabs of rock, especially those that might be covered in moss and lichens.
The brook was a charm to ascend on smooth (and at times slippery ) slabs of rock. For greater than 2 hours of bushwhacking I had had no visual clues other than the lay of the land and the brook to enable me to situate myself on my map. I couldn't even see Armstrong or UWJ and they were supposed to be right in my face. Even though I was 90% confident of where I was the other half of my brain was always wondering if somehow I had followed the wrong drainage or something embarrassingly stupid.
But, I kept plugging away and the woods were truly chaotic and steep. The drainage split repeatedly into smaller and smaller rivulets but I trusted that my compass would enable me to follow the right one. Then, after 75 minutes of creek whacking I decided I wanted no part of getting half-way up the mountain before discovering I had missed the slide so I turned on my GPS. It reassured me that I was right on track and that the slide was less than 2 football fields away. This galvanized me and in short order the woods changed.
It became brighter and I found myself in an open corridor of alders. In the Dacks I call them slide alders and these ones were very pretty. They had fresh and tender green leaves and slender, speckled trunks. They grew right out of a thick mass of treacherous rotting tree trunks covered in moss. Alders are symbiotic with nitrogen fixing bacteria and have nodules on their rooots. At that point in my dendrological musings I took a look up and my heart sank a bit. There was a lot more moss and lichen showing than rock and it was steep-looking and very wet. In fact, just then the drizzle yielded to steady rain. It was deathly silent and a feeling of being very small and very alone passed through me. I was at 3500 feet elevation. I supposed I would have to ascend the rest of the way through the trees but decided that after coming all this way I should at least give the slide a shot. Much to my surprise I was getting excellent traction on just enough fingers of grippy Anorthosite studded with feldspar crystals. The pitch steepened but the grip held so I climbed a bit more and suddenly I remembered the big slabs to the right of the slide. They appeared cleaner than the slide in Google Earth so I traversed through the woods for about 50 yards and when I came out at the slab's edge my brain got a major dose of dopamine. Even though I was cold and wet and the surrounding mountains were socked in I was in heaven. From my puny human's viewing position all I saw were great expanses of beautiful mossy rock stretching off in every direction and disappearing into the fog. Here and there small islands of Spruce trees grew and a White-Throated Sparrow broke the silence with its characteristic song.
Looking up I could see the increasing pitch but was able to keep going. The slope was punctuated by flat sections and after each flat spot the pitch seemed to increase. I took pictures but in the falling rain it was a hassle to keep the lens raindrop-free so I took less than I would have wanted to. Also, given the wetness and mossiness of the rock I decided to stick close to the edge, thereby resisting the urge to go out to the center and explore the entire slab.
When I reached the top of the slab I made a hard left to the top of the slide and bushwhacked straight up to the final cliffs you can see on the GE image. These were most impressive and I managed to climb up a short distance and traverse under them along a nice horizontal crack. I had a hunch that in dry conditions you could get up fairly high on them before bailing out but not today.
I entered the steep woods and noted that the trees were growing quite close together and that their small trunks did not grow straight. The ground was strewn with large rocks that lay hidden under thousands of years of decaying vegetation. The woods were also very cliffy and it took me some time to weave my way up to the final ridge-line. As usual, it was impossible and futile to hurry. My hands and feet were quite cold for an early June outing and under my rain jacket I only wore a summer t-shirt that was fully saturated. I was definitely chilled, especially with the lengthy picture taking and lens cleaning procedures down on the slides.
The wind was whistling across the ridge, which was a contrast to the heavy stillness earlier. I knew the trail was very close but my GPS informed me I was still 150 yards from the summit, due north from me now. I practiced trail-avoidance-behavior as part of my 46-er Bushwhack protocol, which definitely slowed me down (Armstrong is one tough cookie of a mountain). This also greatly enhanced the heat loss effect of my soaking-wet state. I was wearing nylon pants whose every interstice was saturated with flowing water - I was thus a walking catch basin. Finally, I saw the great summit block of rock and I hopped onto the trail as if it was a passing bus and decided that 1 minute of trail walking was not enough to threaten the legitimacy of my bushwhack ascent of Armstrong. Car to summit = 5 1/2 hours.
Out on the viewing rock the wind and rain threatened me with instant hypothermia and I only lingered for 1 second before hieing it out all the way to Wolf Jaw notch before stopping for a full change of clothing, a bala-clava and woolen mittens, I wore a down hoody while eating my lunch.
It snowed for a couple of minutes while I was descending Armstrong which impressed the hell out of me and made me chuckle out loud in spite of the fact that I was freezing. From Armstrong back to the car it took about 3 1/2 hours down the Wedge Brook Trail.
Hey Armstrong! I'll be back.
Pics that require hitting F11 to avoid .....yadayada.....scrolling (http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/armstrong/index.html).