Nesakwatch North Spire Southwest Ridge Climb

I was still in Okanagan with my family on a camping trip recovering from the Wedge attempt, when I saw the text from Bala. Lily and Bala were planning to climb Nesakwatch North Spire via Southwest Ridge. Bala shared the Mountain Project link for the route and asked if anyone was interested. I read “7 pitches, 5.8+” and said yes without doing any more research.

Oudi confirmed later in the week. So we had two teams that Bala named Team Orca – Lily-Bala and Team Seal – Oudi-Shashi. But after watching a video where the “ruthless, well organized and fiercely intelligent” Orcas hunt Seals, I was not a fan of our team name.

Nesakwatch Creek Forest Service Road

Friday evening, the team picked me up from my home. It was a busy evening on the road to Chilliwack, and it took us almost two hours to hit the Nesakwatch Creek Forest Service Road.

The FSR has several water bars making it a slow and bumpy ride. We were driving in Bala’s Subaru Forester that has 17″ tires giving us some additional clearance. But still, we had to be careful on some deep water bars.

It was 8:45 pm by the time we reached the Slesse Memorial trailhead. Bala felt great about his driving skills and Subaru until he saw a Grand Caravan parked at the trailhead. More on this van later.

After dinner, we pitched our tents at the trailhead and turned in for the night around 10 pm.

Mount Rexford Trail

The next day, we got up at 4 am and, after breakfast, hit the trail by 5 am. For the first two km, we continued our hike on Nesakwatch Creek FSR. Then, at the junction, we took a left for the Rexford Spur.

After continuing on this overgrown trail for another 400 m or so, we got on the Mount Rexford Trail.

Nesakwatch North Spire Southwest Ridge - Mount Rexford Trail — Starting of Mount Rexford Trail

From here, the trail gets much steeper. As we got higher up, we had a clear view of Mount Slesse.

Mount Slesse Chillwack River Valley — Mount Slesse view from Mount Rexford Trail

We passed two creeks on Mount Rexford Trail. The second creek is much bigger, and we had to drop down/climb up to cross it.

About three hours into the hike, we cleared the forest and were in the alpine.

After a brief break, we made our way to the base of the Nesakwatch North Spire. It took us some time to figure out the start of the climb. Finally, around 10 am, we started climbing.

Nesakwatch North Spire Southwest Ridge

Southwest Ridge route, as per Mountain Project, has seven pitches. But the way we pitched it out, we ended up doing the climb in 12 pitches including five scramble sections. We didn’t necessarily protect the scramble sections but it did end taking up a lot more time than I expected.

P1 (Pitch One): Scramble up from the dead tree to a ledge

P2: 5.8, this is the first pitch on Mountain Project.

Left – looking up at P3 (Photo by Lily), Right – Oudi coming up P3

P3: 5.8, second pitch on Mountain Project.

P4: 5.8+/5.9, the crux of the route. You have to climb down a bit from the top of P2 to get on this pitch.

P5: 5.7, I believe the route follows the flake, but we didn’t have big cams for the route, so we went left. P4+P5 is the third pitch on Mountain Project.

P6: Scramble to the next pitch

P7: 5.7 climbs up the cracks and then a slab section at the end. Pitch four on Mountain Project

P8: Scramble to the next pitch

P9: Mountain Project combines P8, P9 and P10 as described here as pitch five and categorizes it as a 4th class scramble. This pitch was definitely not a scramble for us.

P10: Scramble to the headwall

P11: 5.8 climb up the headwall. Pitch six on Mountain Project. We climbed up a bit from the top of this pitch and then rapped down to access the summit blocks.

P12: final scramble to the summit. Pitch seven on Mountain Project

Finally, at 5:30 pm, we were at the summit. It took us almost 7.5 hours to climb this route. End of the day, as we discussed, what we could have done better – simul-climbing scramble sections, better route finding, fewer breaks, etc. were a few of the suggestions that came up. As we climb more multi-pitch routes, we should get more efficient individually and as a team – all part of the progression as a climber.

Nesakwatch South Spire

On our climb, we saw two climbers go up the West face of South Spire.

Here is a zoomed-in photo of one of the climbers –

Descent

After a 30 minute break, we started our descent via South ridge. There was still some snow on the ridge, and it slowed us down. A party of two had just scrambled down this ridge, so it was a bit easier as we followed their tracks. Later, I got to know that it was Maria and her friend from BC Mountaineering Club. Once we were below the col, we used our 60 m ropes to rap down the rest of the route. It took us about two hours to get down from the summit to the basin.

It was one of the hottest weekends in British Columbia, and I carried 3L of water on the climb. Others carried at least 2L each. But by the time we reached the basin, we were almost out of water. Oudi walked over to the two climbers who were bivvying close by and filled his Nalgene bottle. These were the same climbers we had seen on the West face of Nesakwatch South Spire.

Once we got to the big creek, we quenched our thirst, and we all probably gulped down a litre of water. It took us another three hours to hike down, and it was 11:15 pm by the time we were back at the trailhead. Before leaving on this trip, I had prepared a trip plan and informed Kasturi to call 911 in case she doesn’t hear back from me by 7 pm on Saturday. After discussing with the group, I changed it to 9 am on Sunday. I was way too ambitious.

As I was reading more about the route the next day, I realized that it had an Alpine Rating of “D” in the Alpine Select book. Although I have done harder single-pitch climbs, this was definitely one of the hardest alpine climbs. Especially, doing it in a day carrying close to 30 lb. backpack up one of the steepest trails and climbing the route on one of the hottest days makes it even more challenging. I was thrilled with the effort and my ability to climb this route.

A week later, Bala and I were climbing in Squamish when we ran into Will Stanhope and Sonnie Trotter. They were conducting a trad climbing course. As we got chatting, Bala mentioned our Nesakwatch North Spire climb. That’s when Will mentioned that he was there the same weekend. It was Will and his girlfriend who were climbing up the West face of Nesakwatch South Spire. “Fantasies and Fairytales” rated 5.12 – was the route they climbed.

And they drove up the FSR in their Grand Caravan. Will said he beat up the van on the FSR, but I am sure it was a piece of cake compared to this adventure –