North Ridge of North Nesakwatch Spire

North Ridge North Nesakwatch Spire — Neha on the summit of North Nesakwatch Spire

In July, I did Southwest Ridge of North Nesakwatch Spire with Lily, Bala and Oudi. Since then, Oudi and I have discussed making a 3-day BCMC trip to do some of the other climbs in the area. Last weekend (Aug 13-15), we finally made this trip and did two routes. This post is on North Ridge of North Nesakwatch Spire. Next week, I will do a post on the West Ridge of Mount Rexford.

Gear

In my trip posting, I had shared three route options that we could potentially climb depending on the group’s comfort level and conditions.

North Ridge of North Spire: PD+, low-5th

North Ridge South Spire: AD-, 5.7

Mount Rexford West Ridge: AD-, low-5th

Sawkwatch Peak and Enswakwatch Peak are indigenous names of Mount Rexford.

Not knowing which routes we will get to climb, I was a bit conservative and carried my single trad rack of cams (#0.3-#4) and a full set of stoppers. Justin would have a similar rack, plus a #6 if we did the last offwidth pitch on the North Ridge of South Spire.

Gear for Rexford Nesakwatch Spire — Gear for Rexford-Nesakwatch Spires Climb

I would be using my bivvy bag for the first time and was happy to see everything fit in a 35L pack.

We met in Walnut Grove, Langley and carpooled from there in Jasone and Neha’s RAV4s. Neha’s RAV4 was a hybrid, and I was impressed with its ability to handle the FSR. We might have scraped the custom hitch a couple of times, but no other issues.

Once we got to the trailhead, we had a quick chat about the weather. The smoke was pretty bad, and on top of that, there was a heatwave warning in effect. Although the conditions were not good, the consensus was that we will go up, spend a night and see if the weather improves. I am glad we decided to go up.

Check this post for a detailed description of the FSR drive and Mount Rexford Trail.

Hike to Bivy Rock

Around 9 am, we started our hike. It took us about one and half hours to arrive at the second creek. The first creek was dry, but thankfully the second creek still had some water for us to fill up.

Higher up, we met a group coming down, and I was relieved to hear that we still had some snow that we could melt and use. It took us about four hours to get to an elevation of about 2000 m at the base of Mount Rexford and Nesakwatch Spires. We looked around and picked up one of the flat boulders as our bivy site.

It was sweltering hot, and I could taste the smoke. So even though we had about eight more hours of daylight, we decided to rest. We would have an alpine start the next day.

Rexford Nesakwatch Spire Bivy Rock — Photo by Neha

Jasone had the biggest pack among us, and she was not even carrying any group gear or rope. So as she started unpacking, we all sat down for the show. It was like Mary Poppins pulling stuff out of her bag. But nobody expected her to pull out a portable shower.

Here I was unsure whether we would get water to drink, and Jasone was planning to shower. So clearly, we had a different read on the conditions. But to be honest, the black shower bag did come in handy to melt snow.

After an early dinner, we went over the plan for the next day. We would do the North Ridge of North Spire first and then decide to continue on the North Ridge of South Spire. We had two 60 m 8 mm half ropes with the leader tieing into the middle of the rope. Oudi, Neha and I would be on one rope, and Justin and Jasone would form the other rope team.

North Ridge North Spire

Alpine Start for North Ridge North Nesakwatch Spire — Alpine Start

We got up at 3 am and left the bivy site around 4:30 am. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the base of North Ridge of North Spire. Oudi went up one section that felt easier, but he didn’t like the unstable overhanging rock.

We decided to rope up before getting any higher. Justin and Jasone went up a crack to the right, then I climbed up. Other than Oudi, I had not climbed with others in this setting. So even though we could have simul-climbed, I was a bit conservative. About 25 m into the route, I set up the belay and belayed Neha and Oudi.

We did some simul-climbing on easy sections, and on others, I would set up a belay.

One thing we could have done better while simul-climbing is managing the rope. Oudi and Neha would coil the rope as they climbed low angled terrain, but shortening the rope up front would have been better.

About an hour and a half into the climb (maybe 4-5 pitches in), we were at the base of a face that offered some good crack climbing. Justin and Jasone checked out the cracks, but it seemed too difficult for a low-5th route. So they traversed to the right.

Oudi, Neha and I ended up traversing from below and then climbing up. Oudi went first, still tied to one end of the rope. While Oudi was out of sight, Neha and I had to deal with tangled ropes which took a while. Finally, I put Neha on belay as she did the traverse while tied to the other end of the rope.

Oudi got confused when he saw Neha come up while I was belaying her. He was under the impression that we would be end-roping, but I had not thought about that. We were all safe, but we didn’t do a good job of managing the rope and communicating, which set us back by 30-45 minutes.

By the time we got to the base of the next pitch, Justin was already climbing the chimney. A party of two who had soloed up the scramble section had passed us and were higher up on the route.

I enjoyed the chimney climb, and it was the perfect place to clip the half ropes on alternate pieces.

Here is another look at the chimney section –

However, the pitch higher up seemed challenging for a low-5th climb. Later, one BCMC member commented that he had downclimbed the chimney and found an alternate, easier route to the left. So most likely, we were off route but got some good climbing to get to the summit.

In total, it took us just under five hours to get to the summit.

It was just 9:30 am and we discussed if we should continue climbing on the North Ridge of South Spire, which is relatively a harder climb.

North Ridge of South Nesakwatch Spire in the background. Photo by Neha

Considering the time it had taken us to get up the North Ridge of North Spire and the comfort level of the group, we decided to head down.

The conditions were much different than a month back when we had a good amount of snow on this route.

Soon we were at the rap station below the col of North and South Spire. Although scrambling down was easy, I thought it would be a good experience for the group to simul-rappel. While coming down the Escape Velocity route on Mount Habrich, Bala had shown me how to do the Stein (Stone) Knot setup.

So I set up the knot and had Oudi double-check the system. Jasone and Justin went down first, then Oudi and Neha followed them. Finally, I cleared the knot and rappeled down. We were back at the bivy site before noon. After lunch, we again regrouped to discuss the plan for rest of the day.

Bivy Rock Rexford Nesakwatch Spire — Jasone and Neha enjoying their shelter palace

The smoke had cleared a bit it was still hot. We likely had the time to do West Ridge of Mount Rexford but decided to rest and have another alpine start the next day.