Darren Harnois teamed up with me to climb Forbidden Peak’s East Ridge Direct on July 22, 2023. This mission completed my six year project to climb each of Forbidden Peak’s classic ridge routes: the West Ridge (2018, 2019 via the Torment-Forbidden Traverse), Northwest Face (2020), North Ridge (2022), and finally the East Ridge (2023). All are worthy.

The approach to the East Ridge may be the easiest one on Forbidden and got us to the base of the route in less than 4 hours. We carried crampons and axes, but we never needed them to put them on. Money! Darren took the first lead block as we set off on the technical climbing.

After we each led a simul block of climbing up to 5.6, Darren led some steep 5.7 to gain the most pointy gendarme (tower) on the ridge. A free-hanging rappel off the back brought us to the base of the excellent 5.8 pitch, the clear crux and best climbing of the route. This could be the best single pitch that I’ve climbed on Forbidden Peak! Darren led it easily before I led us to the summit on another block of simulclimbing.

For this trip, we opted for the East Ledges descent route. Every description for this descent mentions something like “some climbers find this stressful.” Anyone you ask about it says something like “it was fine.” I’d agree with both of these. The East Ledges descent is faster than the West Ridge, but definitely more nerve wracking. Every move is worthy of attention on the loose, exposed traverse back to the start of the East Ledges route. Once this was done, we cruised back to the car for a 14 hour day, my fastest ever on Forbidden.

Gear Notes

Singles .3-3, doubles .4-1, nuts. This was a relatively heavy rack and a single rack would also work well. A half/twin rope folded in half is the perfect rope system for all of the ridge routes on Forbidden Peak.

Strategy Notes

This route goes very fast! Climbing in a car to car push with a comfortably light pack is the way.