After a last minute change of plans, Avi and I headed to Canada to chase down a shared dream that we’d been discussing for a year: the hallowed Northeast Buttress of Mt. Slesse. To my eye, this is the most aesthetic line in the Cascades with thousands of feet of sustained technical climbing. We ascended the route July 30th, 2023 and finished the descent the next day after a brutal shiver bivy.

A 3am start and spirited churn up the Slesse Memorial Trail brought us to the propeller cairn, where debris from the 1956 crash of flight 810 have been collected into an impromptu memorial. With our water supply topped off, we began traversing glacial slabs through a notch in the East ridge which required some very loose fourth class downclimbing – spooky in spots! In the next cirque, the bypass glacier had mostly slid off the mountain and allowed us to traverse another section of glacier-polished rock to gain the obvious ramp that brought us to the ridge crest.

Once we gained the ridge crest, we maintained our momentum and soloed several pitches of steppy, low-fifth rock to a gendarme. Roping up here, we swapped leads up five or six pitches to the crux section of the climb: three pitches of steep terrain right on the ridge crest. Avi stepped up to lead the 5.10a roof pitch – so good! Relatively clean cracks led to a relatively juggy roof section, with relatively good protection. Truthfully, Avi and I felt like this pitch was more 5.9 than 5.10, but I’ve spoken with stronger climbers than me who felt 5.10a was more than fair for the pitch. Perhaps we were just climbing well that day? In any case, I’m happy that we chose the direct route here rather than the bypass option out right. After the crux pitch, I carefully climbed a runout 5.8 pitch that saw me fiddling in a brass nut way above my last piece.

I couldn’t help but smile every time I had a chance to soak in a moment on the upper route. We found ouselves in a swirling sea of clouds, cruising one of the great routes of the Cascades without another human in sight. When the mountains give us their gifts, they are given so lavishly! I could go on about the climbing: our path to the sky required countless pitches of distinctly alpine rock sustained at 5.7-5.9. More memorable to me than the climbing itself was the experience of efficiently covering this terrain on this wild peak with a good friend. Avi and I got lost in the rhythm of our ascent.

After Avi brought me up to a belay near the summit, we reviewed our route descriptions and realized that we had a fourth class bypass option out left, or more technical climbing straight up the crest. Poor visibility made it hard to tell how much further we had to go; it was late in the day and we needed to get up and off as quickly as possible. My experience tells me that it can often be faster to climb more direct technical terrain than it is to go out of your way on mungy fourth class bypass options, so I took the rack and charged upward with renewed vigor. I ended up climbing a 100+ meter simul pitch up to 5.8 here. We both crested the summit in a total whiteout at 7pm, feeling no sense of relief or accomplishment yet. We were facing down a notoriously difficult and long descent with dwindling daylight.

The descent from Mt Slesse not too hard, but it’s long and nearly impossible to find the route to Crossover Pass in the dark. We spent hours downclimbing, rappelling, and speed hiking, passing perfect bivy sites where we easily could have tucked in for the night. With no bivy gear other than an extra jacket, we charged on for another couple of hours hoping we could somehow find the route down. Eventually, some scary moments on a scree slope convinced us to bivy around midnight. With a full moon, we wandered around a boulder field until we found our best option for shelter from the wind: a cave feature formed by large talus. We spent the night shivering in the fetal position whenever we weren’t doing calisthenics in an attempt to generate warmth. I grumbled and complained the whole time… Avi gritted out the night in silence. Respect.

At first light, we jumped out of the cave and started hiking within minutes – it didn’t take long to warm up again and raise our spirits. After more scrambling, some rappels and more hiking, we arrived at Crossover Pass. From here, all that lay between us and the car were 12 bolted rappels and about 3 hours of hiking… not to mention the 8 hour drive home.

Gear Notes

A set of nuts and single rack .2-3 with doubles of .4-1 is perfect for this route. I highly recommend a 70m rope – a lot of the rappels will require fifth class downclimbing if you bring anything less. We had recent beta and did not carry crampons or ice axes.

Strategy Notes

The descent is equally as challenging as the climb. Plan and research accordingly.

A high clearance 4×4 vehicle is helpful for the road. Smaller vehicles will have to park sooner at one of the limited turnoffs and add some hiking.