I have just finished climbing Mixup and have a couple of days to do something else so I head for Boston Basin, one of the prettiest places in the North Cascades with a majestic peak, Forbidden, that I have not yet climbed. This is just a couple of weeks after my 1991 Ptarmigan Traverse and I am feeling pretty strong but I know that Forbidden is beyond my reach without a partner. However, I decide to scramble up onto the saddle between Forbidden and Sharkfin Tower to see what I can see. When I get on the saddle I can see the backside (eastern side) of Forbidden and while it is quite steep it doesn't have any nasty looking rock butresses unless you look up to the ridge. Impassable to a solitary climber but a contour along the east side looks feasible. It has quite a bit of vegetation and paths that look like rabbit trails except that there are no rabbits up here. By following these paths across the
steep face, being very careful not to stumble on one of the numerous rocks, I make good headway. A fall here would not be possible to halt and one would end up going over the cliffs to land on the immense Boston Glacier. At a point which seems pretty directly below the summit there is a steep trough that forms the transition from an east-facing slope and one that faces more southeasterly. I look up this trough with it numerous cliff bands and think that it might be climbable but decide to continue on until I reach the north ridge. It also looks climbable and I go up about fifty feet but realize that I am going to be going up some spots that I may not be able to downclimb. So I abandon the north ridge and go back to the east face trough and start up it. I find ways to get up all the small cliff bands and steps and surprise myself by popping out on the summit of Forbidden a short time later.
More later.
