August 18, 2023: 6:30 am. —I grab a ticket for my backcountry permit from the Wilderness Information Center in Marblemount, which opens at 7:00 am. By 8:40 am, I’m heading up the Boston Basin Trail, full of excitement. I couldn’t find a GPS track of the route but aimed to complete it using the beta I had. (For those looking to follow my path, you can download my GPS track by typing “Mount Torment” into Gaia GPS. Keep in mind that conditions vary each year, and there were sections where I had to backtrack or search for the route, but it provides a good guide.)
Looking across the ridge from Torment (left) to Forbidden (right) along the traverse.
Looking up at the first section of the traverse from below Mount Torment, which is just out of frame to my left.
Across the way, the Mount Misch-Snowking Mtn. ridgeline.
I run into Jesse and David at the gully that leads up to the south ridge of Torment. At the top of the gully, we climb a rock face, which plateaus about 20 feet up. From there, we traverse left up the face, encountering a series of ledges, trails, and low Class 5 climbs as we move northward along the west side of Torment’s ridge. At around 8,000 feet, we cross a saddle to the east side of the peak and continue our ascent, skirting below the summit before tackling the north ridge to reach the top.
Jesse coming up the west side of Torment
Looking south at Johannesburg Mountain. Torment’s ridgeline in the foreground.
Looking across the traverse from the saddle south of Torment
Looking west at Eldorado Peak. Torment’s southwest face in the foreground.
Torment’s Summit
View North
Jessie with his sandwich looking south
Selfie with Jo’
Eldorado’s impressively glacier-covered grandeur
Looking southeast at one of the most iconic ridgelines in the North Cascades. Johannesburg Mountain lies just out of frame on the right, while straight ahead through the center of the picture is the infamous Ptarmigan Traverse.
Looking southwest (Johannesburg is just out of frame on the left). The mountain ridges in the background frame the Bachelor Creek Valley.
From the east ridge col of Torment we rappel down into a glacial cirque.
The view across the valley
David rap’s into a large crevasse
Same rap, & crevasse
David reaching the bottom of the crevasse
Me in the crevasse
Looking back at the mangled crevasse
Crossing the glacier to the eastern cirque wall
Looking up the moat on the eastern cirque wall.
Climbing up and around the eastern cirque wall.
On the other side of the wall –Forbidden Glacier
North Face of Forbidden
Forbidden Sunrise – so said the vampire in my head.
Glow of the rising sun
Constipated while refilling our water from glacial melt…drip by drip! JK I didn’t wait for the water I carved a bowl out using my ice axe.
Looking up at our bivy site
The yellow arrow marks the direction we took around this rock. The picture on the left is from our bivy—I’m down on the glacier, scouting the route. The glacial arch to the right of where I’m sitting marks where I collected water, and we navigated around the right side of the rock. The yellow arrows show our path.
The following pics show the traverse across the ridge line that you can see in the picture above. It looks different when you’re on it.
Traversing…
End of the knife edge
Rappelling off
the knife edge!
Looking back
We continue down to the right around this rock and then climb up and over the ridge to the left side.
On my GPS track it looks like we climb over the summit of this peak. We actually skirt across the face of the cliff on the left.
Looking back: Torment in the background left of the peak, and Eldorado on the right.
The following pics are of our climb up Forbidden Peak
