After playing pyromaniacs on the 4th, my dad and I attempted to climb
Mt. Goode, a 9200' peak in the North Cascades.  The kids and Nancy
were entertained at the family beach place at Rocky Bay by cousins,
aunts, grandma, low tides, Skyler's birthday parties, and friendly weather.
The approach involves taking a 3-hour boat trip up Lake Chelan, then a
2-hour NPS (National Park Service) shuttle bus ride up the Stehekin River
Road (total transport cost:  $41 each, round trip).  When I was a kid,
a bridge was out on this road, and we had to hike it.  Now the Sierra Club
and NCCC are suing the NPS, telling them to close the road.
Bogus -- hiking this road is not a "quality wilderness experience"!
It would also make Goode a 5+ day (vs. 3 day) trip, even with renting
mountain bikes.

While waiting for the shuttle bus, we met 4 doctors who had just
attempted the NE Buttress of Goode but got caught in some bad weather
(snow) on the summit ridge, and didn't summit.  They came back a day
overdue and weren't talking much to each other.  They said stuff like
"it's remote!", maybe it was out of shape -- they had to place ice
screws.  They had to go for some blind rappels down the SW Face (our
intended ascent route), and got some ropes chopped due to loose rock.

We left the van at Park Creek (2200') at 4pm,
and fired 4 miles up the trail.  In a light rain sprinkle, we located the
obscure "timbered ridge" and bushwhacked steeply upwards another 1500'
until near dark.  At this point, we finally located a good deer trail,
and made camp at a flat spot.  Dad lit a cooking/drying fire while
I got lucky locating water (the next night, the small runoff stream I
used had dried up and my dad had a minor epic finding water).

The sky dawned cloudy, but of course this is normal, so we took
summit gear and headed upwards along the "infinite spur".  It seems
I don't go mountaineering very often, and the distances always look
very huge to me; fortunately days are long and we were in good shape.
We reached some snowfields and the clouds lifted slightly, so that
we were fairly sure we were on Goode!  Up the snow where we found some
descending tracks.  The rock above the snow was socked in by clouds,
so we couldn't see where the couloirs led.  So we just picked the
easiest line up the blocky rock and climbed upwards in the fog.
After 400' of scree/blocky ribs, we reached the SE ridge and looked
down over the spectacular and cloud-free E face (and NE Buttress).

Our intended route (FA by Ken Henderson, et al in the 40s) traversed
along the exposed (6000') E face to avoid SE ridge towers.  After an
initial (30') roped foray on the E face, it was too hard, and we
scrambled up the foggy SE ridge further to another notch, which at
least had some signs of previous travel (rappel? slings).  Our gear
was simply a 120' 9mm rope, and I led the first of 6 4th class pitches,
a traverse to a typical anchor -- tying off a flake/block with the rope.
Next my dad looked at the continuing traverse ledges, but they appeared
to peter out, so he went straight up.  When I arrived at the belay,
I thought it looked too hard above, so we reversed, and used the
traverse ledges.  Fortunately the rock had a good angle for incut
holds in the few spots that were a bit blank.  Next my dad led a
steep pitch up a blocky chimney/corner past several rap anchors
to a sharp notch.  From here, an interesting hand traverse led to
a tricky crux slab and a belay at the base of a steep tower.  Fortunately,
a ledge led around it to the NE buttress and slightly easier ground.

We could smell the summit, but our hearts sank a bit as we crested the
ridge and saw a tower several hundred feet away with a big cairn.
Luckily, we continued upwards and looked down onto this NW summit from
the true summit in a few minutes (4pm).  The summit was decorated with
several bivouac walls and we signed the register, noting about 4
ascent parties a year, mostly via the NE Buttress.  Good views to the
E, but just clouds to the W.  Not lingering long, we belayed down the
many pitches, fortunately without incident.  Back down the scree and
my dad glissaded down the soft snow while I found "walking backwards,
facing in" was most effective for me.  Finally the W face cleared from
the clouds and I got some decent photos, and we could see where the
various couloirs went.  Down the "infinite spur" in magnificient
sunshine with many flowers and grouse noises to the high camp, a bit
before dark.

The next day we awoke at dawn (4:45am) and managed to catch the shuttle
at 9:30am (if we had missed the second stop at 11am,
we would have missed the boat and spent a extra day stuck in Stehekin).
This was followed by a long day of boat riding and driving back to
Rocky Bay.  Definitely a challenging climb, with the outcome in doubt
until the very last minute!  It had also been on my dad's list for
awhile.  Although it would have been nice to include Nancy, her dad Jack,
my sister Erin, et al, there will be future objectives, and this would
have been a tough one with a larger party, due to the loose rock and
many pitches.

Clint