North Twin Sister - July 7th/8th 2023

Ever since getting to the top of the South Twin Sister in October 2022 I knew I would return to this wonderful area to climb the North Twin. It is so close to my house and absolutely amazing scrambling and highly regarded. When I went in October with Gabby she had to stay with one of the guys we climbed with, Alex, because he was too tired to complete the route and so she didn't get to experience the scrambling which made her really want to go back.

View of our objective from the logging road start

Gabby was insistent upon doing the full traverse of the south to north twin but I wasn't super interested because I thought it was pretty tough and also that I had already done the south twin so I really only needed the north for bagging purposes. She had convinced two others to come along though, Julia (from Blanshards) and Vanessa (first time meeting her) so we decided we would hike up on Friday evening, camp and ascend the north twin. At that point I would return to my truck and they would continue the traverse. At least I thought thats what the plan was... Additionally after seeing how Coen enjoyed Needle peak a few weeks back I decided this would be a good scramble for him (perhaps a bit ambitious) so he came along too.

Coen w/ objective behind early in the AM

We met on Friday after work. Originally we were supposed to meet at 5 but they had to drive out from Squamish and we didn't meet until 6. Its about an hour to the trailhead but the border was ridiculously long so we didn't get to the trailhead until 8. We had ~2 hours hike to the end of the logging road but because we were so late we only made it about 6k up and by then it was 9:30 and getting dark so we set up camp on the side of the road. On the way up the girls had explained their plan was to do the traverse from S to N. Obviously I was surprised as that meant we wouldn't be climbing together at all after the split in the morning. I was dissapointed and tried to convince them to go the other way but they were set, oh well.

Julia, Vanessa and Gabby ready to go in the AM

They woke up at 4am and I got up at ~4:30. We got ready and packed up and stowed our heavy bags and hit the trail by 5:30. We finished the last 2k of the logging road we hadn't been able to do the night before in about half an hour and Coen and I split off from the girls. After this there was another 45 minutes or so of logging road and then about 20 minutes of a trail through the woods before we emerged roughly on the base of the ridge. It was ~7:30 and we donned harnesses and helmets and started going up.

View of the route from near start of scrambling

We were in the shade even though the sun was coming up strong because of the south twin and I had a very nice view of the approach to the South Twin. I looked far and wide for the girls but couldn't see them at all. Even later higher on the ridge I would look for them and saw nothing. I figured based on my experience the day before that maybe they had been so fast they were already on the ridge, where we wouldn't be able to see them.

Coen scrambling

The scrambling started mellow and bushy and slowly became steeper and barren. The rock is very solid and grippy but it does require some big moves and it is very long. I was helping Coen practice route-finding and coaching him through the stress but I could tell very quickly he wasn't having a great time. I would look back and he was sweating profusely and seemed very highly alert. I knew from past hikes this wasn't the physical aspect but completely nerves.

The way we came up

We followed cairns that were slightly below and to the right of the ridge proper and got about 200m below the summit when we stopped for some food, it was 8:30. Looking ahead I could see the next cairn and it required some exposed face climbing, it didn't look super easy. I figured it was smarter to try and get higher up on the ridge but when I looked back at Coen I could see he was trying to hide his face because he was crying and I pretty much knew it was over at that point. We still had the rope and hadn't pulled it out but I didn't want to push him too much and scar him for life. It had been my idea to do this scramble with him and it is a big jump from Needle and he had done great so I knew I needed to take him down. To his credit I'm sure he would've kept going if I had insisted but I wanted him to know it was ok to turn around and come back, its not a failure.

More of Coen scrambling

 

We turned around and downclimbed back to the ridge. I made sure to point out to Coen some of the parts that had been the most difficult on the way up, that he was worried would be hard to down climb, weren't actually that bad and he agreed. We never had to pull out the rope.

Shaking our fists where we decided to bail

Got back to our car at ~12:30. We had not brought bikes for the logging road, unlike last time, and the 8km on the logging road was absolute torture but at least it was still early. We headed home and Sam was surprised to see us back that early but understood why after I explained to her what had happened.

I'll be back!

We will be back! After going to the Twin Sisters range twice now I absolutely love the area and the scrambling there is amazingly enjoyable. I will definitely be back numerous times since it is so close and relatively easily accesible as well.