2nd Ascent of the North Summit of Baleful
by Greg Higgins, Scree 9/80

I had talked to Jack briefly about the July 4th attempt on Baleful and I was hoping for more promising weather than his party had.  The original climb as noted above was in 1965 by Vin & Art (see SCREE: Vol. 7, No. 11, page 6).  The mountain was reportedly named by Rod Wilson during the 1959 1st ascent of nearby Mt Bashful.

Jim Sprott and I bicycled up the Eklutna Road on Aug. 5th to stash our bikes at the E Fork Trail.  By coincidence we ran into Tony Parker whom I had last seen 9 days earlier at the place going up to try his luck on Bold Peak.  Although John Lohff is in the running, John probably holds the siege record for Bold having taken 7 days to reach the top via the valley E of Stiver's Gully.  As an afterthought, he did the 1st solo ascent of the W Ridge of Bashful before meeting us on his way out.

Our trip took us up the outflow just above the twin falls drainage.  Steep hill below became deep brush above, and we spent many dismal hours in the alders looking for daylight and water.  Low down involved some interesting 5th class dirt moves in full pack.  Eventually the bushes spat us out, and we camped on a morain tongue around 3000 ft

We started early the next morning going straight up the Red-spot (so dubbed for the prominent red rock oval to its immediate south), to gain the notch SW of Baleful at 6200'.  This rotten ridge put us on the S Peak around 10:30 a.m.  this summit is a huge snow field running west to east, and is substantially lower than the N Peak according to my level.  We built a cairn immediately south of the approximate center of the top, and left a register.

The descent to the notch towards the N Peak was very treacherous, but we were able to pick out a possible line on the far side enroute.  The crux turned out to be a low 5th class off-width crack above the rotten black face and scree chute seen from the south peak.  Jim elected to wait here while I slowly picked my way along the exposed ridge above to finally pass the "Fist" to gain the summit just beyond.  On opening Art & Vin's coffee jar, the paper tended to crumble like some ancient papyrus.

Our weather had meanwhile been changing to drifting whiteout, so after rejoining Jim, we quickly returned to the south peak, where the weather again cleared.  On our way back to camp, we enjoyed views of the huge chute to the south of Bashful (I call it Cataract Couloir because it has 4 long free-falling waterfalls emptying into it up high).

The rain began in earnest in the night so we spent the entire 7^th in the tent waiting for better days.  The weather remained threatening on the 8th so we packed out of our Rockheap Valley and attempted to traverse to the north to gain Stiver's Gully and avoid the brush.  We were unable to gain the Gully, but found fairly easy going-down the steep ridge to its east.  While up high we were impressed by two thundering avalanches pouring down Bashful's north face.

Both Jim & I were amazed at the beauty and starkness of this area.  Steep angle faces with magnificent hanging blue glaciers abound, and everywhere you look are tumbling free-falling cataracts.  The approach is well protected by steep alder covered hills, and I suspect that it will remain fairly pristine for many years to come.