Mixup Peak
Mixup Peak
is south-southeast of
Cascade Pass
and northwest of
Cache Col.
Dave and I took a small group of students to climb in the area in the
Summer of 1970.
We set up camp at Cache Col.
We decided I would take Kathy to Mixup and Dave would take the remainder
of the group up Magic Mountain.
Dave had tried to climb Mixup with Kathy on an earlier visit to the
area,
but backed off at the base of the mountain because the route was too
difficult for her.
From his description,
I could tell that he had not taken the proper approach.
Still,
the imposing face gave me cause for concern.
This picture taken from Cache Col shows the imposing face that one climbs
to the summit.
We had to descend from our camp to get to the notch that is out of sight
below the red line.
Dave and his group woke early and left for Magic Mountain while Kathy
and I relaxed in our sleeping bags.
As soon as they were out of sight,
Kathy and I leaped out of the tents and started for Mixup.
As we approached the base of the mountain I could see the source of
Dave's problem:
the guide says to approach the rock at the southeast base and he had
used the sun as a guide.
Realizing that the rising sun stays significantly north at this time of
year,
I adjusted our bearings to account for this and we were soon climbing
easy class 4 out of the notch and traversing to the face.
Looking across the face we saw that,
although it is rather steep,
it consists of what appear to be down-sloping steps with few opportunities
for placing protection.
The traction on the
“steps”
was good so we proceeded unroped up the face to the summit.
In the center background of this picture is Sahale Peak,
situated north-northeast of Cascade Pass.
At the summit of Mixup I used my camera's timer to get a picture of
Kathy and I having lunch.
Looks like I am having one of my favorites:
Fig Newtons.
After a quick lunch we carefully made our way down the steps and headed
back to camp.
We arrived before Dave and his group,
laid our sleeping bags out in the sun and relaxed on them until they
returned.
We told them we had stayed in camp all day.
The truth was revealed when I showed my slides at the class party.
A note on Cache Col:
There was and probably still is a cache at Cache Col.
At the time we climbed in the area it contained equipment that would be
useful in case of a survival emergency.
The story is someone perished from exposure in or near there.
There is a small monument commemorating the person.
His brother set up the cache for use by anyone who might find themselves
in a similar situation.