Burgundy Spire, in the Wine Spires above the valley of Early Winters Creek in the eastern North Cascades is the quintessential alpine rock climb. Fred Beckey says "Burgundy is becoming a classic, just for the sake of attaining the elusive summit, one of the most difficult in the Cascade Range. By 1965 the ascent had been done three times." Well, that may be exaggerating, or hearkening back to his week-long trips before the highway went in, but it's a great classic route on perfect Golden Horn Diorite, to a fine summit, in a perfect alpine setting. After 30 minutes of driving back and forth to locate the approach trail, we decided it wasn't to be found and scrambled down the talus and were off. The "trail" up, once found, is straightforward - straight up! After 2500 feet of gain in the core mile, I was lagging a bit, but felt better when I caught up and Kevin said "I don't feel so good". Thanks, Kevin, you make an old guy feel young again! Really, though, I didn't mind lounging at the col for an hour one bit. Originally I was hoping we were fast enough to link up Paisano Pinnacle with Burgundy, but it became clear when we reached the level of the base of Paisano that there wasn't nearly enough time. Paisano is a looong 6 pitches, and anyway we would have had to hike off to the right once we were in the basin to reach the base. Next time...camp in the basin and it should be doable.
- Glenn Widener