In late July myself and 2 other guides went to the North Cascades to climb the West Ridge of Forbidden peak with 6 friends from Fort Lauderdale.  The North Cascades offers some of the most spectacular alpine rock climbing in the US if you can get lucky enough to miss the notorious North West rain and torturing mosquitoes.  We got lucky.  After delaying the climb by one day, due to some unlucky rain showers, we made our way up into Boston Basin where we established our camp.  The following morning started with a Colombian Alpine start, walking away from camp at 5:10 AM.  We quickly found ourselves in the middle of an alpine painting complete with alpin-glow kissed summits to the west.  After climbing the snow gully to the notch on the West ridge of Forbidden we prepared for the awe-inspiring rock playground that lay ahead.  With three rope teams of three we stepped away from the notch and started weaving our way along the exposed ridge of Forbidden.  After hours for climbing, negotiating cruxes, threading ourselves around obstacles, and resting on false summits we found ourselves sunburnt, smiling, and sitting on top of the most beautiful peak in the area.  At 3:40 PM we started descending the same, never-ending ridge we had just climbed and by late afternoon we were once again back at the notch tired and happy.  From here we began our descent off the South side back to the steep snow gully we climbed previously.  Loose rock kicked off by a team above me honed in on my left arm like a pinball to the flipper for the arcades high scoring kid.  After glancing of my arm the rock continued down to collide with a climber on my rope team.  Frightened minutes went by before we established that Bill, though bruised and sore, was okay.  The rest of the descent was comparatively uneventful and after 16 hours of climbing we retired to our tents to eat freeze-dried meals and have a nip of scotch.