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Trip: Winter Hard Mox and Spickard - West Ridge, South Face Trip Date: 12/29/2023 Trip Report: Hard Mox (8,504 ft) and Mt Spickard (8,979 ft) Winter Ascents Eric and Nick Dec 27 – Jan 2, 2023-2024 First Winter Ascent of Hard Mox, Second Winter Ascent of Spickard On the summit of Hard Mox Dec 27 – Double carry zodiac boat and gear from Ross Dam trailhead to Frontage road, drag boat to Ross Lake, motor to Little Beaver, hike to Perry Creek shelter Dec 28 – Bushwhack to upper Perry Creek basecamp Dec 29 – Climb Hard Mox via Perry Glacier to West Ridge route (M5 WI2 5-pitch), return to basecamp, 18 hours camp to camp Dec 30 – Bad weather day, rest in camp (rain all day) Dec 31 – Climb Spickard via south face Jan 1 – Bushwhack down Perry Creek, hike to Little Beaver, paddle 9 hours down Ross lake when motor doesn’t start, drag boat up Frontage road, triple carry up trail to truck by 3am Jan 2 – Drive home The route Hard Mox is considered the most difficult of the Washington Hundred Highest/Bulger peaks, and had previously never been climbed in winter. I’m working on climbing all the Bulgers in winter and this peak is the crux of that list. Hard Mox has numerous elements that make it uniquely challening in winter. 1. It is very remote. The nearest road on the US side of the border is 15 miles away line of sight (Hannegan Pass trailhead), and the second closest 18 miles away (Ross Dam Trailhead). Hiking mileage from these trailheads is close to 30 miles, and the trails are likely snowed-over and unbroken in winter. Note: I’m following a rule that ascents must be made legally, so I don’t count roads or trails on the Canadian side of the border. One way to shorten the approach is to take a water taxi run by the Ross Lake resort. These don’t operate in winter, though, so that isn’t an option. Detailed route view 2. The peak is technical. The easiest summer route is 4-pitch 5.6. It was unclear if this was the best winter route, though, since the peak hadn’t been climbed in winter. 3. The weather is unstable in winter. Hard Mox is in the West North zone of the cascades, which generally has more precipitation and less stable weather than other zones. This also means the avalanche conditions are more likely to be unstable in this zone in winter. 4. There are no trails to the peak (on the US side). Bushwhacking is required, and this can be very challenging in the North Cascades, especially in winter. Climbing Hard Mox in July 2018 (photo by Steven) I first climbed Hard Mox in July 2018 with Steven Song, and we entered and exited via Canada. We followed the standard Depot Creek approach, crossed the ridge of Gendarmes to the south face of Hard Mox, descended to the base of the south gully, then climbed up the gully and to the summit via the West Ridge. This is the route that nearly all climbers take to climb Hard Mox. In 2020 I started considering how to climb Hard Mox in winter. I’m following a rule that all winter ascents must be completely legaly (no sneaking in from Canada), so I needed to find an alternative approach. I considered three approach options, and made scouting trips to determine the feasibility of each in winter. Over the next three years I would make a half-dozen scouting trips and two unsuccessful winter attempts on Hard mox. Scouting the Ross Dam approach and paddling Ross Lake in November 2020 First, I considered the Ross Dam trailhead approach. This route is to start at the Ross Dam trailhead, hike up the lake to Big Beaver, then hike to Redoubt Creek and bushwhack up to meet the summer route. This route is 30 miles one way. It has the advantage that the first half is mostly low elevation and often snow-free in winter, though it requires crossing Beaver Pass, which would likely be snow covered. In mid November, 2020 I did a trip where I hiked this approach to Redoubt Creek, then continued to Little Beaver and packrafted back to Ross Dam in a big loop. That approach would probably take two days in good conditions in winter. Scouting the Hannegan Pass approach in December 2020 I next considered the Hannegan Pass approach. This would require hiking or skiing in from the Hannegan Pass trailhead to the Chilliwack River, bushwhacking up Bear Creek, then meeting up with the standard summer route at the Redoubt-Easy Mox col. It would be about 28 miles one way. In December 2020 I drove up the road towards the Hannegan Pass trailhead and found a sign that the road is groomed for skiing in winter and closed to snowmobiles. This meant there would be an additional 5-mile approach in winter, making the approach 33 miles. I skied up the trail to near Hannegan Pass, but progress was slow. That approach would probably take at least two days. Those approaches would be too long for me to squeeze Hard Mox in a regular weekend or even a 3-day weekend. Ideally I could find a one-day approach so Hard Mox could be possible in one of my two long holiday weekends of the winter (presidents day weekend and MLK day weekend). I’m a teacher so can’t take vacation days, meaning these holiday weekends are my options in winter. I next considered a boat approach on Ross Lake. I have a packraft, but I discovered it can take most of a day to paddle between Little Beaver and Ross Dam. I really needed that to take on the order of a few hours so the rest of the day can be used for hiking and bushwhacking in. For that to be feasible the boat really needed to be motorized. Ross Lake is in the unique situation that motorized boats are allowed on the lake, but there is no road access for the general public. It is possible for workers at the dam or at the Ross Lake resort to drive to the lake by taking a vehicle ferry from the town of Diablo to upper Diablo lake, then driving up Frontage road connecting the two lakes. This service is not available to the public, meaning Frontage road is not reachable by vehicle from other roads. There exists a road on the north end of Ross Lake – the Silver Skagit Road – and this theoretically allows the public to drive to the lake and launch private motor boats. However, that road was washed out in November 2021 and it is unclear when it will ever reopen. It is possible that the road might be passable to a snowmobile in the winter, and an intriguing option might be to drag a boat behind a snowmobile to access the north end of the lake. I haven’t been able to test this, though, and I’m not sure if it would technically be legal to come in from canada that way if the road is closed and there is no official checkpoint open at the border along the road. There are currently two options to get a personal motor boat to Ross Lake. The first is to carry it down the 0.6-mile trail from the Ross Dam trailhead to Frontage Road, and then take it 0.5 miles down the road to the lake. The other is to put the boat in at the boat launch at Diablo Lake, ride to Frontage Road, then somehow carry or drag the boat up Frontage Road (1.5 miles, 600ft gain). From talking to friends with experience boating I settled on two main options. The first was to use a canoe with an electric outboard motor. This could theoretically be carried down the trail in multiple loads. It could also theoretically be dragged up Frontage road on a dolly, though only if Frontage road were snow-free. However, the canoe has several disadvantages. First, it is not very stable. I have friends who’ve tipped over in canoes on Diablo lake. That would be dangerous in winter, and winter is when the weather is generally worse on Ross Lake. Also, the biggest motors I could find for canoes were electric trolling motors that would struggle to get 15 miles up to Little Beaver, even at a very slow speed. Plus, an electric motor is not as reliable in cold conditions as a gas motor. The zodiac boat’s maiden voyage on Stave Lake during a climb of Mt Judge Howay in BC The other option was a zodiac-style inflatable boat with gas or propane outboard motor. This vessel is much more stable than a canoe and very difficult to tip over. It is made of durable thick material with multiple chambers. It has a much higher capacity than a canoe, and can go much faster and farther with the gas or propane engine. It deflates, so is portable. They even come with retractable wheels that can be deployed to drag the boat along frontage road. This appeared to be the optimal solution. My friend Matt had such a boat and we went on a test trip together in September 2022 in British Columbia to climb Mt Judge Howay (which requires a boat approach up Stave Lake). The boat had a 4-stroke propane motor, which is very clean and reliable and meets the strict environmental requirements for personal motor boats on Ross lake. That trip went well, and I ended up buying the boat from Matt. The boat as a 5 horsepower motor that is about 60 pounds, the boat itself is 70 pounds, and a full 5-gallon propane tank is about 50 pounds. A duffle bag of accessories (wheels, oars, life jackets) weighs about 40 pounds. Each one of these items is manageable to carry, which makes this a good solution. The motor allows the boat to go a max speed of 5.7mph fully loaded, but this is actually a perfect speed for Ross Lake. Taking the boat for a test run on Lake Chelan with my dog Lily, October 2022 Through multiple tests I’ve found that a fully loaded boat and full tank of propane has a range of 40-50 miles. Little Beaver is a 30-mile round-trip journey, so the propane tank is just the right size with a little bit of safety factor. One problem with Ross Lake is that in the winter the lake level drops and submerged tree stumps stick out in seemingly random and unexpected locations. In winter it is likely that boating on Ross Lake to approach Hard Mox will need to be at night, and it is thus dangerous to go too fast in the dark for risk of hitting the stumps. That’s particularly risky in an inflatable vessel. A speed of 5.7mph is slow enough that stumps can most likely be avoided. To make a trip safer, though, I called the Ross Lake resort and had them mail me a map with general stump locations marked. I also found a fishing depth map of the lake and charted a GPS course to follow the deepest section and avoid known stump areas. I would load this track on my GPS watch before boating up Ross Lake in the dark. First test run of the boat in Ross Lake boating to Little Beaver, October 2022 In October 2022 I did the first test run of the boat in Ross Lake. The goal would be a thorough simulation of the entire Winter Hard Mox approach and climb. My friend Ryan Stoddard recommended the Perry Creek approach to Hard Mox based on his approach to the Chilliwacks the previous year. He said the bushwhacking was difficult, but it would give direct access to the south face – west ridge route without requiring a traverse from the ridge of gendarms that might be sketchy in winter. I first wanted to test the Diablo lake + Frontage Road method. Talon joined, and we decided to climb Hard Mox in a weekend. Saturday morning we put in at Diablo Lake, motored through zero-visibility forest fire smoke in the dark, then reached Frontage road. The takeout was tricky to get the boat up the dock, and dragging the boat and gear up Frontage road was very difficult and time consuming, even with the nice deployable wheels. On the summit of Hard Mox in October 2022 with Talon We made good time up Ross Lake moving at 5.7mph, and got to Little Beaver after 2.5 hours on Ross Lake. We then hiked to Perry Creek shelter. To get up Perry Creek I’d seen on an old quad that there used to be a trail up the north and east side of the creek in the 1940s, but it was long-abandoned. Other groups, including Ryans, had followed that side of the creek and it sounded tough. We decided on a different approach. We went straight up the creek, scrambling on boulders on the side. It was actually fun and basically no bushwhacking. Then we hit old growth forest and followed that on the south side of the creek all the way to the edge of treeline. This showed the Perry Creek bushwhack was actually not bad at all! That was valuable information for winter. In the basin below Hard Mox in October 2022 We camped at the basin below Hard Mox, then the next morning climbed up the Perry Glacier. We were unsure if there would be easy passage from the glacier up to meet the standard summer route, but were surprised to find an easy 3rd-class gully connecting to the route. From there we climbed the standard west ridge route, and it was useful to refresh my memory of which of the lower gullies is the correct one (many teams lose time route-finding in that area). We ended up topping out by 9am, then descended all the way back to the boat, rode out, and I got home Monday morning 4:45 am, barely in time to make it to catch a nap before my morning lecture. This scouting trip successfully showed that basecamp could be reached in a single day with the zodiac boat, as hoped for. I also was able to test my new custom offroading headlights with motorcycle battery that I’d velcroed to the front of the boat. This allowed for boating in the dark, which would likely be necessary in winter. Ross Lake was foggy, though, so visibility wasn’t perfect. However, the approach had the one disadvantage that if Frontage road were covered in snow, then dragging the boat up would likely be very difficult. So that approach might not be ideal. Carrying the boat and motor down the trail in late October 2022 Talon had a friend that worked at Ross Dam, but unfortunately they didn’t have anywhere I could store the boat securely for winter access. We contacted the Ross Lake resort, but they didn’t want to store the boat. So, I would have to get it to the lake on my own and store it at home. I next wanted to test the second option to get the boat to Ross Lake, via carrying it down from Ross Dam trailhead. In late October Nick and Talon joined for another mission. My main goal was to test that boat approach, but a secondary bonus goal was to go survey East Fury. I suspected it might be high enough to be a Washington Top 100 peak. To get the boat down the trail I researched different methods hunters use to transport animals on trails. One way is a single-wheeled device with handlebars and a brake, with racks on the side. I bought materials and hatched a design to modify my mountain unicycle into a boat-transporting device. Nick had another idea to strap the boat to his e-bike and wheel it down the trail then use power-assist to wheel it back up. The boat loaded up with survey gear and the new offroading headlights Saturday night we loaded up the bike and strapped the motor to a pack (upside down, since that seemed most stable). Unfortunately the trail was so rocky and uneven that the bike didn’t really work well. We decided that just carrying the gear in multiple trips made the most sense. With a double carry we got all the gear down to Frontage road and inflated the boat. We then slept a few hours back at the truck, then Sunday at midnight dragged the boat and survey equipment down to ross lake. We put in and boated to Big Beaver. We then hiked up to Luna peak with my theodolite and surveyed East Fury (which I discovered is tall enough to be a new WA top 100 peak). We returned to the boat, motored back, dragged it up the road, and double carried back to the truck. Carrying the boat back up the trail From this trip I determined that it is actually a bit faster and easier to get the boat to Ross Lake via the trail than via Diablo Lake. It also works even if Frontage Road is snow covered. So this would be my preferred method to get the boat to Ross Lake. I now had all the pieces in place to mount a winter attempt on Hard Mox. I had figured out an approach that could get me to basecamp in one day in winter, I had verified that the climbing route worked from my planned basecamp, and I had figured out the optimal method to get the boat to and from Ross Lake. Next, it would be a waiting game. I needed many stars to align for a winter Hard Mox trip to be successful, even with all the logistics already worked out. 1. I had to have a partner available on a holiday weekend (my only holiday weekends were MLK day and Presidents day three-day weekends) 2. Weather had to be stable on the Sunday of the weekend, with minimal precipitation 3. Snow had to be stable on the Sunday 4. Wind had to be low for boating on Ross Lake and for keeping snow stable 5. Ross Lake had to be ice-free 6. Snow conditions have to be manageable on skis if skiing 7. The lake level has to be high enough to cover submerged tree stumps if boating at night. Boating up Ross Lake in January 2023 In January 2023 it looked like all stars would align on MLK day weekend. Satellite images had shown ice a half mile south of Little Beaver on the upper end of Ross Lake, but it was forecast to be warm and rainy for the week leading up to the weekend. We expected the ice would melt then, but as a backup we decided we could walk a half-mile along the shore if needed to Little Beaver River, then cross the river one at a time in my packraft, towing it back with paracord or rope. We planned to ski to increase speed. To ensure we knew about up-to-date snow conditions on the route I wrote custom python software to scrape the NWAC avalanche forecast website every evening and send a message with the forecast to my inreach. This would ensure we had the most up-to-date forecast before deciding to go for the summit. Stopped short by ice, January 2023 Saturday morning we successfully got the boat to Ross Lake and boated up, but we discovered that the ice had not melted. We parked the boat on shore a half-mile line-of-sight from Little Beaver, but unfortunately the shore had many impassable cliffs. This was not obvious from the satellite images. We had to bushwhack around the cliffs, then packraft across Little Beaver, and it took us 6 hours to cover just 0.5 miles line-of-sight distance. The next morning we skinned up to Perry Creek shelter, but above that the snow was too icy and crusty for skiing to be safe. Postholing up Perry Creek would be too slow and difficult. Plus, the additional 6-hour deproach to the boat would leave us too short on time. We bailed back to Little Beaver. Crossing Little Beaver with packraft and skis, January 2023 To get back we were able to do what I call belayed packrafting to get around the cliffs in melted-out sections and avoid bushwhacking. The first person would packraft around trailing our climbing rope. Then once around the cliff they would yell and the second person would pull the packraft back, then paddle around the cliff. This way we could inch worm around the cliffs and avoid bushwhacking. We managed to make it safely back to the zodiac and get back to Ross Dam that night. From that trip we learned that the lake absolutely has to be ice-free the whole way in order to attempt the trip. We also decided that snowshoes are a better choice than skis. With snowshoes we wouldn’t really have to care about snow conditions in the Perry Creek basin. Speed might be slower in snowshoes, but it was more likely we could reach the basecamp than with skis. Packrafting back between the cliffs and ice, January 2023 In February it looked like all the stars would align over Presidents Day long weekend. Nick and I decided to try again. This time the satellite images showed no ice on the upper lake. We decided to go with snowshoes. The only marginal star was the weather. It looked like snow and conditions were stable Friday through Saturday late afternoon, but then a storm was supposed to come in. If we could summit and get back below treeline before the storm, we would be ok hiking out in the rain and boating back in stormy conditions. This time we first carried the boat down to Frontage Road Friday night, then slept back at the trailhead. Early Saturday we carried the gear down, inflated the boat, and dragged the boat down the road. We started boating just at sunrise. In February the lake level is lower and more stumps stick out, so it’s more important to boat in the daylight. Days are a bit longer than in January, though, so this is not as big of a problem to wait until sunrise to boat. Successfully reaching Little Beaver, February 2023 We made it all the way to Little Beaver in 2.5 hours, then hiked up to Perry Creek. We were able to bushwhack up Perry Creek in snowshoes. Snow coverage was good, and we could mostly stay in the creek on the lower sections. Once we reached the old growth we made quick progress, reaching basecamp just at sunset. The next morning we left camp at 2:30am following my GPS track from October on my GPS watch. Pit tests showed the snow was stable, though deep, and we made slow progress. By a bit after sunrise we reached the bottom pitch of the route. The wind started increasing then, almost knocking us off balance. Nick led partway up the first pitch, but my route from October was not the best winter route. It had required crossing one sloping slab down low, which was easy in rock shoes but tough in crampons. Bailing on the first pitch when the weather deteriorated, February 2023 Also, it was difficult to find any cracks to stick gear in. Nick tried a few variations, then lowered down. I gave it a go, but couldn’t find gear placements. By then the storm was intensifying and we decided to bail rather than keep trying. We were concerned the increasing wind might start forming dangerous wind slabs down low. Indeed, as we descended the Perry Glacier we triggered a few small slabs. They were no problem, but given a few more hours they would likely get dangerously deeper. We descended all the way down to the trees as it got windier and started raining. We bailed all the way out to Little Beaver that night. The next morning the storm was raging and we started boating out into whitecaps and heavy wind. The boat took on lots of water and I had to navigate through a stump forest in the waves to get to shore and bail it out with my helmet. We then hugged the shore and made it safely back to Ross Lake. Bailing out water with my helmet on the ride back after navigating through a stump forest and heavy wind and waves, February 2023 From that trip we learned that the stars of weather and snow conditions absolutely have to align with the weekend. High wind is not good on Ross Lake, even with a stable zodiac boat. In October 2023 I did one additional test trip on Ross Lake. I bought yellow fog lights to replace the off roading headlights to make it safer to boat at night, when it is usually foggy on Ross Lake. For that trip Matt Lemke and Mike Black joined me to bring survey equipment up Castle peak. We boated up and back in the dark 10-miles up lake, and the new lights worked much better in the fog. This increased my confidence about boating on Ross Lake in the dark on a future Hard Mox attempt. We ended up surveying that Castle peak is over 30ft taller than the quad-surveyed height, so is solidly on the WA top 100 list. In October I started strategizing about how to try for Winter Hard Mox again. With so many stars that needed to align it seemed like relying on only two long weekends the whole winter was not a high chance of success. That only gave two possible summit days all winter. My only longer break was the Christmas-New Years break. I usually leave the country to work on climbing country highpoints during that window, but decided to stick around this year and prioritize a winter hard mox trip. Testing the new yellow fog lights on Ross Lake, October 2023 I would be available for a full week between Dec 26 – Jan 2. In October Nick and I coordinated that we would both be available, and if all stars aligned we’d give Hard Mox another shot. It helped that enough time had passed since our last attempted that we had sort of forgotten all the hardships we’d encountered. That’s always important before attempting a difficult peak again after an unsuccessful attempt. For this third attempt we would try to make further improvements but stick with some methods and gear that had worked before. We would again go by snowshoes, and would carry the boat down from the Ross Dam trailhead. For the boat I would use an aluminum propane tank instead of a steel tank. I had previously gotten myself stranded on Blake Island in Puget sound when the motor wouldn’t start and I had to row back through 5 miles of ocean. I later took the motor to the shop and the issue was that the steel propane tank had rusted on the inside and debris had clogged the fuel system. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen with an aluminum tank. Dragging the boat up Frontage Road, October 2023 For the Perry Glacier we would bring ascent plates. These are small mini-snowshoes that sandwhich between the crampon and boot and are ideal for ascending steep snow slopes where postholing and snowshoeing are inefficient. This would have saved us time on our February ascent. We each machined custom carbon-fiber plates for the trip. For climbing gear, in addition to a single rack of cams and a few pitons and nuts we’d brought before, I’d also bring a set of hexes. I’ve found these can be hammered into icy cracks where cams and pitons won’t stick. Duncan and I had used hexes to protect Forbidden Peak during our winter ascent in January 2021 and they worked very well. We’d also bring a second set of cams up to 2 inches. For technical tools this time I would bring two BD vipers instead of a viper and a venom. The venom is a hybrid with a straight shaft that is good for plunging, but it’s a bit harder to use dry tooling than the curved shaft. The viper is a curved shaft and better for mixed climbing. I decided it was unlikely I’d need to plunge the tool for an anchor. Nick would bring a Beal Escaper device which would allow for full 60m single-strand rope rappels. This would increase efficiency descending. For crampons Nick converted his petzl Lynx to monopoint to make the mixed climbing easier. I intended to convert my Petzl Lynx to monopoint also, but forgot to do that. For boots I would again bring my Olympus Mons 8000m double boots. It’s important on a weeklong winter trip to have a double boot so the liner can be dried out overnight in the sleeping bag. It’s also important to have a built-in supergaiter, since a separate gaiter easily gets frozen with ice and snow and is difficult to deal with. My 8000m boots were a bit overkill with warmth, but those are the only double boot with built in gaiter that I have. Nick had a similar but lighter boot that was a bit more appropriate. For the tent we would bring a modified mega-mid. Nick sewed on special skirts along the edges to anchor down with snow and increase space on the inside. This would be lighter and more spacious than the ultralight 2-man mountaineering tent we’d brought previously. We would each bring vapor barrier liners for our sleeping bags. This would ensure the bags would stay drier than before over multiple nights in potentially wet weather. Nick would bring a dry suit for the boat ride. I already use one every boat ride and it is much warmer and safer than a rain jacket and snow pants in choppy conditions. I would bring a new SUP hand pump for the boat that would make inflation faster. Plus, this would give us a backup pump in case anything went wrong with the primary pump. In the fall we also got a bit more serious about training for mixed climbing. We did a practice trip together dry tool climbing at Wayne’s World crag off I-90, and Nick did a bunch of additional dry tooling sessions. By mid December it looked like the stars might finally align for the trip. December had been unusually warm and satellite images showed Ross Lake ice free. The weather forecast looked favorable and there was a good chance there would be a window of stable snow. Ross Lake was 15ft higher than it had been in January (based on publicly-available USGS height data), so stumps were unlikely to be problematic. The first potential summit window looked like Friday Dec 29. We decided to give ourselves two full days to get in, to give buffer time for having heavier packs with more days of food. Then we’d establish basecamp at upper Perry Creek as before. We’d have three or four potential summit days, then a day to get out. Hard Mox was the top priority, but if we somehow managed to climb it we’d use our other days to climb other Bulgers in the area. To make our plan completely legal we emailed North Cascades National Park and got a permit for the trip. I flew back from visiting family on Dec 25, then Dec 26 spent the day packing and preparing. I took the zodiac boat out for a short test run in Lake Washington and everything worked fine. Finally we were ready to give it another go. Dec 27 Carrying the boat down to Frontage Road, December 2023 (photo by Nick) I picked up Nick in the morning and we drove up to Ross Dam trailhead by 9am. In our first load I carried the boat motor and propane while Nick carried climbing gear. I think it’s important to bring the motor down in the first load since that is the item most likely to get stolen if left unattended at the trailhead. Next I carried the boat while Nick carried remaining boat accessories and climbing gear. We got the full load down efficiently in two hours. Once all the gear was at Frontage road we pumped up the boat, which went twice as fast with the new hand pump as with the old foot pump. I mounted the wheels, mounted the motor, then we loaded all the gear as far back as possible to be as directly over the wheels as possible. Nick rigged up the rope on the front, then we each put the rope over our shoulders and started dragging the boat. We made sure to keep our steps in synch to minimize bouncing of the boat. Dragging the boat down to the lake We soon got the boat towed down to the lake edge. As usual, a truck from one of the resort workers was parked at the edge of the water. Luckily there was just enough space to squeeze the boat around to get to the water edge. There we each changed into dry suits, water shoes, and put on our life jackets. We loaded the sharp objects wrapped up inside packs or duffles. We placed a tarp on the bottom of the boat, loaded two climbing packs and one accessory duffle on top, then wrapped the tarp over everything and bungied it to the boat. This would protect the gear from waves splashing over and filling the boat with water. Starting the motor (photo by Nick) I pushed off in the boat, wading slightly into the water, while Nick went to the nearby dock. I then retracted the wheels and rowed over to pick up Nick. This allowed him to keep his feet dry. He then pushed off, and I rowed a bit deeper into open water. I connected the propane tank, turned the motor to neutral, plugged in my key, pulled out the choke, turned the handle to start, and gave the pull cord a pull. On the fourth pull the motor started, which is really good for starting cold. Usually it starts on the tenth pull. I then depressed the choke and we started off by 11:45am. Boating up lake I went at half speed to the water gate, a small gap in the floating log fence that protects the resort buildings from waves. We found the gate at the far end of the lake, marked by green cones, Once through I cranked the motor to max speed and we cruised along at 5.7mph. I’d gotten pretty familiar with Ross Lake after all the scouting trips and attempts and knew all the landmarks. We cruised around Cougar Island to the east, avoiding the temptation to cut the corner in the gap with the coast, since I’ve found this can be deceptively shallow. We passed close to Roland Point, but not too close since I recalled a few stumps in that area. Taking out at Little Beaver After passing Pumpkin mountain we rounded rainbow point and on to Devils Creek. That’s the site of a big stump forest which was luckily submerged today. From there I crossed to the west side following my memory of the lane of deepest water. We passed tenmile island, which was still an island at this water level, and then passed Lightning Creek, which surprisingly had deeper water coverage than in October. Loaded up and hiking up the trail (photo by Nick) Cat Island was barely an island, and I hugged the west coast. I was careful, though, since I recalled a few rogue stumps across from Cat Island on the west side. This time they were submerged. The only issue we encountered was a big floating log just past Cat Island. That would have been hard to spot at night, but I easily steered around it in the daylight. By 2:15pm we cruised up to Little Beaver Camp. The upper lake was ice-free as expected. The water level was not ideal for docking, though. The regular dock was high and dry, and the lower bench of shore was submerged, so the whole shoreline was kind of steep. We found one boulder that was kind of flat and were able to deploy the boat wheels and drag it up there. We tied it off on a stump, raised the motor, raised one wheel so the boat could rest level, and removed the gear. At the Perry Creek shelter We double carried the gear all up to the Little Beaver Shelter and took a short food break. We then ditched the boat gear in a bear box, packed up our climbing gear, and started up by 3pm. The trail was snow-free so we started hiking in light hiking boots with extra gear strapped on the packs. After three miles we hit deep snow, and switched to double boots and snowshoes as it started to rain lightly. I was happy to have my waterproof hyperlite pack to keep the gear dry. We continued to the shelter shortly after sunset around 5pm. It was very nice to get out of the rain in the shelter and not have to set up the tent. We each threw out bivy sacks and sleeping bags, cooked up some dinner, and were soon asleep. Starting up Perry Creek (photo by Nick) Dec 28 We got up at sunrise the next morning and were moving by 9am. It seemed unwise to be bushwhacking in the dark, so we wanted to be sure to start the bushwhack in the daylight. We ditched our hiking boots in the cabin and proceeded in mountaineering boots and snowshoes. I had loaded my October GPS track on my garmin Fenix 6 watch to help with navigation, but I pretty much remembered the whole route since I’d already done it a few times. From the shelter we stayed on the left side of the creek, and the snow soon got thin enough that we ditched the snowshoes. In general we tried to stay as close to the creek as possible, only bushwhacking around cliffs and waterfalls. Often there are good open lines next to the creek that allow for fast progress. Scrambling up the creek (photo by Nick) This time the creek was flowing much higher than it had been in October, while the snow coverage on the side was much less than it had been in February. This seemed to be a sweet spot that made the creek as difficult to follow as possible. If the flow was lower and the sides drier, it would have been easy to walk on sloping slabs on the side. If the slabs had been covered in a foot of snow, it would also have been easier to walk on them. But this time they were usually covered in a thin sheet of ice. That meant we had to bushwhack around more often than my previous two times. Navigating a slide alder thicket One time the bushwhack around verglassed slabs required crawling up through steep slide alder with slippery mud underneath. I pulled up with my right hand at an awkward angle and slipped in the mud. Immediately I felt a painful pop and realized my shoulder became dislocated. Ever since I dislocated it in the Khumbu Icefall on Mt Everest last spring it’s been more vulnerable, and the heavy pack with awkward fall was enough to pull it out. I howled in pain, but luckily I knew a trick to get it back in on my own. I immediately clasped my hands, relaxed my right arm, and pushed my knee through my clasped hands and pushed. The shoulder popped right back in and the pain soon subsided. It had only been out for about 5 seconds. I vowed to be extra careful going forward with pulling with my right arm. Finally into the old growth forest (photo by Nick) This and a few other detours slowed us down a bit. Higher up we had to pass through one slide alder thicket I hadn’t remembered. I think in October I’d stayed in the creek, and in February it had been covered in snow. That was the only memorably tough section, though. By 3400ft after rounding the corner we hit the old growth forest, which was a welcome relief. I knew it would be smooth sailing from there all the way to basecamp. It had been drizzling all morning and we were both soaked, but at least there would be fewer bushes to brush against in the old growth and our body heat might start drying things out. We ascended steeply up into the forest, and soon the snow got deep enough to warrant snowshoes. From there the woods were nice and open and progress was fast. It was fast until we started having snowshoe issues, though. One by one each of the four snowshoes failed in some way. The metal supports under each of my feet cracked, making the rotating part of the snowshoe detach. I ended up using ski straps to strap the part back on, and the stretchiness in the straps allowed my foot to rotate. First view of Hard Mox (photo by Nick) For Nick almost every individual strap ripped off. He ended up using a long ski strap to strap one foot to the shoe, and some spare cord to tie the other shoe in. I guess this is normal for an expedition to improvise when gear inevitebly fails. Finally we resumed our fast pace through the old growth. I recalled in February we had strayed a bit too high to the south, which forced us into side hilling to maintain elevation. This time I made sure to stay closer to the creek, and the terrain was nice and flat. As we got closer we started looking for a good stick for the middle of the mega mid. Usually on single-night trips I strap to ski poles together for the middle pole. But if we were using the tent as a dedicated basecamp I would want those poles on day climbs. I had a separate carbon fiber pole for the middle support, but wanted to save weight so left it in the truck. Nick managed to find a perfect stick on the way, and we took turns carrying that up through the woods. Basecamp at 4500ft By 6pm we reached the edge of treeline at 4500ft on the edge of the talus field. The snow coverage was much lower than in February, and many more trees and slide alder patches were sticking out. This time the bushwhack took 9 hours instead of the 6 hours it had taken us in February. This slower time was likely because of the unfavorable creek level and snow conditions, necessitating more side bushwhacks. Also the heavy packs, shoulder injury, and broken snowshoes slowed us down. But we successfully reached camp approximately on schedule. We had considered the possibility of pitching camp at 6700ft on the Perry Glacier that night to make summit day shorter. But the snow conditions were not stable that day, and getting up to 6700ft required crossing avy terrain. So we decided to pitch camp at the same place as before at 4500ft. This had the advantage that we knew there would be running water there, which was indeed true. Moving up the next morning We leveled out a spot, mounted the stick, and pitched the mega mid tent. Nick’s skirts on the tent worked great for piling snow on the outside while maintaining space on the inside. We dug out a ditch for our feet and cooked up dinner. At 7pm I got my inreach messages with the updated avy forecast. Friday looked like stable snow conditions and dry weather, as expected. So we decided to go for it. We ideally wanted to get to the base of the rock climbing at sunrise to be able to climb in the light. We expected our speed to be a bit faster than in February with the more consolidate snow and the ascent plates. Also, sunrise was later (8am), so we decided to start up at 4am this time. Dec 29 Looking down to Perry Creek basin It drizzled into the evening but eventually ended. I was unfortunately still wet from the approach hike, and made the unwise decision of putting my wet socks and wet liners in my sleeping bag to dry them out for summit push. This indeed dried them out, but left me damp all night and I ended up getting very little sleep. The 3am alarm came way too early, and we reluctantly started nibbling on bars and getting out of our sleeping bags. The drizzle had stopped, the skies had partially cleared, and a nearly-full moon illuminated the sky almost enough to not need headlamps. This was much better than in February when it had been blowing snow and low visibility as we had ascended. This time was much warmer also, which would be nicer for climbing. On the upper Perry Glacier We were suited up and moving by 4am. I had my October track loaded on my watch, but navigation was easy even without that in the moonlight. The east face of Lemolo loomed above us, with the true summit of Hard Mox just hidden behind. We alternated leads breaking trail in 15-minute shifts up to the cliff below the Perry Glacier, then right into the lower-angle gully. We hiked up some old avy debris that had more consolidated snow underneath. After reaching the first shoulder we hooked left, then found a weakness in the upper steeper slopes. We eventually reached a flat area at the toe of the Perry Glacier. Switching to ascent plates At this point in October I had continued directly up slabs to avoid the glacier, and in February we had continued left onto the glacier with lower angle terrain. This time we decided to avoid glacier travel and ascended right of the slabs. The snow was well-consolidated and travel efficient with the heel risers lifted on the snow shoes. We crested the flat area above the slabs, then ascended higher onto the Perry Glacier. We soon reached a cliff at the top of the glacier and decided to ditch the snowshoes there. It was getting too steep for them to be efficient, so we switched into ascent plates. Looking up at the climb Nick led the way and travel was again very efficient. Each step required only one kick, unlike in February with snowshoes when we had to clear snow with hands, then knees, then double kick to make progress. We made it up the snow gully to the point where the summer route descends and traverses climbers right to the final gully. The terrain got briefly icy, but the ascent plates allow the crampon frontpoints to stick out, so this was not a problem. Nick leading up the first pitch We continued up with our whippets for protection until we reached the based of the first pitch. Here Nick put a cam in a crack, then we clipped in and kicked out a nice platform below the shelter of a rock wall by 10am. Nick is the stronger climber so he took all the gear while I took the pack with a little bit of food, water, and warm clothes. We ditched our remaining gear at the platform and pulled out the technical tools and clipped them to our umbilical cords. The summit was socked in the clouds, but it wasn’t very windy and this time the weather was predicted to improve throughout the day. I always like climbing into improving weather rather than racing to beat a storm that might come in early. Nick at the first crux Nick optimistically started up into the chockstone gully to try to climb directly up. This appeared to be full of ice, which might make it easier than the rock slab. However, he found the ice was hollow and not safe to climb, so backed off. He then climbed directy up the rock wall to the right, where I had climbed in October. He got a piece in down low, then got above the lip, reaching the same highpoint as before. This time he was able to excavate out a crack on the left that took a hex pounded in. That seemed to be the key to getting past this lower crux. He continued up to the bench above the chockstone, and made an anchor slinging horns. Me leading the gully pitch I soon followed, and manged to get decent sticks in thin neve above the lip, and a few good hooks. Of course, I had the advantage of a top rope, so felt much safer. At the anchor Nick handed over the remaining gear and belayed me up the gully. In October I had soloed the gully since it wasn’t too steep or exposed, but in winter it’s fully of ice and you wouldn’t want to fall. It’s kind of long, but not hard, so we decided to simul climb it. I got a few pieces in on each sided, including a good hex hammered in a crack that wouldn’t take a cam. I soon reached the col above and clipped on to the rap anchor at the horn. Nick leading out of the col I belayed Nick up, then handed the gear back over. I recalled the next pitch had been the crux in October, and I was happy Nick was OK leading it. Getting out of the col was a little tricky, and I pushed Nick’s back as he pulled on the lower moves. He got good pieces in going up and right on the face. The next move was to cross over to the right into a gully and ascend. That ended up being the crux. I suppose in summer I’d frictioned up slabby bits in my rock shoes with no problem, but that’s hard in crampons. Nick somehow managed to bang a hex in a crack and excavate out a key micro ledge for the front points. This allowed passage, and he climbed all the way up to the pedestal anchor above. I was yelling out directions from below since I was familiar with the route, having climbed it twice before. Me following the first pitch I followed, and was starting to get a bit nervous about our speed. We really wanted to top out by sunset, but the days were short and sunset was around 4:15pm, which wasn’t too many hours away. So I tried to climb up as fast as possible. Since Nick had already excavated out the good footholds and tool hooks I was able to make fast progress up to the pedestal. The pedestal anchor is kind of awkward since it requires a semi-hanging belay. To increase efficiency we decided to swing leads again. This was kind of nice that I didn’t have to stay at the awkward anchor, but the pitch above looked kind of tricky. I took all the gear and started up. Me leading up the next pitch above the col The rock was interesting since it was all plastered in tiny white rime ice feathers. This made it very slippery, but that wasn’t a problem with crampons and ice tools. I delicately hooked ledges and got a few cams in until I reached a vertical section. There I traversed up and left to a good ledge climbed on top. Above me I could see a nice bench on the ridge, but it looked like an unprotectable slab for 20ft to get to it. I optimistically started digging and clawing around with my tool and luckily found a few cracks under the snow. With cams in I continued up getting good sticks in the neve and hoooking ledges until I reached the bench. I recalled the next rap anchor was just above this bench, but it was a 15ft tall vertical wall that looked tricky. I was running low on gear and Nick was far enough below to not be able to see me there. It seemed like the kind of section where you want good pro and an attentive belayer, so I decided to make an anchor there and bely Nick up. Nick at the pedestal anchor Nick soon climbed up and said he was OK leading the next bit. I told him the anchor was just above, and this should be the last pitch up to the summit. Nick got in three solid pieces on the upper step, then pulled himself over. He made steady progress above that, topping out almost exactly at sunset. Meanwhile, I was admiring the amazing view opening up below me. The clouds were gradually clearing revealing the pickets to the southwest, Easy Mox and Redoubt to the west, and Custer and Rahm to the north. Climbing the last gully to the summit Nick put me on belay and I carefully surmounted the vertical bit. Luckily there were very solid hooks at the top I trusted to pull myself over. I walked past the rap anchor, brushing some snow off, then walked through the low-angle bowl section to the final gully. I was impressed to see nearly every piece of pro was a hex! I had brought six hexes and they all got used on that pitch! And to think, those hexes almost never get used on any other occasion. They really are the right tool for the job in icy cracks, though. Summit panorama I made the final pull over the upper chockstone and reached the summit ridge at 4:35pm. From the anchor it was On the summit a short walk over to the highest little pedstal, which we both did unroped. Our timing was perfect just around sunset with the last rays of sun lighting up the surround peaks, which were passing in and out of thin clouds. That was probably the most scenic time of the whole day. We took turns posing for summit pictures and taking videos and panoramas. It felt amazing to finally reach this point after so many scout trips and failed attempts. I spent a few minutes trying to dig around for the summit register, but couldn’t find it. That’s usually the case in the winter on peaks like this. Nick on the summit After 10 minutes on top we decided to head down. I recalled the main anchor is a small slung boulder on the edge of the cliff that doesn’t inspire much confidence. In October I’d backed it up to a bigger boulder, and saw that was still in place. We backed it up another time and I rapped down first to the next anchor. Nick soon followed by the time it was dark enough to need headlamps. Rapping off the summit At the next anchor I knew a 60m rap would reach the col. We rigged up Nick’s Beal Escaper and planned to do a single-rope 60m rappel. The device is kind of like a chinese finger trap wrapped around the rope. The way it works is once you’re at the bottom you do about 20 pulls and releases, and it gradually releaseas the rope from the trap. I was a little skeptical since I’d never used it before, so I went first and had it backed up. By now the wind really picked up and it was hard to lower the rope down without it blowing away to the side. The rappel is a little awkward to begin with too, since it kind of goes down a ridge. I somehow managed to keep the rope untangled and safely reached the col. I then tugged twice on the rope to make sure it would start passing through the escaper device. Rapping down Nick assessed that conditions were not good for the Beal Escaper to work properly, so he pulled the rope up and made a standard 30m rappel to the pedestal, then another 30m rappel to the col. The wind had really picked up and it was started to get pretty cold, so I was happy when he arrived down safely. At the col we attached the beal escaper and I made a full 60m rap down the gully. I had recalled seeing an intermediate rap anchor on a slung horn, but by the end of the rope I was still 15ft above that anchor. Maybe someone with a 70m rope made that anchor. Luckily I found some cracks in the wall and was able to make an anchor with a few nuts and a girth-hitched constriction. At the col Nick came down and we did 20 pulls and the beal escaper magically released. That was pretty nice to get the full 60m rappel in with the 60m rope and save some time. I next rapped off my anchor and easily reached our platform and gear. It felt great to finally be done with the technical section. Nick followed and did the same trick with the 20 pulls until the beal escaper released. This time, though, the rope got stuck on something just above the chokstone. We tried flicking the rope all directions, and finally pulling down as hard as we could. It was no use, though. The rope was officially stuck. Downclimbing to the snowshoes At that point we had two options. First, one of us could lead back up the lower crux on the other strand of rope and get the top end unstuck, then build another rap anchor and rappel down. That sounded dangerous. It would be tempting to just prussik up the stuck end, but that was also dangerous since we didn’t know how much weight it could bear. Second, we could cut the bottom of the rope off as high as possible and leave the remaining piece. Both of us were planning to return to Hard Mox the coming summer anyway (I wanted to take my differential GPS up to get an accurate elevation reading), so we decided to cut the rope and retrieve the other end in the summer. Descending the Perry Glacier That was the safe decision and felt like the correct decision. So we cut the rope at the middle marker and packed it up. We were soon all packed up and downclimbed back to our snowshoes. We then packed up the snowshoes and continued down our tracks in our crampons. The tracks were nice and visible and not drifted over, which was a good sign that no new wind slabs had formed. We made good progress all the way off the glacier and back down to camp by 10pm for an 18 hour day. Descending the Perry Glacier We checked the latest avy and weather forecast on my inreach and the next day was supposed to be stable snow also, but rain and snow and socked in all day. Sunday was supposed to be better weather, though. So we decided to take a rest day the next day. I definitely needed one anyways. Dec 30 I slept in to 10am, which felt great. It had started drizzling around 3am and would continue on and off throughout the day. Indeed, it looked like a bad day to be above treeline. I stayed drier that night by not putting any wet items in my sleeping bag and diligently staying inside the vapor barrier liner. Rainy rest day in camp We soon discussed objectives for the rest of the trip. Hard Mox had been the primary objective, but we wanted to Resting in the tent tag any other Bulgers nearby that made sense. From the summit of Hard Mox we realized that Redoubt and Easy Mox would be very difficult to access from our camp. We had optimistically hoped to be able to cross over col of the wild to access these peaks. But the glacier north of Hard Mox was heavily crevassed. It looked like steep slabs to gain the col, which had a huge cornice overhanging to the east. That option would not work. The only remaining Bulger accessible from our camp was Spickard. We decided to go for Spickard Sunday, then hike and boat out Monday and Tuesday as originally planned. Rain was supposed to end around 5am, so we would start up at 6am to give a bit of buffer time. Starting up Spickard We spent the rest of the day eating and drying out clothes and socks using body heat. Dec 31 The rain ended as schedule and we were up and moving by 6am. We had planned a route using shaded relief maps to minimize exposure to steep slopes. We took turns breaking trail, and now the once-slushy snow had firmed up with an icy crust on top. This was good news for stability. Good views of Hard Mox We followed the left-most and largest of four snow gullies to our north, soon reaching a low-angle shoulder at 6000ft. From there we traversed right to a big drainage, then hiked up to the toe of the Solitude-Spickard glacier. By then the sun came out and we were treated to great undercast views below. We met up with the standard Spickard route I recalled from my previous ascent, and traversed right on a ledge between two cliff bands to gain the south face of Spickard. Spickard started out socked in the clouds but they gradually cleared and we could see a route up. We ascneded low-angle slopes almost to the ridge, then traversed right below a steeper band. The snow was stable with only a thin unreactive wind slab in a few isolated places. Climbing Spickard Below a small saddle we ditched the snowshoes and switched to ascent plates. From there we easily marched straight up to the saddle, then continued along the ridge until we were blocked by gendarmes. There we noticed a nice snow traverse on the north face. We ditched the ascent plates and got out our ice tools. One by one we traversed the icy face, reaching the summit by noon. The undercast views were amazing, and with no wind and sunshine it was actually kind of pleasant. This was a rare treat to be able to spend more than a few minutes on a winter summit. We took tons of picture and admired the views. On the summit I recalled last year Stu Johnson and Max Bond had climbed Spickard via the NE ridge in what was likely the first winter ascent. I peered over the ridge and it looked way more difficult than what we had done. I think the south face is the easiest way to go in winter if the snow is stable. We soon dropped back down, traversed the north face, and took a food break in the sun on the south side. We downclimbed back to our snowshoes, packed them up, then cramponed back down of the face. We made excellent time retracing our route back down, reaching camp a bit before sunset. It felt great to get both Bulgers bagged from the Perry Creek drainage. I still have four left in the Chiliwacks in winter, but I’ll have to figure out a different way to access those. Summit panorama Leaving camp in the moonlight Jan 1 Our goal was to get all the way back to the trailhead the next day if possible, so we were up and moving by 6am. We made good time following our snowshoe tracks through the old growth, and switched to boots back at the creek at 3400ft. The bushwhack and scramble down went smoothly, and we reached the Perry Creek shelter by 11:30am for a 5.5 hr descent. There we switched into our stashed hiking boots and made fast time back to Little Beaver shelter. Nearing Ross Lake It felt really cold down there, and that may have been associated with the clear weather that day. By 3pm we were bundled up in dry suits and down jackets and soon had the zodiac boat loaded up and pushed off into the lake. For some reason, though, the motor wouldn’t start. I fought with it for 30 minutes before finally giving up. I suspect it was related to the cold. I’ve never taken it out in this cold of temperature, so some possible problems are that the propane was too cold or the motor oil wasn’t rated to the cold temperature. I’m working on debugging that issue still. Trying to get the motor running The boat has a set of oars as a backup, and we started rowing. It would be a 15-mile trip back to Ross Dam and we would try to be efficient. I’d previously packrafted from Little Beaver to Ross Dam and that had taken all day, even with a tail wind. This time luckily the wind was calm, though generally it comes from the south in the evening on Ross Lake. The zodiac oars seemed more efficient than packraft paddles, luckily. We measured that pulling hard and fast we could get up to 3.5 mph, but pulling at a comfortable pace was closer to 2mph. Broken oar lock fixed with bungee cord We took 10-15 minute shifts, rotating out when the person in the bow got too cold. Every shift I would play around with the motor trying to get it to start. We even dunked the propane tank in the water to try to warm it up, but that didn’t work. It soon got dark and we were paddling by starlight. Our strategy was the person in front would give directions until the heading was appropriate, while the roarer would pick a point in the distance to the north and keep the back of the boat pointed at that to maintain heading. Back at Ross Dam When we were near Rainbow Point, a bit over halfway, one of the oarlocks broke so that the paddle was no longer connected to the boat. This looked like bad news. It would be very tough and slow to row out with just one paddle, or even to detach both paddles and row out like a canoe. The oar orientation was way more efficient. Luckily I was able to jerry rig a solution with bungy cords to reconnect the oar to the boat, and we continued on at our normal speed. By 11:45pm we finally reached the takeout at Ross Dam. We pulled the boat out of the water, deployed the wheels, and dragged it up Frontage road. From there Nick immediately took a load of climbing gear up while I packed up the boat and motor. I then hiked up with the boat. Nick came down and got my climbing pack and the propane tank while I returned to get the motor. Finally, Nick made one more trip to get the boat accessories. So it was a 2.5-carry up while it had been a double carry down. I think if the propane tank had been empty as it would have been if the motor had worked, we could have gotten it up more easily in a double carry. By 3am we were loaded up back at the truck. We slept a few hours until sunrise, then drove back to Seattle. 62/100 Winter Bulgers Movie of the trip: Gear Notes: Technical tools, double rack to 2in, hexes (very useful), pitons (unused), 1 stubby screw (unused), ascent plates, zodiac boat, dry suit, double boots, NWAC-scraping-to-inreach python script, beal escaper, single 60m rope, avy gear Approach Notes: Carry boat to Ross Lake, boat to Little Beaver, hike to Perry Creek shelter, bushwhack up Perry creek
    17 points
  2. Trip: Illumination Rock - Skylight (though now it's skylight-less) Trip Date: 11/20/2023 Trip Report: Artem and I took advantage of some high pressure to climb Skylight on the N face of I-rock Monday 11/20. We found the route to be longer than anticipated (perhaps due to glacial recession or lower snow pack in November?) and climbed to the ridge in 4 pitches. The first pitch was lower angle but involved thin verglass at the start and facet snow with a thin rime crust perched on the rock slabs above, the unstable snow layer on any low angle rock continued for the rest of the route (50m M3). Second pitch was fun and had a fair bit of rock exposed as the angle increased (50m M4). Third pitch climbed lower angle terrain to a physical corner and finished with insecure snow on rock meandering to below the final crux where I stopped as I was already low on gear (30-40m M5, doubles from .5-3 would be nice here). The fourth pitch was a short but strenuous up a corner and then stemming through steep stacked blocks to the top (10m M5). We declined the traverse to the summit as it was south facing sun baked rime mushrooms on slab that were collapsing. We rappelled from a horn on the ridge that had a lot of tat. One double rope rappel and a little down climbing got us off via the South Chamber. Overall, this is a fun route that I would recommend, a little shorter than NY Gully but higher quality and more sustained climbing. Also of note... the rock arch that formed the "skylight" that is the routes namesake is gone, the East Skylight which has a slightly harder route to it is still there. Based on observations we think this fell down in the past year. Here are some pictures... Nice shots of the S face from the approach: Reid Glacier: The route from the start of the roped climbing: Perspective from the first two belays: Looking up at our P3: View of Castle Crags and Reid HW: Reid Glacier / Yocum Ridge / St. Helens / Adams: Belay below the last bit of climbing: Artem approaching the penultimate belay: Summit of I-rock on the right and Reid HW behind: Artem on the final moves: Rap horn on the ridge: Pulling ropes in the South Chamber (luckily the rime was slush at this point and we weren't too worried): Walking away, one last view of the S side of I-rock: Gear Notes: Double from fingers to fists (hexes could be nice for the second set in the often Scottish conditions), lots of nuts, slings and a few pins. Approach Notes: Hike to the saddle and drop down to the North. Look for the obvious weakness in the face.
    15 points
  3. I'll keep the beta spray brief since there is sufficient info out there on both routes involved in this climb. On Sunday the 4th, Eli Spitulnik and I hiked then skied out to Colfax with an idea I had schemed up the week before. We planned to climb the first ~80meters of the Polish route (Link, Link), then traverse a snow band left to the pitch 4 chimney of Colin's route Kimchi Suicide Volcano which we would then take to the summit. The combo worked out better than we could have imagined, and we both think this is one of the most quality alpine mixed routes we've climbed in the cascades. The nature of this route allows it to go in normal conditions, where the Polish or KSV would not be in. We hope that it'll become a popular way to climb this face as it has much more actual climbing than the Cosley-Houston, for a slightly harder grade. Here's some pretty pictures. Blurry, but you get the gist Eli about to cross the bergschrund Following P1 Myself taking the spindrift straight to the face starting pitch 2 Eli traversing over to the KSV chimney. Entering the squeeze Eli carried the pack like a champ through the rime tunnel Wild rime daggers threatening to collapse on our heads while we tunneled Eli after exiting the tunnel into the sunlight Pleased to be on the summit and in the sun. Tagged the East summit on our descent Rack: 9-12 screws, single rack .2-2, nuts, selection of kb's and beaks (very helpful for anchors). If you don't like long sections of unprotected snow climbing, a picket or two may come in handy for the upper slopes. In less rimed up conditions more rock gear should be available. In our conditions cams from .4-1 would have been sufficient. You may be able to climb all the way up to the ledge traverse in one pitch with a 70M rope, otherwise we had a single 60.
    14 points
  4. Trip: Crooked Thumb to Challenger, Phantom, Middle Challenger - Various Trip Date: 07/20/2023 Trip Report: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This thought arose as I was headlamp hiking in my underwear back to the trailhead to wrap up 4 days in the N pickets that were amazing, exhausting, and occasionally nerve wracking. I don’t intend to endorse solo itineraries such as this one, but I’ll share a few notes. Sorry I don’t know how to be more succinct Will add some photos later. Day 1 Hannegan Pass TH to Perfect pass. Got to the ranger station before 8am to try to get in and out as quickly as possible given the distance. Pretty smooth sailing except for leaving my pole at the Chilliwack and having to return for it (1/2 hour penalty). There are two logs across so it’s not necessary to wade, but I didn’t notice this until my return trip. That said the crossing is not difficult. The trail is faint near the creek but overall hardly any shwacking required. I found crossing the impass on ledges a bit higher than what I’ve seen in beta to be trivial, so didn’t pay close enough attention, and this would haunt me 3 days later. Got to the pass before dark, and found just enough snowmelt to get by. A new moon sliced its way into the dusk. Nightfall was clear and beautiful and the location outstanding. Day 2 Ascended Challenger glacier in the morning. No surprise if you’ve been out and about, it’s already late summer conditions out there. A somewhat direct SE line towards Middle and West was still feasible though. Once on the upper glacier I detoured E to scope out a possible descent in the Challenger 2 vicinity (I think that’s the name of the one just to the W of the main summit). It looked involved but plausible. Steep snow, two crevasses, good snow to rock transitions above and below, and rock that looked ok for scrambling. I then headed back towards Middle and scrambled fun clean rock to the top and back. I wrapped around to Solar pass and glacier and tried to find an easy way down to the bowl SW of Challenger. The way I took ended up having some spicy slabs. On my return on day 4 I would find an easier way that starts at a lower elevation than my crossing this day. Once in this bowl I saw that the glacier leading up to Crooked Thumb was quite gnarly with snow barely continuous on the presumably normal climber’s right. I made camp on rocks at about 7400’. My only complaint was having to descend 1-200 ft to find running water. I got a little too relaxed and didn’t head towards Phantom until 2pm. Easy snow travel led to lovely ledge/boulder/stream zones. When I passed SW of Ghost I took out binoculars and stared for too long at Ghost. In CAG Beckey succinctly describes a W face route involving gullies. From a distance the first half seemed possible but then seemed to run into roofs and cliffs. @SeanO commended Ghost to Challenger in his mind blowing/ nauseating northern pickets traverse trip report, so I was interested in trying that on day 3. But after much deliberation I decided I didn’t like what I saw and that I’d probably leave Ghost out. This was cemented later in the day after my troubles on Phantom. I would end up in no mood for any extra wandering up gullies. I got to Phantom arm and took heather and blocks upwards. I understood the SW route to be a scramble, and entered a decent looking gully at about 6800’ on the SW flank. The terrain didn’t align well with the few photos I had screenshots of, but I didn’t worry too much about it. I ditched my pole here (guess where this is going) and headed up. The SW to SE aspect of this mountain turns out to have quite a few gullies that prove to be difficult to cross between. I hit trouble in the 7400-7500’ range. Things were getting steep and I seemed to be blocked from traversing over a rib to try a different way. Upwards seemed like the best option at hand but got more and more tenuous. The sunk cost fallacy had me foolishly exceeding my comfort level for downclimbing, so I got pretty committed. There was an intense section of exposed traversing on edges. Maybe 5.6-5.7, I don’t know. Some scramble. I finally got through it and back on easy terrain. At the summit I saw that the register is open, with the lid or base (don’t remember which) down in some crack. I believe this was the original, so that’s too bad. For the descent I headed back to the false summit then S on nice staircase ledges reminiscent of Mix-up’s, then a SE aspect towards the main gully separating Phantom from Spectre, and got on snow. This was much easier than what I had climbed but is a S/SE route. I don’t know, didn’t have a lot of beta for this one. The snow passed 500’ below where I had ditched my pole so I got another half hour pole retrieval penalty. Heading back towards camp I had some regrets for not camping nearer Phantom. Spectre to Crooked thumb jut up ahead, Picket creek plunges steeply below and Baker and Shuksan flank the far end side by side. But it would be an impractical launch pad for my other plans so I had to make do with my 7400’ camp. I arrived after dark, mentally and physically taxed. Day 3 - Days 1, 2, 4 had clear and calm weather but today, on the climax, the height of my adventure, I’d be treated to some light drama. Very localized weather blew in around the Pickets, providing a thin and constantly shifting layer of clouds pensively twisting around the towers. This made me nervous but it never got menacing. It just made things a little cooler and more exciting. Having decided not to start from Ghost I instead began with Crooked Thumb via its NW couloir. The snow was totally melted out, but luckily this couloir turns out to be just fine without it. Plenty of loose rock but I’ve seen much worse. Near the top of the gully I veered S to climb the N ridge. There was one notably rotten section on my route but it was just a few moves. Near the summit, blocks and ledges led to cliffs guarding it. But there is a key SE facing low angle wall with useful edges, barely 5th class, that leads back to the ridge and bypasses the cliffs. The rock on top is an amusing feature. I was leaning on it to take photos then thought better not. Saw about 10 parties in the register in the past decade, including Sean’s crazy traverse. I downclimbed the way I came, got a free lesson 10 feet from the gully. From there I headed N. Other than the rock being fun/good and one possible diversion to the W, from Sean’s report I didn’t know what to expect. At first things went smoothly, with some TFT-style sidewalks. But complex pinnacles soon returned and route finding was generally not easy. I never did make much of a W diversion, though this may have made life more difficult. On the N end of Crooked Thumb I did go W slightly but I recall this ending with a sketchy squirm down a backpack shredding chimney. Not ideal. In my gpx you can identify route finding episodes where the line goes from straight to scribbles. There are about 10 of those between Crooked Thumb and the true summit of Challenger. I agree with Sean’s description of generally fun and good rock (though in a traverse of that length there’s bound to be a ton of loose stuff and it’s hard to be appropriately paranoid every single time) but I would add that the route finding is far from trivial. Not heinous but I had to think a lot. When bypasses seemed prudent, they tended to be on the W side of the ridge. I don’t know how many points I went up and over, but there were a lot. These keep the true summit blocked from view most of the time. It was a little demoralizing to so frequently surmount a point and realize I was still so far away. In this light I still can’t wrap my head around Sean’s traverse. Not just the distance but the diligence and patience to handle so much loose rock and route finding uncertainty. It took me nearly 4 hours to get between Crooked Thumb’s and Challenger’s summits, which are less than a mile apart from the air. Not exactly easy. At what seemed like the final false summit, I considered tackling it head on. It was narrow and very exposed but juggy and mostly solid. But 10’ below it’s crest I hit a crux where there was no feet. After playing with it I decided it was crazy (at least 5.8?) which was too bad because it would have been an awesome way to go. Instead I delicately traversed on the W side to some dirty loose blocks that I gingerly scaled. This was dubious but less exposed. The summit’s lack of prominence from the S is kind of funny. I saw a slung block and thought I guess this must be it right? Yeah I guess I don’t see anything taller. Downclimbed the summit block (rap line, harness, and rock shoes were just sweet sweet training weight I guess; well that and some peace of mind), bootied a cam that looked somewhat fresh (lmk if it’s yours) and headed down dirt and rock to the glacier where I scored some water from a pool cradled between it and the ridge. Because I was returning to my bivy near crooked thumb, not perfect pass, I didn’t explore to see if the standard route was blocked by schrund, though I heard a rumor that’s the case. I traversed on rock, passing below Challenger 2 to the area I scoped out the day prior. Exposed face in downclimbing with my light tool and a pointy rock ensued. The snow was in good shape for this, not too slick or punchy. The rock turned out to harbor one little crux at the bottom but it was all right. Good snow bridge got me back on the glacier. Since I found the solar pass descent harder than expected the day before I decided to try the Middle-West descent. There are slung blocks but the angle looked mellow and there seemed to be plenty of holds. Stemming and smearing worked well (but would have been hard in boots) until it deteriorated to dirt for the last 10-12 feet. Crap, I bet this part is often covered in snow. I got through it one way or another, but learned that I wouldn’t want to ascend this way due to the dirt. The route I had taken to camp the day before seemed like it may have given its last gasp, at least for a soloist without a lot of gear. The snow was still continuous on the left side, but was steep and passes above cliffs and crevasses. There were also still hidden cracks starting to materialize in the flattish section leading to the left side. For these reasons the right side would be much more preferred (more direct, shorter duration of exposure) but didn’t look so viable anymore. So I carefully went up and around the left side. This was the most adventurous day of the trip but at <10 hours the shortest and least physically difficult. I relaxed at camp and for some reason didn’t do the math for how long of a day awaited me. Day 4 - a funny thing about this bivy spot is the W aspect, with tall cliffs above it. Sun didn’t reach me till 8:15 and it was pretty cold before then. I was in no hurry, took a while to pack everything up and didn’t leave till close to 10. This was pretty dumb, I should have started much earlier. And part of the route was still in shade even at 10am, so waiting didn’t help. The snow was pretty frozen and I was glad to have a tool and my steps from the day before stamped in the snow. It was an hour of tedious face-in diagonal downclimbing, swinging my tool and kicking feet for most of that time, to cover 1/4-1/3 of a mile. When I bottomed out I tried the Solar pass strategy again, but started lower, finding really nice and fun granite. I wrapped around that ridge and followed it a little too high. Because a portion of the glacier between me and the pass had melted down to ice, I had to a slight ascent, traverse W, and descent to access the pass. On Challenger glacier I had my tracks from 2 days prior for reference, but things seemed significantly different. Probably some combination of noonish instead of morning, down instead of up, and 2 extra days of melting. It was stressful and I regretted being there, could not wait to get off of it. It was quite apparent that the crevasses were deep and wide and snow between them was not confidence inspiring. One of the sketchier looking parts was on the edge of the glacier, only 100 feet from reentry to rock. I didn’t notice on my way up to perfect pass how non-obvious the route is. Steep and weaving. At the impass I made a nominal effort to locate where I had crossed but got lured too high up the face. From there a horizontal traverse seemed possible but what would it look like on the other side? I had endured so many tenuous traverses in the past few days. Instead i downclimbed and reassessed from below. I tried again, finding an easy ledge but still ended up crossing too high. This ended with a short but slick and featureless slab at the bottom of the chute on the W side of the crest. Not fun! Rubble on the way to Easy peak was easier on the ascent than it had been coming in. I got to the old lookout, digging the views and checked the time - 5:30. Wait didn’t it take 8 hours to get here on the hike in? Crap! I ate caffeinated jelly beans and became a reluctant participant in mountain running, slow jogging down easy ridge. Great spot for it. Knees took a beating but handled it surprisingly well. I reached Chilliwack before dark, crossed on logs this time and tried to get stoked for the hike back. I had perfectly natural and reasonable feelings like this sucks and why I am doing this, but I was able to dispel these with counter arguments like hey it’s just walking, walking is no big deal. Maybe this is fun. This worked well until Hannegan pass when I couldn’t ignore that every part of my body ached. I reached the car at 1230, so far all that ass busting it was only an hour faster than on the way in, so maybe not worth it. Gear Notes: Approach shoes, steel strap-on crampons, light tool Approach Notes: Hannegan-easy-perfect
    9 points
  5. Trip: Argonaut Peak - East Ridge/NE Couloir Trip Date: 03/09/2024 Trip Report: Argonaut Peak (8,455 ft) March 9, 2024 East Ridge/NE Couloir 18 miles skiing/climbing, 10 miles snowmobiling, 8300ft gain 73/100 Winter Bulgers Eric and Nick On the summit The weekend looked to be stormy but the Enchantments zone seemed to be getting hit the latest. I’d previously bagged all the Bulgers peaks in the Enchantments in winter except Argonaut, so we decided to go for it. The route I’ve previously climbed Argonaut twice via the south face route (May, August), which ascends a steep gully to the summit ridge followed by a class 3/4 scramble to the summit. This is not necessarily the best winter route, though. In February 2022 Nick and I had been camped near the base after climbing Sherpa and planned to climb the south face route, but my updated NWAC forecast on my inreach made us too nervous about snow stability. So we bailed that time. Our East Ridge/NE Couloir route (drawn on picture taken by John Scurlock from the north) This weekend the snow stability conditions didn’t look great for that route either. But Argonaut has many different route options, generally all technical. I noticed we could ascend gentle slopes up the Porcupine Creek drainage on the south side to gain the Argonaut-Colchuck col at 7700ft keeping the slope angle low. From there we could climb one of the technical routes up to the summit. The routes might require crossing short snow slopes, but we would be roped up clipped in to gear in the rock so would be protected. We would bring a 60m half rope, hexes, nuts, cams, and technical tools. I would bring one technical tool with a hammer (for the hexes) and one ultra-light corsa straight shafted axe with a custom 3D-printed adjustable pinky rest Nick had just printed. This would allow me to plunge in snow and save some weight. We’d also each bring our custom carbon fiber ascent plates Nick had CNC milled. Unloading the sled The main route options from that col appeared to be the East Gully, the East Ridge, and the NE Couloir. Neither of us had done any of these routes but we figured we could see what looked the most reasonable based on conditions and climb that. The first record I could find of a winter ascent of Argonaut was via the NE Couloir (Lurie, Feb 2006, NWMJ). But climbing the full couloir seemed too risky with the snow conditions since it’s a ~3,000ft long snow gully and I wouldn’t want to be in the bottom if it slid. Worst case we would just cross the top of it, roped up, which would be much safer. At the Beverly Creek trailhead The shortest approach would be from the Beverly Creek trailhead, which is accesible by snowmobile. In order to beat the incoming storm we wanted to summit by noon, so that meant leaving very early. We decided to do a car-to-car push to avoid carrying overnight gear over the fourth creek pass. Friday evening we got to the Twentynine Pines staging area on Teanaway River road, unloaded the sled, and went to bed. Saturday we were up and moving by 12:30am. The road had just been groomed and we made excellent time, hitting 40mph in places. The Beverly Creek turnoff was a bit rougher, but we reached the trailhead 20 minutes after leaving the truck. Interestingly, there was a nice skin track already going up from the trailhead. This is very unusual for winter Bulgers trips. Crossing Bean Creek We followed the tracks across Bean Creek, but then they diverged west after a few miles. It looked like they might have been heading for Iron Peak. We then broke trail up to the Fourth Creek saddle, and transitioned to ski mode. We had fun turns going down fourth creek, then transitioned to skins as it flattened out. We skinned down to Ingalls Creek, trying to set a good track for our return trip. Ingalls Creek The creek was too high to rock hop across, but we found a nice fallen log across near the trail crossing. It was 8″ wide with a foot of snow on top and lots of branches sticking out. I strapped my skis on my back and started over au chaval. I karate chopped the icy snow off the top, then used an ice tool to bang off the branches. Progress was slow but this worked and made for a nice smooth crossing on the return journey. On the other side we skinned up to the Ingalls Creek trail, followed it east for a half mile, then left the trail heading up the Porcupine Creek drainage. The slopes were nice and mellow angle and the forest was mostly open for easy travel. As we got higher to more open areas the snow had a firm sun crust. We started on the west side, then crossed over to the east side and ascended into the large bowl flanked by Argonaut, Colchuck, and Dragontail. Conditions were pleasant with no wind and great views of the summits. We knew that would change by afternoon, though. Approaching Argonaut in the upper Porcupine Creek drainage We noticed the East Gully route looked like it might go, though was kind of steep. We decided to head to the Argonaut-Colchuck col to scope out the East Ridge and NE Couloir to see which one we preferreed. As we crested the ridge the wind picked up from the south, and we noticed the north side would be much more sheltered. It looked doable to ascend the East Ridge then cross over the top of the NE Couloir to gain the upper north face of Argonaut. That sounded appealing given the wind direction, so we went for that route. At the col We ditched skis at the col, then roped up. Nick started first and we shortened the rope to 30m and simul climbed. The East Ridge started getting steep soon so we dropped onto a snow ramp which we traversed across to enter the NE Couloir. We got good gear in the rock to protect a fall in case the snow slid. On the opposite side of the Couloir Nick built an anchor and we swapped leads. I kicked steps up the right side of the couloir for 30m then when the couloir dead ended at a rock face I exited up and right. Crossing into the NE Couloir This section was the crux of the route. The snow got thin and steep on a rock slab except for a thick wind deposit about 3ft deep. I had to tunnel through it Cerro-Torre-style, digging down to the thin icy layer on top of the slab to get good purchase with my front points. I kind of wished I had the custom wings on my ice tools. Eventually I excavated out an old rap anchor, clipped it, and tunneled the last bit up to the low-angle north face snowfield. In the upper NE Couloir I belayed Nick up there with a solid hex anchor and we swapped again. Nick led up the left side of the snowfield, getting a few gear placements in the rocks on the side. We eventually simul climbed up to the summit ridge, and swapped leads again. I traversed the ridge, weaving the rope around horns and getting a few intermediate pieces in. I had to make a few mixed climbing moves getting over one rock step. At last, I saw the famous tunnel under the summit boulder, and luckily it had a big enough gap to squeeze through. Nick on the summit By 1pm I made the final short mixed scramble to the summit. I belayed Nick up off the summit horn, and we were soon both on the summit. It was windy, but luckily not snowing yet. It appeared the storm was coming in a bit later than forecast, which was great news. There was no view in the whiteout, so we soon regrouped and headed down. I led the way back as we simul downclimbed the ridge and retraced our exact track back down the snowfield. We regrouped above the crux, and we decided to simul downclimb that as well. Now that the snow was excavated and good steps were kicked it wouldn’t be too hard. I put the exact same gear placements in as on the way up, and we simuled back down to our previous anchor point. There Nick took over and led back across the ramp to the Argonaut-Colchuck col by 2:30pm. Descending the summit ridge Now the storm had hit with full force, and it was extremely windy and snowy. I was jostled off balance a few times. Back at the skis we put goggles on, and decided to crampon down in the whiteout until it got more sheltered. I followed the track on my watch since our up tracks were drifted over. After 10 minutes we got back into intermittent trees and the wind died down. Unexpectedly, it then cleared out and was partly sunny! It appeared to be a brief break in the storm, and came at the perfect time. We switched to skis and had fun turns down the big open slope. Though, lower down we hit sun crust which made skiing challenging. Hiking down in the storm We switched back to crampons and descended down into denser trees. Back in the trees the sun crust disappeared and we again skied back down. The icy lower sections had changed to a small layer or corn and made for excellent skiing. We eventually reached the Ingalls Creek trail as the sun gave way to heavy graupel and snow. There we skinned back to Ingalls Creek and scooted back across the log. Last view of the south face of Argonaut We then followed our tracks back up fourth creek as darkness set in. At the pass we switched back to ski mode and made a high traverse back down the Beverly Creek drainage. Interestingly, we encountered a set of snowshoe tracks that had followed our tracks up to 5000ft. This appears to be a relatively popular area in winter! I guess the road approach is only five miles, so a snowmobile isn’t really necessary. Though I certainly appreciated being able to sled in and out instead of walk. Sledding out It was fun cruising down the drainage, and we made it back to the sled by 8:45pm. We then strapped our gear on and got back to the truck around 9:15pm for a 21-hour push. Gear Notes: Snowmobile, 60m rope, skis, technical tools, hexes, nuts, cams, ascent plates (unused but we probably should have used them) Approach Notes: Sled to Beverly Creek TH, ski to Argonaut-Colchuck col
    8 points
  6. Trip: Boston Peak - West Face Trip Date: 02/10/2024 Trip Report: Boston Peak (8,883 ft) First Winter Ascent West Face (steep snow/rime, 5 pitch) Eric Gilbertson and Nick Roy Feb 10, 2024, 12:30am – 5:30pm The last pitch to the summit (photo by Nick) I’d recently been climbing in the area around Cascade Pass the previous weekend to bag Buckner, Horseshoe, and Sahale peaks. On that trip I’d taken some pictures of Boston Peak from Sahale and Horseshoe, and thought about tagging it on as a bonus point. But bonus points almost never happen on winter bulger trips, and we didn’t have enough time. The route Interestingly, the snow and weather conditions looked to be stable again for another weekend. I’ve found the highest chance of success on winter bulger trips often happens when revisting the same area after a recent trip, when conditions and approach beta are known and will likely remain the same. This sounded like a good recipe to attempt Boston Peak. As far as we researched Boston had not previously been climbed in winter. This is probably for good reason. All routes are loose, exposed, and at least 4th class (in summer, at least). According to Beckey “The US Geological Survey party of 1898 believed the summit inaccessible and applied the name to the present Sahale Peak.” That's why the survey marker on Sahale says "Boston." The west face route (drawn on photo by John Scurlock) There are four routes I’m aware of that have previously been climbed on Boston Peak. The Southeast Face is the standard route and involves steep, loose, exposed 4th class climbing. Nick and I had each previously climbed Boston twice via this route. We remembered there were basically no protection options. We expected in winter it would likely be steep thin exposed snow on rock for several pitches and sounded sketchy to essentially solo. The South face is the standard rappel route and has steep rock of low quality. This sounded like the most technical winter route, and would be tough with questionable protection. The North Ridge was climbed in 2018 by Sam Boyce and Kyle Willis in their Boston Marathon trip. This would likely be corniced in winter with prevailing west winds, and also sounded sketchy. The West face was climbed in September 1956 by Anderson and Shonle. The exact route up the face is described by Beckey as starting at the lower of two prominent gullies, then “begin from the gully and climb the west face.” Unfortunately even their original trip report doesn't give any more details. Loading up at the Eldo gate I’d been in Boston Basin in January 2022 climbing Forbidden and had gotten some good pictures of the west face of Boston then. It appeared like there might be some steep snow gullies on the face with rock walls in between. Based on topo maps the face appeared lower angle than the south face. We suspected the gullies might be protectable with the rock faces on the sides, and this face could be the best option in winter. It wouldn’t be under any cornices most likely since it was on the side of prevailing winds. The route would definitely require stable snow, which was in the forecast for Saturday. The weather looked clear Saturday but a storm was coming in Sunday, so we decided to go for the climb as a car to car push. Rigging up the bike tow (photo by Nick) Luckily I had very fresh beta about the approach for Boston. I had just driven and logged out Cascade River Road to the Eldo gate the previous weekend, and there hadn’t been any lowland snow or big storms since then. There’s unfortunately some inaccurate information online about the road conditions. The national park service website says the road is gated at the park boundary at MP 18, but that gate has been open all winter. The Eldo gate at MP 20 is locked though. My main resource for predicting snow depth, NOHRSC, had been showing deep snow starting at MP 18, but I found in reality the road is melted out all the way to MP 22 around 3000ft. With this in mind, I planned to leave the snowmobile at home, but bring the big chainsaw and bikes. Nick has an e-bike, and we planned for him to tow me up the road with a rope to save energy. I’ve done this before on cascade river road, and the best strategy is to tie the rope to the front bike’s seat post or back rack, then the follower holds the other end of the rope in one hand. Boston creek washout For the route we planned to take the Cascade Pass trail all the way up to the last switchback, then cut up and left following the same route as I had taken the previous weekend. We would traverse around sahale, drop through a low-angle gully to gain the Soldier Boy drainage, then continue to the Quien Sabe glacier. I know skiers often ski up Midas Creek or Soldier Boy creek directly from the road to access this area in the spring, but those drainages were all melted out last weekend and would be tough alder bushwhacks. Friday evening we started up cascade river road, and there were only two minor blowdowns to clear all the way to the Eldo gate. I was a bit disappointed to not get to use the chainsaw, but there was still hope for the drive out that something would need sawed out. We were the only ones at the lot. Approaching the Quien Sabe glacier We got a few hours of sleep then were up and moving by 12:30am. One car was in the lot by then. We strapped the skis to the bikes, then tied the rope to Nick’s rear rack. I pedaled a bit so he didn’t spin out but it was nice to get the boost on the uphills and save some energy. We had to carry the bikes over a few blowdowns but overall it save time and more importantly increased fun. Crossing the glacier Around MP 22 there’s a huge washout at Boston Creek. We ditched the bikes there, walked a bit higher, then hit snow and started skinning. We made fast progress up the road, then continued following the trail. This time there was a few inches of fresh snow on the icy snow, but we could still barely make out my ski tracks from the previous weekend. We topped off water halfway up at a stream, then left the trail at the highest switchback. Looking up at the west face gully system (photo by Nick) This time there was enough fresh powder to leave the skis on with ski crampons. We angled up to 6400ft, then dropped down a low-angle face into the Soldier Boy drainage. We descended with our skins on making low-angle switchbacks for our future use when skiing out. From there we made a rising traverse all the way to the northwest corner of the Quien Sabe glacier by sunrise. I’d never been on this route before, but Nick had crossed the Quien Sabe in July last summer and remembered some big crevasses. But there had been a safe summer route across the northern end of the glacier, which we planned to follow. We roped up and skied across the glacier to the base of Boston. The West face looked promising with a few gullies leading up to the summit ridge. It looked like the snow was likely deep enough to be supportive and there were also exposed rock bands on the sides for protection. We decided to give it a shot. Nick leading up the west face In the summer there is a large bergschrund directly below the col south of the summit, and with this low snow year we were worried the schrund might not be well-bridged. So we cut up and right to the outcrop just righ of the schrund area. There we ditched skis and switched to crampons and tools. Nick led kicking steps up the snow to the right of the outcrop. Then we traversed left acrosst the snow face. We didn’t have pickets, but Nick buried one ski pole as a deadman anchor. We simulclimbed to the base of a large gully that trended up and left across the face. Nick got a few pieces in, then belayed me up to an anchor. Me leading up the second pitch (photo by Nick) I took over from there, kicking steps up the steepening snow. I spent some time excavating out a rock face and smashing off rime ice to find a crack. For some reason the rock on boston doesn’t have many cracks, but if you look hard enough you can usually find one. The snow had a thin layer of wind slab but it was unreactive. Still, I felt happy to have running pro in on the steep face just in case something slid. We simul climbed on a shortened 30m section of rope from there so we could be within earshot of each other. I soon crossed over into an intersection of one gully going very steeply directly up and another going more gradual up to the left. I had to excavate out a wind lip to cross, and did a bit of downclimbing on steep snow. The direct gully looked like tough mixed climbing, and I decided to try my luck sticking to snow. The anchor under the overhanging rime face (photo by Nick) I got a few more pieces in as the gully continued up and left. Then I found a nice rock overhang with a flat snow bench underneath. I banged off 1ft long rime feathers and eventually found a few good gear placements to belay Nick up. From there we decided to leave the main gully and follow a subsidiary gully directly up to the north ridge. Nick led the next pitch, even managing to get a piton in at one point. In general I’ve found cams tend to slip out of icy cracks but hexes, nuts, and pitons can be more solid. With the terrain steepening we lengthened the rope to 60m and decided to pitch out the terrain instead of simul climbing. Nick on the summit Nick belayed me up a pitch of steep snow and rock, then I took over. The snow got icier and filled with more rime. I got a few pieces in and climbed all the way to the north ridge. The wind picked up there and I probed around and luckily there were only small 1ft cornices on the ridge. The summit was close! On the summit I banged off the cornices, got a directional piece in, then followed the direct ridge crest towards the summit. I soon reached a wider area with good gear and built an anchor. Nick then took over the last lead. He downclimbed a short bit to the final notch, then followed the narrow snowy ridge to the summit. There were no gear options the whole way, and the wind pickedup the rope and blew it pretty high off the ridge. Luckily there were no cornices for it to snag on. The summit register (photo by Nick) Nick was able to bury a ski pole as a deadman anchor and belayed me up by 1pm. Conditions were hard to beat. Only occasional gusts of wind, but not too cold and partly sunny with great views around. I peered over to the steep southeast face and was very happy to have not tried that route. It was very exposed, with no protection, and would have been super sketchy. I think our route was the best option for winter. I had brought my shovel up and we decided to find the summit register. Nick remembered its approximate location, and this is one of the largest registers on any Bulger peak. It is a huge aluminum rectangular case containing a full-sized notebook. Signatures go back to 1968, when it was first placed. I recalled leafing through it in 2016 and 2018 and not seeing any winter sign ins. We hoped to change that. Climbing back down We took turns digging down through 2ft of snow and I eventually managed to find the register! We cracked it open and signed in. This was the third Boston summit for each of us. After 45 minutes on the summit we decided to head back down. Our original plan was to descend the standard rap route, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. There would be three anchors that would each need excavated out, and that could take a while if they were buried as deep as the summit register was. We might not be able to find them, and it would be a lot of work excavating out our own anchors. Climbing down (photo by Nick) We had already confirmed the snow stability on our ascent route, and had already excavated out plenty of cracks in rocks. It was low enough angle that we decided to just simul downclimb our ascent route. Nick already had all the gear so he started down first. Climbing down (photo by Nick) I belayed him to the end of the rope, then started down the ridge. It took careful balance with no protection on the ridge and occasional wind gusts. I crossed to the notch, climbed back over the gendarme, then downclimbed. I carefully followed our up tracks and eventually met back up with Nick at the overhang. From there the slope was low-enough angle that we put the rope away and just downclimbed facing in. The sun came out by then and warmed the snow enough to glop on our crampons. But we carefully made it back to our skis as the clouds rolled back in. By then the summit started getting socked in. It appeared the Sunday storm system was approaching. Biking out For the descent we scoped out a crevasse-free route more directly down, and we had fun turns down the southeast edge of the Quien Sabe glacier back to our up tracks. We had to briefly change to skins to cross out of the Soldier Boy drainage, then skied back to the trail. With the fresh powder we skied down the switchbacks, cutting the last five or so in a big snowfield on skiers left that led back to the trailhead. From there we skied back to our boots, walked a short ways back to the bikes, then biked back to the Eldo gate by 5:30pm. 68/100 Winter Bulgers Note: it's hard to know for sure if we followed the same route as the Sept 1956 ascent or did a different route. Their description isn't too detailed. Gear Notes: Bikes, two tools, 60m rope, single rack to 2", pitons, hexes Approach Notes: Road still clear to Eldo Gate and bikeable beyond to the Boston Creek washout
    8 points
  7. Trip: Sperry Peak - Standard Trip Date: 11/25/2023 Trip Report: It was a good day to be out and stretch the legs on a classic blue-collar outing. Even better, we had the mountain to ourselves on a beautiful Saturday. There were just enough shenanigans to keep it interesting, but not so many as to detract from the fun. The yin and yang of scrapping up pointy things with a couple of good friends is an excellent reminder that the simple things in life are pretty much all you need. And whiskey. Sperry: Mile High Club: Heading up Headlee: It was solid: @Trent getting some extra work in before we found the correct start (Thanks JGAP!): Vesper and Wolf Peaks: @cfire topping out: North sides of Del Campo and Morningstar: Tahoma: Vesper (note tracks of the Saturday masses): @cfire: @Trent loves blue collar shenanigans: The boyz heading back to Headlee Pass: @Trent at Headless Pass, taking in the end of the day: Gear Notes: Helmet, axe, crampons Approach Notes: Headlee Pass trail. Road is passable by 2wd to TH. Trail snow free to basin between Mile High Club and Sperry. About 2 feet of snow on Sperry and Vesper. Flotation not needed.
    8 points
  8. Trip: Ruth, Mineral, and the not so Easy way to Easy Peak - Mineral Mountain High Route Trip Date: 08/12/2023 Trip Report: "This route goes from Hannegan Pass to join the Easy Ridge High Route. It is an arduous approach to the Northern Pickets. The most gruesome moments of green hell and cliffs are at Chilliwack Pass: the rest is alpine nectar." - Routes and Rocks In the Mt. Challenger Quadrangle. Tabor and Crowder. 1968 And so it goes- the yin and yang of North Cascades High routes. I like "alpine nectar" as much as anyone, and so does @BrettS, so we chose to ignore the first part of that description and headed out to find out for ourselves. As expected with a description like that, NOCA permits in Glacier were a breeze. A welcome break from the madness of Saturday mornings in Marblemount. Then ......we went into the hills for three days and walked a lot - sometimes on a trail, sometimes hovering over the ground on brush, sometimes skipping through alpine meadows that would make @rat break out in song. We had nice camps, we had tunes, we had whiskey and too much camera gear. The verdict- either we are getting toughened up, or forgetful, but I don't think either of us found the crux to be much of a "green hell"- more "black flies and heat" hell. Regardless, the trip certainly traverses some of the more scenic ridge lines in the range, and exit out Easy Ridge is especially, well, easy. Same with the entry via Hannegan Pass and Mount Ruth. The middle involves..... some shenanigans, but you knew that. Pretty pictures never tell the full story in the North Cascades. Both our camps near Ruth and on the summit of Easy Peak were highlights, as was the midday swim in the tarn below Easy Peak. Lowlights, as mentioned earlier, were the heat and bugs. But, having the Tom Selleck of the alpine along made it all seem like a breeze. Ruth from Hannegan trail: Alpine nectar! Blum and Icy: Go do the North Ridge of Blum! Slesse, the Haunted House of the Chilliwack: If you see this, you are about to start the shenanigans: The view distracts from the sidehill of green steepness: @BrettS past most of the shenanigans: This summer has been really hard on the glaciers: Crowder and Pioneer in front of the Southern Pickets: Get your autograph pens ready! Rare @JasonG sighting in the wild: Alpine nectar! Summit of Easy Peak: Southern Pickets: Pioneer and the mysterious depths of the Baker River: Late season insanity around Kulshan and Shuksan: Tomyhoi at sunset: I've never seen Challenger looking so grim: Putting in the work on the photos....Now do you see why I carry that yellow pad? The smoke teased, but never fully engulfed us: Looking across the border into Canada, where there is another fire: A tad soft, unfortunately, but the Hozomeens at sunrise: Spickard and the Mox Peaks: Alpine Nectar! fin: Gear Notes: We were able to avoid all ice and didn't need anything other than helmets. No glacier gear needed if you go around on Ruth Approach Notes: Follow Tabor and Crowder. Find yourself a copy of Routes and Rocks!
    8 points
  9. From Aug 20th to 24th Lani Chapko, Nick Gonzalez and I did the first ascent of the direct SE ridge of Seahpo Peak. The SE ridge gains roughly 4400' over around 1.5 miles of horizontal. Jagged Ridge adds roughly another 1.5 miles of ridge traversing. We climbed roughly 30 pitches on the SE Ridge of Seahpo with another 6-8 or so on Jagged Ridge. I would consider the SE ridge a Grade V as a stand alone if a team were to descend the standard route, and while maybe controversial, consider it a Grade VI with its continuation through the Jagged Ridge (Grade V 5.6). We had 18 hours of climbing time on the SE ridge and around 12 hours of climbing time on Jagged, totaling just shy of 30 hrs of climbing time over the course of 3 long days. Lani and I's climbing time on Mongo Ridge was around 17 hours and our non-speed-climber NIAD time last year was 16 hours. While not really relevant, these seem to be common benchmarks that people like to compare to. Photo I found last year from the summit of Icy showing the entirety of the ridge (sorry i don't remember who took it...) Early Attempts: I first spotted the line last year when Joe and I went in to do Spectre. It is a sneaky ridge that is only visible from a fairly narrow window of the North Cascades. We both agreed it looked massive and epic. I convinced Lani to give it an attempt late September. This was a couple weeks after a bad ankle sprain on Jo Berg. We ended up bailing after around 800' of climbing because of extreme heat, dry conditions and mild hallucinations from intense smoke. We approached via the Baker River and Crystal Creek. This year in July we had a window and decided to give it another go. We figured the Baker River approach would not go smoothly so we decided to try a high route approach via the Ruth-Icy traverse. Once at the Icy-Seahpo col we dropped down the head of the Crystal creek cirque and tried to find an access point to the ridge from the north. The climbing looked like 5.10X with minimal anchors, so we ultimately bailed out with the knowledge that we would have to repeat the heinous munge we found on the ridge last year. Day 1: We knew we were heading into dry conditions, so we sought out a third person to join the party to help distribute water weight on the harder climbing near the toe of the ridge. We reached out to Lani's friend Nick the morning of to see if he would be down, and he somewhat reluctantly joined knowing he would be procrastinating some work. The last minute shuffle meant we were in for a bit of a long packing session and late start. We got to the Baker River Trailhead in the mid afternoon and started our approach around 3PM. The approach went smoothly as the Baker River was super low and the crossings were super chill. We again picked up the old trail up crystal creek. We were initially super confused about the existing trail until we consulted with Eric W and learned that there used to be a trail up crystal creek. We got up into crystal creek basin right as it was getting dark and decided to set up camp in the trees just after crossing crystal creek. Near the end of our approach, Nick got stung by a ground wasp and started developing some full body hives. He had previously never been allergic to any kind of stings so this was a new development. Luckily we had just added some Benadryl to the first aid kit. He reacted well to the Benadryl and the hives subsided after around 20 min. Day 2: We started out the day finishing our approach up the crystal creek basin. This involves some mellow, but overhead grassy bushwhacking. When we were here in 2022, there was clear evidence that a ton of bears had trampled the valley. Adding a very eerie feeling to the endeavor. We felt like we were being taunted by Tanuki, hence the name. The climbing on the ridge starts around 2900-3000' depending on how your device is feeling. Once at the base of the ridge again we were back in familiar terrain. Ignorance may have been bliss... The first 1000' of the climb involves some substantial, runout and sometimes challenging munge-a-neering. Lani following one of the 5.9 munge pitches on the first attempt Looking up at the crux munge pitch after bailing on attempt #1 After reaching our high point, we continued questing upward. We had a hunch that we were through the major difficulties of the lower ridge on the first attempt, and luckily that prior assumption was true. 1000' more munge led us to the summit of the first major tower. This tower rises over 2000' over crystal creek basin and feels like a major accomplishment in and of itself. Lani and Nick Following near the top of Tanuki Tower Looking back down at the long scrambling section in the middle of the route After reaching the summit of the first tower, which we later dubbed Tanuki Tower, the ridge eased back for a massive, long section of 3rd and 4th class scrambling, separated by the occasional pitch. We were able to make good time to the base of an obvious gendarme to camp at 6900'. When we arrived at camp we were able to locate a 3rd class access ramp that allowed for access to the glacier on the south side of the ridge. This allowed for a much needed water top off. Future parties could consider gaining the upper (more classic) ridge via this hanging basin and scrambling access ramp to avoid the munge on Tanuki Tower. Looking up at the upper ridge from camp. Day 3: We started by climbing the obvious Gendarme above camp and traversing to the main summit massif and upper ridge. Classic moderate climbing on the Gendarme above camp The upper ridge provided a ton of clean, moderate ridge climbing with a bunch of awesome position and good climbing. Nick leading the upper crux, a clean 5.8+ lieback After a bunch of false summits, gendarme traverses and generally entertaining ridge climbing, we finally found our way to the summit of Seahpo. Stoked on our success we started the debate about continuing. We all had trail runners and light aluminum snow gear. After an hour long debate we decided thin conditions meant we could work around the snow and manage the little that we had to, so we began our committing raps off the summit of Seahpo. We started off with the moderate snow traverse across the glacier to regain the ridge. Conditions were super firm, so while only being around 30 degree traversing terrain, we ended up pitching out this short section. Looking out from the start of the Jagged Ridge Traverse Clean Rock on Jagged Ridge Once back on the rock, we were able to make super quick progress soloing a bunch of 4th class terrain to near the mid point on the Jagged Ridge traverse. There were minimal opportunities for bivies, but we found a reasonable, albeit exposed ledge near the ridge crest. If we would have been able to continue for another 20 min, we would have made to to a kush ledge on the north side of the ridge that would have been sheltered from winds. A nice ledge amongst the choss traversing near the end of Jagged Ridge Day 4: The remaining part of Jagged Ridge was honestly kind of awful without snow coverage. Very loose compact dirt and unstable talus traversing above big exposure. There was the occasional pitch but mostly scrambling. We ultimately made it to the final group of towers that define the exit to the ridge. We didn't really find the "lethal choss chimney" described in other reports, though there was a low angle choss gully with a 5.6 boulder problem around a chockstone. The final pitch to exit was the definitive crux and decent climbing, though a bit steep and committing for 5.6. Once off the traverse, we realized our mistake in equipment selection. It was clear that heading up onto the crystal glacier with so much blue ice exposed would be an awful test of our mediocre snow gear. That and a whiteout shielded the bergshrunds from our vision, so we didn't have a clear view of our exit. Our original plan was to head up and maybe tag the summit pyramid, though we decided to bail onto the slabs below the crystal and sulphide glacier. There was a level of uncertainty with terrain and overhead hazard, though the seracs looked quiet enough to feel comfortable with the traverse. The 2 mile long slab traverse took what felt like days, but we were able to link into the sulphide route right at the standard sulphide camp, avoiding all of the steep exposed ice. We took the slabs just below the snout of the crystal, then back up the rocky passage on the Sulphide Typical terrain on the slabs after a waterfall crossing A quick jaunt down the shannon ridge trail got us back to civilization, but not out of the clear... as we opted not to spend the time to set up a car shuttle. Nick in all of his glory had volunteered to run the shannon ridge trail and road all the way back to baker lake trailhead to shuttle the car, for a total of an 11 mile run to finish off the trip!! Overall, this was a grand journey up one of the largest technical features in the lower 48. I would recommend the whole ridge as an awesome cascadian, blue collar route! Rack: Singles Single Rack to 3 with doubles up to .75, optional KB's, Single 60M Rope A rough track showing our approximate route TH to TH A Close up showing our rough track on route Potential alternate approach tracks; Green showing an early season approach via the Icy-Seahpo col, this route may require some rappels down low angle slabs. Purple being a potential high route that would require a bushwhack up the ridge to the left of Crystal Creek. And Red showing a technical track up low angle waterfall slabs that would access the hanging basin to bypass Tanuki Tower. The two access points (red and purple) seem like equally easy and viable ways to access the ridge.
    8 points
  10. Trip: Glacier Peak - Frostbite Ridge Trip Date: 08/18/2023 Trip Report: North Face of Dakobed Solo (4th AI2 Steep Snow) I had been eyeing this route all summer and finally the weather and ice conditions lined up for an attempt. The varied terrain felt like a good alpine test piece for me. Day 1: Frostbite Ridge (Kennedy Glacier Approach) Day 2: Descent via Gerdine Ridge Direct/Disappointment Peak Cleaver Started the day at 3:01am from the North Fork Sauk Trailhead weaving through the forest by headlamp. Thoughts of rogue black bears and mountain lions were looming as it tried to keep about a 3mph pace. After about 3 hours and several water stops I made it to the PCT N-S junction. I tried my hardest this time to hydrate the day before and during the approach to be able to save on water consumption at the top and on the descent. The trail then continues on the PCT heading N over a ridge towards portal peak. Eventually descending to a beautiful meadow before being swallowed by the forest. I made it to Fire Creek Pass at 1130am, stopped for lunch and to fill up on water, the taste of a fresh roast beef sandwich while deep in the wilderness was pretty primal. At 12 I left the PCT up the Glacier Creek drainage for some light bushwhacking. Soon I gained the ridge that overlooks the remnants of the Kennedy glacier and saw the bivy site everyone mentions. This would be a good stopping point (about 22 miles in) but i knew a summit bivy would make this climb more special. The climb up the left side of the stream was half ultra loose rocks and dirt and moraine covered remnants of the glacier. Rockfall on the left and seracs on the right. pick your poison here. I followed the rocks on the edge of the ice for what felt like forever until finally putting my crampons on at the foot of the glacier. It looked like a bomb went off here, glacier broken to pieces, rocks everywhere, and somehow the loose rocks even had dirt and smaller rocks on top of them too. Had to zig-zag across the glacier to find connected pieces, moved slowly and deliberately through here. Only had to really step on 2 snow bridges, the rest was connected ice of the glacier. Eventually the glacier joins with Frostbite ridge where I left my crampons on and pretended this was like DC. This “Ridge” is simply a pile of scree, every step felt like walking in ankle deep powder and dislodged tons of debris. Struggled up the ridge, broke a trekking pole, and finally got on the little knife edge under the “rabbits dick”. Every step here raining rocks down both sides of the ridge. Really glad i was the only person out here for this section. Finally got to the feature and took the recommended bypass to the left across the steep snow slopes. This section was quite exposed and the wind blown neve was fun to climb. Finally got to the rabbits ears. The downclimbing here was way less sketchy that i thought it was going to be. Simple scrambling down to the steep snow field traverse, running water here. Motored up the upper Kennedy glacier and traversed around a hole to get to the ridge above. Then the unnamed headwall came into view, glowing in the evening sunshine. Sharing a sunset with the North Face of most remote Cascadian Volcano was special. I was racing the sun at this point, it was beginning to set and I only had about an hour to make it to the top before it was going to be getting dark. The base of the head wall was all exposed ice, all the snow was gone. I climbed the first ice step in the sunset, and on the ledge feature that splits the headwall the sun went down. Almost every stick was a hero swing, maybe 1/10 shattered some surface rot. The ice was steep enough that you couldn't walk up it, definitely at least AI2, but also had lots of features to rest on if you needed. I got some sweet gopro footage of the climb that shows the conditions/difficulty encountered. https://youtu.be/lv3px5eKino?si=-lHOC3Eju77gPPuO Climbed the second step and topped out at 830pm. I crested the snow dome in the back using both my axes as canes and out of breath from racing the sun up the headwall. I was completely worked but the summit was just steps away on a rock formation to the right. I got to sign the register in the last rays of sun for the day. Magical. It was incredibly windy, maybe 40+ mph gusts, and afterwards I retreated to the bivy site and set up my bag in the howling wind with shaking hands. I didn’t end up eating my dehydrated meal because boiling water in this wind was going to virtually impossible with a Jetboil. I settled for a pop tart and fell asleep to the whipping sound of my bivy sack in the wind. Woke up around 1am and it was dead silent, poked my head out of the bag and the vast array of stars greeted me. Just the starlight was bright enough that I didn't need a headlamp to see around me. I slipped in and out of sleep until finally getting up at 630am to pack up. Chatted with a nice guy who made it to the summit for sunrise and got some beta for the scramble. I started the descent at 7am and made it to the car at 4:15ish. Opted for the loose scramble on disappointment peak since the Cool Glacier looked completely shattered and apparently the downclimbing isn’t that bad. I figured if there is an option to avoid soloing a glacier it should be taken. Some super chill people gave me cliff bar at the campsites by the base of the Gerdine Ridge, this was much needed as I just ate my last stinger moments before. If i thought Kennedy Glacier looked like it got carpet bombed, then the south side of the mountain looks like its been through a nuclear blast. The shattered landscape seemed to stretch on forever, but the occasional wildflower was nice to see. Doing this big lollipop loop had such varied terrain which added to the classic feel. It was also interesting/sad to see how much the ice/snow has receded from past trip reports on here. This felt like a blue collar Mt Olympus, a little more rugged but overall similar vibes. Instead of finishing with mellow rock climbing, you finish with mellow ice climbing. Instead of a pristine NP trail to get to the glacier, you have PCT linked to a bushwhack chossfest. Instead of paved NP roads, you have the 10 mile potholed forest service road. No Cascades alpine ascent is truly complete without a margarita and Carne Asada stop at Dos agaves in Darrington. Gear Notes: 2 tools made sense for me since I'm not a super strong ice climber. Unsung hero was the bag of salt and potassium i brought. Packing List: https://lighterpack.com/r/0phmnc Approach Notes: Stats: 36hr51m c2c, 17.5hr car to summit Tracks: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-a62344a-60
    8 points
  11. Trip: North Cascades NP - Mt Challenger via Easy Ridge High Route Trip Date: 06/30/2023 Trip Report: Over a period of four days, I solo climbed Mt Challenger, approaching from the Easy Ridge High Route. Three years ago, I clambered up to Tapto Lakes and was awestruck by the sight of Mt Challenger. I have always wanted to climb it since. In climbing Challenger, I had to use almost everything in my backcountry and climbing toolkit. The trip felt like a culmination of all the outdoor skills I have learned so far. Day 1 Permits I arrived at the Glacier service center at around 3pm. According to the ranger, I would be the first person to make my way up to Perfect Pass this season. As I explained my itinerary and possible goal of climbing Mt Challenger, he became even more excited about the trip than I was. In reality, I still felt unsure if I would actually make it up there, so I didn’t want to hype myself up too much. There would be so many factors standing in my way: the river crossing, the route-finding and bushwacking, the infamous impasse, and ultimately the glacier conditions. I sheepishly told the ranger I would be happy just to make it up to Perfect Pass. Hannegan to Copper Creek It took me about 3 hours to reach camp. This would be my fifth time hiking Hannegan Pass so I was in familiar territory. When I arrived at Copper Creek, I met a ranger camped out on the over side of the creek. He asked where I was heading next. When I told him I would possibly go up all the way to Mt Challenger, he was stoked (again, even more than I was). Day 2 Crossing the Chilliwack The next morning I broke camp at around 5:30 am and made my journey up to Easy Ridge. The Chilliwack river crossing was not as bad as I had thought. I found a short, shallow section to cross, the water only coming up to my ankles. My crocs definitely came in handy here. There really was no trail once I reached the other side of the river. Eventually, I linked up with the trail by going in the general direction of Easy Creek (listen for it) and upwards to Easy Ridge. For the most part, the trail was straightforward and never too steep. Other than maybe the first section, I would not really consider it bushwacking (that would come later). The overgrowth was all just blueberry bushes anyways, not nasty things like devil’s club. Easy Ridge Eventually the ground got rockier and the trees became shorter and fewer. The trail flattened into a meadow dotted with pools of melted snow. I had reached Easy Ridge. Further along, I was finally able to see sweeping views on all sides. To the left, I sighted Red Face mountain and knew Tapto Lakes was nested in the cirque hidden below it. To the front, I got my first view of Mt Challenger and was already plotting my route across the glacier. For the most part, the Easy Ridge trail was indeed easy but there were still some notable obstacles. Snowfields still clung onto parts of the trail. In one section, I had to take out my ax and change into my boots and crampons to manage a steep snow traverse. A slip here would have resulted in tumbling down hundreds of feet down into the valley. There was also an unexpected scramble up loose rock and scree right before reaching Easy Peak. The Nearly Perfect Impass As I reached a snow covered saddle near the end of the ridge, I knew I had to descend into the valley and then confront the infamous Perfect Impass. My descent was in steep snow. Looking back now, I should have descended earlier before the saddle, which would’ve made the descent gentler and snow-free. While descending, I also wasn’t sure the exact location of Perfect Impass. I kept thinking it was sooner than it actually was. As a result, I maintained my elevation and refused to descend even more like I should have. My route was harder and full of scree by not descending properly. You can’t miss Perfect Impass. It cleaves the valley in two and literally stops you in your tracks. When I finally reached it, I first tried to find a way to bypass it lower down, but halfway up the chasm were unstable snow bridges. Since I didn’t want to descend the supposed 1000’ to circumvent the impasse, the only other way was higher up. I don’t remember the exact movements but roughly speaking I climbed high, down climbed, made an exposed traverse, then down climbed again into the gully. From there it was an easy climb out where I encountered a rappel station and a cairn marking it. Routes and Rocks In The Mt. Challenger Quadrangle (1968), Tabor and Crowder (East side of Impass looking back) Perfect Pass Now, I had to descend even further and make my way around a buttress. The way was dotted with snowfields, which provided a welcome relief from the heather, scree, and slabs. The snow was still firm and I never punched in.After rounding the buttress, I finally reached a point where I could see the way up to Perfect Pass. For some reason, I did not climb up the heather and dry rock to the left and instead went up wet slabs scabbed with slippery lichen. All the slipperiness made for a slow climb up to the pass. I finally reached Perfect Pass at around 8:00 pm and set-up camp, trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible for tomorrow’s summit day. Day 3 Challenger Glacier Next morning, I woke up a little late at 5:30 am. After an hour-long breakfast of ramen, I lazily made my way across the Challenger Glacier, easily avoiding the obvious crevasses. The snow was firm and gave good traction. Partway across, I encountered a steep ramp that gave more direct access to the Challenger Arm. I decided to take this supposed shortcut, but after climbing three-fourths of the way up, I encountered a huge bergschrund blocking my way. I was pretty dispirited at this point and even considered turning back. There was no quick way around the bergschrund so I had to downclimb and continue traversing the glacier to the lateral moraine on the leftmost part of the arm. I carefully downclimbed, trying not to think of the crevasses below. As I continued my way to the arm, mist started spiraling out from Luna Basin. I thought it would subside, but soon it crested even higher, blotting out the sun. Wave after wave, the mist now rolled onto parts of the glacier arm. When I finally reached the arm, I saw that the steepest part of the climb was ahead of me. At first, I could crossover step my way up. Eventually, I had to high dagger up the slope. Moraines gave me good spots to rest and calm my nerves. Once on top of the arm, I saw that path flattened out to a mild snow ramp up to the summit blocks, which was now obscured by waves of mist. When I reached the base of the summit, the mist subsided back into Luna Basin and the summit towers emerged again. Summit Block and Descent In my excitement to get to the summit, I immediately started climbing high. I then realized that I had to downclimb and scramble to the right in order to access the actual summit block. The climb up the summit block didn’t look too bad. I saw several pitons and a stuck cam. For me, the crux was at the second piton. I had to think through where to put my feet and hands, but I got over it in one move. At the summit, I could see Baker and thought about how I stood on that summit exactly a week ago. I wondered how difficult it would be to climb Shuksan, its summit pyramid now bare rock. Covered in mist, the Northern Pickets were all still a mystery to me. I took a few more minutes to take it all in. It wasn’t windy and I wasn’t too pressed for time. Since I didn’t feel like downclimbing and had a 30m rope, I rappelled down. There were two rappel stations, one at the summit block and another further down. Two aged cordelettes made up the first and several pieces of webbing made up the second. When I reached the top of the arm again, the mist disappeared from Pickets, and I could finally see the Northern Pickets in all its glory. The way back was largely uneventful–I just followed the same route back. Surprisingly, my bootpack across the glacier had already faded into a faint imprint. It was around 1 pm when I made it back to Perfect Pass. The snow had already started to slush around noon, so I was glad to be off the glacier. When I thought I had finally made it to camp however, I encountered two ptarmigan chicks and their mother guarding the last little hill to my tent. I tried to go around them at first, but apparently the mother felt I was a threat. She lunged at me and herded me down the hill with her mid-air flourishes. I waited a few minutes for her and her chicks to descend down Perfect Pass. When I finally got to camp, I ate some lunch and took a long, several hours rest under the shade of some wind-twisted trees. Imperfect Bypass After getting over Perfect Impass the day before, I vowed not to do such exposed climbing again. I felt I had already tempted my fate several times already, so I wanted to find a way to bypass the impasse lower down. This was a critical mistake. I ended up bushwhacking through dense clumps of trees (or rather they were actually whacking me). I lost my approach shoes and one of my crocs in the process. I was stopped by steep cliffs every time I whacked through. With daylight quickly fading, I gave myself an 8pm stop time. I made one last attempt to find a safe way down but was again blocked by steep cliffs. I was frustrated that I lost several hours wasting so much energy trying to find the bypass. In exhaustion, I decided to just confront Perfect Impass head-on. When I reached it, it was nearing 8 pm so I thought the safest way would be to tackle the impasse after a night’s rest. I was already tired and didn’t want to be stuck in the gully after sunset. Fortunately, near the rappel station, I found a flat rocky spot and quickly set-up camp, scarfed down some food, and went to sleep. Day 4 Perfect Impass The next morning, I woke up at 5 am and dragged myself to confront the last obstacle of the trip. At the edge of the chasm, I plotted my route. There seemed to be two options: traversing or climbing high. Both options didn’t look safe. Climbing high seemed safer, but I couldn’t see what the downclimb would be like. I figured I would climb high first and if the descent was too steep, I would downclimb and make the traverse instead. I rappelled down into the gully and climbed a little further down. All sizes of broken rock were strewn all around, which really demonstrated Perfect Impass’s description as a “rotten volcanic dike.” I saw a clear way up from the bottom of the gully. As I climbed, I had to break away loose rock to make extra sure that every hold was stable. The crux for me was a two move dihedral that I had to mantle out of. I sighed with relief when I saw that the descent from the high-route was relatively safe 4th class scrambling. (West side of Impass looking back) Exit It was a long slog in my mountaineering boots back up to and along Easy Ridge, down to the Chilliwack, and up and down again to the Hannegan trailhead. I ended up using up all daylight hours to make my way back. From Perfect Pass, I corrected yesterday’s mistake and descended on the heather ledges located on skier’s right. And instead of steeply ascending onto Easy Ridge, I decided to approach it from a low angle that eventually bisected the ridge. I still could not find any trail as I approached the Chilliwack after descending from Easy Ridge. I crossed the Chilliwack again, but this time only with one croc. Copper Creek Camp, Boundary Camp, Hannegan Pass–I noted each landmark as I passed them. I tried not to think about the distance and time. The wildflowers were a useful distraction but they also slowed me down as I stopped and admired each new variety. The four mile hike from Hannegan pass to the trailhead seemed to take forever. Right after the pass, my energy started flagging. I then unexpectedly met a group of hikers heading to Boundary Camp. One hiker’s sound recording device caught my eye, and we chatted for a bit about recording soundscapes, ambient music, and strategies for creativity. For some reason this encounter renewed my energy and I pressed on. The sun had already set when I was about a mile from the trailhead. The world shifted into a more mystical register. Having hiked this trail many times, I felt like I was walking back through the past. I thought about how each time I passed through here, I was a better hiker and climber than before. Each time, my objectives grew bolder and more challenging. I wondered when I would walk this path again. How would I grow as a climber next time? I arrived at my car around 10 pm. Driving back to Seattle, I saw fireworks were already being set-off the night before The Fourth. Cops were frantically speeding down rural highways. It seemed like I would be returning to civilization on a night of full-moon anarchy. Gear Notes: Mountaineering boots, ice axe, crampons, 30m double rope, crocs, approach shoes Approach Notes: don't underestimate the route-finding challenges you can descend and ascend Easy Ridge on a gentle angle when going up Perfect Pass, stay climbers left on the heather ledges a 30m rope is sufficient for rappelling from summit and into the Perfect Impass Challenger Glacier gets hit with sun right when it rises, so plan accordingly
    8 points
  12. I haven't climbed Mailbox Peak, nor have I done Glacier Peak in a day or the Bulger List but I did climb some ice in Banks today. Most routes are not in but we found good ice on the Corner Route at MP 9. Left MBI 1 was also in. The cable and H2O2 are trying but not really close. We climbed U1 and U2 at MP 14. Peewee #1, 4, and 5 all looked in. Zenith wasn't even close although it is trying. Most other lines were either non-existent although a few of the brush routes were trying.
    7 points
  13. Trip: Bonanza Peak's Southwest Summit, West Face - Cascadian Route V 5.10+ Trip Date: 08/26/2023 Here's a couple obligatory John Scurlock photos of the western aspect of Bonanza's Southwest Summit: Trip Report: Summary: Sam Boyce and I took a 3-day weekend to climb a new route* on the West Face of Bonanza’s SW Summit. The Cascadian Route (V 5.10+) ascends Bonanza’s intimidating western wall. Our line gains >2,000 vertical feet over 16 pitches and 2,800’ of climbing. For context, our route is off to looker’s right of its neighbors to the north, the Soviet Route (1976) and the Oregonian Route (2013), both of which ascend the Northwest Buttress (previously also referred to as the "West Buttress", and in 1976 "the North Face") of the SW summit. In a marked up version of Sam's photo below: The approx. Cascadian route in green (each dot approx 3 pitches); the Soviet and Oregonian routes off to the left meet near the 8,700’ subsummit pinnacle on the skyline (red point), before ascending mellower terrain on the peak’s more-northern aspect (out of view; parties apparently traversed left under red roofs of the summit block): On the Scurlock photo, same color scheme (Soviet red, Cascadian green), but with the Oregonian start indicated by an orange dot: From the 9,320’ summit, we descended the Isella Glacier, which (as can be seen on satellite imagery) is split at approx. mid-height by a magically continuous undulating walkway. We were able to walk and downclimb (one low-fifth crux) to roughly 6,900’ without rappelling or touching snow, then used a notch/gully to drop through the peak’s south ridge before circling back up to our 7,000’ camp near the North Star – Bonanza col. Near the col above the bivy, there remains a small snow patch that provides water, even near the end of this hot dry 2023 summer. Report: Several years ago en route to climb Dark Peak with my friend Jon, we crossed (interminable and uniquely annoying scree) under Bonanza’s SW summit and gaped up at the expanse of rock on its western flank. I made a mental note to explore new routes if given the right conditions. Thanks to Sam’s can-do attitude and vision, and the forecasted wildfire smoke that ruled out other candidates, this was the moment. On Friday 25 Aug we made the time-consuming approach (car, Chelan-Lucerne ferry, Holden bus transport, many miles of walking); Saturday we finished the approach, climbed and descended to camp (15 hours, dawn to dusk); and early Sunday boogied out to catch the 10am Holden to Lucerne bus, then ferry, etc., etc. Would you believe the route looked this good all the way up? (Above: Sam follows the pleasurable 5.10a pitch 8, sends a sweet 5.10 corner on pitch 9, and earns his kale on the 5.10+ pitch 13 overhang) That would be a mistake: (Above: Eric confronts the heinous choss band of 5.8+ pitch 4, and the tricky steep delights of 5.10R pitch 12) While there were enjoyable stretches, there were also satiating portions of choss. Roof systems, particularly a large one that spans the west face feature near the top, provided few weaknesses and narrowed free-climbing line options to 1 or maybe 2 in places. We were both concerned about passage near the top, as bailing would be fraught and difficult. The technical highlights were five pitches of 5.10; three of these (pitches 8, 9 & 13) sported steep and fun climbing, but another two (pitches 11 & 12) were horsepuckey. For much of the climbing on these two steep 5.10R puckery pitches, literally not a single hold was loose; nah, haha, two or more were. While the featured rock inspired a kind of upward hope, protection was occasional, creative, and even whimsical—bring your bag of tricks. These pitches offered quality terror-tainment (@rat ©). This was a no meat-rain zone. The rest of the route predominantly ranged from mid-fifth to 5.8 on similarly varying rock quality—any given hold might be probably portable, or revealed as a solid protrusion of the mountain, eternally nonmoving and crank-able. Climbing of this sort can be extremely engaging and stimulating, and while Sam and I enjoyed moving up the route, it might not be to others’ tastes. For interested folks, he took concise notes on the pitches, and will hopefully chime in here with that info. * I encountered a 2.5” Trango Flex-Cam in a crack with a ‘biner attached on pitch 4, after the first heinous choss band but before the most technical climbing. This late-‘90s/early-aughts era cam was in a textbook placement and easily removed. The sling is weathered, perhaps had been sitting there for 10-20 years (hard tellin'). Anyway, given no evidence of passage in the pitches above, we surmise that perhaps this was used for bailing. A search for attempts or climbs of this feature has not borne fruit. However, if anyone knows better, please advise. Here are a few more photos. They don’t really do the route’s position and exposure justice, but they do serve to highlight the area’s rock/choss quality variability. (Above: choose your own adventure, then call your mom) (Above: In a move that typifies much of the climbing, Sam stems out in search of better rock) (Above: Eric following the overhanging section of 5.10+ on pitch 13) Here's an album with more pics, including descent: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8qAiXj6o4BfRSGJm9 Gear Notes: Lots of small gear was helpful, a bag of tricks (ball nuts, tricams) useful, and we also used some pins at belays. No need really for anything larger than a #3. 70m rope. Approach Notes: There are many ways to get there, but we took arguably the easiest starting via the ferry to Lucerne. Good bivy sites just south of the North Star – Bonanza col, around 7,000'
    7 points
  14. Trip: Canadian Rockies - Feeling down? Like you're in a Black Hole? I've got a solution for you: Go on an Athabasca Bar Crawl! Trip Date: 08/14/2023 Trip Report: Dallin Carey and I took the gear to go see about the North Ridge of Mt. Columbia. We were attempting to repeat this itinerary by Colin and Ian, albeit in much warmer/drier weather. Long story short, everything took longer than anticipated, there was much less snow/ice than anticipated, and we ended up doing the coolest backpacking trip of my life around some of the most incredible mountains on the continent. It was awful, but in a really good way. Day 1 - We got a later than anticipated start and hiked up and over Wooley Shoulder. Pretty much every source from climbers we could find just says "go up and over" with no mention of the shenanigans involved. This is only 5ish miles... It's also 4.5k' vert, involves wading a very cold Sunwapta River at the start, traveling over multiple glacial moraines and up some steep and exposed scree. We thought it would take us 3-4 hrs, but it took us 6 and involved some harrowing traversing on atrocious scree by headlamp. We didn't sleep until after midnight. Day 2 - We figured we had plenty of time to get to and up onto the N Ridge. Colin made it sound easy; how hard could it be? We started by traipsing through Sound of Music-esque meadows towards the North Face of North Twin. The topo maps were not revealing of the topography below and Colin's TR didn't mention this... maybe it didn't seem like a big deal since he was just hanging with a super-loc/guide who'd been that way before. Anyway, the meadows ended with a cliff of choss and a whole bunch of f*&%ery dropping thousands of feet down scree and forest to the raging torrent through more old glacial moraines that is Habel Creek... this is the actual Black Hole of legend. We wasted a good while figuring all this out and after down climbing, shwacking, and scree sliding we emerged creekside where the water pours out of the glaciers. Now we only had to wade the cold water, climb over more glacial moraines, and bushwhack out the creek, dropping another 2k' vert to the Athabasca River. This 4.5 mile section from our campsite to the Athabasca, which was entirely down hill, took us almost 6 hrs. I think I could shave an hour or two off this time with perfect beta, no more. As we emerged into the Athabasca River Valley, Habel Creek spread out over its alluvial fan creating swamps deep into the forest. We were wading through ice cold water filled with silt and simultaneously bush whacking. Breaks on gravel bars finally showed our route... no snow in the lower snow gully, bare ice on the lower snow field, massive black schrunds guarding the top, no ice or snow in the Scottish gully, big icy seracs overhead, and no snow at all on the ridge: climate change sucks a big one. It did not inspire confidence. Finally, while shwacking through more icy swamp water and having made 400m of progress in the last 30 minutes we decided to pull the plug. The N Ridge is probably the easiest(???) exit from the upper Athabasca to get over the Columbia Icefield and back to the car, we were well behind schedule and the likelihood of getting up the route was looking somewhere between Certain Death and Russian Roulette. We really didn't want to go back over Wooley Shoulder for a variety of reasons so Dallin suggested we could just follow the Athabasca River all the way out to the road... It's only 20+ miles of river walking, mostly with no trail. That sounded lovely, which gives you an idea of how totally F'd the other stuff was. We started wading back across Habel Swamp (as we had dubbed it), emerging on to gravel bars and made decent progress, walking/wading/schwacking in a much more leisurely manner until it was almost dark and we found a nice campsite on a gravel bar in the river. Day 3 - This day was delightful and felt like a pleasure cruise... If you consider constant glacial river wading up to your waist, swamp wading, moose/bear track following, and bushwhacking to be easy while carrying an alpine climbing pack and being swarmed by mosquitoes and horse flies. The average American would probably just lay down and die; a PCT thru hiker would probably declare us insane and never go back... but we did genuinely enjoy ourselves... though I still might not ever go back willingly. We finally stumbled out of the brush onto the so-called Chaba Cabin Trail and had a mere 12km of rolling single track to hike back to the Sunwapta Falls TH. A delightful young woman named Pam let us cram in the back of her live-in van (despite our stench and grime) for the 20 miles back down the Parkway to Dallin's truck. We then had to wade the Sunwapta twice at 8:30pm to retrieve our running shoes from the first day, which left us mildly hypothermic, and then the adventure was truly over. We cooked dinner at 9pm in the Ice Fields Visitor Center parking lot and watched rich old people sip their zina on the balcony of the $40 entree restaurant as the alpenglow faded over the Athabasca Glacier, which we had envisioned ourselves triumphantly descending after our rad send. Such is the roller coaster of life. Gear Notes: Light-weight running shoes for hiking were clutch. We did not use the tools, pons, rope, pins, cams, nuts, slings, or screws in any way. The boots were on my pack for all but the few miles up and over Wooley. In Colin's TR he hiked in his underwear as I understand he does from time to time to save weight. I cannot recommend this strategy in this terrain due to the sea of scabbed-over scratches that now forms the front of my legs, and the sea of massive red insect bite-induced welts that covers the back of them. Let's just say this may well be the first and last annual undies hiking trip for me. And also, screw you Colin! But maybe also thanks, for inspiring an awesome adventure. Approach Notes: Don't trust topo maps, don't trust Colin's TR, don't trust the rock, the scree or the dead trees. Definitely don't trust the deep holes between roots covered in 6" of moss that are totally hidden. Basically, don't trust anything you can touch, they will all betray you. Just become a wild animal, cease all higher levels of thought, and simply exist. This is the way. Pictures: These are mostly taken by Dallin, cause !!NEWS FLASH!! undies don't have pockets. Actually, we discussed in detail how Patagonia should make Colin Haley Limited Edition Approach Undies with pockets. But I probably wouldn't buy them. Well, maybe. Yours truly wading the Sunwapta. Screaming barfies for the feet. Yay. Yours truly approaching Wooley shoulder, Wooley peak behind. Yours truly walking down towards the Black Hole and the North Face of the North Twin. Looks easy, just go over there. Too bad you can't see the massive chasm of glacial, torrential, choss gnar that splits the ground just after the lovely marmot meadows. Almost down into the Black Hole. The moraine in the left foreground gives an idea of what the last bit down to Habel Creek was like. In the Black Hole after fording Habel Creek. Note the thousand foot waterfall getting blown sideways as it falls off the Ice Field. Finally getting views of Columbia. Phones take crap photos but very little snow, lots of exposed ice, more exposed rock. Blah, blah, blah. We are chickens. I have dishonored you Dave Cheesmond. We are unworthy. Forgive us. Let the scenic river cruise begin... The Athabasca Bar Crawl! Miles later this is still the alluvial fan coming out of Habel Creek and the Black Hole. We thought the whole thing was going to be connecting stuff like this. River views back towards Columbia. Dallin avoiding mosquitoes at our camp location for the night. He's wearing full alpine winter kit despite the fact that it's like 70F. Following what we called the Moose Highway. There were clearly many moose. Also bears. We did not see them, thankfully. But their tracks were numerous. Dallin almost stepped on a porcupine the size of a golden retriever. I may be exaggerating that last bit, but it was huge. Dallin at a rest stop on a gravel bar. Kinda speaks for itself. Swimming at a cold lake shortly after hitting the trail. Glory, glory, we are free at last! The lake was pretty. Then we walked a bunch more. Then it was over and we didn't die. The end.
    7 points
  15. It’s that time of the year again, prime time for choss. This year I gotta give Cedar Wright a huge thank you for helping me out with the Dirtbag Fund!! Having very little money left I was worried to have depleted my account on plane tickets and didn’t know what I would do once I was out here… crisis averted: thank you Cedar! Once again, wily weather kept Mo and I off Rainier’s Kautz glacier. With lightning on the forecast, we’d have to change our tune. Good skies west of the Sound looked promising, so we figured we’d return to the Sawtooth Range in the Olympics. It seems like every climber with a love of choss follows the footsteps of Wayne Wallace, so Mo and I had the idea of Sharpening the Saw and completing a North East Traverse of the range. Here’s Wayne’s TR. We had tried it last year and got turned around by the weather… that trip, we opted to climb the standard route on cruiser in the rain before turning back to camp, so we had a sense of the climbing As we were planning our chossy adventures, for some reason neither Mo nor I had considered returning to the Sawtooth Range this year, but the universe works in mysterious ways. Soon, we found ourselves waking up at five in the morning for an easy drive to the trailhead, where we eat miles for breakfast. Once at Gladys Divide, we found a high camp, dropped some gear, strapped on the crampons and walked to the base of Alpha. We stared at the Noodle Needle in the distance and looked back to see the ridge ahead. We knew from here on out it would get real, we were committed. A low angle snowfinger brought us to the base of Alpha. We had “forgotten” Wayne’s beta about the “tree in the gulley” and were desperate to try out this volcanic rock, so we ended venturing into a deep chimney roofed with a massive chockstone near its north face. A highball (though low grade) boulder problem brought us up to the chockstone, where it was time to rope up for the face. On the sharp end, Mo climbed straight on the face and angled left, aiming for the NE Arete. Some pro and a lot of loose lock. More loose rock than pro. Felt like R-rated 5.5ish., it was heady but fun, and similar to what we expected. From here, we simuled up Alpha Beta and some other steep pinnacles. This was very fun climbing, steep, exposed, but relatively easy and inspiring. When the ridge unfolded to give us a view of Cruiser, we were thrilled. Having not seen the mountain all day long, it was an amazing sight. The steepness of the North East face, and Waynes descriptions of the climbing, gave us a calm and determined focus. Cruiser began with a large easy chimney on its north side that I followed to a ledge below the North Face. With a big looming bulge above me, I contemplated the lead. I studied the face for a while unsure of rock quality. Climbers right? Looks steep… loose… damn... Wayne is such a badass…. I opted to start near the middle of the face and angle left. The climbing was comfortable enough, but I had to wonder what kept this mountain together. Every time I thought I found a placement, the rock would crumble at my hands, or shatter when I pulled on the stopper. Slowly and methodically, I did my best choss dance to get to the northeast arete, where the climbing was unprotectable but eased up. It was amazing moving through slabby tufts of rock with slopers for hands. I belayed Mo up and we scrambled down the third class summit to the rap station. Two raps brought us back to the ridge and up through the blob and other highpoints on the ridge. Movement through this section is absolutely incredible and easy and the views are overwhelmingly beautiful. Passing the satellite peak near the needle, we dropped down needle pass back to base. For anyone in the future, there’s a great bivvy spot carved out at the top of Needle pass. It’s reminiscent of the bivvy on the Otto-Himmel Col in the pickets and would be a great place for a single person to sleep. Back at camp we ate some of our “Chad’s Backcountry Catfood” (made at home by Mo) eggs with hen and chicken of the woods. Deep sleep on a flat rock brought us to the morning. We woke with the sun at around five and prepared for the day ahead. Back up to Needle Pass, a fun quick pitch to start the day. Climbing on the needle was easier than much of the ridge prior, very solid rock. We rapped down and skirted climbers right to the base of Castle Spire. Mo was ready for the lead and started on a steep, overhung arête. After attempting to pull an overhanging bulgy roof move, and finding no options for hands or feet, he decided to reverse the moves and traversed left and up to stay on the North-East side of the formation, before joining back on the arête. This was the hardest climbing of the trip. Plenty of loose rock but this time somewhat predictable. Direction of force and distribution of weight are key in keeping loose rock in place. Mo agrees with Wayne in that it was “one of the greatest leads on the trip,” and it sure was fun to follow. From there, we scrambled up what we counted as four castle spires. The exposure and ironically rock quality here is some of the best that you could ask for in the Olympics. We dropped down to the east side of the ridge to head towards the Fin, looking for the monster chimney. From a distance, the chimney looked intimidating, a huge slash cutting across the face of a giant. Unable to stay true to the SW-ridge raps, we cut further east to descend a steep gulley, soloing until we could find a place to rapel. The rap brought us onto snow, which we crossed to get to the base of the fin. What at a distance had looked impossible suddenly became inviting. Weird moves the face led to a long ramp with a deep chimney getting right to the heart of the mountain. The further in you got the safer it was. Big chockstones to sling, great texture on the walls, and the best rock quality of the trip. This climb was pure enjoyment. An easy scramble brought us to the summit as we stared at the Horn. We knew the Horn was where Wayne and David’s pure ridge traverse was compromised. We, too, would have to compromise the pure ridge at this point. Skirting around the Horn, we found what appeared to be either a climbers trail or an animal trail, maybe before they sent the goats away from Olympic National Park. This trail brought us back to the ridge, where we crossed a wide variety of small pinnacles and bigger peaks, but it was hard to differentiate one from another. We looked for tin cans and film canisters, based on previous trip reports, but found nothing, and only few signs of visitors. Here, we backtracked down the ridge to find a place to rapel, and found old tat from a previous party on a very sturdy tree on the base of the cleaver. Travel was tough at this point and we knew we were running low on time, so we opted to take three raps down to get to the snow to approach North Lincoln’s ridge. On the way there, fatigue started to set in for Mo. Lack of water and many hours of being on loose rock were taking their toll. He waited at a comfortable spot on the ridge as I did my best to move up what I assumed was picture pinnacle to traverse to the base of North Lincoln. Here, fatigue caught up with me, too, and I realized it would be irresponsible to keep moving forward. So I turned around and rapped back down to Mo. It was around seven or seven thirty, so we had been moving for close to twelve hours. Everything was much more difficult. On one of our raps down, the rope above knocked loose a lot of rock. One of these pieces was a plate-sized clump of rock moving at the speed of a bullet. I tried to yell rock to Mo, and even though he doesn’t remember it, he must have heard it because he ducked. Thank goodness he ducked. The rock bounced off a ledge and hit Mo in the shoulder. If he wouldn’t have protected his shoulder, the rock probably would have shattered the bone, but it seemed to hit the square section of the deltoid. After an assessment of health and cognitive function, and reminders to breathe properly, Mo gathered his wits and used the adrenaline to one-arm down climb back to the trail. Our attempt to sharpen the Saw had demanded much from us. At this point, with the aid of walkies and a good of sense of direction, we decided to split up. Mo would travel light, leaving everything behind, to get a head start and be able to rest a little. I gathered Mo’s stuff and hiked back up to our basecamp near needle pass to pack up everything. With Mo’s pack on my back and my pack on the front, and after so much continuous movement, it was time to begin the nearly ten mile journey back home. I was grateful to be out in the backcountry, close to choss, with the privilege to be able to travel through them. These thoughts kept me going as I hobbled like a joyful and overworked pack mule. A little ways the trail I was greeted by a sight for sore eyes, Mo was waiting for me at a high bridge, just as I beginning to get strange feelings about being animal bait once the sun truly set. Mo had walked down to flapjack and rested, moved on and rested some more, waiting three or four time before I arrived. He describes practicing walking meditations in order to move forward and wait at the same time. I am grateful to have climbing partners who are also my best teachers, because I thought this was truly profound. Long hard miles and a stop for water brought us back to the car at around 12:38 at night. The thing about this part of Washington is there is no hot food seemingly available at this time, and at this point it was more about the stomach than heart. Unsuccessful, we drove home to an early breakfast at the Moline compound and passed out. Overall, despite not completing a full traverse and compromising on elements of the line, we're happy with the effort we gave and what we were able to accomplish. From Mo’s adventurous line on Alpha to the challenges of North Lincoln, all of that movement on steep and beautiful terrain saw that our saw was definitely a little bit sharper. The FA’s grade of V+- 5.7R (old School) felt right to us. The climbing itself is not too difficult, but it is incredibly cerebral due to the nature of the rock. Wayne's a way better climber than either of us, so it felt tough, but that's why it's old school. Many placements felt more psychological than actual, because a lead fall would very likely shatter the rock. That’s not to detract anyone from climbing this thing: it deserves more traffic as its a gorgeous line in an incredible location—probably one of the best in the country—and an experience I won’t soon forget. With more traffic (i.e. rap stations, perhaps bolting the Trylon), staying true to the ridge for the whole traverse would become more manageable. Either way, it's an incredibly aesthetic ridge and an incredible climb so get on it!!! Anyways, more from us soon… Gear: 1 70m, med rack to 2”, lots of small stoppers (the tiny RP’s work great), lots of slings, tat cord. If you can, triple your small cams, haha!
    7 points
  16. Trip: Snoqualmie - NY Gully Trip Date: 03/30/2023 Trip Report: Kyle Tarry and Andy Traylor joined me for NY Gully Thursday 3/30. Enough has been written about the route over the years so I'll just say it was a fun time with good guys and share some conditions... Skinning up from Alpental was a little icy in the AM but the old swiped out tracks were nice for the descent in the PM. Fair bit of snow on route, especially the first two pitches and the exit pitches. Snow had a crust and was not supporting weight super well though we made it work. Made digging for pro a little difficult. There was ice but it was thin. We tried to place two stubbies all route and they both bottomed out. Turf was mostly good to swing into. Crux is mostly ice free. We did not do any rappelling but did two exposed snow traverse pitches to get off from the top of the crux pitch. Now what you all wanted... Photos! Pitch 1, snow on rock Pitch 2, more snow on rock Andy follows P2 Kyle on P2 chimney Views Start of P3 "box gully" Andy and Kyle following box gully/P3 P4 pictures, long 60m rope stretcher to base of crux, runout in places, snow covered slab at the end. Crux pitch - P5 Andy is actually on snow here, last of two traverse pitches to get off, traversed right over and up into trees. Gear Notes: Lots of beta on the interwebs, all seems to be about right. Definitely can't sew it up except for the crux which takes great gear. Approach Notes: Skis
    7 points
  17. Trip: North Side of Yak Peak - Humbled Beginnings Trip Date: 02/14/2024 Trip Report: “Humbled Beginnings” The North East Gulley of Yak Peak We had gone up to the back side of Yak Peak the Friday before, camped and did 2 pitches of ice the Saturday before. Upon doing so we noticed a line that goes for about 1000 feet on the north east side of yak peak. We had left Everett around 1130 pm Tuesday February 13th in Logan's 4runner after he got off work. Two minutes after getting on the road I realized I had forgotten my hardshell pants in my truck. We turned around grabbed them and officially started the drive. The plan was for me to drive up to the Falls Lake trail head while Logan slept in the back. I had managed 2 hours of sleep in the parking lot after work waiting for Logan. Thankfully had only worked 11-330 Tuesday because I had done a 19 hour shift that on Monday-tuesday morning 7am-2am. So I got to work a short day Tuesday but Logan got to do his long day the night before our climb. Clocking in 17 1/2 hours on Tuesday. Life in the emergency repairs world is like that. Most days are just 8's but if you have big plans count on a long work day right before hand because that's just how it goes haha. Anyways our first crux was an hour and a half into the drive at the border crossing. The Canadians made us park the car and come inside to tell them about our plan and then quizzed us on our insurance and whether or not it would cover an accident in Canada on a high risk activity. After some talking and telling them I had a Garmin high risk plan and showing them what that plan covered (a plan I do not actualIy have just happened to know about lol) they let us continue after a 15 minute delay. I drove for another hour and a half before I was almost falling asleep at the wheel and Logan finished out the last 30 minutes. We got to the trailhead at about 320 and both of us crashed in the back for an hour. We got up around 4 15 and double checked everything and got ready. Starting out an hour later than we had initially planned at 5 we started towards the north side of Yak Peak. We made good time and we were there in a hour. We stepped out of our skis and into crampons racked up and started out. Now something to keep in mind is we are NEWBS! We both started ice climbing last year which was a day at Bryant's buttress on top rope, and then a few days in ouray on top rope as well. I had done my first lead on Jan 14 this year. Logan had yet to lead. I started up the first pitch in much more brittle conditions than the weekend before. After the first pitch Logan did his first ice lead and took us up the second pitch. He kicked ass! After the second pitch we unroped and crossed the snowfield to the bottom of the gulley. At the base of our route we solo'd 50 meters of 60-70 degree snice before setting up a belay with a medium angle and a .75 cam behind a rock that protected the belayer (Logan) from spin drift and ice fall. I started up the first pitch with an m4-5 step protected by a #1 cam then traversed 15 feet up and left, placing a knife blade on the way to a 6 foot vertical rock with some ice bulges on the edge where I was able to get good sticks and pull up and over. Then 60 degree snice lead us towards the mouth of our gulley and just before our gulley I was able to get a #2 cam and then started up our gulley. The gulley began with a combo of 75 degree ice and since leading into WI3 ice just thick enough in most places to get a few 13s in. After placing a few ice screws I was about out of rope and made 2 19cm v threads one vertical and one horizontal backed up by a 13 cm screw. While building the belay a helicopter flew through the basin below us and must have seen us and circled around and came and looked at us for a few minutes. If anyone can get us info on how to get ahold of the helicopter that would be awesome because they have to have super cool pictures. After equalizing the v threads I brought Logan up. We were making terrible time and the first pitch of the gully took us almost 2 hours. The next pitch was the best of the route. 70 degree ice into some beautiful WI3. That went quick and I brought Logan up on a solid v thread and 22cm screw while getting heavily blasted by spindrift. Then Logan led a pitch of 75 degree snice then my lead up 65 degree snice then Logan finished out of the gully on 65 degree snice. With extreme winds blowing spindrift up into our faces. "Holy shit dude we did it. We finished it. We did the route." This was monumental for us. Logan and I have shot high and failed, a lot. This was our first full year of climbing. We had failed on Chair Peak last March after a fall and chest deep wallowing. We had both taken bad falls in the summer on rock. I fractured my L2 and L3. Logan fell 2 weeks later and had hurt a nerve in his back and cracked a helmet. We had attempted Early Winter Spires both of the last two weekends before the gate closed and bailed due to snow wallowing and running out of time, we had turned around two pitches up Triple Couloirs because we ran out of time, and those are just a few stories but we have been going for it repeatedly and just kept failing and we did it. We finished a route and the crazy and stupid thing is it wasn't even a known route. Now we did the 15 minute hike to the summit of yak peak hugged, screamed, high fived, and maybe shed a tear. It was 530 pm at this point. Then we started descending. Now if we were to do this again I'd climb with skis on my back and ski out down to the highway it would be an easy ski fast and relatively safe. This was Logan's first idea and I had shot it down because I was nervous about going into unknown terrain with skis on my back because I wanted to move unencumbered. We should have done it Logan's way. But we left our skis at the base so that was out. We talked about heading towards Nak Peak and descending the ridge that came off the sub peak between Yak and Nak, that may have been a better choice but we would be descending an unknown route in what was very soon to be darkness. So we ultimately decided to rap our route because it may suck but at least we know the evil. The first rap was on a single nut and 35 meters. The second rap was another nut and another 35 meters. Third rap was a knife blade and another 35 meters. At the bottom of the third rappel somehow my headlamp came off my helmet and went tumbling down the mountain, thankfully I had a backup in my pack. For the fourth rap it was another nut and the wind wasn't as bad now that we were deeper into the gully so we decided to start doing double rope rappels at this point. Typing this is fast but doing it took forever. We were battling winds on all the 35 meter rappels really bad. We rapped and set up a v thread. Pull rope. Rope stuck. Now here is more newb stuff. We had ran the rope through the wire of the nut. It was a big nut with a big wire that didn't seem to be a threat to cutting the rope, why not save cordage. Well while trying to pull the rope and realizing it was stuck I realized that that loop on the wire isn't rigid and when we're trying to pull it it's making the wire clamp the rope. So we decided that I would rope solo the pitch again so we cloved the rope to the anchor and put a micro Trax on then pulled out the second micro Trax to back it up, and I fumbled the second micro Trax, gone. Down the mountain she goes. Okay well I guess the first one will have to do. I climb the 75 degree snice, anchor myself untie the rope, put cordage and rap ring in, retie rope, reblock rope, rappel again and back at the anchor. Logan was just kinda on standby waiting for me to fix the rope so he ended up falling asleep sitting in his harness. Things are getting pretty real. It's about 9: 30 pm and we still have four more raps and a skin out. I guess that four raps seems like nothing now but things just took forever in that environment. Anyways Logan is in tough shape, so at this point it was just a juggle keep moving but make sure Logan keeps it together too. For the fifth rap I pulled the rope, ran it through the v thread to set up for another double length rappel, and then blocked it and rappel. set up another v thread for the anchor and after Logan came down we ran the rope through the v thread pulled the rope to set the 6th rap, another double rope rappel. This got us down to the fixed piton from the first belay and got Logan down. Logan is borderline hypothermic at this point I'm in the headspace of I have to keep us moving. That's my responsibility now is get us out and to our skis once we're on skis it's easy. Logan will get warm, we'll be moving, everything will be okay once we get to our skis. So Logan gets to the piton and goes "dude I left your tools up there." He says while shivering, scared,and in borderline tears. That sucked. I got those from the Wrights they were Pritis tools that she had pictured in Classic Cascade Climbs on Triple Couloirs. The Wrights are my heros they're cooler than Colin Haley or Honnold in my book so those tools had more than monetary value. But my friend is in bad shape and we need to keep going and leading that pitch took forever and it's almost 11 so I accepted the reality that they're just objects and we kept going. If anyone finds them I would love to have them back. They're probably in the snowfield below buried in powder. They're orange Cassin kinda old-school style tools with green cordage tied to the bottom. From the first belay station we did our seventh rap off the fixed piton which took us down the section we first solo'd and then walked across the snowfield down to the first two pitches of ice. Here we did our eighth rap which again was a double rope rap, off a tree. At the bottom of that rap we were back in good ice. I had forgotten to grab the 22 from Logan after the v thread above the fixed piton and so I put a couple 13s in and equalized them and then brought Logan down. Once Logan got to me I got the 22 and made a v thread which set us for our ninth and final rappel, again double rope,to our skis. Pulled my inreach out, texted my parents, we were back at our skis and then started skiing out. It was 12: 50 at this point. Skiing out was hellacious. The first mile wasn't so bad but the second mile was horrible. All of a sudden my heels hurt super bad from blisters so I sat down to adjust my boots. Fell asleep. Logan wakes me up after a minute and I realize I fell asleep. We keep skinning, on the lake Logan pukes. At the end of the lake we stopped to drink some water, we both fell asleep laying in the snow still in our skis in the fetal position. I wake up and realize what happened and wake Logan up and I kept skinning, we never drank water. I crashed hard on skis right onto my back. A few minutes later I hear Logan saying "Alex!" I woke up. I had crashed and I guess that was a comfortable enough place to sleep. He had turned around after waiting a few minutes for me so I guess I was out for 5-10 minutes. We finally got to the car at 2: 30 am making car to car 21 1/2 hours. Logan was a savage and drove us all the way back down to Everett to go to work. We got there at 5: 45 Where Logan slept for an hour and went in. I slept until 9 and was late. I think leading all the scarier bits and then leading and setting all the rappels in that head space of I just have to perform completely drained everything I had. Our boss noticed how bad of shape we were in and let Logan go out to the car and sleep around 10 and let me do the same around 12. Was it stupid? Yes it was, we should have not gone on such little sleep. I know I've been too eager to learn how to ice climb and while I'm definitely learning this was probably too much for us. Was it worth it? I mean we lived and to the best of my knowledge did the First Ascent of a new route in a cool area in Canada so that's pretty cool and feels good but it could have waited and we should have. Am I stoked? Yes but also humbled and my respect for the Wrights, Beckey, Wayne Wallace, Jim Nelson and numerous other alpinists, soared to new levels. They did such incredible things with much less and I have a deepened respect for all of them. Gear notes: Ice screws, knife blade pitons, nuts, cams to .5-#3 (BD's and the one black Totem), some smaller cams would have been nice. Smallest we had was a black totem. We ran half ropes, one 60m one 70m both Edelrid 8.2 which we really like for alpine stuff. Logan is making his own TR as well -Alex Cunningham Gear Notes: Gear notes: Ice screws, knife blade pitons, nuts, cams to .5-#3 (BD's and the one black Totem), some smaller cams would have been nice. Smallest we had was a black totem. We ran half ropes, one 60m one 70m both Edelrid 8.2 which we really like for alpine stuff. Approach Notes: Park at the Falls Lake trailhead, skin up to the falls lake campsite and across the lake, down through the basin and to the backside of yak peak. When the trees get less dense your basically there. There's a few good campsites.
    6 points
  18. Trip: Buckner, Horseshoe, Sahale - Standard Trip Date: 02/03/2024 Trip Report: Buckner Mountain (9,111ft), Horseshoe Peak (8,480ft), and Sahale Peak (8,680ft) Winter Ascents First Winter Ascent of Horseshoe (SE Face, M3) Feb 3-4, 2024 Eric and Francis Rapping off Horseshoe (photo by Francis) The weekend looked like a rare alignment of stable snow and weather in the west north zone, and we decided to tag some peaks along cascade river road. This road is difficult for access in the winter. It’s not officially maintained in winter, and it is at a critical elevation where sometimes it is snow covered and sometimes not. One thing is guaranteed in the winter, though – there will be lots of blowdowns. In mid January it was snow covered and I was able to drive to MP 15, then snowmobiled from there to the Eldo gate, sawing out a few trees en route. This weekend looked to be a bit warmer, but NOHRSC was still showing deep snow starting at MP 18. The route Our goal for the weekend was to climb Horseshoe, Buckner, and Sahale, with the trailhead starting at MP 23 near Cascade Pass. I expected to be able to snowmobile the last 5 miles of road, as I had back in December on a road clearing mission. The road is gated at MP 20 at the Eldorado trailhead, but a snowmobile can squeeze under the gate. I also expected a lot of blowdowns, and I have a 25″ chainsaw for this purpose. Logging out a few trees I’ve previously climbed each of these peaks two or three times, which is very helpful for times savings in the winter. On one trip in 2022 I had hauled up my theodolite to measure the double summit on Buckner and concluded the SW summit is 18 inches +/-3 inches taller than the NE summit. This was valuable knowledge for a winter ascent since we wouldn’t have to bother making the sketchy traverse to the lower NE summit and could save time. Last winter, 2023, I had tried to bag these same three peaks, but was thwarted by law enforcement. Ryan and I drove up to MP 13 on cascade river road before we were stopped by blowdowns. We got out the saws and started clearing, but USFS law enforcement showed up and told us we couldn’t be there. They never came up with a clear reason why we had to leave, and seemed reluctant to stop us from clearing the road, but they still kicked us out. I’m still a bit confused about that encounter. Starting up This time I hoped would be different. Friday evening I drove up Cascade River Road, and logged out six new trees up to a foot diameter. I was a little disappointed there weren’t any bigger or more difficult trees to clear. As my friend Paul says, this is just a bad year for blowdowns. Surprisingly, the road was snow free all the way to the Eldorado gate! The NOHRSC model had been very inaccurate. I jogged up the road another half mile past the gate and there was still no sign of snow. This was a bit disappointing, since it meant I wouldn’t get to use the snowmobile and would instead have to walk that road section. My general rule of thumb is to not snowmobile more than about 1/2 mile on gravel loaded down with two people and overnight gear since the sled will overheat. A few big washouts Back at the trailhead another car pulled up and the climber was planning to snowshoe up Eldorado the next morning. I gave him my beta about where the good stream crossing was three weeks earlier. Francis soon arrived and we got to bed around 8pm. Saturday we were up and moving by 1am. The goal was to climb Horseshoe and Buckner that day, then Sahale on Sunday. We would prioritize Horseshoe since it was the only one previously unclimbed in winter and was the most difficult, with a short technical pitch at the summit. Skinning up in the twilight Amazingly the road was completely snow-free all the way to the Boston Basin trailhead at 3200ft! NOHRSC had predicted at least 3ft of snow at that elevation. There was a huge washout at Boston Creek, and I suspect that, as usual, that upper portion of road will stay gated well into the summer as they repair the road. Climbing up Sahale Arm with Johannesburg in the background Snow started just after Soldier Boy creek and we skinned up to the Cascade Pass trailhead. From there we followed the trail up to the last switchback before it traverses to the pass. The snow was icy but a thin dusting of snow started at that elevation and we were hopeful that it might be skiable higher up. We cramponed up a few hundred feet through open trees, then hit a clearing and continued skinning. We angled up and left around a cliff band and eventually popped out on Sahale Arm just at sunrise. The views were amazing of Johannesburg Mountain across the valley sticking up through and undercast. We could also see the Ptarmigan Traverse opening up to Dome Peak in the distance. Skiing down the SE face The snow got softer all the way to Sahale Camp, where we stopped to take a break. Here we had a few decisions to make. First, we decided to bring our overnight gear down to Horseshoe basin instead of leaving it at Sahale Camp. That way if the climbs took longer than anticipated we wouldn’t be obligated to make the 1000ft climb back up to camp at the end of a long day. Second, we decided to ski the SE bowl down to Horseshoe Basin instead of downclimbing the SE ridge. I’ve always downclimbed the ridge in summer and fall, but there would be one 4th class step that would be sketchy with big packs and skis sticking out. Nice views across to Ripsaw Ridge and Buckner On the shaded relief map we noticed a route down the bowl that appeared to avoid cliffs. I found that Tim Gibson had posted a video on Turns All Year of skiing this route in May a few years ago, so we knew it could work with enough snow coverage. We had intentionally timed our departure to hit this section after sunrise so we could assess the route before committing to it. We leap frogged each other skiing the bowl, and there was just enough powder on crust to make for fun and safe skiing. We cut down hard skiers right, found the weakness through the cliffs, and successfully made it to the base at 6500ft. Scrambling up to the base of Horseshoe There we traversed around to a flat sheltered area at the base of the SE ridge and ditched our overnight gear. Above us Ripsaw Ridge looked very intimidating with countless gendarmes plastered in rime ice extending all the way from Boston Peak to Buckner. Horshoe was one of those gendarmes, though luckily I knew it was easier than it looked from afar. We skinned across the basin, seeing lots of evidence of old avalanches from the atmospheric river the previous week. We cut through the old mining site, then zig zagged up to a bench at 8200ft below Horseshoe. There the snow turned icy so we ditched skis and put on crampons. Me leading up the summit block (photo by Francis) We kicked steps steeply up the snow, then scrambled over a small ridge to the gully at the base of the SE face of Horseshoe. This area is easy to get slowed down by route-finding issues, and I was happy to have already climbed Horseshoe twice before to have the route dialed. We kicked steps up the gully then ditched gear at the large notch just east of the summit. Here is where the ramp leads up and left to another notch just next to the summit. It looked a lot harder than I remembered, with a foot of rime ice plastering all the rocks. The first time I’d climbed Horseshoe I’d rope soloed it in the summer and it wasn’t too hard. But this time I was happy to have two tools, a partner, and a good climbing rack. On the summit (photo by Francis) There was a nice horn at the notch we rapped the rope around a few times for the anchor. Then Francis belayed me up. The ledge got narrower and narrower and I had a bit of trouble finding gear. I remembered some good cracks above me, but when everything was covered in rime ice they were hard to find. I kind of just gold-mined around, clearing rime ice off of everything until I eventually found a crack that worked. The cracks were all icy and I wanted to pound hexes in like I usually do in winter. This works well in vertical cracks, but not so will in horizontal cracks under an overhang. So I ended up just using cams. Both on the summit (photo by Francis) I was very careful with feet placement on the ledge since I didn’t want to kick all the snow off and be left with a thin slab, but I also couldn’t necessarily trust the snow on the slab. I managed to get solid hooks with the tools before trusting my feet. Finally I reached the last notch and hooked a good jug with the tool. I then pulled myself over and clipped onto the rap anchor. I went over and tagged the summit, then belayed Francis up by 2pm. We had great views all around of Sahale and Boston above an undercast and Lick of Flame looking intimidating covered in rime. We took turns rapping down, and I was happy to have brought the full 60m rope. It comfortably reached the gully below, but a 30m rope definitely would not have reached. Rapping back down We collected our gear, then returned to the skis. It looked like there would be plenty of time to climb Buckner before sunset, which would be a treat. The slope was icy so we strapped skis to our pack then traversed over to the SW face of Buckner. I had brought ascent plates for the climb, but we only sank in to our ankles in the snow so they weren’t necessary. There were a few isolated pockets of 6″ wind slab, so we stuck to the edge of the face climbing between flattish areas below cliffs and minimizing exposure. Climbing up Buckner We took turns kicking steps, then reached the SE ridge where we ditched our packs and skis. From there we scrambled up the thickly rime-encrusted summit block, topping out at 4:30pm. I peered down the steep north face and was happy to not be skiing that. We had talked about it, but I bet it was risky with wind slabs. The traverse over to the NE peak look tricky, and I was glad I’d put in the effort to measure that we were indeed on the true summit. On the summit We soon downclimbed back to the skis and started skiing down. The skiing was fun, and we hugged the side of the gully following our up tracks. We soon reached the base of the face and traversed back to our stashed climbing gear at the base of Horseshoe. From there it was more fun skiing down to the old mine, then skinning back to our stashed overnight gear by 6pm, just as the sun set enough to need headlamps. We were still feeling strong and that campsite seemed a bit windier than I would have preferred. We decided to do our future selves a favor and climb back up to Sahale Arm that night, to make our Sunday a bit easier. Campin at Sahale Camp The slope up the bowl was too steep for skinning, but the snow was too deep for booting. Luckily I had the perfect solution – ascent plates. They are like mini snowshoes specifically for going up steep snow faces. I have a strong aluminum pair and an ultralight carbon fiber pair I made. Francis took the lead with the aluminum pair and I followed. We made must faster progress with the plates than bare booting, and by 8pm we popped out on the Sahale Camp shoulder. We traversed over to a semi-sheltered area, then set up the mega mid and melted snow. It had been a 19-hour day and we appreciated the rest. Skinning up Sahale Sunday morning we just had to climb Sahale and ski out, which would be a much shorter day. So we decided to sleep in a bit so we could make the climb when it was a bit warmer. We were up and moving by 8:30am. We roped up for the Sahale Glacier and zig zagged up the slope. Once on the SE ridge we packed up the rope, ditched the skis, and cramponed up the icy slope. Climbing up Sahale I’ve previously climbed Sahale twice by two different routes, and appreciated this knowledge. One route goes directly up the south face and has a short bit of 5th class climbing. I recalled a good rap anchor at the top of this route on the summit. The other route raps around the east face the climbs the north ridge. This route is exposed 3rd class. We got to the base of the south face route and it looked easier than I remembered. But I suspected the rime was still masking the 5th class step, and it would be tricky. So we instead decided to go for the exposed third class route. The east face was covered in snow and rime now, with 2000ft of exposure to the Davenport Glacier below. We would definitely rope up. Even if the snow climb were easy, we didn’t want a small wind slab knocking us off our feet. Looking down the east face I built an anchor in a rock outcrop on the SE ridge and led out. I traversed across onto the face, got some gear in a rock outcrop, then kicked steps straight up. I hugged the cliff band to my left, getting in a few more pieces as the slope steepened considerably. As before, the rock was plastered in rime ice and it took me a while banging the ice off before I could find good cracks for gear. On the summit (photo by Francis) I eventually popped out on the North ridge, then made the final moves to the summit. I dug out the summit block, finding the “Boston Peak” USGS marker and then the rap anchor I remembered around the summit boulder. I could now see Francis directly below, and I yelled that I’d put him on belay. He soon climbed up and we spent a few minutes enjoying the view. Boston Peak popped up out of the clouds briefly, and we got great views of Forbidden and Eldorado in the distance. It was 11:45am and was not too cold or windy. We hung out taking pictures, then rapped down. The 60m rope just barely reached our lower anchor, and I was again happy to have brought the 60m instead of the 30m rope. Skiing out We cramponed down to our skis, than had an amazing ski down. We made dollar signs across our up tracks, then picked up our overnight gear and continued down. The snow got a bit icier down low, but was still skiable. In all we got a continuous ski run from 8500ft to 5000ft, which was fun and fast. Back in the trees we booted down the trail, then took a shortcut in an open snow slope to bypass the lower five switchbacks. Back at the road we skied down to our stashed boots at snowline near soldier boy creek, then hiked back down to the Eldo gate by 3:45pm. There were no other cars there, which meant the hiker climbing Eldo must have made it down safely. That was good news. As we were packing up a hardcore Jeep drove in, and this made me a little disappointed since it meant there wouldn’t be any fresh blowdowns to clear. We made it out no problem and got home at a reasonable hour. 67/100 Winter Bulgers Movie of the trip: Gear Notes: Single rack of cams to 2", nuts, hexes (very important), two tools, chainsaw Approach Notes: Road melted out/logged out to Eldo gate. Melted out to around 3000ft. Bad washout at Boston Creek (MP ~22). Road bikeable to MP 22. Note: I wouldn't advise going up cascade river road without a big chainsaw this time of year. A few weeks ago I got blocked in by a 3ft tree but was able to saw it out. There are always new blowdowns on that road every week.
    6 points
  19. Porter, your photo makes it look like we’re in a bowling alley. Here is the picture taken with my phone. Only 5 of us old timers showed up. And Tony bailed on us. Stale Toast. L to R: klenke, Olyclimber, MattP, ChrisW, AlpineK
    6 points
  20. My friend Danyon and I climbed the NW Face on Little Big Chief last weekend on Aug 27th. This route is referenced as "Falcon Route" on mountain project, although I couldn't find the origin of this name as it is not mentioned in the FA (trip report here on CC: Saturday evening view of the face we were gonna climb: We approached from the Dingford Creek trailhead, which is about 13-14 miles on road/trail to the turn-off for the Summit Chief valley. We turned off the trail a 5 minute walk past the steel bridge referenced on MP and found relatively easy going with minimal bushwhacking up to camp below the NW face of Little Big Chief. Leaving camp at about 5:30 AM we wound our way up the talus, little gulley, and heather ledges to the base of the route, where we racked up for simuling and did the 200-250m of 4th-low 5th in a single simul block. This is roughly the way we went and the pitches aligned closely with the descriptions on MP: Pitch 1 had the promised undercling that must be traversed to the right, a good marker that you are at the right spot on the route, just left of of the big vertical "chimney" that splits the face. From here, we followed a groove on pitch 2: To easier ground on pitch 3 (trending up and slightly right along the crest of a convex feature) to the base of the headwall above. We found pitch 3 to be littered with a lot of death blocks sitting on the lower angle rock which we had to carefully maneuver around. A widening crack got us up the bottom of the headwall (P4): The pitches above (5,6) looked good at a distance but also had a lot of loose rock and some death blocks we had to work around. From there, we climbed up and right on easier ground over a bunch of choss covered ledges and one final pitch of ~5.7 climbing to gain the ridge. From there, we were a short distance from the summit, which we reached about 3:30pm. The MP description said to descend the ridge to the south from there. Definitely DON'T do that as that way looks extremely steep, loose, and uncertain. Instead, we descended to the north and followed the north ridge back down to Dutch Miller gap. This descent had 2 rappels from the summit on existing tat, followed by going along some easy heather ledges to skiers left to get to the north ridge. From there we easily scrambled down the ridge, where one airy step is passed by using another established rappel station. After that, it is all non-technical scrambling/walking down to Dutch Miller gap, from where we had to loop back around the trail and up to camp (had we known we would descend all the way to Dutch Miller gap we would have camped by the main trail rather than camping by the base of the NW face). As it was, we reached camp at 9pm, hiked part way out to the horse camp near the Hardscrabble Lakes trail turnoff and bivied there (1am-4am) for a few hours before getting up early Monday morning to hike out the rest of the way and go to work. Hopefully this beta helps someone. Overall, a pretty cool climb although it had more loose rock than we were hoping for and I would be wary of that. If you decide to climb it, definitely DO NOT do it under another party, be very careful about picking your belay stances to shield the belayer from rockfall above, and plan on descending to Dutch Miller gap. We brought the following gear: 60m rope 1x BD 0, 0.1, 0.2, 2x 0.3-#2, 1x #3 A set of pitons (never used, leave these at home) A set of nuts (never used)
    6 points
  21. Trip: Sloan Peak - Fire on the Mountain (8 pitches, 5.10+) Trip Date: 10/07/2023 Trip Report: After attempting the SE Shelf on Sloan Peak (the "Matterhorn of the Cascades") in early-October with some Alpine climbing students and not summiting, Priti Wright and I (Jeff) went back the next weekend to climb Blake Herrington and Rad Robert's brilliant route Fire on the Mountain. I've honestly never alpine climbed in the Cascades this late in the season (typically rock climbing). Late season alpine can have really variable weather, but under the right conditions can be surprisingly perfect! One weekend, the mountain was a cold, snowy, winter wonderland. The next weekend, it was a beautiful, warm, dry, summer Type 1 outing. We studied all the past trip reports, downloaded all photos and route descriptions from every source, and still had a couple of issues. This report is not a one-stop shop of beta for this route since I still recommend you look at the past reports/pictures, but here are some extra learnings that we would've liked to have known going in. Read Wayne's report and all the reports linked (we had photos saved to our phone since routefinding was not obvious to us): https://waynewallace.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/fire-on-the-mountain-sloan-pk/ Also, save the excellent Mountain Project Description: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/122891276/fire-on-the-mountain Also, take a look at Steph Abegg's description and overlay of the SE Shelf route (which is the descent route): https://sites.google.com/stephabegg.com/washington/tripreports/sloan-bedal Approach I suppose, theoretically you could also approach via the Corkscrew Route (Sloan Peak Trail), then descend the SE Shelf to get to the base, then take the Corkscrew Route all the way back to the car, but I'm not sure how that compares to Bedal Creek. Most people seem to approach via Bedal Creek, so that is what I will describe. Bedal Creek starts by driving a few miles up a really nasty FS road (4096) which is not on Google Maps (high clearance 4WD advised...I know of at least one party that got a flat tire on this road, and I had to replace one tire after the trip). Here is the turnoff from the Mountain Loop Highway: https://maps.google.com?q=48.0856022,-121.3886677&hl=en-US&gl=us&entry=gps&lucs=,47071704&g_st=ic Take the road up until there is a small berm at the end (there is space for maybe 4-5 cars): https://maps.google.com?q=48.0719366,-121.3763550&hl=en-US&gl=us&entry=gps&lucs=,47071704&g_st=ic NW Forest Pass required (I think). No backcountry permit required. Gotcha #1: The road continues past the berm where you park, but do not start hiking up the road. The trail begins immediately uphill via a good, clear path and flagging from where you park. The USFS description is confusing when it says "Bedal creek trailhead is not located at the end of the road." (that's not a typo, but it is a poor description) There are many trip reports of unfortunate souls continuing up the road only to realize the trailhead was back where they left the car. The Bedal Creek approach (despite all previous accounts) was weirdly difficult to route-find. After many iterations, I think I finally nailed the approach if you are trying to get to the West Face, North Ridge, SW Face, or SE Shelf. Here is a CalTopo map with tracks, turn-by-turn waypoints and water sources (recommend downloading the topo map and satellite map for offline use with these tracks and waypoints): https://caltopo.com/m/RFMPB/LE9HFB06R0Q6PE6H 2-3hours to reach camp under the gigantic boulder in the Bedal Creek Basin (site of the old Harry Bedal Cabin who mined for asbestos in the early 20th century). This is a fantastic site with spring water nearby on flat grass that can fit multiple tents. The only downside to this site is that it is so comfortable and idyllic that you won't want to leave. It is also the site of Washington's most secure and gleeful V1 highball. Many folks climb Sloan in a long day from the City, but we did two nights out for a leisurely Type 1 camping trip (plus limited Fall daylight). Camp in the basin, or higher up at one of the sites on the South Ridge (very close to the start of Fire on the Mountain or the West Face route). See waypoints in CalTopo Map Gotcha #2: Most of the season you will encounter snow and running streams on approach for water sources. We didn't get any snow or water above camp until we descended to the glacier...oops. Carry water. Above: The West Face. Note that the "West Face route" (5.8) actually begins on the Southwest Face (which is on the other side of the right-hand skyline shoulder) Above (SW Face): Fire on the Mountain starts on the right hand side and goes straight up to the pointy gendarme. The West Face route (5.8) starts up the left-trending ramp on the left side of the face that you can see in the picture above. Pitch 1 (shown above) starts in a chimney then finger cracks (5.10+) then belays on a shelf above the obvious finger cracks. Pitches 1 and 2 take the longest, then the rest of the route is fast and cruiser. Money pitch! Pitch 2 (Gotch #3): the FA party did Pitch 2 in two pitches, but all parties since have done it in one long pitch. We ended up splitting up the pitch due to routefinding issues and rope drag, and it seemed logical to split this pitch up since it is so wander-y. Some reports showed climbing a wonderful hand crack flake above the belay, but NO! Ignore this beautiful crack (shown above), walk 10ft to the right on heather and find another beautiful hand crack next to an off-width. Climb the hand crack on the right, then traverse right to a small ledge. Climb up and gradually right on runout face to a "vertical seam"....we never found any of this since the face climbing was too scary so I backed off. Instead, we did a low, hand traverse to a grassy gully that led up to the roof (this was a complete garbage variation). I don't know...weird pitch...I never figured out where to go, and you can't see the roof from the bottom of the pitch...just keep trending up and right). The roof was super runout, save your #3 and 4 for this. I would have very much liked to have had a second #3 and one #4 for this pitch. Pitch 3 (shown above): climb the obvious, right-leaning crack, and don't be suckered straight up or left. Pitch 4 (Gotcha #4): This is NOT an Offwidth (unless it has changed in 10 years)! The Mountain Project and the Steph Abegg descriptions of this pitch are correct. It's just an obvious straight up, right-facing, dirty corner. Very straightforward. End on top of a pedestal (old piton rappel anchor from Kearney is down and left of the pedestal). No place for a #4 on this pitch (what the hell Blake!) Pitch 5 (shown above): Get your slipknot ready before you get off the deck and eye up the chickenhead (shown above)! Follow knobs then a ramp leftward. Skip the first right-facing dihedral and continue leftward to the second right-facing dihedral (5.10c). Belay just above the dihedral or keep going as much as you can in order to make Pitch 6 shorter. At least one party I know accidentally went straight up (into a right-facing dihedral) from this belay instead of starting off on the left; they found hard runout climbing to get back on route. Follow the chickenhead! Pitch 6: Climb as high as possible until you run out of rope (consider simul-climbing because it's no harder than 5.8). Skip the heather ledge and keep climbing into Pitch 7. Skip the unnecessary "boulder problem hand crack" and just take the path of least resistance out right then back left. Just chose your own adventure and continue straight up. It wasn't harder than 5.8 unless you just want to do a 5.10 boulder problem. Keep climbing, aiming for the pointy gendarme. Lots of good belay spots. Pitch 7 (shown above): If you extended pitch 6 past the shallow, heather ledge, chose your own adventure up the easiest path (no more than 5.8 if you chose wisely) and continue straight up to the pointy gendarme. DON'T start traversing too early! Continue aiming for the pointy gendarme summit until you reach an overhanging bulge (shown above) and you are forced to traverse out left. Belay under this overhanging bulge. You definitely want to split this pitch into 2 pitches, which is very logical because (1) rope drag is terrible on the traverse and (2) you can stretch this traverse pitch and end it above the heather ledge where you feel really comfortable to unrope. Note: for reference, there is a steep, slabby gully on the left side of the gendarme...don't go here! Stay on the prow and traverse high which puts you directly onto the final heather ledge. Once at the safe, heather ledge, you can unrope, put comfy shoes on (it's 3rd and easy 4th class from here), and coil the rope. Gotcha #5: Don't start traversing right at the first heather ledge system you see at the top because it does not join the Corkscrew Route here. Whether or not you are opting for the summit, traverse left on gentle heather for about 30m until you reach a gully. Ascend this gully for another 30m (3rd and easy 4th) until you reach the HIGHWAY that is the Corkscrew route (shown above). From here, leave your stuff and go left, following cairns, a nice path and some more 3rd/4th terrain to the summit (~30min to summit). Or, if you skip the summit, take the Corkscrew highway going right. Pictured above: descending the corkscrew trail traverses counter-clockwise around the Southwest side of the mountain where you will get a view of the impressive East Arm. The SE shelf descent route is a lower shelf beneath the East Arm. You will need to descend down slopes down an obvious gully to a rappel station (15m rappel or low-5th downclimb) which takes you to the top of the SE Shelf. Some parties rap off the shelf onto the glacier, but we found that just going all the way down the shelf was pretty fast and safer (plus the moat at the bottom of the rappel could prove tricky). There is some low-5th slab climbing at the bottom of the SE shelf. See some of my waypoint notes in my CalTopo. Enjoy! Gear Notes: Doubles to #2, single #3 (lots of finger size cams). Would have liked an additional #3 and also a #4, but not necessary. Didn't bring ice axe or crampons since we knew that the glacier could be avoided by climbing slabs in late season (recommend ice axe and aluminum crampons for added safety). Bring lots of water. Didn't have any water or snow from our bivy site in Bedal Creek all the way to the glacier on descent. One hiking pole each was really nice. One big follower pack. Approach Notes: Download this map (topo and satellite) plus the routes and waypoints: https://caltopo.com/m/RFMPB/LE9HFB06R0Q6PE6H
    6 points
  22. Trip: Uzbekistan - Alpomish - New Highpoint of Uzbekistan Trip Date: 08/23/2023 Trip Report: Alpomish (4668m, IV, 7 pitch 5.8), Highpoint of Uzbekistan, and Khazret Sultan (4643m, III, 2 pitch 5.7), Second Highest Peak in Uzbekistan Aug 21-26, 2023 Eric Gilbertson and Andreas Frydensberg First Ascent of Alpomish Andreas near the summit of Alpomish Aug 21 – Taxi to Sarytog village, hike in Aug 22 – Hike to base of Alpomish Aug 23 – Climb Alpomish (7 pitch 5.8) Aug 24 – Hike to base of Khazret Sultan Aug 25 – Climb Khazret Sultan (2 pitch 5.7) Aug 26 – Hike out, taxi to Dushanbe Until now it was widely accepted that Khazret Sultan Peak was the highest peak in Uzbekistan. I’m working on climbing country highpoints so it was on my list to climb. On this trip we discovered that Alpomish, a previously unclimbed peak, is in fact the true Uzbekistan highpoint. Khazret Sultan is located on the border with Tajikistan in the Gissar Range and is not a popular peak. It was most likely first climbed by Soviet mountaineers in the 1930s or in 1961, possibly a surveying team. It was first named Peak of the 22nd Party Congress, but this name was dropped after Uzbekistan gained independence. The peak was next climbed in August 2005 by Ginge Fullen and Tajik guide Tolic, climbing the northeast ridge from the Tajikistan side. This was Ginge’s third attempt to climb the highpoint and he discovered extremely valuable beta about the route and logistics. This would make it much easier for future climbers like me. The route On the summit they found the cairn left by the first ascent team. At that point the peak was officially unnamed and just referred to by its elevation, Peak 4643. This was the elevation measured on the most recent ground survey, the 1981 soviet topographic map. Based on the 1981 soviet topographic map, the most accurate map of the area, this was considered the highest peak in Uzbekistan. There were no higher peaks on the map and no subsequent ground surveys after 1981 of the area. In June 2010 a team of Uzbek climbers climbed the peak also from the Tajikistan side and later gave it the officially-recognized name of Khazret Sultan Peak. They officially recognized it as the highpoint of Uzbekistan. This unfortunately has led to a bit of confusion because there was already another peak named Mount Khazret Sultan in Uzbekistan at an elevation of 4083m. That is considered a holy mountain and is frequently climbed by pilgrims. It is not the country highpoint. Since 2010 there was one other known ascent, by Pat Bauman (solo) in August 2018 via the northeast ridge. Pat gave me excellent beta, saying the route was mostly 4th class with one or two pitches of 5.7 (which he soloed up and down). He also gave me a few GPS coordinates of key locations on the route. The 1981 Soviet topo map. Khazret Sultan is labeled 4643.3 but Alpomish is not surveyed I’ve been planning to climb Khazret Sultan every summer since 2019, but it never worked out. I always planned to tag it on at the end of another expedition but usually ran out of time. Finally in 2023 I again planned again to tag in on at the end of another expedition. I would climb my remaining snow leopard peaks Korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma in Tajikistan, then afterwards if I had time I’d go in with Andreas to climb Khazret Sultan. Since I’d already be in Tajikistan and the best route was from the Tajikistan side it should be straightforward. Before the trip, though, Andreas noticed open street map showed a peak called Alpomish with a higher elevation about 6km south of Khazret Sultan on the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan border. I found Gaia had similar results. I researched all topographic maps based on ground surveys of the area and purchased the relevant maps from mapstor.com. The 1981 soviet map was the only one with enough detail to show both peaks and appears to be the last ground survey conducted in the area. Interestingly, while the map had a spot elevation of 4643m on khazret sultan, there was no spot elevation for Alpomish. The topo lines for Alpomish showed it slightly shorter. But with no spot elevation for the summit that means the summit was not directly surveyed and the topo lines for the peak are just approximate. We then looked at satellite based measurements (SRTM) from google earth. The highest elevation points on each peak were exactly the same to the nearest meter. SRTM can have high errors up to 16m or more on sharp peaks, so this meant the two peaks were within error bounds of each other based on SRTM. Google maps terrain view had both within the 4600m contours but Alpomish was within a bigger contour. That usually, but not always, means the peak is taller. I believe the open street map, Gaia, and google terrain elevations are using digital elevation models (DEMs) to approximate elevations in between point measurements taken by satellites. They use different models so get slightly different elevations. The problem with the DEMs is that they are just approximations. Unless the satellite measurement sampled the exact summit of alpomish (very unlikely for a sharp peak), then there will always be unknown error in them DEM elevation. This seemed like a very interesting problem to solve. Which peak – Alpomish or Khazret Sultan – is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan? Based on all existing information it was too close to know for sure. I could think of two ways to figure out the answer. The first was to fly a plane over Alpomish taking Lidar measurements which should be accurate to the nearest foot. That flight is unlikely to ever happen. The second is to go in and take ground measurements of alpomish. That I could do. Over the past year I’ve been acquiring survey equipment and skills that would be perfect for such an expedition. Just this july I finished an extensive survey project to find the true 100 highest peaks in Washington (results available at https://www.countryhighpoints.com/washington-top-100-peaks-updated-list/ ). I’ve conducted over a dozen ground surveys using sight levels, a theodolite, and a survey grade differential gps unit. I could apply those same skills and equipment to survey alpomish. My plan was to bring the differential GPS unit and sight levels to the summit of alpomish. The theodolite would be too heavy. The gps with a one hour measurement should give me an absolute elevation accurate to the within 3cm. As a backup I would use my 5x and 1x 10-arcminute sight levels to measure the angular inclination or declination looking from alpomish to khazret sultan. I could find the horizontal distance between them from Google earth and use trigonometry to find the relative height. I could then add the relative height to the known soviet-surveyed height of khazret sultan to find the absolute height of alpomish. To get more measurements to increase confidence I would then climb khazret sultan and repeat the whole process. I’d take an absolute height measurement with the differential GPS and also take angular measurements from khazret sultan looking back to alpomish. I could again calculate a relative height and use this to find the absolute height of alpomish. Also, if there were any intermediate locations of known elevation from the topo map I could use the sight levels to measure angular inclination up to alpomish and again find an absolute height. Finally, I would bring my handheld garmin 62s GPS for another independent source of height measurements. This has higher error than the differential GPS but could help increase confidence in whether alpomish is taller than khazret sultan or not. Ideally all measurements would agree. The more measurements I take that all agree the more confident I am in the final result. I usual am only comfortable if at least three independent measurements all agree before reporting a summit elevation. This was all a nice plan for surveying alpomish, but the more difficult part would likely be actually climbing it. I spent a lot of time trying to research if there had ever been previous ascents and I couldn’t find any information. We even had russian friends search in russian databases and they didn’t find any reports of ascents or attempts. This was intriguing. The peak had apparently never been surveyed accurately enough to know if it was the country highpoint and had never been climbed. This expedition sounded like true exploration. For better or worse with no beta or even pictures of the mountain I decided to come prepared for the worst. I would bring a full climbing rack with doubles of the intermediate pro, rock shoes, 60m rope, crampons, ice ax, and screws. I knew khazret sultan had a bit of rock climbing and was nearby so it was a good guess that alpomish might also involve rock climbing. We could make out glaciers at the base of alpomish from the satellite images so there was a good chance there might also be snow and ice climbing. Satellite images couldn’t really show if the peak was technical or not, though. With so much uncertainty in the route we decided to build in quite a few buffer days. We decided on one day to circumnavigate the peak to assess the best route and two days to climb the route. Then we gave ourselves two days to climb khazret sultan in case that had difficult route finding. We knew from Pat’s beta the best way in to khazret sultan was starting in sarytog village. However, it was unclear what the best way was to get from there to alpomish. I researched that there exists a trail over Mura pass nearby. That connects to an adjacent valley which would eventually lead up to alpomish. But it was very indirect – about 20 miles from khazret to alpomish. I played around a lot on Google earth and it looked like there was another option to climb up to a glacier up the valley from khazret sultan and cross a pass above that. Then we could try to stay high and cross one more glacier pass to get to the base of alpomish. That route was half the distance but there was more uncertainty in whether it would work. We decided to go for it, though, to save time. We probably had enough technical gear to make it work. So the full itinerary with all the buffer days added up to nine days. With all the climbing gear, survey equipment, and nine days of food that would make for very heavy packs. To help a bit we planned to climb alpomish first and cache extra food on the way in at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley. I would bring an ursack so animals couldn’t get into our cached food. I liked going for alpomish first because it was the biggest prize, was the main objective for the trip, had the most uncertainty, and was the farthest away. Thus it made sense to prioritize. If we managed to climb alpomish, then khazret sultan would be easy to finish on in comparison. With the trip fully planned we started out on our primary expedition to finish the snow leopard peaks. We started by acclimating on Bazarduzu, the Azerbaijan highpoint, then flew to Tajikistan and moskvina glade basecamp in late July. Over the next few weeks we successfully climbed Pik Korzhenevskaya and Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni, finishing the snow leopards on Aug 16. Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni, Tajikistan highpoint and final snow leopard peak The next helicopter out of basecamp wasn’t scheduled until aug 26, but it turned out a group of climbers had arranged for a medical evacuation flight on aug 19. One of them had taken a fall and needed to go to the hospital. Helicoptering out of basecamp They were nice enough to let us squeeze on the flight, though we had to bribe the pilot to accept (even though the flight was completely paid for by the climbers’ insurance). We were lucky enough to fly all the way to dushanbe on aug 19, a full week ahead of schedule! This gave us plenty of time for our bonus objectives of alpomish and khazret sultan. The climber ended up being ok after visiting the hospital. Back in town with internet access we bought flights home for early september and took a full rest day to buy food for our next trip and repack. Then we were ready to go. Aug 21 After two nights at the Green House Hostel we left our extra gear stored and headed out in a taxi at 8am. Lucky for us our trailhead town Sarytog is located near Iskanderkul, a big lake in the mountains that is a popular tourist destination. So transportation would be easy. We paid $80 for the ride which went due north of dushanbe into the mountains. We stopped for an early lunch of sashleek along the way and made it to sarytog by noon. The road on our intended route appeared to continue past the village, but it was rough and our taxi driver was not interested in proceeding. So he dropped us off at the edge of town. We took down his WhatsApp number in case we wanted to call for a ride back, but didn’t want to arrange anything in advance. There was too much uncertainty in the trip timing. We could get lucky and finish early (unlikely) or need more time and stretch our food and get back late. We figured most likely we could just ask around in town whenever we got back and someone would be happy to make some extra money and drive us to dushanbe. Andreas stashed some flip flops in the bushes (a good idea I should have also done) then by 1230pm we started walking. For the first hour we walked along a gravel road out of town along the south side of the Capomok river. The road would be passable to a normal car most of the way. Halfway we passed a set of buildings and volleyball net that was labed Camp Archa the meadows on Gaia. I think this is a popular weekend destination for campers from Dushanbe. Hiking up the valley from Sarytog The road ended at the confluence with the Mura river and we stayed on the east side going up river on a decent trail. It got narrow in a few places on steep side slopes but was generally very good. We stopped for a brief break at the small village of Sarikhodan. This was at the turnoff for Mura pass. The village was only six small rock structures and I think the villagers are mostly shepherds in the area. From there we continued on good trails on the east side until we reached the dikondara confluence. On our map it looked like the west side was easier travelling, so we decided to cross. It wasn’t too bad – we just took of our shoes and waded through the shin deep cold water. Crossing the Dikondara river On the other side the river edge cliffed out but we hiked high on sheep trails and mostly had easy strolls through meadows. After the cliff section I noticed a wood bridge down at the river. We would keep that in mind for the return if needed. We continued through easy meadows on sheep trails until 6pm when we reached our planned cache location at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley. There we waded across to the south side of the dikondara and found a good boulder to cache our food under. It would be easy to identify since there was a sheep carcass next to it. We continued a little farther to a nice flat meadow and pitched our tent there for the night. I boiled water in a tea kettle we’d bought in dushanbe since our reactor stove had gotten left at moskvina basecamp. The evening was surprisingly windy and we hoped it wouldn’t be like that for the summits. Camp at the turnoff for the khazret sultan valley Meteorologist Chris Tomer was continuing to send us daily forecasts to my inreach as he had done for korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma and it looked like the next few days would be good summit days. Aug 22 Our objective for the next day was to make it to the base of alpomish, about 10 miles away. It didn’t seem like a long day so I didn’t set an alarm. Around 7am we were woken up by a big dog poking his nose inside the tent! He soon left and I stuck my head out to see a shepherd on a donkey heading up the khazret sultan valley. He soon tied up the donkey and continued on foot. I suspect he was checking on some cows that we would later see grazing up there. Hiking up to the grassy cirque above camp He just happened to tie up the donkey next to our cached food and I was a bit nervous the dog might smell it and dig it out of the rocks I’d piled up. So I walked up there and moved the ursack to a different boulder closer to our tent. I figured the shepherd would assume it was related to the people in the tent and not mess with it. We soon packed up and continued up the valley. We followed sheep trails into a big basin with glaciers visible above then headed steeply up the right side. We found as long as there was grass there would be trails to follow, so we stuck to the grassy slopes as much as possible. We eventually ran out of grass and followed talus to the toe of the westernmost glacier in the basin, closest to the Uzbek border. The pass above the glacier is labelled pass 2 on gaia (but in russian/cyrillic). The glacier crossing to access the next valley The glacier was low angle enough and the ice/snow soft enough that we were able to continue all the way to the pass above around 4000m without putting on crampons. Interestingly I saw what looked like old sheep poop in some places and the pass had a small cairn. It appears shepherds must occasionally use that pass as a shortcut between valleys without needing to go all the way down to Mura pass. That’s pretty much exactly what we were doing too. It was very satisfying that all my research on Google earth had been accurate and the route had worked to the pass so far. The other side was low angle as I expected and we easily descended the scree and talus slopes to the next basin below. From there we traversed around the base of a ridge on 3rd class ledges to gain the next basin to the south. We crossed talus fields there to reach the toe of the largest glacier on the west end of the basin. The next glacier pass to cross This glacier was a bit steeper than the previous one and would likely require crampons to walk directly over. But there was a scree slope on the right side that looked doable. I was a little lazy about putting on crampons so opted for the scree slope. We made good progress and were soon at the pass. Surprisingly there was another cairn there. Perhaps shepherds use that pass too to get between valleys. We took a break at the pass and I noticed a formidable looking peak looming above to the southwest. It was composed of four steep spires like fingers sticking up from a hand. It was in the general direction of Alpomish. Andreas was skeptical that it was alpomish and I was hopeful it wasn’t since it looked really hard. We decided to get to our planned basecamp before worrying about it. From camp we could be certain which peak was alpomish. First view of alpomish From the pass we descended scree slopes then traversed around the ridge extending east from alpomish. We crossed some talus fields and eventually reached the small tarn at 3975m I had planned as our bacamp. The camp was perfect, and one of the most scenic I can remember camping at. The toe of a glacier ended in a tall ice cliff with waterfalls pouring into the tarn. The tarn had icebergs floating inside and was surrounded by boulders except for the southwest side which had a sandy beach next to the outflow. We pitched our tent on the beach by 6pm. Above us loomed Alpomish at the head of the unnamed glacier, as we verified on our map. For better or worse it was the same four-finger mountain we’d been intimidated by before. Now it looked even steeper. At basecamp for Alpomish It reminded me a lot of the east face of Mt Whitney in the Sierra nevada mountains of california. There was a huge granite face for each of the four spires. The left most (southern most) spire clearly looked the tallest, and I verified this with my sight levels. There was no obvious easiest way up and I was happy to have brought all the climbing gear. We would certainly need it. The next day was a planned scouting day and I hoped we could find some weakness in the peak once we walked closer for a better look. It was too late in the day to get any meaningful scouting in before dark though. But, I could get our first altitude measurement. I knew the altitude of the tarn from our topo map and could calculate the distance to the peak from gaia. Nice campsite by the tarn I measured angular inclinations using my 5x and 1x sight levels and got consistent results of 19 deg 50min. I calculated that alpomish was then between 4660m – 4670m tall. (There was a bit of uncertainty in the exact distance to the peak based on the topo lines on the map and this translated to uncertainty in altitude). That was significantly taller than khazret sultan! It was an intriguing result and already consistent with altitudes on gaia and open street map. I hoped I could get more measurements to increase confidence in the results. Sunset soon came and we went to bed. The forecast was for a sunny morning but slight chance of afternoon snow showers the next day, so we see our alarms to get up early. Approaching the east face of Alpomish Aug 23 We were up at sunrise and moving by 6am, ready for a potentially big day. The official plan was to do a scouting trip circumnavigating the mountain to look for a good route up. But we would bring all our climbing and surveying gear just in case we saw a good route to try that day. From camp we immediately got on the glacier and started walking towards the peak. As we got closer the features became easier to make out. The direct east face looked like good rock with cracks but would be very long. A gully went up to the left skyline which might work. There was a saddle to the right we could possibly use to get around to the back side of the peak. The rightmost spire looked like the easiest and maybe we could traverse from there to the summit. But that would require climbing the two intermediate spires which looked tough. Looking back towards camp There was a big gully leading up to the notch between the summit and the next spire to the right. From the notch to the summit looked short and doable. If that gully was scree or third class maybe the peak actually wouldn’t be too tough. We decided to go for the gully since it seemed like a reasonably high chance of success. Of course there could have been an even better way on the back side but we decided to gamble and try to go for the summit then instead of continuing scouting. This also had the advantage that we wouldn’t have to sneak over to the Uzbek side of the border, though I’m pretty sure that part of the border doesn’t get patrolled. Looking up at the east face We found an icy snow ramp at the base of the gully and cramponed up until the snow ran out at a slabby construction. We made a somewhat sketchy scramble up to scree slopes then traversed left onto third class blocks. The gully wrapped around to the left above us and we thought it looked all melted down to scree, so we ditched crampons and ice axes there. We continued up on third class blocks on the left side then met chossy scree up higher. We soon met a split with the left gully blocked by a huge chock stone. I guess that wasn’t too surprising in these kind of gullies. A right gully looked open and it was tempting to think it provided a way around the chockstone, but in my experience I judged that extremely unlikely. That gully most likely just led up to the notch between the next two spires. Climbing the east gully We climbed up to the chockstone and I saw light underneath, but it was too small of a hole to wriggle through. We would have to climb around. I changed into my climbing shoes and stashed my boots and poles and racked up. Luckily there was a crack on the face to the right that looked doable. Andreas belayed me up the face as I zippered it up with gear. At the top it turned into an overhang and I traversed left delicately on a steep slab to at last reach the top of the chockstone. I continued a little higher on scree to build a good anchor on the wall on the right. The pitch was about 5.7. Looking down from above the chockstone pitch Andreas didn’t bring rock shoes so climbed in hiking boots. I think the traverse was a bit trickier but he made it up fine. Above us we scrambled a little ways up chossy rock then encountered a constriction with a small waterfall in the middle. That was nice there was water to drink, but it meant there was probably ice and snow above us we hadn’t planned on. The constriction was steep and exposed so we decided to pitch it out. I led up again, managing to mantle up on the right side of the water to stay dry. Above it I climbed another small steep bit to an anchor on the left wall where the terrain turned back to scree. The pitch was 5.7. I belayed andreas up and then we noticed above us was a huge mass of ice filling the gully all the way up to the notch. If we could reach the notch the summit looked attainable. But we had ditched our crampons and ice axes. We would have needed technical tools and technical crampons and more ice screws anyway to make it up that. Ice leading up to the notch We optimistically scrambled up to the base to get a better look anyway just in case we could climb rock on the edge. But it was no use. We’d have to find a different way up. It looked like the only option was to move onto the face on our left and climb the remaining distance. Fortunately the rock looked protectable and climbable. Climbing the east face We descended back to my previous anchor on the left wall and I started up. I was able to follow ramps and ledges up to a nice ledge above for a 5.4 pitch. Andreas soon followed. Above that I tried to continue on ledges facing the gully but they got steeper and I needed to make a few stemming moves with an overhang to my left. I surmounted the overhang but then opted to traverse left to a ridge crest with a good belay ledge. That pitch was 5.7. Climbing the east face It looked like staying on the rock facing the gully was not going to work and we’d have to move farther left onto the main east face. The next pitch would be the crux of the route. I climbed a steeper 5.8 crack directly up the ridge crest. I poked my nose over to the right but it looked tough. So I instead made a delicate traverse left into a cleft. Shortly below me the cleft led to an overhang with extreme exposure but above looked doable. I made a few more moves to a ledge and belayed Andreas up. I think the delicate traverse was again tricky in hiking boots. Starting the final pitch From that belay I could see the summit, but the direct east face looked smooth and tough. I continued up the cleft and managed to cross back right to the rock facing the gully. There I found nice ledges and ran the rope out to its end for a 5.5 pitch. Finally the summit looked attainable! From that ledge I climbed directly up to the summit ridge behind a spire and crossed to the other side. I wove the rope around horns and followed the final knife edge ridge to at last reach the summit at 4pm. The final pitch was 5.5. Andreas on the final knife edge ridge to the summit ‍ I tagged the summit, which was a sharp bit on the knife edge. Then I downclimbed to a small boulder notch below. I slung the boulder and belayed Andreas up. Our route up alpomish Miraculously the predicted afternoon snow never materialized and we were treated to partly cloudy skies, warm temperatures, and no wind. It was a perfect summit day. We took a bunch of pictures and I looked over to the west side of the peak into Uzbekistan. Interestingly, it looked like glacier ice extended all the way up to the notch from that side. The rock between the summit and notch just looked like a few pitches and not too steep. So in theory if climbers came early season from the Uzbekistan side maybe they could just walk up snow to the notch and climb a few rock pitches to the summit. On the summit I soon brought out the survey gear and started setting up. I first made a quick verification with the sight level that all nearby spires of the peak were shorter, which was indeed true. We were definitely on the highest point. Then I got out the tripod, mounted the antenna and plugged in the differential GPS. I had a bit of trouble mounting the antenna somewhere so it could stand vertical and i eventually put it as high as I could between a boulder and the knife edge ridge. It needed to stand vertical for ideally one hour, so it didn't make sense for me to just hold it. I started logging data but it had trouble acquiring satellites for some unknown reason. I turned on my garmin 62s handheld unit and it was able to acquire satellites in the same location. Perhaps the boulder obstruction was an issue, but there weren't many options up there for mounting the device. Setting up the differential GPS unit near the summit I played around with settings a bit and finally decided to just let it take whatever measurements it could and I would try to process them later. I cursed myself for not taking test measurements on the way in, but it had worked fine on my last trip in Washington. It's possible the issue was related to me being outside the US. I was happy I had backup measurement equipment though, which would still suffice for measuring the altitude of alpomish in case the differential GPS didn’t work. I then took out my 5x and 1x sight levels and pointed them towards khazret sultan as verified by gaia. With each sight level I measured 10-20min angular declination looking down at khazret sultan. Clearly khazret sultan was shorter. Andreas on the summit I also noted altitude measurements from the garmin 62s and from my garmin fenix 6 watch after gps calibration. We hung out on top until 5pm taking measurements but then had to get down. I hadn’t found any evidence of anchors or cairns or any human presence so it seemed very likely we had made the first ascent of alpomish. Anyone else climbing such a technical peak would likely have rappelled off, but we saw no rap anchor evidence. I had come prepared with a lot of rap gear, though, and was experienced making rap anchors from my big wall climbing expeditions in the northwest territories, canada. View from the summit I slung a rock horn near the summit, backed it up with a cam, and started down. We only had a 60m rope so would need to make a lot of rappells (I wished then that we’d brought twin ropes, but that would have been heavier to hike in with). I planned to rap directly back into the gully since that would be shorter than our ascent route and hopefully require leaving less gear on the mountain. We couldn’t rap directly to the notch, though, since it looked too sketchy to then get down the steep ice without crampons. So I planned to do diagonal rappels until we were clear of the ice, then rap straight down. It’s a little bold to rap down a face we hadn’t climbed up, but it looked featured enough that I could probably make enough anchors. Looking at khazret sultan I rapped down diagonally and found another good horn at a good ledge to sling. I built the next anchor, then Andreas followed. I again made another diagonal rappell on ledges and again found another good horn to sling. Horns are great because I just have to leave some cord as an anchor. I’d brought 30m of 5mm cord for this purpose and it was relatively cheap. Unfortunately one problem with diagonal rappells on loose non vertical terrain is the rope pulls aren’t always smooth. On that pull the rope got caught on a rock and when I yanked it the fist sized rock dislodged from about 20ft above us. It grazed Andreas on the rear end but he said he was ok. Rapping down I next rapped into an icy gully and over to a ledge on the side. Unfortunately there were no horns. My second choice rap anchor is a two-nut anchor. Nuts are cheap – about $10 a piece – so it’s not too bad to leave a few. And they can be very solid. We were still over the ice so did another diagonal rappell on ledges. Again there were no horns so I had to leave another two-nut anchor. Finally we appeared to be nearly clear of the ice. I next rapped straight down to a ledge just above the ice and found a good horn to sling. Andreas joined and by then it was finally dark enough for headlamps. I think we were pretty efficient at 30min per rap. At the last rope throw the ends reached the bottom of the ice and we were soon safely back on scree in the gully. But we werent quite off the technical section yet. We walked down to the top of the waterfall pitch and I slung another horn. That pitch had seemed long, but by rapping directly down and relying on some rope stretch we just barely reached the scree below the waterfall. Rapping down the final chockstone pitch We then walked to the chockstone and slung a boulder above. That had been a long and indirect pitch too. But, by rapping directly over the chockstone we again barely reached the scree below. Finally by 9pm we were off the last technical section. I switched back to boots and we carefully hiked and scrambled down the chossy gully. After retrieving our stashed crampons we decided to try to avoid down climbing the sketchy slabs to the snow ramp. We instead continued scrambling down the blocky 3rd class stretch. It eventually cliffed out, but we were able to traverse onto the snow ramp at a safe spot. From there we cramponed down in the dark following our ascent route. We finally staggered back to camp at 11pm for a long 17 hour day. Last view before leaving basecamp Aug 24 We were several days ahead of schedule, but Chris forecast bad weather coming in Aug 27 that might leave a foot of snow on the summits for a long time. So we didn’t want to take any rest days to delay things. We allowed ourselves to sleep in, though, and were up and moving by 10am. The goal for the day was to move camp to the base of khazret sultan. All measurements had so far indicated alpomish was significantly taller, but we still wanted to be thorough and get final measurements from the summit of khazret sultan to be absolutely certain with our conclusion. View of alpomish from the hike out. Summit is the left spire We followed the exact same high route crossing the two glaciated passes. At the last pass we started getting snow flurries and by the time we reached our food cache at 430pm there was intermittent drizzle. We were very fortunate that hadn’t happened the previous day on alpomish. Crossing the first glacier pass We took a short break, got a little but of food out of the cache, then started up the khazret sultan valley at 5pm. We had earlier seen the shepherd go up the left side of the river so we stayed on that side too. The trail started good but soon deteriorated. We made slow progress along the steep sidehill full of talus. The light rain made the boulders slippery and we had to be extra careful. Finally we were able to cross to the right side and travel eased. We hiked a chossy slope up to an upper basin then hugged the right side on cow trails in the grass. Ascending the valley towards khazret sultan We reached the end of the grass by sunset and pushed on to a small tarn at 3970m a little farther up where we leveled out a campsite. I had hoped to reach the basin at the base of the khazret sultan route that day so we could scout the route, but it didn’t make sense proceeding in the dark with unknown water source locations. So we slept there for the night. Aug 25 The next day was forecast to be sunny until 11am then increasing chances of snow up to 1 inch on the afternoon. We expected khazret sultan to be mostly 4th class so would hopefully go much faster than alpomish. Starting up the valley at sunrise We were up and moving by 6am, and unfortunately the rocks were all icy. The evening rain had frozen on the rocks overnight. We hoped the sun could de-ice the route by the time we got on it. At the base of khazret sultan We hiked up talus to eventually reach the basin at the base of the southeast face of khazret sultan. From there Pat’s route was to hike up a gully to gain the east ridge, the follow that to the northeast ridge, then follow that to the summit. Hiking up to the northeast ridge This looked pretty circuitous and the ridges looked tough from below. But we optimistically trusted Pat that it was mostly 4th class and went for it. (For reference, Pat has free-soloed big wall routes on half dome in yosemite, so I suspected his 4th class was a bit stiffer than mine). I racked up at the bottom of the gully and we hiked up easy scree and talus to a big notch on the top. From there we turned left and continued up another wide choss gully all the way to a col at the intersection with the northeast ridge. I was amazed how much progress we could make on easy terrain and still not need to do any scrambling. That was not at all obvious from below. Good ledges on the north side. Summit in background We peered over the col at the northeast ridge and were met with a big cliff dropping of to the north basin. The route definitely didn’t go there. Staying on the ridge crest looked technical so we dropped back 10m and traversed across a good ledge below the ridge. We could soon scramble back up to the ridge crest. The crest looked 4th class from there so we scrambled a bit along it. We then moved to the left side and had to wriggle down a chimney to some dirty ledges that dead ended. Looking back along the ridge The terrain looked steep above but that was the only way forward. I switched to climbing shoes but this time kept the boots, crampons, and whippet. I didn’t want to get turned around by snow and ice. I ended up placing just one cam, then crossed the ridge and found a huge ledge system. I belayed andreas up and we packed up the rope. The crux technical section up from the notch From there we scrambled either on ledges to the right of the crest or exactly on the ridge crest. Any rock in the shadows was a bit sketchy since the ice hadn’t yet melted off. So we had to be very careful. We eventually reached a deep notch in the ridge and the terrain above looked technical. The right side of the ridge looked loose, chossy, and icy. I chose to climb directly up the crest from the notch. It was technical but at least not icy. Looking across the north basin I climbed some loose rock below then made a few low 5th class moves to a nice ledge. I noticed a slung boulder there so it appeared we were on the same route others had taken. I don't think this peak sees many ascents, though. I only know for sure of four ascents. I belayed andreas up then started up the next pitch. There was a piton down low, then I climbed a fun 5.7 corner. I eventually pulled myself up onto a pedestal and clipped an existing rap anchor that was a big black 11mm static line. This may have been left by Ginge. Climbing along the northeast ridge at the top of the 5.7 pitch That was the last technical section out of the notch. Andreas belayed me farther on 4th class terrain until I reached a chossy ridge. There we put the rope away and descended slightly to another notch with some snow in it. On the broad foresummit I switched to boots and we continued up choss, then talus, then 3rd class blocks on the other side. We eventually walked up loose slopes to a broad summit. A horn was slung and a sign saying Ucell and a bunch of Russian text hung from it. Slightly farther along the ridge we saw a huge cairn with a bamboo pole sticking out. That looked like the summit. Unfortunately it was along a technical ridge. So I put my rock shoes back on and Andreas belayed me one more pitch to the summit, which I reached by noon. Our route up Khazret Sultan I built an anchor, belayed him over, then we stopped to take in the view. Glaciated rocky technical looking peaks surrounded us. Far below were grassy valleys where sheep likely grazed. It was very scenic. The final pitch to the summit of khazret sultan I looked over towards alpomish and the four spires were meshed into one ridge because of the angle, but the peak location was obvious. I took out my sight levels and measured 10-20 minute angular inclination up to alpomish. This was exactly consistent with my previous measurements and confirmed alpomish is indeed taller than khazret sultan and is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan. Taking sight level measurements from the summit I also took measurements with my Garmin 62s handheld GPS and my gps calibrated garmin fenix 6. Both measurements had khazret sultan lower so all measurements (ten in all) were consistent that alpomish was the true highpoint. Both on the summit I hadn’t bothered to take up the differential GPS since i hadnt been able to figure out which settings to change to allow it to start acquiring satellites. And khazret sultan already had a very accurate ground survey elevation from the 1981 soviet map. The next spire along the ridge that is the true summit I next took sight level readings of the different spires in the summit area and noticed the sharp spire with bird poop on top farther along the ridge was perhaps a few inches taller than the cairn summit. We each went over to tag it just to be sure. Hiking back from the summit After taking all the measurements and writing them down in my field notebook I belayed andreas back across the ridge. I had instructed him to leave all the pro in on the way over so he could easily reclip on the way back. I changed back into boots and quickly started back down the route. We could see rain in the distance towards Sarytog and a few snow flurries were starting to hit. This was just as Chris had predicted. I knew if the 4th class rock got wet it could get sketchy so we needed to get down asap. Rapping down the notch We scrambled down to the snowy notch then up the choss on the other side. This time we continued scrambling the fourth class ridge along to the top rap anchor. I backed it up then rapped down to the intermediate ledge. We then used the existing anchor there, backed up, and rapped to the notch. It was so much faster with these existing anchors than it had been descending alpomish! Scrambling back along the northeast ridge in deteriorating weather At the notch we packed up the rope and started scrambling. Luckily by then the ice had melted off the rocks on the north side so it felt a bit more secure. But the snow and wind started picking up and the rocks started to get wet. We got to the end of the fourth class section and I built an anchor to rap off the first bit we had pitched out. With the wet rock I decided to pitch out the final fourth class section also. I climbed up the chimney, across the steep ridge, and was finally back to a third class ledge. Final scramble section I belayed Andreas up and we finally packed up the rope for good. It seemed like we’d gotten off the steep part of the route just in time before it got wet. From there we descended easy 3rd class ledges to our stashed hiking poles then scree surfed back to the basin below. We hiked back on talus, reaching our camp by 430pm. The clouds looked very dark down towards Sarytog and it looked like we’d missed the brunt of the precipitation, but the summit still looked windy and snowy. Good views of the dikon glacier below We quickly packed up and headed down. This time we stayed on the left (north) side of the river and were able to follow nice animal trails down. We actually saw a few cows grazing up there. By 7pm we waded back across the river to our previous campsite. We picked up our cached food, set up the tent, and were asleep by sunset. Hiking back to camp Aug 26 The next morning by 630am we waded back across to the west side of the river and followed our ascent route down. Progress was fast and this time we used the bridge to cross back to the east side among a herd of cattle. We had to wade across a few tributaries but mostly followed good trails. At one point a shepherd caught up to us and he seemed amused we were walking instead of riding horses. Camp down in the lower valley He turned off at Sarikonda village while we continued back to Sarytog by 11am. We found the Dornish Guest House there that fed us lunch and one of the owners was able to provide a taxi ride back to Dushanbe. We made it to Dushanbe that afternoon and returned to the Green House Hostel. I was glad we had made it out ahead of schedule since all the next day it rained and thunderstormed in town with widespread flooding nearby. The power was out and running water cut off to the entire city! I heard in the mountains they were getting a foot of snow! The routes up alpomish and khazret sultan probably would be out for a while. Hiking out I later processed my measurements and, based on the angular measurements I took and the known distance between alpomish and khazret sultan, I calculated alpomish is 25m +/-8m taller than khazret sultan. So given khazret sultan has a surveyed elevation of 4643m from the soviet map this means I measured alpomish has an elevation of 4668m +/-8m. This is consistent with the measurements taken from the tarn. This means Alpomish is the true country highpoint of Uzbekistan. After we got back to Dushanbe we had just barely enough time to climb Ayrybaba, the Turkmenistan highpoint. This completed our five-year project to climb the Highpoints of the Stans – the country highpoints of Afghanistan (Noshaq 7493m), Pakistan (K2 8611m), Kygyzstan (Pobeda 7439m), Kazakhstan (Khan Tengri 7000m), Tajikistan (Ismoil Somoni 7495m), Uzbekistan (Alpomish 4668m) and Turkmenistan (Ayrybaba 3139m). Link to more pictures: https://www.countryhighpoints.com/alpomish-uzbekistan-highpoint/ Gear Notes: Standard rack to 3", doubles of intermediate sizes, 60m rope, lots of tat and nuts for rap anchors, glacier gear, survey equipment Approach Notes: From Sarytog village hike up Dikondara river, cross two 4000m glaciated passes near Uzbekistan border, access valley east of Alpomish.
    6 points
  23. Trip: Goode - NE Butt Trip Date: 08/03/2023 Trip Report: Kyle Tarry and I climbed this peak in two days from Rainy Pass Aug 3-4. Day 1: Hike to bivy sites below the glacier and scope the glacial approach. Day 2: Climb the route (6x simul pitches), descend to Park Creek and hike back to Rainy Pass, arriving at 1am... should have probably just stopped to sleep somewhere. Pictures: Goode from North Fork Kyle at the NF creek crossing. Hiking up to the bivies, surprisingly chill trail through the slide alder. Logan and Fireweed Kyle slogging in the heat. Minimal schwackage though. Scoping the glacier and lower route. Kyle low on route, 2nd simul pitch next morning. View E off ridge. More scrambling with the rope on. Kyle romping... rope is less jengis than it appears. Even more scrambles. Choss f*$&ery on what I assume is upper Megalodon? Eldorado (far R), Forbidden, Buckner, Booker, Trapper Lake, looking to the W. Glacier Peak, Dome and friends to the S. Descent in the burn. Pretty, not too hard but dusty on this section. Purdy bits from the long walk out. 👇 Gear Notes: approach shoes are fine, 60m double rope folded over for simuling, single rack to #2 Approach Notes: There is a significant climbers trail from North Fork to the cliff below the glacier. We were both surprised at how easy the "bushwhack" was for NCNP. We were able to sneak onto the glacier and access the L side of the buttress above some crevasses with no serious difficulty. It looked uncertain from below but went fine.
    6 points
  24. Trip: Matterhorn - Hornli Ridge Trip Date: 07/27/2023 Trip Report: When I was a kid my parents received a large Toblerone chocolate bar from friends returning from Switzerland. In rural Maine, this was special; a foreign, fancy treat from a far off exotic place. My sisters and I were NOT allowed to touch it. I forget when or if it was ever opened and consumed, but I never forgot the fascination with the wrapping and the wicked looking mountain adorning it. Fast forward to 2018 and I got to see the actual mountain with my own eyes. I had taken a week long trip to the Alps with grand plans to climb the Matterhorn. But it was intimidating. Tall, steep, piercing the sky with no apparent easy was up. Fresh snow on the mountain gave me a convenient excuse to chicken out and set my sights on easier peaks. I never even made it up to the Hornli Hut at the base of the route. Back in Seattle, I kept thinking about it. I knew I chickened out, and eventually made plans to head back. Last week I got my shot. I acclimatized for a couple days over the weekend in Italy on Gran Paradiso, a beautiful and relaxed mountain that is a worthy destination all its own. Then I drove over to Tasch, Switzerland, just outside Zermatt and crashed in a hostel as thunderstorms crashed outside dumping snow on the Matterhorn. Tuesday 7/25 I took an early cable car up to Schwarzsee and made the two hour hike up to the Hornli hut where I would spend the next three nights. The storm had chased off most climbers at the hut, and there were only a dozen or so folks planning to climb. The anxiety amongst then was palpable. I was glad to have a couple days to time the weather and conditions better. The view from Schwarzsee: View from the near the hut: The hut. Helicopters make a regular appearance dropping off supplies (1L of water for 10CHF!) and picking up waste: Luxurious accommodations at 10,000': Wednesday I had a leisurely morning and around noontime took several hours and scouted the lower portion of the route which I’d be climbing in the dark the following day. The weather was good and it gave a chance for some of the snow up high to melt and settle. Low on the route: Thursday began at 4:00am with breakfast in the hut. At 4:20 they open the doors and let the Swiss guided parties out first, followed by foreign guided parties, then the independents and soloists like me. With the subpar route conditions, it was relatively uncrowded and more relaxed than I anticipated. 4:19: I was glad to have scouted the route the day before, but in the end it was easy to follow headlamps of the guided parties ahead of me. The first half was mostly easy 4th class terrain and snow free. A few hundred feet before the emergency Solvay hut the snow started and I donned crampons that would stay on for the rest of the day. I made it to the Solvay hut in 2.5 hours and took a short rest waiting for a few climbers to pass the technical crux of the Upper Moseley Slab immediately outside the door to the hut: Above this point I slowed down dramatically. Gone was the carefree snow-free scrambling. Now it was relentless exposed 4th class with crampons and big consequences. Thankfully the more difficult sections had big fixed ropes that I could tether to and batman my way up: 3 hours of focused scrambling later I was on top! The way down was significantly slower. I was tired and the exposure was never ending. Thankfully I had another night booked at the Hornli hut so I could take my time and not worry about cable car schedules. I eventually made it down late afternoon (~13 hours round trip) and after 40 years got to enjoy that Toblerone bar. Overall the Matterhorn was much more challenging than I expected. Although the movements are never hard, the shear length of the climb and relentless exposure is way more taxing than I could have imagined. Glad to say I've done it. The Alps are beautiful, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Gear Notes: 40m rope worked well for rappels. I used a PA with large locking biner to clip off to some of the fixed sailing ropes (at least I'd end up in a hospital instead of a morgue if I biffed some of the harder moves where the fixed ropes are). Approach Notes: Cable Car to Schwarzsee, then 2 hour hike to the hut. Climbing in the Alps is so civilized!
    6 points
  25. Trip: Mt Shuksan - Price Glacier Trip Date: 09/02/2022 Trip Report: = Mt Shuksan via the Price Glacier w/ Jeff McGowan = Dates: Sept 2-8 Rating: cl. 4, M4-, AI4+ C1 (or AI5+), R? Rack: 4 pickets, 10 ??? ice screws, 1 set of offset nuts, 1x#0.1-2 C4, knifeblades (unused) === Synopsis === This Labor Day Weekend I had a spur of the moment trip come together to fly out to Seattle to bag the Price Glacier on Mt Shuksan with a friend-of-a-friend, Jeff. This would be our first climb together, and the route serious, but he was a strong climber with a solid attitude, and my theme for PNW seems to be to do BIG routes with new partners and have some sort of crazy fuckup along the way 😜 Held true for Liberty Ridge, Ptarmigan Ridge, Curtis Ridge (DNF), N Ridge of Baker, N Face of Adams, & Complete N Ridge of Mt Stuart. The Price Glacier is a '50 Classic Climb' that is not done too often these days, as the glacier has receded and broken up significantly over the decades. Many years it is only viable as mostly a snow climb, or an alternate exit is needed as the glacier's bergschrund becomes impassable. Even then, it is a remote climb requiring carrying camp over to descend the Fisher Chimneys, and at it's easiest goes at AI 3-4, (and typically some cl.4-5 rock variation). It has objective hazards, so is not one to take lightly. I had relegated this climb as one that 'would be nice to do someday', but having the alignment of abilities, time off+timing with it in condition, and appropriate partner seemed unlikely. So this opportunity was a pleasant surprise, especially as a follow up to my being hospitalized from a cat bite blew up my last big trip plans less than a month prior. After significant research & planning, I had optimistically thought we could do the route in 2 long days. Jeff was more certain it would take 3 days as it did for more parties. However, doing this a month later or more than most recent parties, it took us 3 full days just to top out, and due to a perfect storm of minor mistakes coalescing by then, another 3 days to get out. By the end, Jeff & I joked that the trip was 'the gift that kept on giving', as each time we thought things would get easier, we'd get another curve ball. The route had fantastic and unusual ice climbing, mixed climbing, and tricky route navigation. The approach was arguably as tough as (if not tougher than) the north approach to Mt Stuart. It was the hardest glacier, ice, and mixed climb I have ever done all on one alpine route (under the conditions we found, it was M4, AI4+ C1 (or AI5+). It was also the most dangerous and most committing climb I have ever done. === Post-Mortem === I think it worth putting the post-mortem before the in depth report, as it highlights some small oversights that compounded during the trip. Overall, we had 2 major problems in the trip: getting wet, and getting off route on descent. On the getting wet front, we had a bomber clear forecast going into the trip. Still, I knew better than to trust the PNW forecasts more than 24 hrs (or especially 48 hrs) out, and although I had hoped we could knock the climb off in as few as 2 days, it turned out we needed 4. In the hurry to pack, save weight/bulk, confidence in the forecast, and expecting only ice & consolidated snow, I only brought a soft shell jacket (no hard shell), no rain cover for my pack, and I was casual about keeping my paper maps in ziplock bags (I am very diligent on winter trips or when bad weather seemed possible). This is usually fine 99% of the time in any other western mountains except in the PNW. Not being on soft snow, and having a tent, I figured things were OK enough. Then we lost the tent. I had also not considered meltwater on the glacier getting us soaked, much less the later rain/snow. Lessons learned. I also bring a set of socks for each day of climbing (or at least 2 sets, drying them out in alternating fashion) to keep my feet warm and dry, especially at night, and especially on my frostbite-damaged foot. What I should have done (as per Jeff's insight) was to have a dedicated set of sleeping socks in a waterproof bag. That way, if a trip goes long, and if you are unable to dry out day 1 socks for day 3, you at least are always able to dry and rewarm your feet for 8ish hrs each night rather than being stuck wet. On the getting off route on descent, we had a lot of robustness in our navigation systems, but again, with complacency and the rushed timeline of the trip, we had some common failure points that we were vulnerable to, where, again, I knew better but had gotten more complacent & was rushed (as with wetness, this only would have been a problem in the PNW, not the Sierra, Tetons, CO Rockies, etc. as they are far more forgiving ranges). First, I let the extra maps get wet by not being diligent about keeping them all in ziplock bags, whether I had them out for active navigation, or packed away for later days. Second, I didn't follow up with Jeff to see if he had printed redundant sets from the digital files I had shared (he had not, as partners rarely do). Third, my digital tracks and underlays were only on my phone. I normally consider the phone nicer to use, but unreliable (especially in the wet & cold), and put pains into bringing my old & beat up Garmin GPS along with awkwardly built underlays to use for navigation as it is robust in the wet, cold, impact, and can easily be recharged by bringing more AA batteries (which my headlamp uses.) Bringing a charge block to recharge phones is not as trivial to do in terms of bulk & weight, and does nothing if moisture is your problem. Smart phones are extremely fragile as far as moisture is concerned. On this trip I didn't have this separate GPS up & fully functional. I have been meaning to get a new GPS that was easier to read, update & use for such trips over my phone, but hadn't yet gotten around to it. I WILL before I return! (Update: I have done this for my Cordillera Blanca trip this July) Fourth, related to the second point, was that I had shared all of my researched GPS tracks with Jeff before the trip, but he didn't make use of them on his phone. All he had were a few landmarks called out with waypoints, which really didn't help us with knowing the path to take. Again, I could/should have followed up, as partners almost never use the vast planning data I compile, depriving us of redundancy that I intend to have. So I'd consider this trip a wakeup call to be more diligent with my systems (and communication+follow up w/ my partner pre-trip) again. Also to update my GPS (separate from my phone!) & sock strategy. The rushed planning & execution while I have been rusty in the area but familiar led to complacency that really bit us. == Day 1 - Approach (+4,280 ft, -1,150 ft, 6.52 mi, cl. 3, II-III BW3+/BW4- WA1 or WA5+ ) == The first day's objective was to hike in from the Nooksack Cirque TH and establish camp high on a ridge where one first gained the Price Glacier. If we made good time, we hoped to even make it to the optional higher bivvy in a notch after a smaller glacier crossing. Although the approach looked short by the stats (~5 miles, ~3,400' gain), I didn't dare make a time estimate as it involved a river crossing and bushwacking a significant distance and up steep terrain, so we just assumed a full day. The forecast for the trip was good. A bit hot with highs in the 70s to start, but dropping to the 50s for our first day on the glacier on out, with lows consistently in the mid- to low-40s as far out as I could see. Also, 0% chance of precip day 1 and slight chance of any weather the rest of the other days (I read this part too optimistically, which got me in trouble later.) Already the trip was off to a start with 2 hitches. #1, we had planned to cache a bike to serve as shuttle from the Nooksack TH from the Fisher Chimney descent, but Jeff's bike was stolen a few days earlier, meaning that we would have to thumb a ride, or if we got out at night, were faced with a LONG walk back. Second, my last-minute flight was early enough and my packing last-minute enough that I had pulled an all-nighter, and Jeff's transition from his last 24 hr EMT shift took longer than expected, so we got to the Nooksack TH late and tired. So we got a late start Friday. Still, we expected to at least reach low camp. So we headed out from the car through lush coastal rainforest. The river had damaged the first river crossing on the main trail, so we followed a newly 'constructed' one that began on the opposite side of the parking lot from the sign, followed a fainter path downstream in the forest before crossing on a planed log and continuing back up the valley where it ultimately intersected the original trail again on an old road with a cool wooden trail register box. From here the trail was well established and easy walking, and we made good time the first few miles to where we'd turn off to the use trail and ad hoc log river crossing. Apparently this used to be where a Wilderness Area sign was, but for some reason it has been removed. Fortunately I kept an eye out when we were close and found a decent use path that descended from the trail to the river where there were raging rapids, some ties on trees on both banks of the river and... no log! We noticed in our notes that someone noted this in 2018 but then skipped over what they did about that part 😜 It seemed like maybe the water was lower and they were able to use a rock crossing about 50' downstream. We had no such conditions. I debated if I dare leap from a rock and sprint across the narrow part of the river with current to the calmer water 15-20' away with a rescue line to tow me back into shore if I failed to make it (rather than get swept down river), and to set up a Tyrolean with for Jeff & our packs, but ultimately we decided to look upstream for another crossing. Back up on the trail, we hiked to the next side canyon drainage that cut across the trail, hoping maybe it would add more debris or tighter pinching where it intersected the river. Bushwacking brought us down to the river and by chance I saw a short & shallow crossing to an island that pinched the river narrowly enough that several small logs had bridged the gap. This will work! An awkward crawl and 15 min or so of bushwhacking downstream along the opposite side of the river later and we were back on track on the climber trail. We were happy to notice that it was well tracked, but even then, in this thick forest it was hard to follow. Fortunately, it was fairly well tagged on tree branches, so if one were careful to follow tags, occasional cairns, and signs of prior passage, the hike up to Price Lake goes fairly straightforward from here. If you get off route, though, it would be nightmarish. Even with the tags, the trail was VERY overgrown and rough, with LOTS of climbing on roots and trees as the slopes steepened. A BW3 sort of trail. At last we breached treeline near the lake and got our first views of Mt Shuksan's north side. Imposing! We could also see how bad the wildfire smoke was in the air and therefore why we both felt a bit sick & wheezy. Hopefully it will dissipate over the next day so that we can climb better and have good views! It was nice to FINALLY be clear of brush and able to 'walk' and sit down, so we took a quick break, at which point I noticed that the tent that I had strapped to my pack had somehow come off in the brush sometime over the past couple of hours. SHIT! Well, at least we had considered it an optional piece of gear, as with a bomber forecast and only camping on dry ground (or at worst, the flat snow beneath the Shuksan summit pyramid), bivvying out was fine with our sleeping bags and liners. Losing the tent actually ended up really hurting us later. Surprisingly, we hadn't been by any water since the second river crossing, and the lake was far enough away from the trail in rugged enough terrain that it would take too much time to visit in order to refill water. Unfortunately, this decision, combined with the heat, led us to run out of water well before stopping for the night. From here we had easy walking on the bouldery crest of an old moraine until it merged with a larger ridge, where on our maps the terrain looked to flatten a lot and be 'clear', but to our surprise the ridge was still very rugged. Now with no worn trail or tags, it was pure bushwhacking, and with a sharp crest (smoothed in the maps) and many rocky tiers hidden in the forest, we had it very slow going as the sun set. Many detours to the West led to jungle climbing back up to the crest over and over again in the dark. Real cl.4-5 route and branch pulling at BW4. Ultimately we realized that we would not even reach low camp tonight, especially as the ridge turned rockier and routefinding in the dark harder. Being dehydrated and sleepy didn't help either. We decided it was better to stop and bivvy on some good flat dirt just at the start of the continuous cl. 3 section of the ridge and hopefully make up time the next day - or just accept making it to a safe spot to bivvy on the glacier. Jeff was able to find a water seep, though, so at least we could rehydrate, have a good night sleep in warm conditions, and hit the next day hard. During the last few hours before daylight I looked carefully at the route, though, and it was MUCH more broken up and dirty than I had expected. I was worried that it might be impassable at all of the exits, if not lower down. Jeff was more optimistic. From this distance, though, there was no way to really know except to check it out. == Day 2 - Price Glacier (+2,760 ft, -560 ft, 1.88 mi, cl. 3, AI3, 55 deg snow, glacier) == We awoke the next morning to a beautiful sunrise over the Price Glacier. Although based on how the upper ridge would be, with it being rockier and the topo showing it to be steeper and narrower than the lower ridge (that turned out to be quite narrow with steep sides), we had expected tougher going, this section actually went quite well. Mostly cl. 2-3 on clean and solid granite with straightforward route finding, and just a few mossy moves of cl. 4. Before we knew it, we were on the crest where you have an easy traverse and slabby scramble down to the glacier. Unexpectedly, this high point is flat, has grass to sleep on, and even this late in the year had ample snow patches for melting water. We found the later bivvy on the notch across Nooksack Tower to be horrible (just a steep snow crest with steep dropoffs on both sides), so I'd say this is the best camp to use after the approach as the high bivvy doesn't save you much time. Or if you're like us and late or making bad time, aim to at least bivvy just at the start of the continuous scrambling for reliable water and good sleeping. The entry to the glacier is easy but with tedious and steep traversing a short distance over rocks, but was easy climbing. We roped up here and simul-soloed out onto the glacier, where the best path was to go straight up to the top of this glacier spur and traverse just below the rock wall straight towards the bivvy. Big crevasses a short distance always beneath you made this part a bit unnerving, but again, the climbing was secure and with a few strategically placed pickets is secure enough (just don't fall in most parts or you WILL pendulum into a crevasse - which is more or less the norm for most of this route). So as I said, the Nooksack Notch bivvy was awful, but good enough to eat a sandwich as I belayed Jeff down into the moat and back onto the glacier as he began traversing out onto the main Price Glacier. In prior reports, people took all sorts of variations, which seemed to be dictated by conditions, and even now, we weren't quite sure where to go. All we could tell was none of the prior variations seemed currently viable. The lower half of the Price is bisected by a Nunatak (rocky protruding ridge/dome) and parties tended to take either branch of the glacier, but staying close to the rocky rib. From there, most variations merged in the middle and then diverged at the bergschrund depending on the conditions of the 'schrund and bypass exit options, which usually involved some easy mixed/rock climbing. This year there was a major turd streak of a massive rockfall cleaving the entire glacier from top to bottom and running just right of the rock rib. Crossing it lower down looked easier, and the glacier lower angle. But the glacier also looked more broken up, and there was an intimidatingly steep buttress blocking what in other teams' conditions was a walk across. The left side of the rock rib looked to either be massive, and vertical to overhanging, or require directly ascending this ice buttress. Jeff ultimately decided to cross over to a protected stance beneath a rock buttress to gain the ice buttress and climb the prow of this into grooves and up to the left side of the mid-glacier, where we would then work right and cross the major rock runnel onto what we expected to be a mellow middle section of the glacier before dealing with the 'schrund. This first part ended up being one of the areas of the route with the greatest objective hazards. There is a waterfall pouring out from the glacier above here, cutting a runnel in the snow and regularly dumping rocks down it. Jeff led the simul across it, but once I saw it and him stop to place a picket beneath the rock and seemingly continue simuling into a down climbing to gain the ice buttress, I asked him to belay me from there so that I could run across the runnel and not risk starting & stopping and moving slowly, or tripping over the rope as he down climbed. I REALLY didn't like the look of this runnel, and during the time I could watch it approaching, it already had had 2 rockfalls, but at least the danger zone seemed to only be about 20' wide. I listened for any sound of rockfall, and once it seemed clear, I ran as fast as I could in my crampons into the groove and slowed down to climb up the 5' wall on the other side. As I did, I heard rocks falling from above, and as I started to clamber up the wall heard two large rocks bounce down close behind me. I paused for a brief second as my legs burned, snapped out of it and lunged a couple more steps higher to finish climbing out. Just after I started my lurch I felt a large rock clip the bottoms of the crampon points of my left leg as I was lifting it up. Naturally I found this unnerving, but at least now I was protected beneath the rock buttress and overhanging ice. Still, it gave me a sense of how dangerous the route is beyond falling, and how committed we were becoming as returning through these zones would not be trivial. Fortunately the mental strain eased up and things got fun! I down climbed from the protected position to one still protected enough to give Jeff a better belay over a spot where the wall gaining the buttress had more slope to it. Jeff ran through a short section of fun AI3 and up onto an AI2 calf burner for the rest of the pitch as he went up the slope and into a cool belay in an ice crevice that bottomed out into a nice pod to stand in. Now we were talking! The only downside here was the ample meltwater running down the glacier got my really wet (should'a brought my hard shell & not soft shell). Jeff launched off on the next pitch of AI3-, traversing back and forth and between ice fins until he topped out on the steep part of the buttress. From here the angle eased back and we switched to a LONG simul-climbing pitch that alternated between steep snow walking, steeper neve daggering, and occasional short steps of AI2-3 as we worked up and right. On our next simul-block, we reached our first bit of chunky monkey ice, where multiple crevasses had intersected each other but also filled in with debris (so not quite seracs?). I belayed Jeff through this as he tested blocks and bridges, wove around ice boulders, and slotted into and up our first ice chimney of the climb. Just as I began to follow, clouds raced in from below, dropping visibility to about 50', adding an eerie feel to the climb (and foreboding as to what this could do to our route finding). It also began to rain off & on, which further made me regret my clothing choices. I clambered along through the ice blocks and chimney, and just as I exited the chimney I encountered a LOT of dirt and rock. I looked over a 5' lip and saw Jeff belaying in the clouds. As I cleaned a screw here, he asked me to hold up a sec while he added a second picket to put me on belay. It was then that I realized that we had reached the big rock streak, with us on opposite sides. Yikes! I ducked down to wait, and over that time a couple of small rockfalls bounced down. By the time Jeff was ready, the clouds had lifted and I had a better view of where we were. This time the crossing was broader, with more uphill climbing. So I had another longer calf-burning sprint, but fortunately no rocks fell while I was in the danger zone. More did after as I belayed Jeff out to begin our next long simul-climb, though. FINALLY we were getting somewhere! We were above the steep lower half of the glacier, across the rockfall streak, and reaching the flatter zone before the 'schrund. Maybe we could make our way out today? Or at least to the flats just before that crux to shorten the next day? NO. Jeff ultimately came to a section where we were completely blocked off from above by massively wide and deep crevasses that spanned the width of nearly the entire glacier, and intersected such that no clear path appeared to available to zig zag up. By chance, there WAS a way to down climb into the glacier moat on the left side and do a drytooling pitch or two up to a ledge that connected back to the glacier where it looked like maybe we could get back onto the main glacier, and not dead-ended on a serac tower. The sun was setting, and at this spot there was a small filled in crevasse that made for a promising bivvy after a bit of chopping & stomping, so we stopped here for the night. Although the floor seemed solid, I hammered in some pickets, hung gear from them, and stayed tied in to them as I slept just in case. == Day 3 - More Price Glacier (+990 ft, -300 ft, 0.54 mi, M4, AI4+, C1, 55 deg snow, glacier) == Despite getting pretty wet the day before, we had nice conditions at the bivvy, a comfortable enough night sleeping, and just slightly wet sleeping bags. We enjoyed a fantastic sunrise as we had breakfast and headed out. I belayed from a stance in our crevasse bivvy cubby as Jeff worked down about 20' into debris filling in the moat, and clambered across to the rock. After an easy entry to the lower ledge, the climbing got harder. It stayed positive, but definitely needed small nuts, cams, and good tool technique for a 20' crux stretch. Jeff was so confident, he decided to show off and let one crampon dangle off his boot to climb this stretch with one of each 😜 This was fun to follow, the hardest drytooling I have done with a heavy pack on, and the hardest drytooling I have followed on an alpine climb! Some technique was needed, such as precise crampon work and pick torquing in cracks, and learning position 2 at the Boulder Ice Coop was helpful on a couple of parts as well (thanks Mickey Silger!). We both felt like this was about M4 and I was happy to get it clean. From here I belayed Jeff from a nice rock ledge as he chimneyed between rock and ice around some glacier chunks and up onto the nearest block. This piece looked detached but... had a snow bridge on the other side! Huzzah! We were free! From here we could see that the right exit variation some people took was totally out of action whether by ice or rock. The main 'schrund didn't look good either, so we were crossing our fingers about the rock variation on the left, although it didn't look promising. As we made short work simuling up the rest of the glacier to the 'schrund, I began looking at the wall to my left for options where we could do a longer rock variation lower, farther left, and longer up to the top if needed. The next question though would be how big of a moat would be between us and any ice on the 'schrund above or the rock bypass. By now visibility was on and off again with clouds fully moving in and drizzle beginning. We took care to routefind when/where we could since we had no idea when we might be unable to see far enough ahead to navigate. As expected, the moat atop the glacier was GIGANTIC. About 50' wide and seemingly bottomless. Jeff worked along the edge, and amazingly, at what was almost like a tunnel to another realm, he found a debris-filled split through the lip of the glacier to a debris bridge across the moat to the rock wall and 'schrund wall at that level. It would just be another chimney traverse and horizontal ice scramble from here! It was clear though that reports of a 5.4 rock variation to bypass on the left side would not apply to us, as the rock was VERY steep for the first 100' before the angle eased back. It also didn't have many features for climbing or gear and was getting wet in the rain. So I guess this variation is only viable earlier in the year... BUT, fortuitously again, at this distance we could now see some ice buttress coming down and left from the slopes above that LOOKED to be climbable - or at least when pieced together, climbable enough to bypass the overhanging terrain through zig-zagging. This was the way. Since this was near another debris line, we set an anchor beneath an ice overhang a bit to the right of the starting line, and I belayed Jeff on up as he started out on immediately vertical terrain on hard, smooth, blue ice. He turned the corner and was gone for some time. I heard lots of chopping, but with no movement, and wondered what was going on. About 75' out, Jeff called 'off belay!'. He couldn't be at the top yet. What was going on? I climbed up the first 30' of WI4 and turned the corner only to see an ice version of what looked like a desert canyon in Southern Utah, or a chimney in the Fisher Towers, rising steeply, with Jeff peering through a pinch in the ice about 30' above. Wacky! Clearly all of his hacking was because he was trying to figure out how to climb this thing securely and squeeze through it. It was hard to decide whether to back-foot, back-step, stem, or just pick a wall for your front points. Also where to swing as you corkscrewed around bulges and tried to avoid getting stuck with our overnight packs on. Here I saw that he had dropped his puffy and a spare glove, but it was still within reach to rescue. I hoped that maybe Jeff had stopped short because we could traverse out to the snow slopes from there, but once I arrived at the belay I was greatly disappointed. We were only about halfway to the top near a high point between a large ice flake and the main wall, and everywhere around us the main wall was overhanging! While I felt deflated, Jeff didn't miss a beat and was ready to try... something. I was wary as he climbed up and out over a drop to reach an overhanging part of the wall, but fortunately rather than attempt to climb such a hard pitch with a multiday pack on in this context, he switched over to aiding on ice screws. He hasn't aided much before (or at all?) but really picked up a knack for using my belay, french freeing and clipping in direct on short & long draws, to leap frog screws up the wall. Since I'd have to follow on prussiks, he tried to stay vertical, but ultimately had to work out left, hoping to zag back right. After an interminable amount of time belaying in the rain and under dripping water from the ice above, Jeff called off 'belay!' Crap. He left one screw in at the very end of the traverse - probably unable to traverse back. I'd have to self belay as I re-aided this portion to back clean all of the screws. So I spent a long time doing so, ending with a VERY strange transition from prussiking to freeing on the last screw by pulling over an ice fin into another slot behind. In accordance with my luck on the trip, as I awkwardly mantled over the ice fin, I managed to tear my intercostals (which fortunately didn't flare up for nearly a week). Straightforward AI2 traversing finished the pitch to an ice cave. From here there was one more AI1-2 section leading up and around an airy corner with a crevasse just over the lip, to - at last - open snow slopes! VERY slushy and about 45-55 degrees just above the large wall. A bit intimidating of a place to be climbing with pickets in what was becoming a whiteout. We carefully simuled the rest of the way to the top of the Price Glacier with our 4 pickets, but the fun wasn't over yet. The rain drizzle was replaced with a mixture of rain & snow and there was a sustained 30-40 mph wind blowing over the pass, and no shelter in sight. It was near sunset again, we were both exhausted, and I had been shivering hard for the last hour or so. We needed shelter. I downclimbed a steep roll to a bridge that broke up a milder crevasse/schrund at pass crest and found a small moat along a rock wall. Here I showed Jeff how even just with boots, crampons, and tools, we could flatted & deepen the bottom, and undercut the snow away from the wall enough to create a snow trench of sorts where we could both lie. Not ENTIRELY inside, but enough to mostly stay out of the rain. After some work, we finished our lengthy snow project we bedded down as best we could for the night in wet clothes & wet bags, shivering. I had no more dinner to prepare, but wasn't hungry, and we were out of water, but melting could wait for tomorrow. I had been feeling ever more sick throughout this day from nervousness & shivering, and at some point in the night, despite having no food left in my stomach, I ended up vomiting up to the point of major dry heaving, expelling basically just lots of fluid that drained back into my pack. Fun stuff. I'd end up burping constantly, feeling nauseated, and not having much of an appetite for the next few days. == Day 4 - Summit and Botched Descent #1 (+3,730 ft, -4,400 ft, 5.27 mi, AI 1, 50 deg snow, glacier) == We took our time getting out of bed the next day, with Jeff being the more adventuresome one in that front, chasing some patches of sunlight that were finally percolating through to the snow slopes. The storm from yesterday was finally winding down, with low wind and no precip, just clouds. By the time we started out, it was clear and warm, and after a half hour of glacier walking in the sun I had nearly stopped shivering. Still, all of our socks were wet, my down bag was fully saturated with water. My old frostbite injury was not taking the cold and continuous wetness well, and my scarred middle toe was a bad color of purple - but deep inside, the outside skin seemed OK (this later turned into deep internal hemorrhaging that was painful for the rest of the month). I had also forgotten to store my maps consistently in a ziplock bag for this trip, so all of my maps & annotated diagrams were ruined. It was a good thing that I noticed my phone was at 40% battery the day before so that I could turn it off to save battery. Using the tracks I had on a cached GaiaGPS map might be handy for making sure we take the correct way down - esp. tired as we were. Buzzing across the top of the Crystal Glacier heading south, we had one final interesting crevasse threading on some bridges and along the crest of a sloping narrow spine to reach another bergschrund guarding passage to the south-facing Sulphide Glacier as we wrapped around the prominent Shuksan summit pyramid. Just before crossing over, we finally felt warm enough to stop & eat, dry some clothes out, and melt snow for water since we ran out the day before. Unfortunately we ran out of fuel about 2 liters in. Oh well, we were on our way out today anyways. Climbing through the final 'schrund', a block Jeff was pulling on split in 2 and the larger chunk fell towards him, snapping the pick on one of his tools but missing him as it fell down and he pushed himself to fall away from it. Well, it's good that the hard technical climbing is over! From here, at last, we had straightforward snow walking up towards the summit pyramid and our descent. And PEOPLE! The first ones we have seen since the start of the trip. A guided party of 4 & a pair, who all descended a prominent boot track just as we began to head up the final cl. 3 scramble a few hundred feet to the summit of Mt Shuksan. I was still pretty beat, nauseated, and short of breath as I had exhausted my diaphragm panting and shivering yesterday, but I managed to enjoy the sun and scrambling to enjoy a summit with Jeff and then do some straightforward rappels back to our packs and the hike out. During this time we used Jeff's phone to follow up with emergency contacts to announce us reaching the summit and heading down with a follow up to come once we were out. By now we only had around 3 hrs of daylight, so perhaps the summit was a trivial waste of time vs. getting out today, but we expected to make good progress on the descent, pushing into darkness if we had to, to at least camp on the trail on our way out and finish the hike early morning. I loaded up my phone, and despite being left off, it was out of batteries, perhaps from the cold, or more likely, the wetness. Oh well, with a prominent boot track & daylight, we might not miss the GPS track. Onwards down the boot pack! After passing many spots where I thought the hourglass couloir was, and the boot track continued on, after descending much more elevation gain than I had thought we were supposed to (1,000-1,500', topped off water found on rock here), and with an hour of daylight left, we suddenly reached the edge of the glacier and a dry ridge. This boot pack wasn't descending the Fisher Chimneys route. It was descending some other route and there was never a path splitting off to our descent! Jeff's waterproof map was still viable, but at a much larger scale and with no route tracks. We could still confirm what had happened, and that we could easily descend this way, but on the completely wrong side of the mountain. It might take a day or two to hitchhike back to the car. We decided it was better to huff it back to the actual descent. Soon after, Jeff's phone ran out of batteries, but at least we still had the InReach. Not helpful, but worst case and unlikely scenario since now we had corrected our blunder (or so we thought). It got dark before we could reascend to the top, and I was beat, slowing down, and falling asleep walking. It was becoming clear that we couldn't force our way out tonight and needed rest. We also needed to sleep on dry ground. So we veered towards what we thought was the The Hourglass nunatak (turns out that was the next summit north) where it appeared there might be flat enough rocky ledges. We managed to find a good spot to level out a bivvy platform and bedded down. My bag was still so wet that I just slept in my bag liner, and all of my socks were so wet that I took them off to dry my feet overnight as they had been continuously wet since day 2. == Day 5 - Botched Descent #2 (+1,020 ft, -3,740 ft, 2.1 mi) == From what I could recall from the descent, one descended the Hourglass Couloir from the north side of The Hourglass nunutak to the west and then headed north across some glacier (Curtis, on the maps, Lower Curtis was the only one labeled) where you gained a ridge that was traversed and descended, with the Fisher Chimneys as the crux of this (with rappels). After that it would be all trail out. I thought I had identified The Hourglass nunutak & couloir on the larger scale map, so we headed to the couloir and down. (The remaining 300' slope ahead of us turned out to block our view of the actual couloir and I had misidentified the Hourglass summit on the map by 1 summit away). So down we went, as the snow got steeper and icier than expected from route descriptions, but still passable, so what else was new? We began to encounter cliffs that deflected us south until we had to exit the couloir entirely and downclimb a rocky ridge. Ultimately we needed to do a single rappel in order to reach a flat bottom to the couloir that appeared to connect to another chute that, according to our map, appeared to link up with the Curtis Glacier. During the descent of 'The Hourglass' we saw two climbers on the glacier far above (Upper Curtis Glacier?). They had camped at the base of the summit pyramid yesterday coming up from the SE, so we figured they were doing some circumnavigation of the summit pyramid. In retrospect, we were watching them doing the correct descent as we continued down the wrong way 2,000' below. We slogged several hundred feet up the far side scree chute, which ended with some straightforward cl. 4 scrambling to the notch and... a steep dropoff that appeared to cliff out with the Curtis Glacier far below. I could see a line where we could traverse along the flat upper part of the glacier to a shelf and pass through cliffs that I thought were the Fisher Chimneys, and the trail beyond. But it looked VERY unlikely we could get down there easily. Jeff ventured a bit down the ridge from the notch and decided that we could/should have traversed around this buttress on some ledges he saw at the level of the lowpoint of our descent - or if that was a no go, it looked like we could get into a chute that looked straightforward to descend to the valley floor. From there, we could pick out a cross country line crossing the braided river, ascend a dry river bed, and bushwhack through cliffs to intersect the trail just before Lake Anne. So back down we went, downclimbing the cl. 4 and scree chute back to our low point. It was quickly apparent that the ledges idea was a no go, but the remaining 2,000' descent to the valley below looked like maybe we could downclimb it with a few rappels and not get totally cliffed out. For the rest of the day we bushwhacked and scrambled down loose & mossy slopes and cliffs, interrupted by intermittent rappels off of small pines. We were committed to going down, now. Just as the sun was setting, we had one last rappel that turned into our worst one. It was a full rope length, dead vertical with many overhangs, but extremely choked with thick trees and brush. This turned out to be a VERY dangerous rappel on account of dynamics of controlling the braking and untangling ropes from the trees. Although I went down second, I tossed the ropes fresh again after adjusting the threading around the trees (pull test failed on the original anchoring, so I got it pullable). However, this set me up on a different rapp line than Jeff as he had tensioned FAR to rappel left and barely reached a thin sloping ledge just before the ends of the ropes. As I went down, it was tough controlling my footing, as I'd slip, feet would get caught in trees and flip me upside down. If I rapped below where the rope was tangled in branches, it stopped my rappel and I had to attempt to free the ropes under tension while 90% free hanging and 10% boosted by branches of unknown stability, so I had to stop more to attempt to untangle the ropes single-handed on free-hanging rappels. I lost control twice and burned my hands regaining control of the rope. A klemheist wouldn't have helped either as it would have made it more difficult to resume rappelling and would have gotten caught a lot. It was dark as I neared Jeff, and I called out to see how close I was as the ground did not seem very close. It turned out he was nearly level with me, about 20' to my left, but FAR too far away to traverse with the trees holding me back. I could see that I had about 15' of rope left and a dropoff below. So yay, locking off and trying to stand on a branch, I tied an overhand in the ropes just beneath my device as a backup, pulled up the ends, and added backup knots as whatever shenanigans I'd be doing would be near/at/beyond those ends. The backup knots ended up wedging into my device before I could barely traverse towards Jeff through the brush on the narrow ledge. Eager to get off, get my pack off, and work out the rope later, I disconnected from the rappel as I pulled over on branches. We had about 40' of mossy cl. 3 slabs & thin ledges to traverse into the gully. Jeff's headlamp was beginning to malfunction so we only had one headlamp between the two of us now. No getting out tonight. We traversed into the gully and found a level-ish spot atop some large boulders to carve out another bivvy ledge by running water (yay!). Jeff was not eager to retrieve the rope the next day & was confident that we could walk out from here. I was also not eager to retrieve the rope unless we REALLY needed it. We had one of our warmest & driest nights sleeping at this perch and were excited to FINALLY (maybe) be free and able to get out the next day. == Day 6 - Getting Out (+2,540 ft, -2,580 ft, 5.02 mi; 1,220' descent, 1,120' ascent to trail) == We awoke to sunny skies and a fantastic view down to the river. Apart from one roll over that had me concerned what lay beyond, it looked walkable all the way down! We flipped off the stuck rappel rope and hurried on down. To our joy, at the river we discovered delicious Huckleberries. Jeff's instincts were to immediately forage. I soon joined him and enjoyed the sugary juiciness of the berries. FAR BETTER than the half bags of skittles, peanuts and 'starvation granola' that we had been splitting the last 3 days. After a well-deserved feast, we started up the valley, almost feeling ready to relax and be hopeful, but still wary of letting our guard down. At last, our luck had improved. The walk up the dry riverbed was easy, leading to a steepening but still easy grassy ledge & slope. This turned up into a rocky wash with cl. 3-4 tiers (perhaps a spot or two of 5.0) on mostly good rock and not too much moss or branches in the way. After that we had about 100' of bushwacking and then - smack! The trail! Cutting clean across the slope like a highway. We were free! After about 4 miles, -/+ 500' of gain, and many intersting encounters with people on the trail (including some who saw our headlamps from Lake Anne last night & were worried - they gave us LOTS of food!) we made it to the Lake Anne TH. During this time we crossed paths with maybe 3-4 teams planning on ascending the Fisher Chimneys. Jeff and I did our community service of warning each group of the conditions we encountered, and were confused with what the hikers were saying. Something about not going on the Lower Curtis? Hmm... We lucked out with finding a chatty local & mountain veteran Jim who was just coming out from his own solo backpacking trip. He was willing to give us a ride back to our car! Not only that, but he gave us chips while he got his truck ready, and proceeded to tell us about his experience on the N Side of Shuksan in the 80s and the history of the Mt Baker highway and old Mt Baker Lodge. Before we knew it, we were back at the car. Most importantly, we were back at the recovery beer, chips & sausage. During the ride down, I got a glimps of Shuksan that confirmed a sneaking suspicion that I had, which was immediately confirmed as soon as I got my phone charged enough to turn on and review my planning tracks. We had descended the WRONG route. The couloir we had descended was not part of ANY route! That explains the troubles we had the past 2 days... I had missed my plane flight out this day to SLC for work, my friend Jessica was going to be picking me up that night (oops) and we were now 2 days overdue from beyond our 1 day overdue check in (3 days total overdue), so as we drove out and got reception, we still had plenty of work to do to clean up the mess that our climb had become. Gear Notes: 4 pickets, 10 ??? ice screws, 1 set of offset nuts, 1x#0.1-2 C4 Approach Notes: Log bridge is washed out. There are crossings farther upstream. I can provide GPX tracks.
    6 points
  26. Trip: Augustin Peak - Trident Glacier - Kichatna Mountains - [FA] North Buttress (Alaska Grade V, AI4, 4,600ft) Trip Date: 04/21/2023 Trip Report: I will likely continue to update this TR with pictures, history and info about this part of the range. So stay tuned. On April 19th Kurt Ross, Nelson Neirinck and I flew into the Kichatna Mountains of Alaska with three weeks of food and hopes to climb a couple new routes if weather allowed. We got dropped off on the Trident, a tri-forked glacier on the east edge of the range. Our primary objective was to attempt the unclimbed N-Buttress of Augustin Peak up to the north ridge, which we would then follow to the summit. We arrived right at the end of a stellar weather window, allowing us no time to explore or get a feel for conditions. We crossed our fingers hoping for good neve, but accepted that sugar snow wallowing was entirely possible. While Kurt finished setting up our hasty basecamp, and Nelson slept off his jet lag (he had just flown in from Norway), I skied over to get photos of our route and choose a line as the sun fell behind the neighboring peaks. My alarm went off at 4am the next morning. Nerves were high as we ate a hefty breakfast and discussed our planned route. With so many question marks, we almost bailed on our plan in favor of poking around to get more info on the snowpack. Thankfully we stuck with plan A, but in turn got a somewhat comfortable start at 6am with two and a half days of food and fuel. We expected to bivy somewhere on the north ridge that night, hopefully summiting and descending the next day. Following my skin track over to the base, we trudged up the snow cone to the start of the route which boasted nice looking water ice to start the day. Nelson took the first block, leading us up the ice steps in a fun ~100m pitch of AI3. From there he led up another 250m pitch up through some more easy ice and up the lower snowfield to the base of the runnels I had spotted the day prior. This was the last time we used the Ice screws for the remainder of the route. This part of the buttress was one of the bigger question marks. From below we could see a series of narrow runnels cutting perfectly through the face, but whether it was Ice, neve or sugar snow was what we were scared of. As Kurt took off, we were delighted to find almost perfect neve plastered to the walls, and just enough rock gear to keep it reasonable. These two long pitches were by far the best climbing on the route. I wished it would go on forever. A small cornice crux led us out of the runnels and into the upper snowfield. Here we unroped and trudged for around 350 meters up to where the buttress met the ridge. It was only 3pm at this point, and with 8 hours of daylight remaining, we hoped we could make it up and over to the east ridge where we could chop out a bivy to spend the night. Based on the conditions up to that point, we decided to skip the crux of the ridge, and traverse lower along the exposed NE face to surpass the corniced knife edge above. After brewing up in the sun, I took over the lead for the ridge ahead. The middle gendarme provided sunbaked rotten slush climbing to get up and over. Once on the NE face I tried to make a shortcut through a rock band, but encountered vertical facets over rock, so backed off and descended around instead on the easier but faster terrain below. Once the pro ran out, we unroped and continued to the summit simul soloing the same steep snow to AI2 conditions we had been on for the past several hours. We reached the summit around 9pm as the evening sun began to set. Despite being pretty tuckered out, the increasing winds and rapidly dropping temps encouraged us to keep moving. Chopping out a platform for our two person tent while being hammered by wind did not seem appealing. Down climbing to flatter, less exposed terrain did. Still unroped, we began our slow trudge down the east ridge toward the NE face. 2,500ft and two and a half hours of face in down climbing later, we reached the glacier. Now roped up for glacier travel, Kurt led the way down over numerous schrunds and through the jumbled mess of the icefall in the dark with impressive accuracy. The only hiccups being myself punching through a fairly inconsequential schrund, and Kurt nearly being eaten by a crevasse. Once back on the SE fork of the trident, we wallowed our way out of serac danger and collapsed into the snow to brew up some more water and eat dinner. We were safe at this point, so it felt like a good time to celebrate with some warm food. It was 1:30 in the morning. The incoming storm had filled the sky with clouds, cutting off all ambient star/moon light, making for the darkest night I have ever experienced. We arrived back at our skis at 2:40am, and I crawled back into my tent at 4am. Exactly 24 hours after waking up the day prior. The next 8 days involved a lot of lounging, eating, a little bit of skiing, and no climbing. A series of storms dumped nearly four feet of snow on us. Our bathroom area was buried and required a grid search, Nelson's tent was almost completely buried, and all chances of more climbing were buried along with it. On Saturday, May 29th we got picked up by TAT before another endless series of storms came in. If we hadn’t come out the day we did, we would surely still be trapped in the Kichatnas right now, running out of food, missing flights and being generally really bummed. While quite moderate, I believe the North Buttress of Augustin Peak is now the longest route in the Kichatna Mountains. To the best of our knowledge this was the third ascent of the mountain Gear Notes: Single rack to #3, maybe doubles in middle sizes. Medium selection of iron including NB's a small angle or two and all sizes of beaks. Full rack of nuts from brass to big. 5-8 screws 70m ropes We brought a picket, but didn't use. Different conditions or a different party may find these very useful. Approach Notes: Charter a flight through TAT. Ski 25 minutes to the base.
    6 points
  27. Trip: Mount Rainier - Ingraham Direct Trip Date: 03/17/2024 Trip Report: Mount Rainier in calendar winter... 👻👻👻 Whooooo oooo ohhhhh 👻👻👻 Scarry Well, this wasn't like that. With the big first warm-up of spring predicted, NWAC was saying considerable at all elevation bands everywhere due to wet slides. This actually made a calendar winter climb of Rainier seem spot on for the weekend of St Patrick's Day. Me and @Albuquerque Fred headed out hoping for an easy nab. So that I could get some extra sleep and to let the gate opening crowds thin out we left Seattle at 9:00, getting to Paradise close to noon. The ranger at Paradise (where we self-registered) literally said "you should have no problems"! This was extremely surprising after getting used to rangers telling you how scary and dangerous everything is, assuming that you are getting in way over your head. I think this may have had the opposite effect and made me nervous. It was 68° in the parking lot at 12:30 p.m. We slogged uphill passed about 400 people, mostly snowshoeing in jeans, good for them getting outdoors though. I think it was due to the heat but we felt like we made awful time getting to camp Muir but upon further reflection it took 4.5 hours which seems respectable with overnight packs. There was one other party of four staying at the shelter that night, they were going to bed extremely early for an Alpine start, so we hung out outside in the warm weather making water and cooking and eating and watching the sunset. We turned in at a halfway reasonable hour for a 4:00 a.m. wake up. At 4:00 it was indeed quite cold, especially after my pad went flat and I had to blow it up like five times. The prediction was for low 20s° weather, that seemed about right. We started hiking at 5:15 with our skis on our backs in the pitch black. It was cold, but calm. Booting up Cathedral Gap got me mostly warmed up, and it started to get a little light by the time we crested the ridge. I was taking diamox for the second time on Rainier (the second with diamox that is), and I didn't realize it but tingling in your fingers is a side effect, I thought they were very cold all morning but I think there was just extra blood flow. It felt a lot like light duty screaming barfies though. The sun rose right when we hit Ingraham Flats right around 11k, it was stunning. The going was hard, punching through breakable crust while booting, but it seemed like skinning would just be icy and scary, and the crust was intermittently supportable. The perfect conditions for disheartening travel, right when you think you are making headway on top of the crust you start breaking through, then you have to put extra effort into stomping the crust down so you don't pitch forward. There were two crevasses, one we stepped over, and the other had a nice stable bridge/plug. We went straight up the gut although I think climber's right is actually more filled in. We made slow progress up to 12,200' where we briefly tried to skin, but it immediately was supportable and icy and steep and scary, once I got to a place I could get out of my skis I did so with gratitude. Due to the hard going we decided to hang a left off the Ingraham Glacier to gain the upper part of the Gibraltar Ledges route and follow the other party's boot pack. There was some minor crevasse dodging here at the ridge crest but nothing challenging, then we followed the boot pack to the summit passing the other party on their way down. The head wall above 12800' above Gibraltar Rock was easy cramponing. As soon as the sun came up it had started to get extremely warm, the bowl of the Ingraham Glacier was absolutely roasting, I was wearing long underwear and couldn't really take it off so I was down to just a sunshirt on top with no gloves and no hat all the way from about 12K to the summit. I summitted in a sweat soaked sunshirt, there was basically no wind the whole way. The crux of the entire climb was definitely the heat, it sapped us pretty hard and made for slow going. This was also very unexpected so it was hard to convince yourself you needed to shed a layer. We were very far behind schedule after almost 7 hours camp to summit, so we didn't linger, we stripped skins, put our skis on for the first time in hours and headed down. I found the skiing to be very challenging for the top 1000 ft on hard packed sastrugui, with the occasional hard-packed smooth pocket that made for easy turns. At about 13,000' there was a long smooth steep head wall that made for great linking turns, though very fast and icy. From here down I found all of the skiing to be quite excellent all the way back to camp Muir and below. With the heat the snow from about 12,800' and below was creamy on top, but still supportable. I made it to Muir with my skis on. Fred is less into sketchy, bumpy, icy, exposed turns, so he found the whole thing much less enjoyable. I guess it's just a matter of taste. We packed up camp and headed down. The snow below Muir was excellent until 6700' were a bad case of mashed potatoes set in. It didn't really matter anyway as this was boot packed out 50 ft wide, so we just survival skied the boot pack back to the sign-in hut, and eventually the car. From summit to car with 30 minutes of packing was 3 hours. It all goes to show you that "calendar winter" is total BS and everything should be based on conditions rather than man-made dates. I found this trip to be a more challenging ascent than the Emmons Glacier was in the spring last year, due to the hot conditions and punchy crusty snow. Gear Notes: Avalanche gear, crevasse rescue gear, 2 30m ropes, sleeping gear (no tent, but a pad with a hole in it), way way way too many clothes, not enough water. Approach Notes: Show up late and skip the gate line, it only takes a third of a day to get to Muir, and what are you going to do before it's reasonable to go to bed anyway? It was a bust day on Saturday: Nice sunset though, views all the way to Jefferson: Fred slogging on the Ingraham: Sunrise: Fred finishing it off: Warm summit break:
    5 points
  28. I just renewed the sole sponsorship of CascadeCllimbers.com server hosting costs by The American Alpine Institute for another year. We owe it to these guys, they believe in this place and shown that in monetary support. Thank you @Jason_Martin and team! Our hosting company was recently purchased and this resulted in significant increase in monthly cost for hosting as they jacked the rates. AAI has increased their support to continue to support the full cost of hosting. We will need to evaluate our options to see if we can bring that cost down, but for now AAI is keeping the lights on and it is very much appreciated. Please give them all the support you can, referrals, whatever. Thank you.
    5 points
  29. https://craftmtn.com/features/above-alpine nice article about @John_Scurlock and the small hardcore group PNWers on cascadeclimbers.com
    5 points
  30. There is snow on the ground at 5k'. Let the games begin!
    5 points
  31. Columbia Gorge Ice! Post your photos! Mist Falls 1/14/2024 Left a V thread and backup screw 80-90' up. Use at your own risk. Likely will be under a bunch of ice tomorrow. Have fun, be safe! -Kip
    5 points
  32. Charakusa, Pakistan Summer 2023 First Bivouac under the couloir on the north face of K7 This summer, my husband and climbing partner Jeff Wright and I embarked on a mission to K7 to attempt to summit the unclimbed peak K7 Central, for a second time, with the generous help of a Caltopo Grant. I first started using Caltopo to plan my outdoor adventures in 2014, taking mountaineering classes in the PNW Cascades through the Boeing Alpine Club (BOEALPS). I’m delighted to continue to use Caltopo, but now in the Pakistani Karakoram range, charting new routes in the Charakusa. Priti's CalTopo Route planning, waypoints, and notes We have also appreciated the American Alpine Club on our climbing journey, reading their journal and trip reports avidly. In 2020 I received a Live Your Dream Grant to climb Cerro Torre via the Ragni route, which was a fantastic help and assisted in our year-long sabbatical and our first expedition to the Pakistani Karakoram. That year, Jeff and I made the successful first ascent of the unclimbed peak K6 Central (7,155m) where we got our first glimpse of K7 and were inspired to return to the region. K6 and K7 are next door neighbors in the Charakusa Valley and both have technical terrain on all sides which is why they get climbed very rarely. The southeastern face of the K7 massif as seen from the summit of K6 Central (7155m) in 2020. From left to right: K7 West (6615m), K7 Central (6858m) and K7 Main (6934m), with its east face visible. [Jeff Wright] Last summer in 2022, Jeff and I received two generous grants from the AAC, the McNeill-Nott Award and the Cutting Edge Grant for our second expedition to the Karakoram range, this time to the Charakusa Valley to chart a new route on the K7 massif and summit K7 Central. We read every trip report and account of K7 that we could find, especially in the American Alpine Journal library archives. Each narrative of an ascent, successful or not, gave us new insights into the mountain, as we pieced together the history of the area. After studying dozens of photos from unique perspectives and pouring over maps and Google Earth, we found an exciting and promising new line that inspired us. The inspiration came from a photo taken by Kate Ballard and given to us by Graham Zimmerman. The route followed weaknesses on the North and Northeast sides of the K7 Massif, a face of the mountain with no other known ascents or previous attempts. Furthermore, we have found no record of any other party crossing over the Kaberi Pass that divides the K7 Massif from Sulu Peak. The impressive K7 Central, a canine-toothed gendarme (~300m of prominence from the ridgeline) along K7’s summit crown (2022) Priti on K7 Central, 2022 On our first attempt to the 6,858m high peak, we nearly reached the summit, turning around 100m from the top due to difficult rock climbing without adequate gear (no rock shoes!). Since we were unsuccessful that year, and we made efforts to keep details of the trip quiet until we could return the next year for our second attempt. This summer 2023, we returned to attempt the project again, armed with more knowledge and a refined strategy. As in our previous trip to Pakistan, this expedition was conducted with strict Leave No Trace and Alpine Style ethics. Priti approaches the clean corner that reminded the couple of Yosemite. During this 2022 attempt, we were disappointed in their last-minute decision to leave our rock shoes in base camp. [Jeff Wright] Along our climb, we marked waypoints in the CalTopo app (offline) at every bivouac. We then exported our track and waypoints from CalTopo onto Google Earth. Google Earth screenshot using the CalTopo Exports In June 2022, we were surprised to arrive at base camp which had a foot of snow on the ground where we were expecting green meadows. Before departing the nearby town of Skardu (and our last source of Wifi) in July 2023, we wanted to find out what conditions to expect at base camp before we arrived. We used Caltopo’s Live Satellite imagery to preview the conditions of base camp before the hike in. Everything looked nice and dry for our journey into the Charakusa valley this year, and it turned out quite pleasant! Base Camp in the Charakusa Valley 2023 Expedition Team (left to right): Captain Ibtasam “Sam” Khan (Pakistani Military Liaison Officer), Idris Karim (Cook’s Assistant), Jeff Wright, Priti Wright, Ibrahim Jamali (Cook) We arrived at base camp in the Charakusa Valley on July 16th, in nearly record breaking time from Seattle. We left Seattle on July 9th, arriving after two flights on Turkish airlines, on July 11th and flying directly to Skardu. From Skardu we drove to the small mountain village of Hushe in 8 slightly bumpy hours on July 13th. After collecting our camp gear off the two jeeps and dividing gear amongst porters and donkeys, we hiked into the Charakusa base camp over three days. We set up base camp, joining Tad McCrea and Tom Livingstone, our Liaison Officer Captain Ibtasam “Sam” and our cooks Ibrahim and Idris who had been our cooks the previous year. Panorama from the summit of Sulu We were feeling well acclimatized and fit, so we took advantage of the spell of good weather and climbed the nearby 6070m peak Sulu to continue to acclimate. We reached the summit on July 19th after three days of climbing, only roping up because of cornices at the top and spending the night near the summit. We arrived back at base camp the next day as bad weather descended. Camping spot near the summit of Sulu (~6000m) We had weather updates from our forecaster and our friends, via our inReach device. The weather was supposed to be good for three days, stormy for two, and then a big weather window would open up. We optimistically packed up our bags and headed out to repeat our route from last year, up the North Ridge of K7 in the evening of July 25th. The North Ridge of K7 (sun-shade); North Face is on the sun side; Northeast Face (and Grand Couloir) on the shade side; K7 West is the prominent peak on the right (2022) On the first three days we hiked up and over Kaberi Pass and camped on a moraine below the North Face of K7 to wait out the storm. On July 30th we climbed up the 45-55° snow/ice couloir on the North Ridge of K7 to a good bivy spot that we dug into the ridge at the top. I led the approximately 250m couloir in one long simul pitch. Crossing the short ridge led to the next long couloir. Snow began falling in the afternoon as we dug the platform for our tent. Our first bivouac on the North Ridge after digging away a platform from its knife-edge ridgeline (2023) We began up the 600m grand couloir on the Northeast Face of K7 the next day which started under blue skies and perfect temps. The weather deteriorated in the afternoon, however, with snowfall and deep grey skies. The slopes were 45-65° snow and ice, with one steeper section that climbed at AI4. We continued climbing through the precipitation and bivied near the top of the couloir as night started to fall after burrowing out a large hole in a patch of soft snow for our tent. Climbing up the Grand Couloir on K7’s Northeast Face (and a cool arch feature) The next day we popped over the North Ridge at the top of the couloir and traversed around crevasses, climbing up deteriorating ice over a bergschrund to reach a flat balcony overlooking the North Face at 6140m. Unfortunately the snow came in as it did every afternoon and visibility dropped so we stopped to bivy again. The Priti Wright climbing on K7’s Upper North Face with Chogolisa’s recognizable twin-peak profile behind We finally reached the K7 Glacier at 6,400m on the ninth day away from base camp although we had only been technically climbing for four days. Snow continued to fall every afternoon, vanishing the peaks of K7 Central, Main and West in a shroud of clouds and mist. Arriving again, at the K7 Glacier with the peaks of K7 behind (left-to-right): K7 Main, K7 Central, unnamed gendarme, and K7 West (2023) We trudged our way through the snow to the base of the col between Main and Central as we had the previous year, and out of the mist the rocky tower of K7 Central appeared, blasted with ice and snow. Our Base Camp mates (Tad McCrea and Tom Livingstone) emerged unexpectedly in one of the most improbable places on Earth. During our 2022 expedition, we were likely the first people to ever reach the K7 Glacier, a high altitude desolate hanging glacier perched at 6,400m and guarded on all sides by steep, technical walls. Now we were again on this wide, deserted, improbable landscape, staring up at the final ice step to the Col between K7 Main and Central, that we had climbed last year. Climbing steep snow and ice to access the K7 Main-Central Col In an effort to salvage the trip and complete the route despite the terrible conditions, we quickly changed objectives and headed up a different slope to try to reach K7 Main instead. It would be a less noteworthy, but still valiant accomplishment to make the Main summit instead of the virgin summit of Central. However terrible snow and avalanche conditions turned us around on our bid for K7 Main and we retraced our steps up to the col below K7 Central. Our bivouac tent in 2022 at the K7 Central-Main Col with K7 Main behind (the highest peak of the K7 Massif) Jeff climbing steep 5.11 granite in 2022 under prime conditions Priti high on K7 Central in 2022 We descended 30m and camped in the bergschrund below the col, underneath the upper bivouac site that we used last year, now occupied by Tom and Tad. Minimal snow and ice fell on us during the night. We were tired from our efforts, and the Central tower was covered in unprotectable ice and snow where we were climbing beautiful cracks bare-handed the previous year. Climbing to K7 Main or K7 Central was too dangerous, time-consuming and risky in these conditions. The combination of all of the factors caused us to make the painful choice to bail and descend the Central Couloir on the south face of K7 the next day. Descending the complex snow and ice of K7’s Central Couloir in 2022 The descent down the Central Couloir went very smoothly. It seemed less dangerous than last year and we retreated quickly and easily leaving behind only a couple of slings when our V-Threads began to get too sticky in the warmer temperatures. We reached base camp on August 5th and started packing up to return home. Priti exhausted after a long, complicated 2,500m descent down K7’s Central Couloir; K7 Central is the prominent peak in the center of the frame (2023) We departed Islamabad on August 11th and returned to Seattle the same day. Thank you so much to Caltopo for supporting our exploration and for the Pro subscription to the Caltopo App, which was very useful during the whole trip, and I’d recommend it to everyone. Thank you to our sponsors for the previous trip, the American Alpine Club's Cutting Edge Grant and Grit&Rock. Post-climb Vibes While we didn't reach the summit, I personally have grown up a lot through this journey. We have added our own footprint to the history of this peak and area, while gaining a deeper understanding and respect for those who have come before us. We couldn't have done it without the incredible help from our heroes and mentors including Steve Swenson, Graham Zimmerman, Steve House, Colin Haley, Rolo Garibotti and my coach Martin Zhor, among so many others. I feel deep gratitude for the support of our climbing community, the people of the Hushe Valley and the inspiring peaks in the Karakoram. 🙏 Amazing Mountains Surround Base Camp, Nayser Brakk on the left
    5 points
  33. Trip: Hadley Peak - Standard NW Ridge Trip Date: 09/30/2023 Trip Report: I had been meaning to scramble Hadley Peak for some time but had never got around to it. Fall seemed ideal and so when @sparverius showed up in town with a day to kill a few weeks ago, we quickly decided on it. I had never been up to Cougar Divide and was surprised by how nice the views were from the road on the way in, and how fast you can get up in the alpine. Very civilized! We had gotten a decently early start this day and so we were alone pretty much after leaving the parking lot, mostly only seeing parties only on our descent. It was a good reminder that when you are out in front kicking steps in fresh snow, even a relatively minor scramble can feel like an adventure. Unfortunately, on the way down, we saw evidence that fat bikers are coming up to Chowder Ridge from Cougar Divide and then going out Skyline Divide, maybe more so now that Skyline Divide Road is closed? Please leave the bikes and your bluetooth speakers at home, drones too (though we didn't see any this day)! OK, I'll stop ranting. Regardless, I was reminded what a fantastic backyard we have here in the North Cascades. So many adventures close to home, and so often so much solitude! Now, for the photos, which always do better than my words..... Kulshan from near the road: Shuksan: @sparverius rambling upwards towards Chowder Ridge: We have Hadley in our sights! Twin Sisters out to the west: This was a pleasant surprise: Colfax, still need to go up there: Looking across a thinly covered Park Glacier: @sparverius coming down very near the summit of Hadley: Alpine Nectar! Lincoln, still need to go up there too: Sound of Music on the exit: Shuksan closing out the day: Gear Notes: ice axe, helmet Approach Notes: Cougar Divide
    5 points
  34. Trip: Pik Communisma/Ismoil Somoni - Snow Leopards Completion - Borodkin Spur Trip Date: 08/16/2023 Trip Report: Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni (24,590ft) - Snow Leopards Completion Highest Peak in Tajikistan Aug 14-17, 2023 Eric, Andreas, Ian, Reuben, Paul Aug 14 – climb from basecamp to plateau (5900m) Aug 15 – move to peak dushanbe camp (7000m) Aug 16 – summit (7495m), return to plateau Aug 17 – descend to basecamp On the summit There are five 7000m peaks in the former soviet union and they are collectively known as the snow leopard peaks. Since soviet times mountaineers have worked on the peakbagging objective to climb all five peaks. If you climb all five you are recognized as a snow leopard, which was a great honor in soviet times and is still so today. The names of the peaks have changed over the years but the most commonly used names by mountaineers are Lenin, Khan Tengri, Pobeda, Korzhenevskaya, and Communizma. Pobeda is by far the hardest, even harder than K2, and mountaineers joke that becoming a snow leopard is 60% climbing Pobeda and 10% climbing each other peak. I would agree with this distribution of difficulty. While there are only five peaks on the list, climbing all five is still very difficult. To date around 550 people have completed the list of all five peaks. Note: there are officially around 700 snow leopard mountaineers, but many of these finished during a period in the 1980s during a border dispute with china when Pobeda was removed from the list. Pobeda is by far the hardest peak on the list, so a distinction is made between completers with or without Pobeda. The official up-to-date list of completers is found at http://www.russianclimb.com/snowleopard/table.htm Interestingly, just two other Americans are Snow Leopards, both from Washington State. Will Garner and Randy Starrett II completed the list in 1985, the first westerners to do so (maybe they are on the cascade climbers forum?) The route Three of the snow leopard peaks – Lenin, Khan Tengri, and Pobeda – are on country borders and are generally climbed from Kyrgyzstan, and the other two – korzhenevskaya and kommunisma – are completely within Tajikistan. Andreas and I had previously in 2021 climbed the three snow leopard peaks in Kyrgyzstan – Lenin, Khan Tengri and Pobeda – but had to cancel plans for the remaining two that summer after I got frostbite descending from Pobeda. In 2022 we planned to finish the list and use broad peak in pakistan for acclimation in advance. But at the last minute after climbing broad peak we decided instead to stick around and climb K2. That meant we missed the helicopter into basecamp in Tajikistan. In 2023 we decided to finally finish off our remaining two peaks in Tajikjstan. The standard way to climb Korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma is to helicopter from the town of Jirgital to Moskvina Glade basecamp located at 4300m between the two peaks. However, over the previous few years the helicopters have been very unreliable. A company called Pamir Peaks used to run the basecamp. Generally there are a handful of days in july and august when helicopter shuttles are scheduled to and from basecamp. In 2017 the helicopter schedule was altered at the last minute, though. Rumor has it there was only one helicopter in the country then and the president decided to use it for a personal hunting trip. In 2018 the helicopter crashed in bad weather while transporting climbers out of basecamp, killing several climbers and pilots. Soon after that Pamir Peaks went out of business and a new company Tajik Peaks took over. In 2019 just before the mountaineering season started all helicopter flights were abruptly cancelled for unknown reasons. Some climbers had already flown to Dushanbe, Tajikistan and had to fly back home. In 2020 the mountaineering season was closed due to covid. In 2021 ak sai started taking care of logistics coordinating with Tajik Peaks as a new basecamp building was constructed. Supposedly helicopters would be running every few days to bring in supplies. However, by August only a few trips were scheduled for the whole month. In 2022 the helicopters were more reliable, but near the end of the season several mountaineers got frostbite on communisma and needed evacuated. So the season was cut short by a few weeks and all climbers flown out early. Based on all these data points I reached the conclusion that the helicopter shuttle in 2023 would likely be unreliable. I still wanted to try for the peaks, so decided a backup plan would be to hike in and out of basecamp. That would take about a week each way and likely require hiring porters, but would be possible as a last resort. Other mountaineers have done that to save money over the helicopter shuttle. The schedule for 2023 published by ak sai was four helicopters to moskvina glade basecamp – july 13, 29, aug 8, and aug 26. If all went well both peaks could usually be done in 4 weeks. The most conservative option would be to go in on the first helicopter to maximize time on the peaks. However, I had just gotten back from an expedition to Nepal climbing Everest and kangchenjunga in early june, so wanted a bit more buffer time between expeditions. So the plan was to go in on the july 29 helicopter and out on aug 26. Climbing Bazarduzu, the Azerbaijan highpoint, our first acclimation peak Andreas, Ian and Reuben would join. Paul would fly in on the first helicopter and we’d meet him there. It was important to have a big group to help with trail breaking. I’d heard in some previous years there were no successful summits on communisma in part because of tough trailbreaking conditions. One potential problem with the plan was that moskvina glade basecamp is at an elevation of around 4300m. That is very high to fly to unacclimated and is a bit risky for getting altitude sickness. It would be much safer to pre acclimate first on a lower peak. Andreas noticed that the cheapest way for most of us to fly to Tajikistan was with a connection in Azerbaijan. The country highpoint of Azerbaijan – Bazarduzu – is 4466m. That would be a perfect height to pre acclimate on, plus it would get me a new country highpoint I needed. Loading up gear in Dushanbe Andreas, Ian and I met up in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 24 and did a two day climb of Bazarduzu. We slept at 3000m the first night, then the next day climbed the peak and returned to Baku. The next day we flew to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. There we met representatives from ak sai and paid cash for the helicopter rides and basecamp services (a lot of hundred dollar bills were exchanged in that hotel room). Ak sai has three options of service. The small package includes just the helicopter rides with no basecamp service and you are limited in the amount of gear to bring, paying extra per kg. The optimal and full packages include helicopter and basecamp services like meals each day and a high allowance of gear weight to bring in. Loading up the helicopter in Jirgital Most people choose the full or optimal packages. It’s nice if you are spending a lot of time in basecamp resting or waiting for a weather window to have meals cooked for you. We chose the optimal package which meant we would sleep outside in ak sai tents instead of inside the basecamp building in bunks. Outside would likely be much quieter and we could save some money. Amazingly, the helicopter was flying in as scheduled. We spent one night in Dushanbe then the next evening our team and a dozen other climbers from around the world crammed into a small bus and drove 8 hours through the night to the town of Jirgital. That is the closest major town to the peaks and is the staging area for helicopter shuttles. Loading up the helicopter We started loading our gear onto the helicopter, then all got on. There was a bit of confusion though as the pilots told two climbers to get off since the load was too heavy. There was some debate and eventually the pilots let everyone stay on. The helicopter was huge, probably big enough to drive a car into, and it fit 15 climbers and gear. The flight was amazing over the Pamir mountains, and within 45 minutes we landed at Moskvina glade. Climbers quickly ran over and helped us unload while some people got on to fly out. The helicopter stayed running and soon took off. We then carried our gear inside and checked in with Zlastov, the basecamp manager. Our plan over the next days to acclimate for Kommunizma involved first climbing two intermediate peaks: Chetyrekh (6300m) and Korzhenevskaya (7105m). Attempt on Chetyrekh peak To plan our ascents we had professional meteorologist Chris Tomer sending daily weather forecasts by satellite text to my inreach. Our schedule: July 29 Hike to 4800m on Chetyrekh, return to BC July 30 Carry load to 5100m, return to BC July 31 Hike to 5200m, sleep at 5100m Aug 1 Attempt Chetyrekh, turn around at 5500m when conditions too icy on upper peak. Return to BC Aug 2 Rest at BC Aug 3 Rest at BC Aug 4 Carry load to 6100m on Korzhenevskaya, camp at 5600m Aug 5 Move to 6100m Aug 6 Summit Korzhenevskaya (7105m), return to basecamp On Korzhenevskaya with Communisma in the background (photo by Reuben) After climbing korzhenevskaya we wanted at least three rest days, which is what I typically take between high altitude peaks. I was actually very tired after deep trail breaking on korzhenevskaya, so suspected I might need a few more days. Luckily for us there was a big guided group of 20 people climbing Kommunizma, so there was a good chance the trail would be broken and ropes fixed in key areas. Looking up at Communisma from Moskvina Basecamp The general timeframe for climbing kommunisma is 6-8 days basecamp to basecamp. The route is long, going up and over Grudi peak to a large plateau, then up and over Peak Dushanbe, then finally reaching the summit. The return involves climbing up and over Peak Dushanbe and Grudi Peak again. The problem with such a long timeframe is that a weather forecast more than about 3 days out is not always reliable on big peaks like that. It’s likely you could get up to the plateau but by then the forecast changes and you have to either retreat or ride out the storm. I've heard this is common. Our strategy was to do a faster ascent so we could be likely to summit in a forecasted weather window. With expert meteorologist Chris Tomer giving us daily forecasts we could be quite confident in a window three days out. All other mountaineers were using mountain-forecast.com weather forecasts from the satellite wifi in basecamp, but I’ve found those to not be particularly reliable. Our plan was thus to summit on day three from basecamp when the forecast was still reliable. We would climb to the plateau on day one, then to peak dushanbe on day two, summit day three, then descend day four. Other climbers told us that was ambitious, but it seemed comparable to or easier than other itineraries on other peaks we’d climbed like Pobeda and K2 where we’d come acclimated and skipped camps on the way up. For most of our rest days Kommunizma was completely clear all day, but the main problem was wind. My general cutoff for big peaks is the wind should be less then 25mph on the summit. There was a brief window aug 10/11 but that was too early for us. The big 20 person group summitted in early august and a seven-person russian group summitted Aug 11. Eventually it looked like Aug 16 would be the next window. Paul and Ian decided to head up a day early to spread out the ascent while Andreas, Reuben and I would wait until the last minute to ensure the forecast didn’t change. We told guide Pavel and his client Olga our forecast and they also decided to start a day early and likely summit with us or the next day when winds were supposed to be only slightly higher. It would be nice having so many people up on the mountain to help with trail breaking if needed. Playing lots of ping pong in the old abandoned basecamp during rest days By the night of Aug 13 after Chris’s evening forecast we decided we were good to go. Winds were forecast for 15-20mph in the morning increasing to 20-25mph in the afternoon of aug 16. Temperatures were -7F low and 5F high. That was surprisingly warm, much warmer than we had on korzhenevskaya, and it looked like it would be about the best summit weather we could hope for. We planned to start early the next morning. The normal route up the borodkin spur requires traversing a snow ramp on the lower mountain below some hanging seracs. Empirically we had observed just two large serac releases over the past three weeks and they were each around sunset. This could possibly be because during the day in the sun the ice starts melting, then around sunset it starts refreezing. Water expands when it freezes and if this happens in cracks it could cause ice chunks to become dislodged. This is what some people theorize happened in the 2008 k2 disaster when the hanging glacier above the bottleneck released large seracs. So we definitely didn’t want to cross late in the day. But we’d also observed occasional small releases during the middle of the day. These were probably caused by the sun melting the ice and snow. The best time to cross seemed to be at night or early morning before the sun hit, so that’s what we planned to do. I’ve heard sometimes people climb a direct rock route that avoids the ramp completely. But nobody was doing that this year and that would require us pitching out a lot of rock climbing. I’d heard the rock was very chossy and loose and it was questionable if that route was actually safer. So we decided to take the standard ramp route. Aug 14 We were up at 230 am and ate some boiled eggs, cheese, and meat that the BC staff had left out for us. By 3am we were up and moving. Our packs were filled to the max and mine weighed in at 50lbs. For the first hour we hiked in hiking boots on a good dirt trail to the helipad location, the last flat rocky area where a rescue helicopter could land. Ak sai had left a tent there and we stopped to switch into our big mountaineering boots and stash our lighter shoes in the tent. Approaching the ramp We had timed this so we could have a bit of daylight to cross the lower glacier to the ramp but still cross the ramp before the sun hit the seracs above. The glacier crossing was surprisingly easy. The flags in the rocks and ice had fallen over but we had no problem navigating to the left end of the ramp in the morning twilight. At the base we put on crampons and started up. We decided to go unroped since the glacier was melted down to ice exposing all crevasses and we thought speed up the ramp was critical for safety. Being roped together would slow us down. We wove around a few crevasses down low and generally tried to stay on the right side of the ramp where we would be out of reach of smaller serac releases. We moved quickly over old ice and snow debris and were soon across. We spent around 10 minutes in the danger zone, so not too bad. Hiking the rock portion of the Borodkin Spur On the other side we reached a scree slope with a handful of old fixed lines that seemed unnecessary. We took off crampons then walked up to the crest of the rocky ridge. I think this is where the direct rock variation would have met our ramp route. We followed the ridge up which involved a bit of fun 3rd class scrambling including one short tunnel section. Then we hit a scree trail and a longer steep chossy slope with a fixed line that was helpful. At the top of the rocky slope and the base of the glacier on the borodkin spur we encountered a handful of rocky tent platforms that was the official camp 1 at around 5300m. The upper Borodkin Spur Here we put crampons on and jugged up fixed lines on the icy slopes above. The abalokov anchors were starting to melt out but were still holding. As the slope eased the lines ended and we reached an intermediate camp location where paul, ian, pavel, and Olga had spent the night. It was 8am by then and all four had just recently started up. We caught up to paul and Ian at a steeper section above camp with fixed lines. We continued together up the fixed lines and then encountered a party descending. It was the seven-person “tourist” group. This is what they called themselves, though the English translation I think has a different connotation than in russian. In reality they were way more hardcore than us. They had hiked all the way in from Jirgital, climbed korzhenevskaya and kommunisma, and were planning to finish a big traverse hiking out to another village over 35 days total. The view towards BC and korzhenevskaya I think it’s kind if like ski touring in the US but this is a separate category of mountaineering in russia where passes are categorized by difficulty and the overall traverse is categorized on a 1-6 scale based on overall difficulty. I think their trip was at the upper end of the scale. They said heading up from moskvina the girls carried 28kg packs and the guys 40kg. One guy even carried up a watermelon! Unfortunately one of them had slipped descending from kommunisma and got pretty banged up and frostbitten. So they decided to descend back to moskvina and call a helicopter evacuation. They soon all made it past and we continued up. Around 5800m we passed a flat spot below a serac that serves as another intermediate camp. Above that we jugged up a steep set of fixed lines on a snow slope and caught up to pavel and Olga taking a smoke break. One of the steeper ice steps We continued above them alternating between low angle slopes and slightly steeper slopes with fixed lines and eventually topped out on Grudi Peak, the top of the Borodkin Spur. From there we could see the plateau below us and kommunisma and peak dushanbe on the other side. The plateau was surprisingly large and flat. I’ve heard years ago Russians helicoptered snowmobiles up there and used them for surveying trips. We had to descend about 300m to the plateau, which unfortunately meant we would have to ascend that on the way back. It appeared the tourist group had camped near the summit the previous night. The start of the descent was easy on gentle snow slopes but it soon got steeper and icier. We soon downclimbed facing in but then it turned to steep glacier ice with only a dusting of snow on top. It was exposed and too risky to descend without a rope. Andreas and I waited for Ian and Reuben to catch up with our two 30m ropes. Meanwhile pavel and Olga caught up. Pavel just tied Olga to him on a 5m piece of cord and they started down climbing together. It looked risky to me – if either slipped they’d pull the other down. I guess the strategy is by short roping a client you make them more confident and less likely to slip. Though it seems like a false sense of security to me. Crossing the plateau They made it down ok. Once ian and Reuben caught up I built an ice screw anchor, tied the rope in, then diagonal rappelled down and fixed the other end at another ice anchor. It barely reached the end of the sketchy section and we decided to keep the other 30m rope in case we needed it somewhere else. We would leave that rope fixed for use by other friends coming up and for our own use on our return. We all rapped the line, then hit safer snow and descended to the plateau. We found a nice place to pitch our tents, and soon paul caught up to join us for the night. Aug 15 We had a relatively short day upcoming so slept in till sunrise and then started up. We roped up to cross the plateau then ascended the steep ridge of peak dushanbe. Looking down the ridge on the way to peak dushanbe Progress was slow with our huge packs but luckily it hadn’t snowed in the past week and we could easily follow the descent tracks from the tourist team. The snow was also very well consolidated and we hardly sunk in at all. We climbed steep snow slopes to the base of rocks and found a few tent platforms halfway up around 6400m. This is another typical intermediate camp though we planned to skip it. Eventually by late afternoon we crested peak Dushanbe, officially at 7007m. On the map this just looks like a ridge coming down from kommunisma but from the plateau and from basecamp it is obviously prominent enough to be a separate peak. We soon reached the campsite just below the summit on a large flat bench. Three climbers were there – Dima, Constantine, and their guide (I can’t remember his name). They had started up four days before us and ridden out some nasty wind a few days before successfully reaching the summit that morning. They gave us valuable beta about the route. They had left camp at 3am, summitted 11am, and just returned at 5pm shortly before we had arrived. They would spend another night there before descending. The view of Communisma from Pik Dushanbe camp Andreas and I pitched our tent near there’s and soon Ian, Reuben, and Paul caught up. Pavel and Olga would camp at the intermediate camp below and summit the day after us. Based on Constantine’s advice we decided to start in the daylight to make navigation easier. It was only a 500m ascent to the summit and the weather was supposed to be good all day, so it didn’t seem necessary to start super early when it was colder. Aug 16 We were up at sunrise and Andreas and I were moving by 6am. The rest of the crew started about an hour later. Sunrise from peak dushanbe camp We first followed the ridge out of camp then descended 50m or so to the col. From there we followed the boot track traversing left below the rocky north face of kommunisma to the base of the broad snow slope. From there we continued following the boot track steeply up the right side of the face. The conditions were very firm and icy and it seemed like it would be impossible to self arrest. Indeed, I believe this is where one of the Russians slipped and got badly banged up. It would have been really nice to have fixed lines there but there weren’t any. I had two tools (my hybrid ice ax and whippet) so was reasonably secure but still not super happy about conditions. I recalled looking through the telescope at the 20 person team in early august and they had traversed left farther and zig zagged up the face to gain the summit ridge farther left. The face looked much lower angle to the left and much safer. On the north ridge of Communisma So about a third of the way up we cut left and started traversing across the face. I later heard that people in basecamp watching through the telescope were concerned and wanted to contact us to tell us we were off route. But we were intentionally seeking a safer route and we succeeded. The snow on that side of the face was softer and the slope lower angle so that self arresting would actually be possible. We took turns breaking trail up and eventually reached the ridge at the col two left of the summit. From there we followed the snow and rock ridge over to the main col and met up with the boot track. The detour had cost us a bit of time and we could see paul, ian, and reuben nearing the notch on the boot track. The final ridge to the summit The final ridge to the summit was a steep icy knife edge ridge that was very exposed with apparently no ropes. I was again happy to have two tools. We proceeded carefully in the boot track on the right side of the ridge. At times I faced the ridge traversing sideways so I could get my tools in the icy snow. Halfway up we encountered a steep icy step and there was a short fixed rope there. We jugged up, then followed a bit more ridge to finally reach the rocky summit at 1130am. This was our final snow leopard peak and it felt great to be nearly finished (I considered us finished when we safely reached basecamp). We took a bunch of pictures and admired the view. It was a bit windy but not too bad, probably the best conditions that could be hoped for on that peak. There was an interesting metal pole and a metal sign in russian I took pictures of. The knife edge summit ridge We soon started down, passing ian and Reuben as they ascended. It would have been great to all be on the top together but was a bit too cold and windy for us to hang out there waiting. They said there were now good steps kicked up the direct route, so we decided to descend that way. I passed Paul at the notch and then started down. For the most part I downclimbed facing in so I could always have one tool in the mountain. It was pretty secure that way. Partway down i had to downclimb a 5m ice section and was happy to have my hybrid tool to swing into the ice. On the summit. Andreas with his trademark Snickers bar nose guard. Finally at the traverse I could face out again. The climb back up peak dushanbe was tough, but by 2pm we reached camp for a short break. Pavel and Olga had just arrived and we drank some tea together. They would summit the next morning, which was forecast to be slightly windier but still doable. We packed up and started heading out just as Ian arrived. He would take a break waiting for reuben and paul and catch up later. The descent went by fast and we reached the plateau a few hours later just as a snow squall rolled in. Visibility dropped but we were able to follow our tracks all the way to our previous campsite by 5pm. Coincidentally our friends thomas and martin were just skiing down Grudi peak then and met up with us at our campsite. They had previously skied korzhenevskaya and would go on to ski kommunisma from nearly the summit all the way to the rocky ridge. Descending to the plateau After dinner ian messaged on the inreach that he and Reuben were on there way down late and paul planned to sleep at peak dushanbe another night. We went to bed early that night around 7pm. Aug 17 We started moving at sunrise the next morning. Ian and Reuben had set up camp early at the base of Dushanbe and planned to sleep in a bit more. The climb back up Grudi was tough but luckily we had our fixed rope to get through the icy section. Above that was easier snow climbing back up Grudi. The descent was fast, rapping the fixed lines and booting down the lower angle sections. Halfway down around 1130am we witnessed a massive serac release onto the ramp below. That was surprising given the time of day, and I later heard from Zlasko the BC manager that it was the biggest release of the season. We knew Constantine, Dima, and their guide were somewhere below us and we hoped they were ok. Hiking down the Borodkin Spur Around 5300m at the bottom of the Borodkin spur we passed a guided team coming up with three clients and two guides. I later learned one guide and one client would later summit and the others would turn around. We arm wrap rappelled the last icy ropes, which were too tight to rappel, then scrambled down the rocky ridge to the edge of the ramp. Debris covered the entire ramp with no tracks visible. I later learned our friends had crossed 2 hours before the serac release and were safe. I was nervous so after we put crampons on we raced across as quickly as possible. I think we were only in the danger zone for 5 minutes, so not too bad. Helicoptering out of basecamp Safely on the other side we descended to the rocky glacier then crossed back to the heli pad. It felt great to change back into our light hiking boots stashed there, though our packs got a lot heavier with the mountaineering boots strapped on. Within an hour we made the hike back to basecamp, just in time to catch the tail end of lunch. Ian and Reuben caught up a few hours later in time for dinner. Paul ended up taking his time down, returning two days later. Pavel and Olga summitted aug 17 and returned a few days later. The tourist team ended up arranging a helicopter to come aug 19 for medical evacuation. Luckily there was enough extra space that they let Andreas and I catch a ride out with them directly to Dushanbe! (We still had to bribe the pilot to agree even though insurance from the climbers covered the full cost of the helicopter ride). That saved us a week of waiting around for the scheduled aug 26 helicopter. With the extra week we were able to move on to our bonus objective – making the first ascent and survey of Alpomish (4668m, 7 pitch 5.8), the true highpoint of Uzbekistan. Link to more pictures: https://www.countryhighpoints.com/pik-kommunizma-ismoil-somoni-24590ft/ Gear Notes: Standard glacier gear, two tools, 4 screws, pickets, standard 7000m boots Approach Notes: Helicopter to Moskvina Glade Basecamp
    5 points
  35. Trip: Nooksack Tower - Beckey-Schmidtke Trip Date: 07/23/2023 Trip Report: Hi, I'm going to try to keep this brief as my eyes are still dry from the long sunny dry day yesterday. Me and @thedylan climbed the "easy" route on Nooksack Tower over the weekend of July 22-23. We had a pretty easy time on the tower, especially compared to basically every other report out there. I don't believe we followed Beckey's beta exactly, but we climbed camp to summit in 4.5 hours and never anything harder than about 5.0, and that was the last 30' to the summit. I would recommend our route highly (if you insist on climbing the tower at all). We hiked in to camp at 6100' in 5.5 hours without pushing particularly hard. The hike was beautiful and the camp spectacular, if one had to retire from climbing but still wanted a good mouthful of it this would make a spectacular backpacking trip. Our campsite was at 6100' at a minor notch in the ridgel it had close water, immediate access to the glacial snow slopes, no bugs or rats, and perfect flat smooth slabs for sleeping and lounging, even backrests! It was weird having time to lounge, eat, drink and etc while on a serious climbing trip. But this route isn't broken up well into approach and climbing day. We were up at 2:30 am, hiking by 3:30. We found an easy bridge through the bergschrunds and were headed up the gully by first light. I had laughed at Tom Sjolseth's 2009 report that suggested the snow was 60-70° at the top, but it was! If only for about 20'. Fortunately, there was a fantastic moat to change out equipment in. A lot of people seem to get on the rock too early, we went to the top of the summer snow, "where the couloir narrows" per Beckey means really narrows, not just a little narrower. We climbed right up a crappy "slabby" corner, actually a chockstone gulley to access the obvious class 3 right leaning gulley, after 200-300' we worked a bit right out of the bottom of the gulley to keep the terrain moderate as the gulley steepened. We climbed a steepish wall here that might have been 5.0 but it could have been bypassed lower and right. This working right felt like wrapping around a rib at the time but isn't really when seen from above. After "wrapping around the rib" we were on a face and this is where a LOT of people go wrong. We passed lots of rap stations that apparently lead up and right to the north face route (BAD, insert frightening those emoji). We climbed up class 3 and 4 open terrain for ~250', then started working left and up. Lots of left. In this open class 3-4 area keep looking left, the multiple ribs and gulleys below you and left are steep, once they start to mellow out and the terrain above begins to steepen work left across multiple ribs and gulleys. We found this to be very positive incut hands class 4 ground with some ramps in places leading you up and left. Once you get into a distinctly bigger gulley you are in the zone, this leads to the ridge crest 200' north of the summit, or, I believe, you could keep traversing one more large gulley over and climb straight up to the summit. This looked easy from above but we didn't go that far over. The big gulley we climbed up was mostly class 3 with some 4th class steps. We hit the ridge and put on the rope for the first time. Dylan lead out, simuling to the summit in about 150' of rope length. There was massive air on the west (right) and plenty on the left that I'm glad we used the rope even though I think the only 5th class part was 20' or so up a wall to the very summit. There were some familiar names in the summit register. Bizzarely, we signed in right below @Albuquerque Fred from 5 years ago!! Can that be true!? In this case the summit really is only about half way there, so we headed down after some snacks and photos. We did 2 raps in a row off the summit back into the large cl 3-4 gulley, then downclimbed it and the traverses back to the NF rap line. We did 3 more raps to the snow moat and our gear. "We" decided it was OK to downclimb the top scarry steep part, so Dylan went first since it was his idea. It was actually OK, the snow was soft enough for good steps but firm enough for solid high dagger sticks. This was extremely tedious after about 800'! My hands hurt today from stabbing my axes into the snow. When we got back to the compound bergschrund situation we couldn't figure out how we came up, Dylan kept climbing down where I insisted I had lead up, but there was nothing obviously right. I kept insisting it was there and that it had been easy but he kept insisting what he saw below was steep icy climbing into the cracks. Eventually we traversed between some cracks and set up a rap off a bollard on the lip, we then realized the bridge we had come up on had collapsed and was lying in the bottom of the 'schrund! The hike out was uneventful but didn't take much less time than the ascent did, bizarrely. Once above the moraine, we did different routes up and down and I think this added to the increased exit time. On the way up we followed the boulders at the base of the trees as in the red line below. This was a mostly flat traverse between 4600 and 4700'. Then we turned up to traverse at 5200', below the buttress to the right of Dylan in the photo. The ascent from 4600 to 5200 was lousy climbing pulling on blueberry, if you can find a good way to do this it would be way faster than the ridge crest. There is a perfect goat path through heather and a ledge through the steeper slabs, then easy clean slab walking to camp. The slabs were amazing, beautiful clean rock, easy walking and fantastic pools and streams of water tracing intricate routes along the rock fissures. On the exit we reversed the slabs and the traverse at 5200' but then gained the ridge and followed it all the way down to the moraine, the last steep part was as bad if not worse than the way we went up but the ridge was also brushy and tedious. I would recommend our ascent route in red below: OK, so not so short, but it was a long trip. Car to camp: 5.5 hours. Camp to Summit 4.5 hours. Summit to camp 6.5 hours. Camp to car 4.75 hours. Apprach: Moraine and first look: Slabs below camp: At camp: Changing systems: The sun rises from Redoubt Camp from the snow moat: Shuksan from the summit, the Price looks tough: Dylan on rap: Last look: Gear Notes: 60m twin rope, 60m tag line, 2 axes, steel crampons, e-bivys, small rack (placed 2 pieces), tat (used none), 2 pickets each (didn't use), approach shoes for the hike and rock, boots for the snow, poles for the river. Approach Notes: River was fordable, tough on the way out, crossing is flagged. Trail largely flagged, not bad.
    5 points
  36. Trip: Mount Robie Reid - SE Ridge Trip Date: 09/17/2023 Trip Report: I've looked at Robie Reid for decades, mostly in winter, as I've driven up 542 from Bellingham to the ski area. It is one of two mountains in SW BC that is impossible to ignore from the areas near the border. The other is Mount Judge Howay, but that is a much more serious undertaking, and since I couldn't find any of the usual suspects to join me last weekend I struck out for the chunky consolation prize that is Robie Reid. In the not too distant past, people would canoe up Alouette Lake to begin this trip, meaning that it was a hard to pull off in a weekend. No longer. Currently the Florence Lake FSR is in great 2wd shape to within a few kms of the end of Alouette Lake, greatly simplifying the approach and making for a reasonable, if physical, weekend. For the young and fit, it is even being done regularly in a 12 hour day or so. But that's not my style. I go heavy with camera gear and slow, and so two days it would be. I got a relatively early start with the plan of dropping my overnight stuff and climbing the peak in the evening of day 1. Partially this was to avoid a marine push Sunday morning (a good plan, turns out) and and partially this was to get home earlier. In the end it worked out just fine, but I was quite tired upon reaching the summit. I think it is something like 6500+ feet of gain from the car, which is a bit much for me and my camera gear. There was a bit of 3rd and 4th class below the false summit but I have no idea if I was on the right path or not- I had no beta other than this is a peak that is commonly scrambled. And so I used my best guesses to link weaknesses on surprisingly good rock. I really enjoyed the climbing on Robie Reid and it was fun to have such a prominent peak all to myself on a beautiful Saturday evening. As I worked my way towards the top, a conspiracy of ravens swooped and circled very close to me, calling with all sorts of noises that only ravens can make. In all my years in the mountains it was unique and very cool. The last bit before the true summit rears up into some exposed 3rd/4th and felt a fitting end to one of the giants of the Lower Mainland. I sat for almost an hour, admiring the view in all directions, and savoring the evening, including a fire raging at the head of Stave Lake. Looking at my watch and doing some quick calculations, I reluctantly turned and headed down about 530pm to ensure I could make it back to my chosen bivy before dark. The exposed bits weighed on my mind a bit being solo, but it all went fine and soon I found myself eating a late dinner, eating some chocolate, and sipping on some whiskey to finish a remarkable day. I opted to sleep out and leave the tent/bivy at home. This may have been a mistake. No, it was a mistake. Despite me carrying higher than the usual camp at Robie Reid tarns and camping at a totally random patch of gravel, I was tormented by mice all night. Near as I could tell, nobody camps in this location, but the mice sure seemed friendly and unafraid to run all across my head and chew through all of my stuff despite my feeble attempts to dissuade them. It was a night where morning couldn't come soon enough. At least I was entertained by trees torching at random intervals across the valley. The next day I retraced my steps but it all felt longer than on the way in, naturally. As a bonus, I got stung twice along Alouette lake as I using a handline around a large cliff. Poor timing. The lingering stings added to the sting in the tail of gaining 800' back up to the car. At least I wasn't locked behind the gate, which appeared to have happened to a father/son pair I met on my way down. I felt appropriately thrashed as I bumped my way out of the woods and back to the border, but fully satisfied with my weekend. I will no longer wonder about Robie Reid as I drive 542 this winter- I'll save that for Judge Howay! Stave Lake and Mount Baker: Here comes the Judge! The true summit: The judge! True summit and the Judge: Lower Fraser Valley at night: Stave Lake Fire: Slese et al: Baker: Twin Sisters and Stave Lake: Robie Reid tarns and Stave Lake: Alouette Lake second growth: Alouette Lake: Gear Notes: Helmet. Early season would mean crampons and axe. But this is best as a late season scramble. Bring a tent and a way to shield food from mice. Approach Notes: Florence Lake FSR is in great shape as of summer 2023. This won't always be true. You can drive within a few kms of the base of the mountain at the moment. Don't wait 5 years!
    5 points
  37. Trip: [FA] Silver Peak - Ice Cold Zach Daniel's Trip Date: 08/24/2023 Trip Report: Not much to report here but an uneventful new route. Ice Cold Zach Daniel's, 5.9+, 3 pitches, FA Daniel Montgomery and Zach Colburn. The north face of silver peak had kinda always been on our radar as something we felt should be climbed. We hiked a load of bolts to the top last October during our Indian summer (anticipating too many death blocks for any kind of ground up nonsense, which turned out to be accurate). Found a line that seemed like it would go and used up a drill battery. The face was shorter than we hoped (about 80 meters) but seemed worthwhile enough. I went to Utah for about 5 months, came back in April 2023 and waited for the hot days of summer. This basin stays cool and shaded making it nice for the month of August when a lot of the pineapple basin routes are roasting. We hiked up again with more batteries, rapped down and bolted the lower pitches, climbed the route and hiked out. First pitch has 3 bolts and wanders through some choss to a ledge with 2 bolts. This is just so you don't have to link a full 120foot pitch if you don't want to. About 5.7 Second pitch is about 90 feet with some juggy, dirty 5.8 climbing. 3rd pitch (100ft) is quite clean following a line of positive holds diagonally across the face. Fun 80 degree face climbing that requires some thought. It is a little traversy but the rope drag is minimal. To descend make 3 straight 35m raps down from the last anchor. The anchors on the climb dont have rap hardware. It's a pretty short route, approach is only about an hour compared to the tooth though. And it's shaded. There's a ton more potential for similar routes up there, but I don't really care much about bolting any more easy routes. A job for the guides. Gear Notes: 10 draws and a 70m rope Approach Notes: Go to Snoqualmie pass and drive back heading for Mt Catherine/ pct crossing in ollallie meadow. (Fs road 9070) Follow the road back as far as your car will take you then walk it to the end where there's an old fire pit. A trail heads north from here. Follow it to the talus field that sits below the gentle northwest ridge of Silver peak. Then go straight along the talus towards the face/ follow hunter trails along the edge. Pretty easy and doesn't take long. At the base of the face scramble up dirty ledges , the right and traverse back left to the first bolt. (The last rap takes you over the ledges) Zach wrote a more detailed approach beta on mtn project
    5 points
  38. Trip: Columbia Peak - West Ridge Trip Date: 09/02/2023 Trip Report: Every 20 years, the classics probably need to be repeated. And, as I was reminded Saturday, the west ridge of Columbia is a classic Cascadian scramble. It has many good ingredients: a bike portion to keep the masses away (~8 miles RT-bring full suspension for the cushy experience); decent trail to access the alpine without bush bashing (Poodle Dog pass/Twin Lakes trails); enough real scrambling to get your attention on the way up and down (short bit of 4th and a good amount of 3rd); and a commanding viewpoint of the central Cascades (pictures below). A great day out, all in all! A funny aside- on the way up, quite high near the summit (not the two ladies in the comments below that I ran into in the morning), I ran into a couple of young mountain runner dudes on their way down. I was traveling in the opposite style- I had my typically bigger than I need pack, large camera, and yellow pad. In short, a dead giveaway. "Are you @JasonG?" A classic Cascadian trail scene: Wilman's Spires and Peak. Worth climbing all of them! Twin Lakes, Spire Mountain and Gunn Peak: South to Daniel and Hinman from the summit of Columbia: The view SE: NE to Dakobed, Monte Cristo, and Kyes Peaks: Dakobed and Monte Cristo: Columbia Peak. West ridge is the prominent spur that descends down and left from the summit. Easier than it looks! Glacier Basin Peaks from the trail down from Poodle Dog Pass: I was amazed that I had the only bike locked to the rack in Monte Cristo. Don't forget this key piece of gear! Gear Notes: bike, helmet Approach Notes: old road to monte cristo, trail to twin lakes, and then up!
    5 points
  39. Damn!!! I realized I never shared this here. Hopefully someone reads it and gets stoked on the adventure of a lifetime. Full TR and photos here: https://spokalpine.com/2022/07/08/denali-cassin-ridge-vi-5-8-ai4/
    5 points
  40. Trip: Bearpaw Mountain and Church Mountain - Uh, whatever Trip Date: 08/19/2023 Trip Report: Looking for an easier day after some hard trips and also breaking in a new partner I settled on the very much discussed but seldom climbed Bearpaw Mountain, with a side of Church on the way out. We quickly hiked up the Church Mountain trail then at the meadow turned up slope and went cross-country crossing over several ridges towards Bearpaw Mountain. The final scramble of Bearpaw is a couple moves of easy class 3 along the ridge, there is a trail from the saddle above Church Lake. The entire area was devoid of humans, very pretty, and lots of fun cross-country rambling, generally very easy. We discovered a surprising and very distinct outcrop of limestone that is very interesting and just rock is not common in the North Cascades. After Bearpaw we decided to take the easiest line and dropped to Whistler Lake, passing several lakes and wandering around the meadows at around 5600 ft. From kidney lakes we ascended to the notch on East Ridge of church mountain and joined the standard scramble route. I haven't done this in many years and summer conditions and it was a bit more complicated than I remembered but still not more than class 3. After the summit we headed down the standard route, over the church lookout, and down the trail to the car. The whole trip took 9 hours over about 13 mi and 6, 000'. It was a great day out in our mountainous backyard (for Bellinghamsters) in an area that I've talked about going to for years but never gotten around to doing. More of a cross-country high route days and actual peaks but very enjoyable! I did this TR on my phone and can't figure out how to put spaces between the photos, it's not actually one vertical panorama. Note: this whole report took me about 10 minutes, so let's see your reports! Gear Notes: Trail shoes. Poles. Approach Notes: Church Mountain trail. Made it to the trailhead in a Pontiac Sunfire, the creek crossing required some driving skill.
    5 points
  41. Trip: Mt. Index - Traverse: North, Middle, Main Trip Date: 06/25/2023 Trip Report: This last weekend, 6/24-25, @geosean and I climbed the Index Traverse as an overnight trip. I won't go into great detail or provide heavy beta as I think there is already plenty out there, but I will provide some emphasis on areas where we were briefly stumped. Overall the 2021 and 2014 trip reports on this site are a great resource along with the brown Beckey descriptions. Sean and I originally had loose plans to climb the Price Glacier after getting linked up by @JasonG, but a rainy weekend pushed that back. He had mentioned he had wanted to also do the Index Traverse and asked if I had wanted to do that instead. I said yes definitely as it's something that can sit on the back burner or in your back pocket until you find someone else who is eager to do the same. We met, for the second time ever, at the trailhead that Friday evening and I must not have scared him away because we made plans to get up at 4am and get hiking at 5am. As we planned we got moving around 5am and maybe saw two other people on the trail on the way up to the lake. We made it to the lake around 6:45 and filtered a bit of water to start the day. It was foggy at the lake when we started but soon busted out of the clouds as we ascended the talus field and initial scrambling to start the north face of the north peak. There are mentions in trip reports of a two piece anchor comprised of a nut and a piton and to head left under roof features from there, until you arrive at a dihedral to climb. After that dihedral feature theres a big heavily slung block to cut hard right around a corner to progress to the bowl in the face. We eventually found that nut/pin anchor in what is a sea of bail anchors on the lower north face. What we had done wrong is climbed too far left, not really realizing that we had passed the mentioned dihedral, and had to improvise on an exit pitch. That error left some doubt but we were able to connect back to the bottom of the north bowl after one simul block through heavy, but not insane, brush. Key take away here is when you see a large, maybe 5 gallon bucket sized horn with many slings on it, cut right hard. Our improvised exit was maybe harder than it needed to be but was more heady than strenuous. Some of the features that get described in other trip reports will sound an awful lot like what you are looking at. From there Sean led a big block through the mossy slabs through the bowl like a boss and got us to the notch at the north rib. I led us through the north rib and up through the false summit and then finally the summit of North Index. From there we followed the 2021 trip report's descent beta to the North - Middle Notch. We made the committing raps in to the North - Middle notch and I led the 5.6 chimney out left from the notch. Overall pretty fun and secure climbing. Sean led the simul block to the false summit of Middle Index. We rapped down to the notch between the false summit and true summit of Middle to set up the bivy for the night. There was a large snow patch at the bottom of the rap that got us enough snow for essentially a gallon of water. We stuffed stuff sacks, ziplocks and our actual water containers full of snow and did a roped up scramble to the bivy ledge trough steep heather and trees around 8:45pm. The bivy spot has great views and is pretty cush compared to the terrain along the traverse. I didn't sleep super well but boy what a treat it was to be able to lay down for hours on a route where sitting can be a novelty. We got up the next morning and started moving around 6:15 and got to the true summit of Middle Index shortly after. We followed the 2021 descent description as close as we could but there are lot of left's and right's, east's and west's to keep track of in that description so read carefully. We couldn't find a rap anchor into the Middle - Main notch so we made our own with a big broad horn with a huge loop of orange tat. Sean got us to the other side of the notch up and to the left of the pinnacle in the middle of the notch. I led the 5.3 pitch out of the notch to a big comfy tree belay spot and soon led a few simul blocks, mostly due to the zig zag nature of the ridge, to the wedge gendarme. From there Sean took over and got us to the red dike through the north face of Main Index. We did a rap hard west to the other side of the dike and set up and anchor to simul to the notch. From the notch we maybe crossed 2 or so gullies until we ascended a broad heather gully. I must have stepped on a moss patch just right because out came a cantelope sized rock tumbling at Sean. He stopped it with his hand, luckily only cutting his palm, and served as a reminder that it wasn't over yet. Not long we rolled over to the southwest slope of Main Index and hiked to the summit around 1:30pm. We stopped for a bit and signed the register and started the descent down. The hourglass, which I climbed in 2017 two weeks earlier, was insanely melted out. So much so that I didn't even believe it was it at first. We made two rappels down to the snow. The snow as way harder than expected and required tedious step kicking. We reached another moat in the Hourglass which forced us to a big heather bench on the north side of the hourglass. Here we found a large tree with a few pieces of tat to get us past the moat, but we weren't sure that we would be able to make it down from there in one shot. I sussed it out and got immediately stoked when I saw the rope tails slap the snow with maybe no excess without rope stretch. This was beautiful because the intermediate anchor options weren't exactly amazing. We down climbed more tedious hard snow until we discovered we could finally plunge step in our approach shoes. We got down to the notch below the East Ridge at about 5:30. Not much to say about the exit from there. Some low angle snow, some boulder hopping. Finally we were back at the trail and got to pound our tired feet against that until we got back to the trailhead around 7:45. This is an incredible route with great climbing that comes with a bit of moss and choss price. The position is insane given the nature of the route with the popular Lake serene, Highway 2, and train pretty much always in sight and audible. Sean and I have both climbed the NE Buttress of J'burg and we both agreed this was much more challenging and severe. The complexity of the terrain doesn't really let up for long at all along the way. We were roped up pretty much the entire time except a few spots early in the trip and after the notch off the north face of Main Index. Theres spots where unroping wouldn't be crazy but they don't last that long. Thanks Sean for the great trip and partnership on this one! Let me know if I made any mistakes in writing this up as some stuff is already kind of blurry. The photo dump: Searching for our exit pitch while off route. We ended up taking the crack in the very top left of this photo: Our Improvised pitch: At the north rib of North Index: Second of three raps in the hourglass: Gear Notes: What we brought: Ice axe. 60m half rope (maybe bring a 70m if later in the season for rapping out of the hourglass). Single rack of cams .2 to #2. Set of nuts. 8 draws and 6 runners. *Could maybe drop the #2 and add more small/ micro cams as they will get placed way more often. Add more runners, bring less draws* **Crampons are definitely worth bringing. I brought aluminum ones but they were inaccessible in my pack in the hourglass (dumb)** Approach Notes: Lake serene to NNE rib of the north peak.
    5 points
  42. Trip: CA/OR road trippin'- Whitney, Russell, and Thielsen - East Buttress- Whitney, East Ridge- Russell, Standard scramble on Thielsen Trip Date: 06/28/2023 Trip Report: Since @Trent and @cfire were going to be gallivanting around Europe in July, we had to move our annual climbing trip up to June (John joined as well early on, but @cfire had to drop out unfortunately). Normally, June isn't the month to be climbing in the Cascades and so we picked the High Sierra many months ago, not realizing that they were going to accumulate the biggest snowpack in many decades. This would complicate things somewhat (more on that later), but the weather was solid, and so south we went.....and went. It is a long drive to Whitney Portal from the Skagit! We broke it up over two days, communing with the mosquitos in OR the first night, camping at Whitney Portal to start acclimating the second night (decent sites that are first come, first served at the TH, $20. camp closest to the river to avoid be woken by late arrivals). The next day found us sorting gear and hefting our loads to begin the slog to Upper Boy Scout Lake. Our plan was to hike up to UBSL the first night, resting in the afternoon of our arrival. Day 2 would be the scramble of the East Ridge of Russell (an excellent Cl. 3 route per Peter Croft, and I had no business jumping on Fishhook Arete so convinced Steve and John to set their sights lower) to further our acclimation efforts. Day 3 would be the East Buttress of Whitney, followed by a descent of the Mountaineer's Route, packing up camp and heading to the car. And that's what we did. I would like to spin some yarn about the pain of the approach, tricky routefinding, vicious wildlife, etc. but it pretty much went off without a hitch. We had a bit of avy debris/carnage to contend with low down on the climber's trail and a lot of snow up high, but it was pretty much a standard Cascadian approach, with a little bit of altitude thrown in. I think it took us about 3.5 hours or so to UBSL. And there we lounged for the rest of the day. The next day was clear (I think they are always clear in the Sierra) and we set off on a leisurely ramble up the East Ridge of Russell. It was extra leisurely since we had to stop and pant every few hundred feet. 14k was still 14k, but the grand views, good rock, excellent company, and zero crowds made for a pleasant day. Highly recommended! Then it was back to camp to ready for the main event. The East Buttress of Whitney! It definitely lived up to the hype, perhaps one of the finest alpine rock routes I've climbed. Eight engaging pitches, almost no loose rock, and no crowds (just one other guided party of 3). Plus an interesting descent in the Mountaineer's route (at least when snow and ice covered). Again, highly recomended! I'd also recommend two fine partners like @Trent and John who led two blocks to get us past the difficulties. I just sat back, took pictures, belayed, and enjoyed the view. Super fun! And just like that, in 3 days we were out of the Whitney area looking for a day trip on our way back to WA (we spent another night at the Whitney Portal TH campground). Lone Pine Peak (very close by) looked to be too big of a day for us after Whitney, Tuolumne was blocked by snow (Tioga pass closed) and so....what to do? I threw out Mount Thielsen in OR. We saw its impossibly steep choss horn and there was something poetic about the contrast between High Sierra granite and OR volcanics. Thielsen it would be. And so we drove up to Diamond Lake and gave a pint of blood. And wondered how Thielsen hadn't fallen over yet. But truly Thielsen turned out to much more enjoyable than expected (ignoring the mosquitos, bring DEET). Good trail and solid rock on the final 80' bit to the summit (exposed legit 4th class, you may want a rope to rap it but we scrambled up and down without mishap). Perfect weather too, and the summit to ourselves! What's not to like? And then, 11 hours after standing on the summit of Thielsen, we were home. Gear Notes: SuperTopo High Sierra Guide and Croft's The Good, the Great, and the Awesome has it all specified. We used a single rack to 3, crampons, ice axe, and helmet on Whitney. Crampons, axe and helmet on Russell, Helmet on Thielsen. Approach Notes: Git in yer car and drive!
    5 points
  43. Trip: Sahale - Quien Sabe to Sahale Arm Trip Date: 07/04/2023 Trip Report: After a winter full of beer and ice cream, our expectations of maintained climbing strength and plans to climb Cathedral over the long weekend got brutally smacked down by a humbling attempt of Outer Space a few weeks back. We then settled on an easier one day pursuit of going up the Quien Sabe on Sahale and down cascade pass on the 4th of July to get us into the alpine and hopefully motivate us to get our butts back into alpine shape. Slept at the El Dorado trailhead. Our friends left Seattle at 1am and picked us up at 4am to begin the day. We left the Boston basin trailhead around 4:20 and got a fresh cup of alder to the face to wake us up. We got to the lower camp at 6:20 (thank goodness for that toilet) and the base of the glacier shortly before 8. Started moving on the Quien Sabe around 8:20 in a team of 3 and a team of 2. The glacier was well filled in and snow was perfect (not too firm and not too soft) making navigation and travel a breeze. I personally don't like steeper snow so threw in a picket on the steepest part of the glacier above some larger crevasses as mental pro, but everyone else was super comfortable. Got to the ridge around 10:20 for some lunch, quick scrambling, a small snow patch, then scramble to the summit at 11:30. While we saw no one on the boston basin side, but from the summit we could see bunch of folks coming up and along Sahale arm. A quick rappel down and some loose rock down-climbing to get to the sahale glacier where we boot skied down with joy. Took a leisurely pace down to cascade pass and back to the boston basin parking lot by 4. Had beers, pickles and fresh salmon berries in the creek by eldo trailhead with a lovely visit from a bear foraging berries as well. Overall great leisurely day in a beautiful location to get us back into the alpine kick. Photos: Crossing streams up to boston basin: Roped up on the glacier: Summit ridge (don't need a rope, but we couldn't tell from the other side): Summit scramble (we threw in a hand line because a fall would have been catastrophic) Summit selfie: Sahale glacier snowball fight: Sahale arm goatfest: Eldo bear: Gear Notes: Crampons, Ice Axe, Picket, 40 and 60 m half ropes Approach Notes: Up boston basin and down cascade pass
    5 points
  44. Trip: Mount Rainier - Central Mowich Face Trip Date: 06/04/2023 Trip Report: https://www.gorobets.com/TRs/Rainier_Central_Mowich_Face_2023_06_04.html Gear Notes: one 8.2 mm 60 m rope 2 technical tools each 2 pickets did not use ice screws Approach Notes: No flotation was needed
    5 points
  45. I have not yet had the opportunity to smell Alex Honnold, but in a similar vein I was once roping up at the base of Heavens Gate when a somewhat annoyed Colin Haley showed up questioning our plans. Not wanting to wait around he crashed into the brush below us to take a enormous dump before sauntering away. The effervescence perfused the area saturating our chalk bags. We proceeded to rapidly send both Heavens Gate and DH-LA (a solid performance for us). We attributed it to the Colin Haley Poo Poo Dust we had been graciously granted prior to the climbing. Rolls off the tongue quite nicely as "the C-H-P-P-D". If you ever run into him maybe try to collect a pinch. Not sure I've ever climbed quite as well since.
    5 points
  46. I was looking for trip reports for the earlier side of the season and didn't find many, so thought I'd share some info on our trip up Frostbite Ridge. In August 2022 I hiked the glacier peak section of the PCT from Stevens Pass to Rainy pass. The stretch down from Vista Ridge -- while beautiful -- has tens of very large blowdowns obstructing the steep switchbacks and Suiattle Valley floor. The thought of climbing back up those switchbacks over and through the blowdowns was not appealing. Even though as of last week the Suiattle trail is officially reopened and the total distance to Frostibite ridge is less from the Suiattle TH, we opted to approach from the South on the PCT via the North Fork Sauk TH. Also, it seemed the Suiattle/Vista Ridgge approach would commit you to descending the Frostbite Ridge. We didn't want to commit to this. With the conditions we had, it would have been doable, but not nearly as straightforward as descending the standard route. We brought 4 days food, 30m rope, trail shoes, mountain boots, crampons, one ax, 2 pickets and 2 screws (did not use screws) We parked at North Fork Sauk TH, and left car at 330 pm on 6/2. We slept at White pass camp. On 6/3 we put on mountain boots and were on snow much of the way from White pass to Red pass and down. Snow level was around 5000ft. We were concerned about the Kennedy Creek crossing because last Aug it was a bit dicey and I expected higher water. However the water level was actually lower this time of year and the creek crossing was no problem. We crossed Glacier creek on the snowy PCT and bivy'd on snow where the west ridge of Kennedy peak meets the PCT. Summit day we wore crampons the entire day - minus the quarter mile in the trees straight above camp. Started at 6am. There was no running water this time of year/day so we had to melt snow. Two snow melting sessions added time to our summit day. The route up Kennedy ridge and to the north of Kennedy peak and adjacent spire on Ptarmigan and Vista Glaciers was very straightforward and nicely covered with snow. Once around Kennedy peak and on to Kennedy Glacier the rising traverse to the base of Frostbite Ridge was exposed to active rockfall from above on the ~40 degree slope. We tried to move quick across here while watching above us, but nothing major came down. We were at the base of the ridge around 1pm. The Frostbite Ridge itself had a clear snow path up its entirety. It was fairly sustained, but there were level areas and rocks to get a solid stance at. We started up a wide snowfinger that traveled to just to the right of a long rock/scree patch. A trip report we read somewhere on the internet described a rock tower on the right side of the upper ridge as "the rabbit's dick". Nearing this feature we found this description to be quite accurate. I'm not sure I've seen a more phallic rock feature in my years climbing. You can't miss it. Because of the ample snow cover on the ridge many lines were possible. We stuck fairly close to the broad crest of the ridge. Our line brought us close to the left side of the "rabbit's dick" Below this we decided to rope up. We'd lugged our gear this far, why not use it. There was a brief steep step alongside the 'dick' where we used the 2 pickets and a short running belay. At the top of this it was a quick bit more ~40 degree snow to the top of the ridge. The route we took brought us around the right side of the Rabbit Ears. Not through them. But we didn't realize this until we were on top looking back. From here, the 3rd class loose rock down to the base of the next step is no big deal. The remaining two steep sections - the one up from the bottom of the 3rd class and the step to the summit were snow not ice. We used pickets and running belays and nothing was ever that much steeper that anything we previously encountered on the ridge. We hit the summit just shy of 5pm after a long and leisurely snow melting and snacking session in the crater below the summit. It seems that right now - late early season - is a great time to do the route with a solid snow covering however conditions are rapidly changing due to snowmelt. It would have been a bummer if for some reason we had to retreat and retrace our steps on the PCT. It was a relief to make the summit and head down the standard route.
    5 points
  47. On 4/25, together with @lunger @thedylan and Mike Elges, I was finally able to complete a ski descent of Kloke peak (formerly called Hayden and recently renamed) in the Twin Sisters range. This area was apparently first referred to as Kwik-Kwek Smanik or Land of Orange Rock. Kloke first caught my eye two years ago when perusing old TRs from the area and seeing the amazing picture in this report from 2012: https://www.famousinternetskiers.com/trip-reports/11-12/twin-sisters-traverse/4/. With Wehrly and Gregg Oliveri, we skied the N faces of S and N Twin in a day a few years back and I got a look. Last season I made two attempts on Hayden, both via Green Creek -> Cinderella col -> basins West of the crest. On the first try (4/17/22 with Eric, Scarlett, and Jesse) we had deep, blower powder conditions but tough travel through the approach forest. We got onto the line but found ice on the mid-face wind feature that would have been puckering to ski. Bailing from part-way up, we still had a great ski and amazing knee-deep blower down the Green ck glacier at sunset. The second try (6/15/22 with Dylan and Mike G) was just too late in the season with mushy conditions. We looked at the face and turned around, then I got caught in a small wet loose on a steep kick turn while exiting and took a small ride. The time we skied over the Mythic wall was actually another attempt but rerouted midway because my partners didn't like the cornices above the NE face of S Twin. The stage was set over the past few weeks. A couple of trips into the area showed that faces were very filled in, and we had some incredible powder skiing on 4/19 on N Twin. (These adventures will get their own TRs.) The road has been plowed to ~1 mile from the trailhead most of the season for logging, and some friends happen to pay for key access to the area. We were just able to stash a car at the Elbow lk TH with the end of the road blocked by snow. The nice log crossing is still in place. A more elegant route to Kloke seemed like an actual traverse up and over S Twin then out Green ck. This would make the approach travel easier due to higher starting elevation and an established non-bushwacky route. The Green ck exit would prove to still involve some thrashing, but all the options to loop back to N Twin seemed like they would have either too much wet slide hazard by afternoon or an unknown bushwack and likely sufferfest through Fish ck... no thanks! So we started really early from town, did the car shuttle, and were putting on boots around 6 am when some friends showed up at the trailhead. Funnily enough, they were also headed towards the basin between the Twins to ski the "Twisted Sister" (S couloir on N Twin). We followed their skintrack onto the W ridge of N Twin, climbed up a ways, then did a diagonal descent into that basin. Snow conditions there were hardpack, rain crusted, and entirely stripped of any new snow. I was pessimistic that we would find any soft snow except in the sun later at this point. Ingmar and Jake booting up the Twisted Sister: However, crossing the notch onto the Sisters glacier, the snow suddenly got deeper. We foolishly avoided transitioning to skins and trudged up the flat glacier, postholing more and more as we went but too stubborn at that point to add two more transitions. The NE face of S Twin was really nice powder. Cornices loomed. We moved fast in the steps of Dylan and Mike. E$ Good perspective on the Twisted Sister On top of South, we had to decide whether to commit to the traverse or ski the known quantity/quality powder back onto the glacier and maybe do some kind of linkup from there. Kloke didn't look very clean from this point. There were some slides that had ran on the lower part of the face, but the upper part looked smooth. I am grateful that my partners wanted to continue. Dylan dropped first and skied down to the main gully that spits you towards Skookum basin. Eric and Mike had pulled off earlier, having spotted an alternate gully leading into the same area. We shouted with Dylan and he dropped down, leaving the 3 of us to ski this nice mini line with a steep entrance. On top of South with Kloke to the left of Dylan Eric opening up his line after passing through the narrow choke We reconvened below Skookum and Kloke, all smiles. The snow had been smooth where firm and starting to corn up in areas with an E tilt. After a long break, we started up Kloke to see what we would find. Mike and Dylan again did all the bootpacking, crushers! The avy debris was firm but the other parts were set-up powder that was well-pasted onto the slope. It would ski like breakable, supportive, but grippy crust. The climb finished with an esthetic ridge Looking back towards S Twin, you can see the main line at left that Dylan took and the other couloir dropping from higher. We put on boards on the summit proper. Some clouds started swirling around, so we waited a minute for them to open, and I scratched my wait through a constricted entrance. Wehrly also came this way, and Mike and Dylan rode down the ridge a touch to a more open entrance. The snow was slightly grabby but the edges held very well, pretty perfect for steep skiing. We hemmed and hawed but decided to ski the lower, rockier face. There was some icier snow but still quite edgeable with caution. Mike opened up that section. Our bootpack and turns off the summit Happily reunited at the bottom, libations were enjoyed, and then we kept boogieing for the long ski out. We skinned to a col, descended towards Little Sister, then climbed again wary of the cornices and wet slide potential that was ramping up. I took a digger on basically the flattest terrain of the entire day when a tip dove in some mushier snow. The legs were feeling tired. I took a good turn breaking trail but Mike brought us to the ridge of Cinderella. Incredibly, the N aspect was still POW. We took in the views to all directions and then ripped turns down onto the glacier. The pow led on and on and eventually turned to mush, but that was fine. We traversed rightwards away from the steep lower roll and down to the impressive avalanche debris under the Mythic wall, skiing until we hit the creek near the usual summer crossing. From there we skinned down hill through the forest until it didn't make sense any more. We booted, postholed, found the Elbow lk trail, crossed some blowdowns, and slogging out hit the river crossing and our car. We paid our respects to these grandmothers. I wish the summer trail here kept more distance from their roots. It was an epic tour and definitely one I would recommend! Such great country out there. The N face of Kloke is about 1000' and maxes out around 50 degrees but probably averages somewhere in the 45 range. I went back and got some photos from Hwy 9 after some tulip touristing on Friday.
    5 points
  48. Trip: Columbia River Gorge - Various Ice Routes Trip Date: 01/19/2024 Trip Report: Snuck in some final pitches on Friday 1/19 and Saturday 1/20 with Damon and Angie before the rain came. See pics below... Starvation Creek area Archer Mountain area Ainsworth area? Rapping off trees to avoid tedious down climbing on hard rain ice. Climb near Archer Driving home was super fun... NOT! Gear Notes: screws... stubbies not needed! Approach Notes: AWD w/ chains
    4 points
  49. @dberdinka wins the Squiggle Gold this past Saturday.:
    4 points
  50. Trip: Mount Shuksan - Price Glacier and Nooksack Tower (attempt) Trip Date: 05/29/2023 Trip Report: Trip Dates: May 27 (Saturday) - May 29 (Monday), 2023 (3 days/ 2 nights total) Climbers: Jeff and Priti Wright Climb: Price Glacier (50 Classic) on Mount Suksan's North Face (successful) + Nooksack Tower (unsuccessful) along the way This report contains conditions on two routes: one is currently a sandbag and one is currently a featherbag...that way everybody has something to comment about! Descent Options: Fisher Chimneys, but there is snow on the trail all the way up Lake Ann according to the rangers on May 27. Rangers recommended floatation on the trail. White Salmon Glacier (skis), but you have a heinous bushwhack on the way out per this TR (link) "Once at the bottom of the glacier, we initiated the most miserable slide alder/thorny bush battle of my life. I was in a tee shirt, and was absolutely brutalized trying to fight through the vegetation with skis on packs." Sulphide Glacier (this requires a long car shuttle) but probably the easiest/fastest way off the mountain. Lots of traffic on Sulphide, no evidence of folks coming up White Salmon or Fisher Chimneys Memorial Day weekend. The snow on the Lake Ann Trail is perhaps scaring people away from Fisher Chimneys. Hanging Glacier Route No matter what you chose, make sure to have GPX tracks of all descent routes downloaded to your phone. You can find GPX tracks at caltopo.com or peakbagger.com. Logistics: Cache a bike or car at White Salmon Base (White Salmon Glacier or Hanging Glacier descent) or Bagley Lakes TH (Fisher Chimneys descent). We locked a single bike to a signpost behind a guardrail (very discreetly) near the White Salmon Base Area. It's a short/fun bike ride downhill and on the dirt road back to Nooksack Cirque Trailhead to your car. Note: White Salmon Base parking lot is closed for construction and no parking is allowed there. Therefore, I'd probably recommend Fisher Chimneys descent with a bike cache at Bagley Lakes parking lot. The road to Artist Point is partially open, so you can cache a bike higher up the road, maybe. You can also hitchhike down Mt Baker Highway then walk the extra 2.2 miles from the NF-32 turnoff to the Nooksack Cirque Trailhead. Park at Nooksack Cirque Trailhead and start from here. To get here, take NF-32 off of Mount Baker Highway, then branch off right onto NF-34 to the end of the road. NF-32 and NF-34 are dry, dirt roads in good condition currently. Plan for extra days out. The Price Glacier route can be trivial or it can be really complex and time consuming. Sandbag: In its current condition, there was no really technical terrain on Price Glacier (this will change day-to-day!). Just easy snow walking all the way up....much easier than the North Ridge of Baker. The bergshrund has a trivial crossing up the middle that might last a few more weeks. If it's out, however, then you're in for some mixed climbing out of the moat on the left or right side of the shrund. Featherbag: Nooksack Tower has a lot of rockfall, the worst rock quality I've ever experienced (even after the Southern Pickets Traverse!), VERY sparse protection, lots of required downclimbing, and difficult routefinding. Basically, YGD, and I don't recommend this peak at all to anyone, probably ever. I know it's a Cascade classic, but I was so shut down on it and also so unimpressed. It's just terrible...and too dangerous imo. All you successful Nutsackateers are free to comment about how trivial it is and how I need to harden up. Approach We got to the Ranger's office in Glacier at a leisurely 9:30 (they open at 8:00) but recommend you get there as soon as they open because stashing the shuttle/bike takes time. You might also want to consider getting your permit a day early, then sleeping at the trailhead to get an alpine start. Then we discreetly locked up a bike off the road near the White Salmon Base area and drove to the Nooksack Cirque TH. At the trailhead, head straight to the river and slightly downstream to reach an improved log crossing to start the Nooksack Cirque Trail. The trail has a few downed trees, but is generally in good shape. First improved log Crossing just at Trailhead Second improved log crossing along the trail...Priti doing her sexiest logwalk pose After reading this legendary trip report (link) from Pellucidwombat about their 9/2/22 Labor Day Weekend climb, we came prepared to encounter anything. This report is definitely worth a read. Mad props to those two for getting it done in those difficult conditions. I really feel like earlier in the season, the better for this climb. The original log crossing across the North Fork Nooksack River (now gone) has been there for years and years and provided access leaving the Nooksack Cirque Trail into the Price Lake valley. Pellucidwombat describes how they found a new crossing and provided us with the GPX point. Their new crossing is also gone (not underwater, but actually swept away). The best place to ford the river that we could find is at the original log crossing location (N 48.87097° W 121.61267°). We went up and down the river for hours to look for a new crossing. This location spot is the least sketchy spot to cross. A few parties have done it unroped this season (with skis!), however I thought it was sketchy and high enough to cross on belay then set up a tyrolean for the packs. Our tyrolean steps: Set up one end of the 60m rope to the tree as a retrievable bowline (equivocation hitch could also work, but this thing give me the heebie-jeebies, and it might be harder to release after a tensioned tyrolean). Practice this at home first! Tie-off of the bowline tail as as a Backup/Failsafe. Cross the river on belay with a bight of rope attached to your harness. Note: bring a bight across, not just the other end. Keep both ends of the rope at the start. Once across, make an anchor around a tree (2x 120cm runners work), then bring the anchored end of the rope tight and tension it with a simple Z-pulley (I used two micro traxions since they release easily). The taut, Tyrolean line goes from the Bowline to the Z-pulley. If you happen to have a GriGri, it is much safer to use the GriGri as a progress capture pulley than the micro traxion (link). Technically, Petzl says YGD if you use a micro traxion as a progress capture pulley for a tyrolean (link). Of course, a regular/passive pulley (such as a locked-open micro traxion) with an old-school progress capture hitch (Bachmann, prusik, Valdotain, etc) also works well and is safer. The free end of the rope going back to the start gets pulled in and attach a backpack to a figure-8 on a bight. Clip the pack onto the tensioned line and pull the pack across with the slack line. With a 60m rope, the person at the start should hang on to the free end of the rope to pull the carabiner back across. Therefore, you have a tensioned line and a slack line (tether). Re-tension the Z-pulley between each crossing. Once both packs are across, follower confirms that the Removable Bowline is set up, removes the Backup, then Tyroleans across the tensioned line (nothing fancy, just hand over hand with a locker on their belay loop) Release the tension on the Z-pulley. The Bowline (or EQ Hitch) won't release while the line is tensioned. To release the micro traxion (or GriGri or progress capture hitch), you'll need to tighten the Z-pulley slightly in order to open the toothed cam (practice this if you don't know what I'm talking about). Pull the pull side of the rope to release the Bowline (or EQ hitch). Note: this may be a *vigorous* pull! If you've set up an EQ Hitch, practice ahead of time what it feels like to pull on each line alternating between each bight release. Releasable Bowline (pictured) from 'Down' by Andy Kirkpatrick: the most effective ghosting technique, due to the fact most climbers know how to tie a Bowline, it’s safe if carried out correctly, and it works. In this set-up, a 120 cm sling is being used. You can use a longer sling (240 cm) or cord, but 120 cm is the minimum length. Anything shorter and the Bowline will probably not fully release. Also note that the tail of the Bowline must be long enough to tie an effective and secure the Bowline (30 cm long), but not so long that the tail does not fully clear the Bowlines when the RELEASE rope is pulled. There is flagging at either end of this river crossing location. From here, follow frequent flagging up the slope through mild bushwacking and bootpack trail until it opens up and you get your first glimpse of Price Lake. If you lose the flagging, retrace your steps and try to get back on course (GPX tracks are helpful). This section of the approach would be much harder without the flagging, so please try to preserve it. This section from the North Fork Nooksack River up the slopes to the Price Glacier moraine is fairly trivial, but it is STEEP! Once the slope opens up, you first traverse across talus and boulders to eventually gain a lateral moraine. Follow the moraine bootpack trail (green line pictured below) until you are under a cliff band. Immediately gain the cliff by the first gully (red line pictured below), then follow the undulating ridge (many bivy sites here) until you are forced to go down onto the open snow slopes. We bivied on top of this ridgeline the first night, but a strong party can easily make it to the Nooksack bivy which is recommended so that you get on Price Glacier early the next day. Priti and I originally planned to spend one day on approach, one day on route (Price Glacier only), then fly off the summit the morning of the third day. There was a team of 2 who were one day ahead of us (Eli Philips @eeelip and Ian Mock @cascade.ian) who impressively planned to do Price Glacier with skis on their backs and also tag Nooksack Tower along the way. When we got to the Nooksack bivy, and saw their tracks going up the Nooksack Tower approach gully (and after watching them effortlessly float up the Price Glacier in just a few hours), we couldn't let these guys 1-up us! So, we changed the plans and spent all of our second day questing up Nooksack Tower with just the pictures of the pages from Selected Climbs. The route line in the book is a little deceiving since it goes straight up the "central couloir" which looks to have overhanging terrain, and not the 4th-and-low-5th class terrain advertised. If we had done some research ahead of time, these two trip reports would have been handy from 2013 Jason G (link) and 2014 Dave Shultz (link). Eli and Ian (as we found out later) also didn't have enough beta, starting too low in the approach gully and bailing after getting spooked on runout terrain. I think we started at the right spot which is to go as high in the approach gully as possible then start up the right side at some TAT (don't get suckered up the chimney directly up the middle). The route has 3 distinct sections: low angle ramp/slabs (red line below), low angle couloir (orange line below), then a sharp traverse out left to more low-angle ground to the summit (green line below: the presumed route which we did not explore, so do not trust this green-line-overlay!). The start of the route has a few body lengths of wet, low-5th ledges with good gear in a corner which soon eases to low 4th class and little protection. Pass a large rappel anchor at the top of the slope where the angle steepens, then make a short traverse out right under the steepening wall and turn the corner to continue up and left into a wide gully (orange). Continue up this gully which gradually steepens to gain the ridgeline and a prominent notch where you get amazing views of Price Glacier. Side Note: A neat option for future parties might be to bring all your kit up to this ridgeline (top of orange line), cache your packs, summit Nooksack, retrieve your packs, then make two 30m rappels down the other side of the ridge to the top of Price Glacier which would bypass much of the heinous descent and shorten your total trip. The only downside is that you'll bypass the fun lower 2/3 of the Price Glacier route. From the ridge, we accidentally continued out right onto the West Face (yellow line). The route got difficult, loose, with bad protection (spooky!), so we tucked our tails and bailed. A key bit of beta from JasonG's TR would have helped us tremendously: "For aspiring Nooksack Tower ascensionists ... traverse hard left [at the ridgeline] across 3 or so ribs as soon as feasible once you've climbed up and right from the snow gully. Then, basically traverse left until you get to 3rd/4th class gully that will take you to the summit. This is key, don't be pulled up and right by the numerous rap stations-these led to the North face . Alpine Select gives this variation a 5.7/.8 rating and it felt quite spicy in boots." Note: I presume this North Face route continues straight up from the orange line. Photo above is taken from pelluciwombat 9/2/22 TR and not representative of current conditions. Nooksack Tower Descent: Selected Climbs warns that the descent off Nooksack Tower takes longer than the ascent, which is true! We only had one 60m rope so we made a couple short rappels with a lot of belayed downclimbing between stations. Two ropes would definitely had been nice! Be prepared to freshen up lots of anchors with new tat and maybe some leaver nuts since a lot of the anchors are snafflehound-tattered stuff from JasonG's 2013 ascent. Priti nearing the prominent notch at the ridgeline. We went right (West Face). North Face is pictured in the center (possibly). Likely, the Beckey route is way left around the other side of the skyline ridge. We bivied our second night after our 12hr attempt on Nooksack Tower at the Nooksack Bivouac (the prominent saddle under Nooksack Tower). Right now it is flat and snow-covered for several tents comfortably. Note that late in the season (according to pellucidwombat), this saddle is just a knife-edge snow ridge and not conducive as a bivy site. There is another nice bivy site on flat snow on an obvious rocky outcropping on route just after traversing out from the Nooksack Bivy. With fresh steps to follow, the Price Glacier itself was a non-event, taking 3-4 hours to ascend the face. Pure Type 1 Fun! We may be the first people in history to have steps kicked and the proper route found for them on Price Glacier! Luxury. No gear was placed, no crevasses were fallen into, and we got the muscular endurance workout we were hoping for. We each carried one picket and the follower carried one screw in case of a crevasse fall. The bergshrund crossing was easy, located in the middle (pictured below). I would almost feel comfortable solo'ing the Price Glacier in its current conditions (from a technical standpoint) except for the fact that it is still a glacier with several potentially dangerous crevasses, so a rope and glacier travel gear is still recommended at the very least. Above picture: Priti crossing the bergshrund in trivial conditions. This is traditionally the crux of the route. If there is no way to cross it directly, then mixed ground must be taken across the moat on the right or (more commonly) left side. Once on top of the face, it is necessary to make a wide circumnavigation to join the procession of Sulphide climbers. Instead of the wide circumnavigation, we followed Ian and Eli's clever shortcut, traversing high under the summit pyramid, then ascending to a notch in the South Ridge then descending slightly to join the main route to the summit. The summit pyramid is in easy conditions now, with snow most of the way to the top, with just a short section of 4th class rock (a few body lengths), reaching the summit at noon after starting out at 6:00AM. The descent went smoothly, then Priti grabbed her stashed bike and picked up the car, for a multi-sport weekend! Thanks North Cascades! Gear Notes: Single rack to #1 (used on Nooksack, didn't place any rock gear on Price...still a good idea to bring some rock gear for Price just in case, small cams are nice on Nooksack) 2 pickets for glacier travel (one on each person at all times, more pickets if you're not comfortable soloing "steep" snow) 1 knifeblade (didn't use) 10 ice screws (didn't place any, good to bring maybe 4-5 at all times) 12 runners (used a few to make anchors on Nooksack Tower, bring LOTS of anchor material and nuts if you plan to climb Nooksack) small rack of nuts (great anchor gear on Nooksack Tower) V-threader Rappel device for Fisher Chimneys rappels (good to have for emergency anyway) we did not bring rock shoes but I might have liked them on Nooksack (although traditionally it's been climbed in boots, but I'm not hard enough) crevasse rescue kit single hiking pole each (very nice for all the snow walking) 2 alpine ice tools each (Petzl Gully would be perfect) tent was very nice to have on exposed bivy spots (as opposed to open bivy or tarp) Floatation (snowshoes? ugh) *might* be nice for Lake Ann Trail, but I think skis are maybe a bit contrived for these current conditions considering how much bushwacking you do on approach and descent. We didn't bring any floatation and were very glad we didn't. 1x 60m rope (a pull cord or half/twin ropes would have been nice for Nooksack Tower) Approach Notes: Nooksack Cirque Trail
    4 points
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