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Trip: Monte Cristo Area - Columbia, Kyes, Monte Cristo & Cadet Peaks Trip Date: 07/21/2018 Trip Report: Last Friday evening and Saturday I explored the Monte Cristo area by connecting four of the major peaks in a big full value alpine loop. I left the office early afternoon on Friday and found myself biking the old Monte Cristo road around typical quitting time. First view of Columbia set my spirits sailing: Couple hours later below the upper mountain: I made quick work of the scramble up Columbia and scouted Saturday's peaks. I wasn't sure if Kyes was going to be on the itinerary tomorrow, but the 5400' west face snow ramp was mostly connected and it all looked like it would go. Better yet, it looked as though their would be a snow traverse to Monte Cristo Peak high on the west side of Kyes: After descending down to 6000' on the west shoulder of Columbia I settled into my bivy for the night: I was up and moving across the 76 glacier towards Wilmans Pass and then Monte Cristo Pass early on Saturday morning. Looking down the Columbia glacier and Blanca Lake from Monte Cristo Pass: I descended to the glacier and on towards a large right facing gully and made my way up to the South Ridge of Kyes. Cresting the ridge gave this view of Kyes summit: Class 3 scramble on the left got me to the top. View towards the next course, Monte Cristo Peak: I descended the Kyes summit block back to the south ridge and found a short cliff leading down to the west face snow slopes. Two loose 15m raps got me over the cliff and traversing the steep snow of the west face, eventually leading to some rock scrambling and finally to the Kyes/MC col and then the north side of Monte Cristo Peak. From there I found the short fifth class pitch leading to class 3 scrambling above. A large moat blocked access to the rock, but the moat had caved in ~100' north of the rock pitch and I was able to scramble down in the moat and get to the rock pitch, now an extra 20' tall out of the icy hole. I self belayed the short fifth class pitch: And scrambled to the top. Immediately looking forward to my next peak, Cadet: Another couple raps and I was back on the snowy north face of MCP. Traverse to the north col, descend towards Glacier Basin. At ~EL 5800 I started a hard traverse towards the south face of Cadet. A perfect goat path led me across the bottom of the face where I eventually picked up the climbers trail to the top. The first trail of any kind I'd seen since Friday evening on the way to Columbia. Up the trail to the summit of Cadet, then reversing the trail down and into Glacier Basin with a view back up towards Monte Cristo Peak: Finally hustling back to the ghost town, my bike, and my truck, my home, and my family. Passing this on the way out. James Kyes was an interesting man. His memorial deserves some maintenance: The Monte Cristo area is a great compact alpine playground! Gear Notes: 30m rope, a couple pieces for Monte Cristo Peak Approach Notes: Bike the Old Monte Cristo road with the log crossing. I took the new old Wagon Road on the way out and it just adds extra mileage and worse, extra elevation gain.

Trip: Mt Logan - Fremont Glacier Trip Date: 07/06/2018 Trip Report: Hi everyone, first TR on the site for me. Figured I'd share conditions on this classic, very fun and demanding (in approach) climb. We climbed Logan via the Thunder valley over a 4-day trip. I liked the itinerary, since it gave us a little more time to make the approach less suffering, and our summit day wasn't too long. The hike in is through beautiful old growth forest. A pair of hikers warned us about a bear ahead near the trail. They had turned back when they saw it. We did our "hey bear" calls as we walked, eventually rounding a corner and it was about 50' away in the brush. We looked at each other for a couple of seconds, then it decided to lumber off into the woods, and we kept on going. Our first campsite was at Junction, which is a nice spot that's a little more open than the other campsites which are more forested. There are nice views of Buckner and bits of the Boston Glacier as well as what I guess is Tricouni peak. No fire ban meant we were able to smoke out the mosquitos, which were plentiful. The next day, we followed the trail into Thunder basin. The trail is cleared until a bit past Skagit Queen, so the only blowdowns begin after there. Thunder creek crossing requires a ford, and the spot where the trail crosses (marked by a cairn) was pretty deep, high thigh for me and waist level for some of the others in the group. That may have been the crux of the trip! On the way out we found a better spot about 200' downstream, where the water was much shallower. We continued up-valley and made camp at the terminal moraine of the defunct Wyeth glacier. This spot had great views but puts you 500' above the climbers trail to Logan. It also saved us from the mosquitos of the valley. We were confused by conflicting beta about where to go from here. I mistakenly thought we should gain the visible 7600' col to the North, mistaking Pt. 8546 for Pt. 8248. In the morning, we made a rising traverse through heather benches and snow to reach this col and realized our mistake. It wasn't all bad, though, because we got amazing views of filtered morning light in the mountains to the East. We figured out our mistake, but then an incorrect topo I'd pulled from Summitpost led me to think we could just traverse the big SW rib off Pt 8546 at around 7400'. We traversed a bunch of blocky, loose terrain to the rib and again realized we were in the wrong spot. At this point, Dafna made it clear that the GPS track she'd loaded clearly showed the traverse about 1000' lower, so we made our way down there and found the faint trail through the larches. We wasted about an hour in this excursion, which was not too bad, but I don't think anyone was feeling too certain we'd summit at this point. Now in the basin draining the Fremont, we made quick time to the base of the glacier. Seeing some tracks (which looked no more than a day old), we decided not to rope up on the glacier or for the moat crossing.  After the loose rock at the start, the scrambling is superb, and it went off without a hitch. We were back in camp by early afternoon, and we used the sunny skies to dry our gear and feet as we packed. The skies were threatening rain. We wanted to move camp down valley for a shorter hike out the next day. Soon after descending below treeline, the thunder and rain began. We decided to camp at the Thunder horse camp, where there are a few trees for hanging food. My tent-mate Meira was cold and wet (she didn't bring rain pants), so I busied myself making dinner and a fire and didn't bother to take off my boots for a few hours. This turned out to be a big mistake. I have had "warm immersion foot" once before (after a long day in boots on Mt. Triumph), and when I finally took my boots off and dried my feet, I recognized the tingling, itching feeling in my feet. I was cursing myself for this mistake the whole way out the next day. Luckily, it was not nearly as painful as the first time I got it. But I think I will have to be more careful in the future. It came on in only a matter of hours, maybe 5 hrs in wet, not too cold, boots. My core did get cold at one point which may have contributed. I'd be curious to hear about other mountaineers' experience with this problem. I haven't ever had it occur in ski boots, which is weird, because I love spring touring and my feet often end up quite hot and sweaty. Maybe the liner is able to absorb enough water to prevent full immersion? The hike out was uneventful, besides the many stops for huckleberries, which are just starting to come in, and a long break at Junction for lunch and drying of feet. I highly recommend this adventure! Gear Notes: Brought rope and crampons and didn't use them. Approach shoes are nice but will be a compromise for the snow up high. I used a goretex lined leather hiker and was very happy with the choice until the foot issues occured. Approach Notes: Be ready to hang food or bring a bear can.

Yeah, but you both logged in anyway, so I think you can handle the scary runout on the login.