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Trip: Northern Chiwaukum Range - Chiwaukum Brush Battle Trip Date: 09/23/2018 Trip Report: After plans changed last minute, I had to search for a solo trip idea for Sunday. I really didn't feel like driving super far but weather looked suspect on the west side of the Cascades once again, so I figured the Chiwaukum Mountains would be a good compromise. I scratched together a rough idea: park at White Pine TH, take the direct route up the ridge south to North Chiwaukum, descend to Larch Lakes trail, from Cup Lake ascend to the summit of Big Chiwaukum, descend by the Grace Lakes and down the Wildhorse trail back to the car. It would include peaks, scrambling, pristine lakes, and lots of fall colors! Well, it had most of that, and some more I didn't ask for... I had only heard of the direct route up to North Chiwaukum in the winter, but I can verify it works when in not snow cover too, as long as you have a tolerance for thousands of feet of steep (and in my case, terribly wet and slippery) brush. All the downed leaves and branches were slick from a storm the night before and I sometimes had trouble gripping. Poles were helpful. The first bit was the worse. There was a brief moment when I began to reconsider my decision in a thicket of Devil's club and downed trees. I then realized I had to embrace the futility of all my actions to find peace with my struggles. The zen of bushwhack. Around 4200 ft the ridge got less steep and a faint climber's trail appeared at times. It kept getting better and eventually, close to 6000 ft, I got my first views of the valley nearby. At this point, I was thoroughly soaked and a cold wind was blowing over the ridge. Pretty soon the trees were covered in rime ice. It was cold. The cold had advanced the stages of the larches to a nice yellow behind the icy covering. When I got to the ridge at 7000 ft, it was full on gnar. No trees for protection, just barren icy tundra. I tagged the summit of North Chiwaukum 3 hours in. The (imaginary) views were exceptional. As I contoured toward the saddle to the SE, I dropped beneath the clouds briefly and was treated to a beautiful little basin with sparkling ice covered larches! There indeed was hope. Stepping over that saddle in the raging wind, I was treated to an incredible spectacle: raging clouds spilling over the Chiwaukum Crest, Larch Lake surrounded by yearning larches who in short time will earn the status of golden, and carpets of red, yellow, and orange sprawling across a deep valley. It made me want to cry. All was good. I descended through a short scrambly section and then started to weave my way down the path of the least resistance. This quickly became the path of greater resistance, as I got sucked into some nasty alder and had to burrow through a creekbed for a good 15 minutes to get out. When I finally reached the bottom of the valley, and looked back, I saw that there was an easier path climber's right. I went down more with the streams in the middle. Finally on a trail, I had a nice stroll to Larch Lake and was even able to jog a little. The larches were just getting going and in another week they'll be in their prime. I filtered some water and appreciated the lake. It was Enchanment like! Great granite walls and larches studded all the way up the mountainsides. I then proceeded a few hundred feet up to Cup Lake. Here, I met one family, the only party I would see all day expect for close to the White Pine TH. We were once again socked in the clouds and it even hailed a little. I explained to them my plan and that I at least had to get over the crest somehow to get back. I think they took pity on seeing a skinny boy with such a tiny little vest pack in such poor conditions. I had counted on "Partly Sunny" by the afternoon as NWS promised, but it seemed things were going the other direction. I was doing fine on time, just over 5 hours in, but with the poor visibility and a dying GPS, I wasn't sure about continuing to Big Chiwaukum. I knew that once I entered the clouds I wouldn't be able to see more than a hundred feet and there was a lot of tedious terrain in front of me, so I made the decision to pass on it and instead go back over Deadhorse Pass. I didn't know anything about the route over Deadhorse Pass, but if a horse made it up (and then died) as the name suggested, it couldn't be that bad right? Still, the pass looked suspiciously steep on a map and I got glimpses of cliffs through the clouds. I got a compass bearing and started up towards the pass in minimal visibility, but cliffs kept pushing me right. I was getting a little concerned, but then out of the darkness on the left emerged a cut through the cliffs: a passageway! This gully looked loose, but would hopefully go. It was pretty easy down low, but got pretty loose and insecure up top. The fresh rain had really stirred the soil up. Still, it wasn't as bad as the Mountaineer's Route on Whitney (sorry, California, your "classic" route might be the worst scramble I've ever done) after two weeks of continuous afternoon thunderstorms. I topped out and was greeted with a blast of cold wind. If coming from the other side, there were a few other similar looking gullies, not sure which one is the right one but they all look kinda spooky from the top: I headed down from the pass pretty quickly. It was pretty eerie. It got super still as I walked through this spooky basin. Watch out for the shadow-creatures appearing out of the mist. Or the wet bushes trying to soak you. Let's be honest, hypothermia is the real threat in the Cascades. After this flat basin, I was greeted with a bunch of steep cliffs and unattractive gullies. I inspected four or five of them like an unimpressed suitor before settling on the one that seemed "least ugly". It was class 2, but weird loose, slippery class 2 that had me maybe more uncomfortable than I was when I free soloed the West Ridge of Stuart. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old. Finally being of legal drinking age will do that I guess. From here, the fun wasn't over. As I got lower, the brush got thicker and thicker once again. And this time, I really got soaked. Not like, mama I peed my pants damp. Like, Mommy I fell in the toilet wet. My pants actually clung to my skin, they were completely soaked. I was getting pretty tired of this brush, but I guess it was my own doing. One thing about solo trips is you have no one else really to blame for your follies. It's nice to be self-reliant but it's also nice to have a scapegoat (and partner for support and safety, of course). I generally trended skier's right and felt like it sorta worked. After about an hour, I finally found a climber's trail. My speed greatly increased and then at about 4900 ft, I hit the Wildhorse trail, elated to out of the brush. From here, I was able to cruise down the trail back to the car, for a round trip time of just under 9 hours. Total, it was about 15 miles and 7k gain with nearly all the gain off trail. In good weather, the views would be great. I think it's a cool route because of the lack of established climber trails or cairns, but it's not for everyone. I'd love to see someone complete it or even throw in some other Chiwaukum peaks. The falls colors are second to none. The Chiwaukum are massive, lonely peaks. They hold a very special place in my heart. Here's a map showing my track in red. Blue shows the extension I wanted to do. Gear Notes: UD running vest, Z poles, some clothing that would become wet, LS ultraraptors (tripled in weight because of water) Approach Notes: Go straight up. Basically due south from the parking lot.

I fell into a crevasse unroped on the Kahiltna this spring. When I went to AK in 2011 and 2012 I was unwilling to travel unroped except for while skiing downhill, but apparently a handful of years of nothing going wrong on little Cascadian glaciers upped my complacency level. The day I fell in one in April started with a short downhill ski that we did unroped, and at the bottom of the hill the glacier seemed so smooth and covered that I figured it would be fine to not tie in. The deep early season snowpack, sub freezing temps, the fact that we were only going a couple of miles, and general laziness factored in. We had our system dialed and roping up would have taken less than 5 minutes. We skied for an hour or so, and eventually got to a place where it looked like the glacier was starting to get more complicated. There was an obviously bridged crevasse running parallel to us to our left, and we could see more ahead. We were maybe a quarter mile from where I wanted to camp. I was tired of dragging my heavy-ass sled and just wanted to get there. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! I was actually frustrated that these fucking crevasses were trying to make me late to dinner. My girlfriend, Lyndsey, suggested roping up, and then I took two more steps and was suddenly falling. It must have only taken a second or two before I hit the bottom 30 feet down, but I had plenty of time to think things over as I fell. My first thought was that a hollow pocket in the snow was settling and I would only fall a foot or two, and then I realized that it was a crevasse but that the rope would stop me, and then I remembered that I wasn't roped up and knew that I was going to die because I had been dumb. The slo-mo memory locked in my brain is of my gloved hands out in front of me with snow falling next to them and everything gradually getting dark. Obviously I didn't die (or maybe I did in some dimension? Things got pretty weird in my brain for a few days there), but even though the crevasse pinched off after 30 feet things could have been different. Somehow I landed on my feet. Just last night I got lost in thinking about it (again), and I realized that if I had landed on my side, I might not have been able to get up if I was really lodged in there. A lot of crevasse victims die because they're wedged between the ice, and just get more stuck as the ice around them melts and they slip down slowly and die of hypothermia. Or more of the snow bridging the crack could have fallen and buried me or knocked me out as Lyndsey worked to get me a rope. Or the 80+ pound sled that was somehow wedged above me could have fallen on me and broken my neck. As it was, I landed on my feet, stood there confused for a minute all wedged in and barely able to move, placed the screw that was on my harness for just this occasion, and by the time I started to try to size things up Lyndsey was yelling down to see if I was alive. She had a solid anchor built in no time, and lowered a rope (we both had one). Very long story short, she hauled my sled out with a 3:1 as I struggled to get my pack, skis, poles, and self out with the other end of the rope. I didn't lose or break any gear, and my only injury was a nasty bruise on my arm. As soon as I realized that I was probably going to live (when I clipped my micro-traxion into the rope) I started to feel the shame of having made such a big mistake. At that moment part of me wanted to keep it a secret, but I also recognized that sharing the story might save a life someday. I plan on doing a full write-up on this whole thing when I have time. I will continue to ski on some Cascadian glaciers unroped, but will start taking the bigger ones more seriously. Roping up is not that hard or time consuming if you've got a system down, but people need to practice this stuff and actually carry what you need to save your buddy. Having a screw on my harness was huge, as was having gloves, a hat, and warm jacket within reach. It was eye opening to learn how physically hard it is to ascend a rope with a heavy pack while a little hypothermic and jammed in what is basically an icy squeeze chimney. Now, back to the original question: how do you decide when it's safe to travel on glaciers unroped. Generally I avoid crossing snow bridges or messing around with sketchy moats unroped. When I was younger my ambition and ego had me breaking that rule from time to time. Chances are that bridge won't break under your weight, but that's a pretty high stakes game to play. Spending a lot of time on a lot of Cascadian glaciers in all seasons has given me the experience to make a reasonable assessment of where crevasses might be lurking based on the terrain. Glaciers in the Cascades tend to be safest in the spring, when the seasonal snowpack is deep, and in the late summer (on the smaller glaciers anyway) when you can see and avoid the holes. The bridge I stepped through in Alaska was only about 6 inches thick, and from the surface I couldn't differentiate between it and the wind carved snow around it. But the continental snowpack of the central Alaska Range is different than our snowpack; our bridges tend to be thicker. If you do go alone, think about what you might need to save yourself. Crampons and tools are ideal, but not always realistic. Ice screws to aid out with? Some combination? Whatever floats your boat. I guess the moral of the story is that the older I get the less I think I know.