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Trip: Shuksan, Icy, Ruth - Nooksack Traverse Trip Date: 03/01/2019 Trip Report: Fred and I went and did the Nooksack Traverse over the first three days of March. We had fun, I think. We had probably the worst snow conditions of any ski trip I have ever been on, extremely cold temps for Washington, a crevasse fall, and several equipment issues. I might not go back... this year anyway. We parked a car at the Hannegan Pass Road picnic area right at the highway, then drove up to the lower ski lodge. The trip into the White Salmon valley was typical. We traversed in and lost ground to some guys who skied the clearcut, but they didn't have overnight packs. Skinning up the WSG was a breeze really, excellent snow if you were going downhill. We opted to climb the Hourglass instead of Hells Highway. We found about 20' of hard water ice... surprising. It was tough with a single axe and only two screws. Bring real ice gear and do it though! There was another bigger step above that we skirted on the left and topped out on the Sulphide. I would guess it was WI2. Fred approaching the Hourglass: Summiting was easy after dropping our packs at the bottom of the pyramid. We had lost a lot of time in the Hourglass, it's not worth it as a time saver, so we tagged the top and headed down. We skinned down to the flat spot on the Crystal Glacier while the sun set, getting the tent up just at dark. The crossover from the Crystal to the Sulphide was easy, poor light made it seem hard though. Fred on the summit of Shuksan: After a long cold night we packed up and headed uphill for a warmup skin and a look into the Price Glacier. The topout looked unlikely with a crack already running completely across the headwall. We skied down to the entrance to the Nooksack Glacier to check it out, a little trepidatiously we worked our way in, and found bad news. It looked scarry, way scarry. Obviously it's steep, but there is a serac just below the only cornice free entrance, then a crack running completely across the base of the headwall. We balked. We walked the cornice with hopes of rapping over it and downclimbing through a gap in the bergschrund at a minor rib. The drop in on the Nooksack headwall from further east above the cornices, photo by Fred: This option didn't really seem safer, so we went for another look. I really wanted to bail at this point; the WSG is a pretty darn good consolation ski, but I also really wanted to do this route, and Fred never bails (jk). We strapped our skis on our backs and Fred began downclimbing on belay. We only had two pickets so it would be a thin running belay at best. When he got to the top of the 'schrund he couldn't see over, so I set a 2 point anchor and began lowering him... Then the lip blew, it collapsed under him and he fell, the picket and axe I had in blew, as did an intermediate picket Fred had in, and I began rolling. I rolled probably 60' down a 50° slope. My first thought was "oh shit, Fred! I blew it as a belayer!" My second thought was "oh shit, ME! This is going to suck." I think I bounced off the far side of the 'schrund, then hit bottom. We both had the same thought when we hit the ground: "get your head up so you don't suffocate." When I could see again Fred was a few feet away and we were in a 20' deep crevasse. We had fallen about 10' over the lip, then 20' more into the bottom, but we were OK. We both check in with each other, then tried to climb out. The bridge we were on was not the bottom, and it was super hollow, my feet kept punching through into air. I had to take my pack off (with skis on it remember) and use it to push against so I could get my feet up and onto firmer snow. After I got untangled from the rope I climbed the far wall of the crevasse, it wasn't hard, just steep, loose snow. Fred did the same and we were seemingly fine. We later debriefed and realized that this might actually have been the best case scenario. If the anchor had held and I had lowered Fred he would have been free hanging, then we would have run out of rope before he got to the bottom. My only choice would have been to go Joe Simpson on him and cut the rope. The slope and 'schrund from below, photo by Fred: So anyway, we skied down and crossed the Nooksack Glacier without needing to skin. It was close, and there was some shuffling, but we made it through. Fred hanging out below a big serac: Looking back across the Nooksack: After more crappy, technical, icy skinning with crampons, we made the Icy Peak shoulder. My crampon broke about 30' shy of the summit of Icy when I was climbing the icy gully and kicked a rock slab (they were aluminum). But Fred pushed on. We camped between Icy and Ruth for another cold night, making camp just before dark again. More icy hard skinning led the next morning to Ruth and eventually the skin all the way back to the highway. Fred nearing Ruth summit: The East Nooksack from Ruth: Well, I'm glad we did it. Perhaps it is not the best year, perhaps we are just not good enough skiers for the headwall, who knows. We had fun, kind of. I'm glad we did it, glad we made it out, and glad I don't have to do it again, at least until there is another good weather window! Gear Notes: Standard ski mountaineering gear, ski and boot crampons, lots of clothes. Approach Notes: Traversed in from chair 8.

Trip: mt. kent - north face Trip Date: 03/05/2019 Trip Report: sub-alpinism seems to have understandably fallen out of favor given conditions in the coulees, sw b.c. and patagonia. couple of overview photos from yesterday: yesterday's route provided a half dozen entertaining ice/turf/rock steps. once above the last step, ~300 v.f. of forest take you directly to the summit. the quickest descent is down the east ridge then down the large avalanche gully on the left side of the face: there is old red webbing around a tree on skier's right but it is now easily down climbed. if you mistakenly drop down the burdick/fortier gully as i initially did, you could probably do a couple raps down the final two steps w/ one rope. the last couple of steps before the forest: annotated photo from ~2007: the photo above was copied from this thread: Gear Notes: the usual sharp stuff. Approach Notes: xc up east side of alice creek.