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Trip: Porcupine Creek Wall - Salad Days III 900' 5.10+ Trip Date: 08/20/2022 Trip Report: It did not go unnoted when Eric Wehrly moved to town. While our more noteworthy first ascents may be of a…umm…slightly different style, in my mind’s eye I generally enjoy any adventure far from the road particularly if it involves unclimbed terrain. Finding like-minded folks at a similar point in life, that is old, is not easy. So I assumed at some point we’d tie in together. It did not happen quickly. While phone numbers were exchanged and talk of getting out occurred, the years passed by. Maybe I came on too strong. During Covid there may have been a day at Mount Erie where I loudly berated Eric to be my “New Best Friend!” as he TR-soloed nearby. Clearly, I needed a better incentive than that. Halfway up the Pacific Crest Trail between Rainy and Cutthroat Passes a large wall of granite stands proudly above the trail. I first walked by it eighteen years ago with my then girlfriend. From a distance it had the obvious geometry and tone of good rock. A friend and I almost went to check it out but we made other plans and the idea was largely forgotten. This summer I strolled by it again, with my now wife and our two teenage children. Still there, still grey, still splitter. A week later I spent a solitary day circumnavigating Porcupine Peak. The summit was eventually attained, and, on the descent I found myself beneath this wall I had considered for decades. Carefully glassing it I became discouraged. As I walked away I thought “almost but not quite, the start may not go and the rest is just a bit too dirty and discontinuous.” However, it’s amazing what some grainy iPhone photos and a bit of selective memory can do. Furthermore I finally had the sort of incentive Eric might respond to. On Saturday August 20th we stood below “the start that may not go” and sure enough it didn’t. As this had been my idea, I felt obligated to get us rolling so I began a long circuitous pitch climbing easy terrain off to the side before a long downward traverse led to a committing mantle onto a vegetated slab above. Struggling with massive rope drag from the severely Z-shaped pitch, I encountered a recurring theme of frantically hacking away a clump of heather to find a small cam placement. Eric quickly downrated my estimated grade and then scrambled up more heather covered corners to the base of a steep, relatively clean layback flake. Perfect edges made the otherwise intimidating flake go quickly. Unfortunately, the intended route up a long “hand crack” above the flake turned out to be 100 feet of 4”-6” offwidth. The scale of the wall was turning out to be a bit larger than anticipated. Instead, Eric made a delicate leftward traverse before committing to a steep, broken crack formed in part by some precariously hollow fridge-sized blocks. Easy terrain led to the base of what had appeared to be a splitter from the base of the wall. Above I could only see a slammed shut seam covered in a thick crust of lichen, moss, and dirt. Eric proclaimed it to be a finger crack. I was highly skeptical. But on new ground there’s nothing worse than being the person who forfeits your partner's last proud lead by bailing off into indirect, unappealing terrain. I spent several minutes pawing at the start, muttering random negativities. After a few minutes I finally committed to the initial moves into the corner then rapidly hung on a nut. But it was started and despite my deep pessimism about there actually being a climbable crack under the filth I found myself inching upwards. Sand and pulverized lichen poured into my eyes, my nose, my ears, and my shirt. Aiding up in 8mm dyneema slings progress was dispiritingly slow as I cleaned out every single placement. Time oozed on and hours later I finally pulled the singular hand jam at the very top of the 150-foot crack and flopped onto a good ledge. Now relatively cleaned out, Eric rapidly followed the crack free proclaiming it 5.10+. Having climbed three pitches in five hours and 45 minutes, simple math suggested that our rate of ascent was significantly slower than the sun's rate of descent. While I did not yet suggest bailing, I did point out this obvious observation. Yet Eric confidently proclaimed that the “walk off” would in fact be a walk and that we would only need headlamps once we were within spitting distance of our packs. Regardless of attitude at this point, the wall kicked back a bit and the next pitch looked easier. No reason to bail yet so Eric headed out, moving quickly across a thankfully clean hand crack before moving out of sight into the corners above. Progress slowed, the rope stopped moving, I almost nodded off. The clouds continued to build as the rope made halting progress. A random inquiry on my part was met with a stern “Not Now”. Eventually Eric reappeared above having navigated some sketchy 5.10 face climbing to avoid an impossibly munge-filled corner. Moving left and right, up and down he eventually retreated to a blocky alcove from which we could reappraise the options above. With the rack refreshed the obvious direction was through an overhanging V-shaped corner. Chimney moves, flared jams, wide stemming and possibly some tension left me once again above my gear, hanging off a sloping rail, feet stemmed out on small dishes, surrounded by thick mats of grass and heather pasted in corners. With my ancient Chouinard north wall hammer wedged into a hummock, a brief struggle ensued between which would be pried off first, the hummock or myself. Thankfully the hummock released, revealing a perfect hand crack. The climbing relented and the rate of progress discernibly increased. As I neared the end of a lead the sky finally cracked open with a brief squall and a lovely rainbow filling the valley. Despite the weather I finally felt committed to the climb. Going over the top was now the path of least resistance. Almost every challenging climb you undertake has that beautiful inflection point, when hours, days or even years of uncertainty just melt away leaving you relaxed and in the moment. Eric climbed another beautiful corner with sustained finger cracks under the hummocks and dirt. The final pitch was a perfect finale. Shockingly clean granite with delightful climbing up to and around a large roof followed by easy, clean slabs to the top of the wall. The Cascades were bathed in a beautiful soft glow and views extended from Dome in the far distance to the sun setting off the shoulder of Mesachie Peak. The walk off was anything but, and had it been dark we would have been in for a genuine epic. Yet much as predicted headlamps only came out as we finally exited the talus onto delightful heather meadows not far from our packs. If you're familiar with Eric’s and Rolf’s first ascents on massive walls of less than stellar rock I’m sure you’ve wondered what makes them tick. My simple observation would be an extremely positive mental attitude with a surprisingly conservative aversion to potential loose rock. My successes have largely been built off an ability to separate the negativity of my dumb brain from the mechanical motions of moving upwards. It’s worked but doesn’t seem nearly as efficient as Eric's approach. I’d like to think I might adopt some of his positive mindset in the future. That said I’m pretty sure we influenced each other, as we headed out down wet talus with heavy packs Eric could be heard muttering “If you added a few bolts...”. Hour and twenty minutes from parking Lot Enter the Drag-On (forever) In my happy place (after the rain) Exiting the wall Views South and North Old Dirty Bastard and Mr. Clean Postscript After Eric graciously spent another day of his life reclimbing and fixing the first four pitches with me I went back for the Labor Day weekend and put in thirty hours of cleaning, creating fixed anchors and adding several variations to avoid indirect, loose or excessively dirty terrain. Rock is excellent and clean throughout. Rappelling is quick and efficient vs. the unsavory walk off. There is a pile of good climbing up there.

Trip: Guye Peak - A slightly more improbable than usual ascent of the Improbable Traverse Trip Date: 07/22/2022 Trip Report: Late last Thursday Joe and I made the questionable decision to try and dawn patrol the Improbable Traverse. Neither of us had climbed the route before, nor did we do much research, which in hindsight may have saved us a headache or two. At the time we were blissfully unaware of the massive rockfall event that happened last November. A quick search here would have informed us. However lately CC isn't the place I go for up to date condition reports, being that i'm often one of three users logged on at any time . A quick mountain project browse provided no info other than it hadn't been climbed this year. Long story short the route has been obliterated, and it would take a heroic amount of trundling and sweeping to revive it. All the pitches up to the traverse got bombed and are absolutely plastered in dirt and loose rock. We'd heard it the route was loose, but this seemed a little extreme. The flexing pin at the start of the traverse is still there, and the only reason I knew where to go. The pictures and beta I had weren't quite lining up. It was at this point that I realized what had happened, and made the decision to try and top out rather than bail with our short 40m rope. Traversing out I came across a large 40x40ft rock scar where the routes 5.8R crux used to be. Already 20ft out, I snaked my way over and down some insecure sloping edges which provided the routes new crux at somewhere around 5.9+ downclimbing. Once on a larger foot ledge I was able to keep traversing to the end of the rock scar and onto the original route. All told it was somewhere around a 50+ foot mandatory runout off the old tied off flexing pin. If it was R before, it's likely X now. The worst part by far was the top of the left trending ramp that exits the main face. This section cuts straight through the middle of the main rockfall zone and is now composed of the loosest unstable blocks held in by dirt I have ever climbed. It's hard to state exactly how nasty it was without sounding terribly dramatic, but It was bad. I was worried the entire slope was going to fall away around me. This pitch had no acceptable protection. Basically what I'm trying to say here is don't be dumb and climb this like we did. The lower pitches are right beneath an active rockfall zone and we are lucky we didn't get taken out. We were both late for work. Gear Notes: Just don't. But if you do, a few KB's might be useful on the new traverse. Approach Notes: Same as is ever was

Trip: Bear’s Breast + Summit Chief - SE Face on Bear’s Breast; E to W ridge traverse on Summit Chief Trip Date: 09/01/2022 Trip Report: On Thursday I climbed the slab on SE face of Bear’s Breast (BB). From a bivy at Shovel creek, the next day I hiked to Chief creek and followed it to a lake below Summit Chief (SC), climbed the east side of the massif, traversed the ridge to the summit, descended south back to the lake, then went back down Chief creek to trails leading eventually back to the car. This involved tons of hiking but the mega slab on BB was really fun and the process of discovery made the SC excursion especially rewarding. Early Thursday morning I had driven an hour in the direction of the N cascades before I remembered to check the forecast one last time. I didn’t like what I saw. I had somewhat bold plans for 3 days in the Eldorado area. It seemed like a fair bit of smoke was forecast. The area’s main draw for me is the view, so I shelved that plan for another day. The smoke forecast looked clearer further south so I turned around and headed that way. Jason’s mega slab TR came to mind. I took screen shots of his unusually detailed beta before leaving service. Neighboring SC was also in the back of my mind. I didn’t know anything about it, but was pretty sure it had a scramble route. To make up for the comically long drive I did a mix of fast walking and slow jogging on the trail to Waptus lake, reaching it in 2.5 hours. I kept going until I found the Shovel creek campsite. I put my harness on to save space in my tiny summit sack and headed to the wall, reaching it about 4.5 hours from the car. I got water at the base, but partly due to the tiny pack I deluded myself into thinking 2L water would be enough for the climb. I would have probably run out even if it took 3L. It was a hot day and the route was in full sun. And the climbing, though easy, was pretty physical. The movement was close enough to hiking that I would invariably go too fast and have to stop to catch my breath. I found mostly class 4 (felt like 3 as long as you didn’t look down) and felt like I had to go out of my way to find low 5th bits, which I did seek out. High up on the face I found a repeating pattern of perfect horizontal foot/hand rails that I used to traverse right, trying to find a little shade. I eventually reached a crest and continued on to its apex, but cliffed out there. I backtracked a little and downclimbed suspect choss to the west side of the ridge, finding a gravelly path leading to the notch by the summit block. I was bonking pretty badly at this point and still hadn’t realized that I was becoming massively dehydrated. I put my rock shoes on at the the notch N of the summit block. I found the climbing just barely difficult enough to justify bringing these, my harness, and some rap cord this far. The chimney pitch might be cruxy if you’re a wide person. I’m pretty slim and I managed to wedge my torso quite snugly. The summit views weren’t great. It was hazy enough that I couldn’t make out much of the Chimney rock area. To the east I saw a landscape comprised mainly of dirt. On the descent I climbed down past the first rap to the station above the chimney pitch. It took me forever to set up my rap due to my growing exhaustion. After the rap I downclimbed exposed ledges to the skier’s left of where I began the climb. Back at the notch I had no choice but to sit and rest for a while despite noticing that I was beginning to fall behind schedule. The snow was firm coming down the E side of the mountain, so I used my axe. Crampons would have been nice but they didn’t fit in my tiny summit sack. At the first seeps I found I took another long rest and began guzzling water. As I drank and drank I finally realized how dehydrated I was. A few liters later I started to come back to life and picked up the pace. The scrambling on this side had pleasant solid slabs and ledges. I was racing the fading light. The darkness won but by the time I had resort to headlamp I had less than 200 feet to descend to reach Shovel lake. I did a bit of controlled veggie assisted sliding down the final slope, stumbling out at the exact spot where a single big river shoe sat. Descending Shovel creek in the dark turned out to be nontrivial. It wasn’t terrible but there was a little bit of everything, from dry log jams to bushes to gravel bars to boulder fields. The highlight was running into a small patch of berries that I wasn’t familiar with. Seemed to be delicious small red salmon berries, cap-like, almost as thin as thimble berries. I reached my bivy near 10pm, about 13 hours after leaving the car. It was a longer and more difficult day than I anticipated. I tried to eat and continue rehydrating. I slept poorly and felt physically and mentally sluggish the next morning. I considered hiking back early, or the grim prospect of relaxing by Waptus lake for a couple hours Instead I adopted a low commitment mindset to exploring for a way to Summit Chief. I crossed Waptus river and hiked to the junction with the DMG trail. Maybe I could take up the hill for while, and then traverse west at around 3600’. I’ll probably never know how that works because I was enticed by Chief creek. When I reached it I saw that it was perfect for rock hopping. Given the hour and the unknown, a summit seemed unlikely, so I decided to just go up the creek for fun and see what happened. It felt good to explore with this low commitment mindset, but it also weighed heavily on my mind that every step forward was a step further from pizza. I used some dry open ground to the left of the creek but mostly hopped rocks for 15 minutes until I reached a waterfall. I bypassed it with a bushwhack up to the side then rejoined the creek. More waterfalls followed. One bypass on the S side took me high above the creek and I went for a while through the forest there, trying to find the driest ground I could. I may have crossed the creek once or twice more, I’m already forgetting. At one point on the S side of the creek I realized I was entering a mile long stretch of impenetrable alder, but saw mature forest on the N side, so fought my way down to the creek and crossed again. There is another creek running S and E from a 5200’ knoll down to Chief creek. After crossing this I gradually moved several hundred feet uphill from Chief creek with relatively reasonable shwacking. This path reached a drainage leading N into the alpine. The huckleberries were out of control here. I contoured around another knoll and reached a beautiful unnamed lake SE of SC only 3 hours after I started up river. From there I saw appealing rock on the east side of the mountain and took high quality white ledgey slabs adjacent to a water course. I reached a shoulder and found that the nice slabs continued up a broad, barely convex gully-face. I rapidly ascended from the lake to near the top of this face. The wide face was narrowing to a point and the rock transitioned to blocky choss. The large blocks formed a fun hand crack system that I climbed at 5.5ish for around 40 feet to the first false summit. The false summit wasn’t too surprising given the topo, but I failed to notice how far away the true summit was. I kept expecting the next tower or blob to the west to be the summit. I was fooled about 3 times before I got a view of the real summit, still quite a ways off with several more notches in between. I began to feel concerned about my exit strategy should I encounter a gap too steep to climb. I could downclimb the way I came, but it would be more time consuming and mentally taxing than I would like. Continuing on I did one short low 5th downclimb on the S side to get around a small tower. I was able to traverse on dirty but sufficiently wide and flat ledges on the N side to bypass a couple more bumps nearing the summit block. At the base of the real summit block I took a ~5.0 left trending ramp to top out. The ridge traverse had been an exciting and interesting way to go, with some pretty fun climbing. I’m really glad it worked out the way it did. I think it took about a half hour from the false summit. The day was much clearer than the day prior, so I enjoyed the summit views more than the last one. I could see that descending S looked pretty smooth. Going that way I reached more great slabs which led to snow. Even in the warm sun it was firm enough that I had to find a low angle entry (didn’t bring traction on this day) to keep it safe. I glissaded with sharp rocks for brakes then kept down climbing fun ledgy slabs. I gradually trended skiers left to meet my ascent path near the bottom. I gorged myself on more huckleberries past the lovely lake and found minor improvements to my path traversing slopes above Chief creek. At the creek’s junction with another creek, I found that I could keep my bypasses to the S shorter and nearer the creek, and did more rock hopping between waterfalls than I had on the way up. This was probably a little slower than traversing in the forest but it was downright delightful. I reached my overnight pack 9.5 hours after I left it where DMG trail crosses Chief creek. I was very happy with the way the river travel turned out, with all the nice solid rock, with ‘onsighting’ a ridge I knew nothing of, and all those berries. It was a strange contrast to the day before, which felt a little like the mountain was working against me. This day it felt like the mountain gave way, continually drawing me upward with a steady rhythm of dissolving riddles. There was the small matter of being I don’t know, 14 miles or so (? I didn’t record it) from the car. I packed up and hiked to Waptus lake. Had a short swim at dusk then marched on through the night. I passed many tents but shared the trail only with nocturnal insects, toads of unusual size, and ridiculous amounts of horse shit. Autopilot worked well until about 2 miles from the car, when I started to get drunk legs. I finally arrived at the car a little before midnight for a 15.5 hour day. If anyone has been up Chief creek or traversed the SC ridge I’d be curious to know how you liked it. I rarely set off exploring with no beta. I found it very engaging and rewarding to do so. Easy to say, but I think it was mostly just good fortune that Chief creek ended up being relatively sane and that I wasn’t forced by terrain to settle for some sub-summit on SC. Gear Notes: Axe, rock shoes, rap for BB (crampons would be useful) Approach shoes for SC. Traction for snow is useful but didn’t seem mandatory. Approach Notes: Follow the creek . . . ?

Trip: Mt. Shuksan - Fisher Chimneys and SE Ridge Trip Date: 08/19/2022 Trip Report: Background Back in May of this year (2022) I had offered to start up a 'climbing club' for my coworkers, to offer people a chance to get into the sport with minimal cost and also to continue maintain my own climbing instructional skills. We got together early every Thursday and worked on rope skills, gear selection, and other academic type content that was workable in a classroom setting, with the intent of 'graduating' with two weekend climbing trips in August. I had some field trips in July planned to practice snow and glacier skills, some conditioners up mailbox peak, and had booked campsites near Mazama for the first weekend, intended to be 'rock practical skills'. I left the second weekend open, not knowing what routes would be in the best condition that far ahead. Although I started out with 4 people, life and work chipped away at each person’s schedule so by the time the first weekend in August came around we had not yet gotten to do our practical snow skills. Additionally, only one person (Joe) was available for that weekend. In any case, we made the most of it, headed up to Klipchuck campground after work on Friday Aug 12th and had a great weekend, doing some cragging on Saturday and sent Spontaneity Arete on Sunday. Not a bad considering it was Joe’s first ever climbing experience of any kind! Not a bad first-time multi-pitch and alpine climb for Joe and my first alpine climb lead on my own! With the second weekend rapidly approaching I had to figure out what our objective would be. One of the other group members (Rob) was available for this weekend, making it a party of 3. Unfortunately, he hadn't been on the previous trip, so he had yet to do any sort of real-world climbing at all. Joe had some snow experience from a couple winter scrambles we had done in Japan, but Rob had none and neither of them had been on a glacier, used snow and ice protection, or done a climb with a bivy on-route. I also had never led a complex alpine route or led anything glaciated before. I was close to just planning a repeat of the alpine rock weekend in Mazama. However, while browsing rec.gov I noticed that previously unavailable permits for Price XC zone on Shuksan had become available, probably a cancellation due to the weekend only having a 2-day window of splitter weather. I wanted to get a complex route with glacier travel and technical rock under my belt this summer, so I decided to grab the permit and make Fisher Chimneys with SE Ridge our objective. There were no recent trip reports to cue me in to the condition of route, as well as tons of unknowns regarding Joe and Rob's comfort level on unprotected scrambles, steep snow, possible AI2-3 slopes and down-climbing. I don't think many people did Fisher Chimneys and SE Ridge as their first ever alpine climb, let alone first time literally climbing anything at all in Rob's case. However, Spontaneity Arete was also not normally a person’s first ever alpine rock climb and Joe had kept it together and followed me up that without issue. I knew that physical endurance wouldn't be an issue, we had all the gear, and the weather was going to be acceptable at a minimum. While not ideal, I also knew that I had enough tools in my mental toolbox that with a few extra ounces of gear I could problem solve our way through any alpine shenanigans and/or any hang-ups should someone decide they couldn't handle scrambling/down-climbing a given section and needed to be lowered, raised, given a hand-line or rope to ascend etc. I didn’t want to overburden myself so I made some judicious cuts to my clothing kit, accepting the fact that if the weather window collapsed it would be immediate cause to turn back. This left enough space to pack extra climbing gear just in case I had to build bail anchors, climb technical ice, or raise/lower us out of a situation. I also wanted to ensure I packed my mirrorless camera with a couple lenses this time; I’d skimped on photos my last few trips to focus on pushing my climbing grades but I missed the documentation aspect of the outings. I had us pack 2 ropes, a 60m 9.5 and a 50m 8.9, for redundancy and in hopes that we would be able to link some rappels on the way down for efficiency. In retrospect 2x 50m 8.9s would have been equally as effective and much lighter. There were two moments when the extra 10m was needed, but only because we were pitching everything out – both instances would have been overcome if we had been down climbing or simul climbing. Minus the ropes, what I packed for the trip. HMG Prism was just about perfect for this trip - gypsy camp with everything packed but perfect slimmed down on summit day. Of course, this would all add up to more time, so I planned to give ourselves every chance at success by leaving Friday early from work and hiking to Lake Ann that night to give us a full 48 hours to get from Lake Ann to high camp, the summit and back to the cars. Little did I know that we would use every second of it. Day 1 I listed Rob as the alternate trip leader on the permit since he would have an easier time skipping out of work early on Friday to make it to the ranger station in time to grab the permit. We all hit the road by about 2pm and by 6:30 we were all sitting at Chair 9 in in Glacier with permit in hand eating our last civilized meal before hitting the trail. We got to the Lake Ann trailhead a bit after sunset, welcomed by swarms of biting flies. As we headed downhill into the darkness, the flies seemed to dissipate, and we made good time to Lake Ann. It was somewhat difficult to find good spots, most of the great ones were already taken but we each had packed small bivy tents so we were each able to find somewhere tuck ourselves into for the night. Day 2 Approach We all woke up to a hefty layer of internal condensation in the tents, as Lake Ann was practically in a cloud of fog all night and into the morning. We did our best to keep our bags dry as we packed up and hit the trail by around 8am to tackle the chimneys. Misty morning at Lake Ann Previous GPS tracks had both a high and low route around the cliff bands leading into the chimneys proper. I didn’t realize at the time, but the low route was certainly the least used….and by least, I mean probably almost never. Unfortunately, we were a good 15 minutes into it before I realized this, so we continued to route find our way up to the chimney’s entrance on what was probably a less efficient path. The fog was still quite thick, and the combination of exertion and humidity had us all soaked. Off Trail but can't complain about the dramatic view hiking over the Lower Curtis glacier. Heading up the final slope to the start of the chimneys. Scramble It didn’t take long, and we arrived at the entrance of the chimney itself. Both Joe and Rob looked at the first section of class 4 and seemed like they wanted to ask if we were going to rope up, so I quickly started scrambling to keep the momentum going and show that it wasn’t as intimidating as it looked. Top of the dihedral that everyone likes to take pics of. Solid holds all over the chimneys make for fun scrambling. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the rock in the chimney. Certainly, there are loose pieces here and there, but most of the true class 4 sections had fantastic holds and in-between there were minimal patches of unstable dirt/kitty litter/rubble. The experience of more sustained rock scrambling with full packs was new for Joe and Rob but they kept at it steadily. About halfway up, where you make a traverse from the lower to upper chimneys we broke through the cloud cover and were rewarded with beautiful views of Mt. Baker…..and a very abrupt climate change from cool and damp to hot and dry. I was certainly hoping that the supposed running water at the bivy sites would be present and plentiful. Thus far we hadn’t seen anyone this day, until we finally ran into some people downclimbing near the top of the chimney. Rob's trial by fire scrambling with an overnight pack on his first day climbing a mountain. Joe finally soaking up some sun once we got above the cloud layer Rob taking in the elevation gained so far, looking down at the Lower Curtis glacier. At the top, the transition to snow was simple, the moat was not an issue. We hopped on the snow and continued un-roped to the base of Winnies Slide. At the base of the slide, the bivy spots were full, but we were told by the previous party that everyone up there had summited that day and were coming down. It wasn’t late, so we had some time to decide. We busted out the stoves and had a hot lunch at the lower bivy section while we waited for the occupying party to come down. When they arrived, they told us that the upper bivy was emptying out as well and had running water. I made the call to head up to the higher bivy. Winnie’s is steep but also had a great boot pack, so I used it as a good teaching moment to let Joe take lead and put in a running belay with pickets. It was a good spot for it, and I figured this might be a useful skill later in the trip; plus, it gave me an excuse to have everyone practice roping up, coiling the rope, using their ice axes etc. in daylight where I could see them, knowing that the next day we would be doing this on higher consequence terrain in the dark. Mt. Baker comes into view on the mid-chimney traverse. Passing the time with a lunch below Winnie's Slide to let descending parties clear out of the Bivy site. Joe heading up to the base of Winnie's Slide Practicing running belays using pickets on Winnie's Slide The Upper Curtis glacier comes into view nearing the higher bivy site The hadn’t seen pictures of either bivy site before the trip, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find a gorgeous site sitting alongside the seracs of the Upper Curtis glacier with incredible views of Mt. Baker. The cloud layer pushing up against the mountain made for a dramatic sunset. A couple parties came through the upper Bivy, including some climbing rangers who did their usual permit checks. We ate and organized our packs for summit day, finishing up around 6:30pm. We all tried to get to sleep early since our plan was to get up at 2am and be moving between 3am and 3:30, but I set another alarm for sunset to get a few pictures before fully going to bed for the short night. The Upper Curtis glacier was shedding ice and rock all evening into the night, an excellent reminder of the ever present objective hazards and motivation to stay efficient moving under the cliff bands to the left the next day. My Tarptent ProTrail Li has never been that easy to set up but perfectly, but it was great for this trip; light, well ventilated and with a compact footprint. The thin floor still always makes me nervous on rocky terrain. Sunset was worth interrupting my sleep for a half hour for photos Day 3 The Climb It wasn’t exactly enjoyable or easy to wake up so early, but it had to happen, so we pushed through and were moving by 3:40am. My goal was to be back at high camp by noon, a little over 8 hours later. This put my summit time goal 9am. I knew we had much more time than that, so I wasn’t going to consider truly turning around until noon. The boot pack from the parties coming down was still faintly visible so we made decent time in the dark across the Upper Curtis glacier. Despite the fact that Hell’s Highway was steeper than Winnie’s slide, the darkness helped mask the sense of exposure so I was able to just keep our party moving up the slope without needing to pull out pickets and do a running belay. We reached the Sulphide glacier just as morning twilight was beginning. The Sulphide was cruiser, very straightforward and direct path up to the summit. The boot pack was obvious once it joined with the more popular Sulphide glacier route. Tail end of the milky way over Mt. Baker was the consolation prize for having to be awake far too early in the morning. Shadows cast, I presume, by the Mox-Spickard-Redoubt mountain cluster blocking sunrise against a high-altitude haze as we moved up the Sulphide glacier. We encountered a number of parties once we got onto the main trade-route of Mt. Shuksan. There was no boot pack to the SE ridge so I had to somewhat guess where it started. As we neared what I thought was the beginning of the ridge, another party arrived, and we let them pass us given my expectation to be pitching everything out. This party had the same intentions so in the end they never really got ahead of us. This initially caused some delays waiting for them on the first couple pitches, however by the last pitch they were fully ahead, and we were our own limiting factor. The ridge was fun, had exciting but not intimidating exposure on both sides, and the rock was solid enough. I can see why most experienced parties would simul or solo the ridge, as the ‘crux’ 5.3-5.4-ish moves weren’t always protectable anyways. I think that the standard pitched climbing approach gave Joe and Rob a chance to relax at the belays though, which helped keep our pace consistent even if it was a little slow. The last pitch was long, and I hit the end of the 50m rope I was on; however by the time I got to the end it was just class 3 so I put a micro-traxion on a piece near the top and had Rob, who was belaying me, just start climbing to make it the last 15-20 feet to the top anchor. I got him on belay, had him remove the micro-traxion when he got to it, and then bring up Joe. We made the short scramble to the summit. Rob scrambling up to the start of his first ever rock climb (of any kind!), wearing mountain boots no less. Joe making his way up the ridge. This was his first time climbing in mountain boots as well. Rob belaying Joe up. We used both ropes in a caterpillar manner for the ridge climb. It wasn't super fast but I wanted to have them learn to manage the multi pitch transitions and system as their own 'second rope team'. This was also a great opportunity to show them how to build a releasable anchor using the second rope to be efficient with our anchor materials and get Joe climbing quickly without needing to tear down a separate anchor at each station. Me leading up the final (I think) pitch of the ridge just behind the party ahead of us. This photo courtesy of Joe. The combination of the other party and eventually our own pace resulted in us being at the summit around 11am; I hadn’t imagined being so close to our turnaround time. The summit register was in terrible condition, full of scraps of loose paper, we had to just squeeze our names into a space in-between the other entries. If I would have known, I would have brough a new one. We ate some snacks, enjoyed the expansive views of the North Cascades as the cloud layer was starting to break up and reveal the smaller peaks around us. After a short time, we began the descent Me signing the rapidly disintegrating summit register. I might start keeping at least a few sheets of 'write in the rain' paper on me for future climbs. Photo courtesy of Joe. Joe and rob looking a little tired......considering that Rob had never climbed even a single pitch of anything before today, Joe had never been on a glacier before, and I had was leading my first ever glacier-rock combination alpine route this was a huge success! Descent It was Rob’s first time ever rappelling on a real mountain. We had gone over the basic system in the ‘classroom’ at work, but he hadn’t had the previous rock trip to practice in a single pitch setting. I decided to go with a pre-rigged rappel with clove hitches between each climber on the anchor to make it as stress free as possible. After getting both of them set up with extended rappels, I would rap with coils to get the ropes down to the next station and set up. Having two ropes was great, but the 55m limitation from having a 60m and a 50m resulted in slightly imperfect linkups between “every other” rap station. I found the downclimbing easy to make up the difference, however for the Joe and Rob this improvisational transition and the end of each rappel added some extra time. Overall, however, these micro transitions to downclimb the last few feet after each rappel were faster than if we had doubled the number of rappels using just the single 60m rope. Joe coming down the first rappel from just below the summit. The 50/60m double rope setup reached the '3rd' rap station no problem. Here, the 50/60m rope setup did not quite reach the '5th' rap station. Here, Rob is at the last good stance to unrope at the end of the rap. This short traverse from the end of the ropes to the final rap station was not that difficult though. We moved quickly down the Sulphide without crampons as the snow was very soft by now. At the top of Hell’s Highway, we put the crampons on evaluated the slope. It had softened significantly, and we had been moving about 10 hours at this point, so I didn’t think Joe and Rob wanted to solo downclimb at this point. I put in a pair of pickets, had everyone remove their glacier rope setup, and set up a fixed 60m single strand rappel. Joe and Rob rapped down the steep section. Then I pulled the rope for them, packed up the picket anchor and downclimbed Hell’s Highway while they reconfigured the rope for glacier travel down below. After I tied back in for glacier travel, we made the very hot slog across the Upper Curtis back to high camp. While we packed up the tents another party arrived, happy to snag our spots for their evening bivy. After some snacks and refilling our water, we set off for the descent. We all downclimbed Winnie’s Slide and were happy to make our last steps off snow as we reach the top of the chimney. At the top, we ran into a guided group being short roped up the chimneys. Me, crampons on getting ready to go check out the snow conditions on Hell's Highway. Photo from Joe. The HMG camera holster bag worked really well, I had it rigged up with some carabiners, a cord directly to the camera and a bag strap so there were a couple redundant points to prevent the camera from going free - which actually came into play once, saving the rig from smashing on the rocks and/or rolling off the mountain. Considering Rob and Joe had spent over 13 hours doing a very large list of “firsts” on a tough mountaineering route, I knew that trying to force everyone to solo downclimb the entire chimney section wasn’t going to be a great idea. Although it took more time, I set up rappels on the tough sections of the chimneys. We reached the bottom of the final class 4 section around 7:30pm, a solid 16 hours since we set off that morning. It was a huge relief to transition back to trekking poles and take off the helmets. I made sure to follow the main upper route on the way down, which involved more 3rd class down climbing than I expected. Regardless, we just barely made it to the bottom of the very last scramble as evening twilight faded to true nighttime. Headlamps on, we started the monotonous trail slog back to the cars. Joe and Rob putting on the crampons at the high bivy site to make the final snow descent down Winnie's Slide to the chimneys. Rapping the 'dihedral'. There is some exposure to the bottom right, and in this instance the backed-up rappel was definitely a good choice for tired climbers pushing through a very long summit day. Joe getting ready to do the fun little 'au cheval' exposed step over on the chimney traverse section Very happy to be done with the chimney scrambling and have the helmets off. Little did we know, some class 3 sections lay ahead of us. Last light as we exited the chimneys proper and continued on our descent. We had a solid 4 hours of effort ahead of us back to the cars, but the respite from the sun was a welcome change of climate for the hike out. 6-ish miles and a few hours later, after digging deep into our energy reserves, we arrived back at the cars at 12:30am; 20 hours and 42 minutes after we had stepped onto the Upper Curtis Glacier that morning. This was a fun climb, and a huge confidence booster. My goal for the summer of 2022 was to reinvigorate my goal of leading alpine climbs; the last time I had led anything was back in 2016-2017; and at that time, I had led a few multi-pitch rock climbs to 5.7 but nothing truly alpine. Not only did I climb my two hardest alpine routes to-date over these back to back weekends but led them, and led them while teaching two brand new climbers overcoming a variety of alpine climbing challenges. Gear Notes: Put some pics in there. Approach Notes: Straightforward

Jon! May I rudely interject some other perspectives in (slightly hijack) your TR? We saw your name in the summit registers just a few days after you signed them. It sounds like you had an awesome adventure!! We did too, and although our adventure visited the same summits, we took some slightly different approaches.....(I debated posting this but some people convinced me.) Thanks, @JasonG for the inspiring original BB TR! - Kat, Micah, and I biked from Dingford Creek TH to Dutch Miller Gap TH on Saturday at a humane hour: - We thoroughly approved of the Dutch Miller Gap trail. We camped at Lake Ivanhoe and did a good amount of hangin' at The Cove. I did not catch any fish but it's OK: - In the morning, we took the trail down and then tromped around and had some B1- open forest schwack for a bit, crossed Shovel Creek, then started up...I agree: the mega slabs were awesome!! So fun! That foot-then-handrail crack you describe/have a photo of was definitely memorable. I feel like none of these photos really do this route justice: - We scrambled the first bit of the summit tower, pitched out the chimney, then scrambled up to the summit of BB: - I agree the summit views were not the most amazing, Hinman and Daniel south sides in late summer... oof, so dry! Hinman cradling Lake Rowena and tiny part of Rebecca: Slightly more solid views: - We descended the SW face route. Happily, my partners nailed the complex descent while I attempted to keep up. Shout out to @Hoo for great chossy gully and cliff navigation. No one knocked rocks on each other and no one slipped on exposed 4th class. Hurray! We rapped the summit block (3x) and then down lower did two raps off cedars. Kat led, quite vocally, this memorable one: - The next morning we walked down the trail, stepped into the "timber" and did some B1+/B2- schwacking, then took a high traverse over to the notch and then up to Summit Chief. Summit Chief Lake basin was spectacular! - Glaciers around Chimney Rock from the summit: - The Cove delivered yet again that afternoon with blueberries and swimming and eating some of our last foods (so hungry): The ride out was awesome on my 2.25" tires until I learned some important life lessons about tubeless tires, sealant, and friends carrying the tire levers. (/snaffled) I felt lucky to have this adventure with Kat and Micah. Two very skilled, ridiculously fast climbers. Great people even if they do Strava...

Fantastic TR; I couldn't stop reading it. The climbing looks better than I might have expected, but the trash and BS with guided clients seems really trying. You guys did it in great style!

wow. great read!!!

An incredible report of an incredible adventure!!! Thanks for posting. Going without oxygen or backup oxygen is super impressive and seems very clear cut. Being truly "Unsupported" on such a popular peak seems basically impossible given how much gear and effort from other teams is used. Congratulations! Can't wait to see what you do next! Please stay safe in the mountains, and thanks again for posting here.

Wow! An amazing effort to climb in a style that respects the mountain and yourself. I guess all those winter ascents in Washington paid off! The state of Himalayan mountaineering is certainly depressing with all of the commercialization and associated trash left on the peaks.

Read it in your blog. Sounds so casual!

Outstanding! What a wonderful trip report. Thank you so much for sharing. Great logistical beta and straightforward writing. Congratulations on both Broad Peak and K2 in good style!

Amazing report and congrats on a great and successful trip!! I loved all reading all the details. It sounds about as chaotic and messy as I thought 8000m climbing would be, but you guys timed the crowds very well.

You heard it here first folks, staying up to date on cc.com just may save your life! Or, better said, listen to @rat at all times! (glad you guys survived!!)