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The often-discussed west face of Sloan has been in the forefront of my mind for about as long as I've been winter climbing. When I first came across the stunning Scurlock photos of the face, I was blown away to learn that there had been no successful ascents of any of the major ice lines. Rumors of poor-quality ice came with every attempt up until Kyle and Porter's climb in 2020. I'm not going to lie, I was somewhat disappointed when I heard someone got to it first, but it was only a matter of time. A few weekends later I skied in with @sfuji to try and take their route to the summit. Weather changed rapidly and we spent the night in the basin listening to avalanches rip down the face as it continued to snow. We skied out the next day after some consolation pow turns. My attention then turned to the prouder lines on the main face. Still not yet entirely sure I was ready for the direct line, I set my eyes on what would become the Slither (Merrill-Minton). When that high pressure system hit in late Jan 2023, I knew it was the perfect window for the face but had committed to some other obligations. When I got a text from Tucker asking if I thought their line was previously unclimbed, I felt that same pang of disappointment mixed with the psyche for my friends. It had taken a while, but the plums were slowly getting picked. At this point I knew I had to make this a priority, If the window showed up, I had to at least try. In the summer of 2023, I went out and climbed the SW face rock route Fire on the Mountain. It was my first time actually touching the peak, and I was impressed by the rock quality. This gave me hope that the pitch up to the dagger would be possible but might need a few bolts. It also gave me the opportunity to experience the upper mountain and SE shelf descent. Fast forward to about two weeks ago when this massive high pressure system rolled into the forecast. A brief but deep warmup followed by a long stretch of cold high pressure. THIS was the system I'd been waiting for. Bozeman and Patagonia had stolen the majority of my go-to alpine partners for the winter, so I quickly exhausted my list of regulars. I began reaching out to friends of friends who I'd never climbed with before but seemed up to the task. Finally, I convinced Justin Sackett, a guide based in Portland to make the drive up for the weekend. On Wednesday the 15th I woke up in my car along the Mountain Loop and began pushing my bike up the Bedal creek road. At the time, there was a large tree fallen over the road that was impassible in a car, not that my Prius would have made it much further. I hiked in with a tag line, some pins and a small hand drill bolt kit to stash below the face. Along the way I cleared some branches and did my best to establish an easy to follow boot pack. It also confirmed that skis would not be worthwhile to bring. I snapped some photos through my binoculars and booked it back down trying to get a few hours of work in that afternoon. Scoping the dagger. The Slither is also fat for anyone keen on taking this one to the summit. That day I posted trying to get someone to go chop down that tree, and to my surprise @Manheartmountain was already on his way out there to do the work. This saved us about an hour on either side of the day, and a good bit of suffering. Our alarms blared at 2:40 am on Sunday, early enough that my body hadn't quite realized I was sleeping. We crawled out of the car and set off a little after 3am. The Redbull, gas station muffin and last night's Chipotle fought for dominance in my stomach. The approach went smoothly with the refrozen snow surface, and we found ourselves in the basin around 5. Here we ran into Rob who was planning to make a solo attempt on Superalpine. We shared trail breaking duty up into the lower gulley of the face. Below the first ice step we stomped out a platform and pulled the rope out, after taking a short break Rob continued out right across the ledge towards the Superalpine gulley. Described as WI3 in Tuckers Slither report, our first pitch involved a heinous aerated delaminating pitch of WI5. This was by far the hardest pitch of ice we climbed. It can be bypassed by walking around to the left, or possibly the ramp to the right climbed by @Marcus Russi on his 2017 attempt. It also looks like a good pitch of M5-6 climbs just parallel to our ice smear connecting at the top where the ice is better. Lots of options here, we don't really recommend climbing the same pitch as us in the conditions we found. Photo courtesy of soloist Rob. Justin on the first pitch. Deceivingly steep. The rock on the left looks very climbable, or you can just walk around. I took over for the second pitch and found the start of this pitch to also be aerated shampoo ice at the very bottom. I placed a beak and made a few rock moves to establish on the good ice a few feet up. From there a WI4 groove took me to the top of this step where I made a good screw anchor. The aforementioned beak was unable to be cleaned so it's still in place. I'd like it back if anyone else goes up there soon. Another pitch of harder than reported ice, either we had more different conditions or Tucker is a sandbagger. Likely the latter. Looking up at P2. Once again, we swapped and Justin Lead a pitch of WI3 up through a groove and out onto the onion skin cone below the dagger. Not a whole lot in terms of pro here, but incredible one swing hero ice for the follower. Now below the dagger, we took a short break and got prepared for battle. When racking up in the basin I chose to leave the bolt kit behind. This route deserved an honest attempt on natural gear before being sieged. After traversing back and forth a few times I finally chose my line and started climbing. The rock on this portion of the wall is highly featured, but extremely compact. Due to it being wet so much of the year, every crack and seam was full of frozen moss. This made climbing easier in some ways, but finding decent protection a real challenge. I slowly picked my way up, getting gear wherever I could. The terrain was pulling me right, but I eventually needed to cut back left to access the ice. Once a decent option showed itself, I made a hard traverse towards a hanging face under a roof. Finally getting a piece I was really happy with, I plugged in an additional garbage cam for good measure and committed to the steep footless traverse under the roof where I got myself a bit overcommitted. With my last pieces below my feet, and an arm wrapped around a small spike, I made a last ditch effort to press onto and sit on the thing the best I could. Barely getting enough of my mass onto this perch to go hands free, I pounded a KB into a seam right in front of my face. Finally able to relax a little bit, I knew that if I could keep it together just a little longer, I'd be on the ice and home free with the onsight and both my ankles intact. The final traverse went smoothly and I made it into the belay cave just before the sun peeked around the corner. In the warmth of the sun, I was able to revel in what I had just accomplished while Justin followed the pitch clean, securing our team onsight. The Beartooth Alpine picks still climbing ice well after a long game of "turf or rock" The gloves had to come off for this one. Unbelievably psyched. Also the point I realized I forgot sunscreen. The actual dagger ice pitch ended up being quite moderate. A steep traverse on fantastic quality ice took me to a WI3 ramp. If your biceps aren't cramping by that point, a stunning direct pitch of WI5 can be taken instead. It looks like in some years, a tunnel forms behind the pillar allowing for you to cut through, instead of around to access the easier climbing. From there we unroped and slogged up the snow slope up into the major corner at the top of the face. The occasional step of easy ice, and some snow offwidth climbing in a runnel took us most of the way up this feature. Near the top, the corner chokes down to a squeeze chimney directly up to the ridge, or you can cut right up easy snow and scrambling to gain the summit from the south ridge. I started up the chimney dreaming of the super direct but was turned back by BS sugar snow caking one side of the chimney. A fun challenge any other time than now, I backtracked and opted for the path of least resistance. We arrived on the summit at 3:45. Mooses Tooth or Sloan? We started down the corkscrew a few minutes later, and finally had the sun set on us near the bottom of the SE shelf. The diagonal steep snow downclimbing seemed to drag on forever, but we eventually made it down to walking terrain and slogged our way back around the mountain. We got back to the trailhead at around 8:20. Back at the car. Rack: 8-10 screws, handful of KB's, beaks and at least one small angle. Nuts, Single rack .1-2 (doubles would have relieved some stress). 60m rope & tagline was great for hauling the packs on the crux pitch. All the winter routes and variations I know about Photo credit: John Scurlock Orange: Full Moon Fever (AI4R, 5.8, 50deg) Crux pitches out of view Light Blue: NW face ski line Red: Borrowed Time (WI5 M7) Green: 2017 attempt Blue: Merrell-Minton AKA Sloan Slither (WI4) (AAJ) (CCTR) reportedly a sandbag by Aaron. Yellow: Superalpine FA w/out summit Purple: Superalpine with summit and better access ramp Not Drawn: Corkscrew route & Ryan Hoover's attempt to just below dagger.

Trip: Long Mountain - West Route via Marten Creek Trip Date: 01/18/2025 Trip Report: The January 2025 Drought continues! In times like these, the desperate turn to Kloke's Winter Climbs guide, self published by Dallas in the mid 90s. I recently picked up a copy of my own and began perusing for a reasonable winter day scramble for the mature mountaineer. And I stumbled upon Long Mountain, which I had never heard of until about a week ago. But no matter, @cfire long gave up on trying to judge the merits of my ideas and so it was an easy sell to convince him to give it a go this past Saturday. And... dare I say, it was better than expected? But maybe that was just the beers afterwards at the Mountain Loop General Store (back open!). Or maybe the summit whiskey that clouded my perception. Still, what's not to like about the sublime position, an exposed finish, and solitude on a windless winter's day? 1912 Doug Fir test plot along the Marten Creek Trail: This is what @cfire came for: Or maybe this was it? (Jumbo, Big Bear and Three Fingers): A lovely finish: Yeehaw! Three Fingers East Face....Paging @lunger and @danhelmstadter: Pilchuck and the Olympics: East to GlacierL Mind the exposure on the way down: Not fun: Fun: Gear Notes: ice axe, crampons, helmet. Approach Notes: Marten Creek trail for a couple miles and then choose your own adventure to get into the west basin. Follow your nose up to the exposed finish for the last bit.

At least you're not in snowshoes! Nice report!

Speaking of Trains, great booter trail from bridge creek to the base of the cliffs. Was a little wet but getting better

Trip: Mount Baker - Coleman Deming Trip Date: 01/12/2025 Trip Report: @dberdinka and I have been skiing together a bit more than normal this season and a few weeks back I offhandedly mentioned that I would like to climb/ski Baker in the winter sometime. Turns out, Darin had been thwarted a couple of times prior and was still interested in making it happen. It didn't take much convincing to hatch a plan during the first part of this long January drought.....and one Sunday morning we found ourselves driving unusually far up the Glacier Creek road (for midwinter), parking a little less than a half mile from the summer TH. We opted to go up Grouse Creek, figuring that the avy swath would allow for skinning a bit lower than if we followed the summer trail. Not sure if this was true, but it was what we did. The higher we got, with windier it became, with worse snow. But no matter, we weren't here for the skiing and we made good time to camp at 7k in a wind scoop on the glacier. @dberdinka had brought his fancy 'mid and this proved perfect to hunkering down out of the wind while being able to melt snow in relative warmth. Brandy and whiskey didn't hurt either. Nor a lot of insulated clothing. Did I mention the wind? Baker was being stripped of all loose snow right before our eyes and I was a bit apprehensive about our chances if the wind didn't calm down. But in the 'mid, with a lot of food and spirits, the vibes were good- the wind was a problem for another day- and we had 16 hours to kill! A nice sunset and full moon lent a nice touch to the evening. The long night eventually ended, with both Darin and I catching a bit of sleep and staying pretty warm overall. But it was time to poke upwards and into the wind and so we plodded slowly out of camp in the dark at about 0630. As the day began to break a lenticular formed over the summit and then lowered almost to the col. Uh oh, this wasn't in the forecast! The wind continued to howl and we dug a hole in the glacier to wait and discuss our options. I was pretty sure I wanted nothing to do with climbing up into a lenticular (bad experience on Hood 25 years ago), but @dberdinka wisely pointed out that we may as well go until we couldn't safely, and the forecast was favorable. Maybe it would evaporate? We were getting cold after stopping for a long while and so we packed up. And, much to my amazement.... as we stiffly began to plod upwards again, the lenticular vanished! But it remained quite windy- maybe steady 30 with gusts to 45? I was getting cold and scared but @dberdinka seemed to get more optimistic the more unruly it got with wind and spindrift. He was in his element! Sensing that I definitely was not in my element, Darin memorably asked me, "Well, what did you think it was going to be like climbing Baker in the winter?" Right. Upwards we go! But not with skis. We left them about 9800' at the top of the Pumice Ridge when it became obvious ski conditions were bad and not going to get any better. View into the maelstorm: The spindrift got better as we got higher since all the loose snow was already gone, but the wind remained strong. Still, @dberdinka was right, we were going to make it! We just needed to suffer and not lose heart. But what a wild feeling it was being so high on Baker in the wind and cold! It was just the two of us and I paused a few times on the summit plateau to take it all in, grateful that @dberdinka had pushed me to continue through my discomfort. We reached the summit a bit before noon, feeling like we were standing on the moon. A few quick photos and we began the plod back towards our skis and camp. As expected, the skiing back to camp wasn't anything to rave about, but it wasn't horrible either. Much to our surprise, 15 minutes after arriving back at camp, the summit was lost in another lenticular, showing just how narrow the windows of success can be in winter..... Gear Notes: Normal ski mountaineering kit plus much warm clothing! Brandy and whiskey were helpful as well. Approach Notes: Grouse creek. Could drive within half mile of TH, snow was thin down low but got rapidly better, higher. Mostly carried skis until the avy swath.