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Trip: North Cascades, Arches Peak aka Little J-berg - North Face Central Buttress, 10 pitches plus soloing, ~1,600 vertical feet, 5.6/7ish Trip Date: 08/03/2025 Trip Report: A couple of weeks ago, Rolf Larson and I climbed a probable* new route on this peak. Anyone cresting Easy Pass has been greeted by the big north face of this peak. There is one reported route on the face from the late 1970s; the party climbed the left-hand "Plumb Line Buttress" 2,700' from the valley floor to the summit, which clocks in at 7,945'. They reported loose rock. (See photo of register page in the album linked below, the AAJ, or Beckey guide.) Of three relatively prominent buttresses, our route climbs to the western false summit (circa 200' west of true summit) via the central buttress -- the most prominent one lit up (furthest left) in the photo below. We believe the 1977 line appears in this photo as a nondescript buttress in the shade further off to the left. Our route wends up the gneissly-featured buttress on pretty good, pretty clean Skagit rock--we began climbing behind the third snow-patch from the right on that prominent shelf, directly below the toe of the sunlit buttress. (Also available here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BV3itCHmqcoo7qL38) We had fun on this route, which thankfully was in shade while we climbed. Didn't take many climbing photos, but snippets of conversation went like this: "How'd you like that section of hand crack?" "I preferred my section of laser-cut finger crack." "Yeah, I went Squamish style and laid it back." Here's Rolf putting in a piece at perhaps mid-height on the face (the rope is out of view, off to the right): The first pitch was probably the steepest and most sustained, fwiw, and had a 5.6 or maybe .7 move. A couple of steep mini-headwalls were also climbed in that range of difficulty, but a person could avoid these if willing to take looser rock. We unroped for a few hundred feet of mellow scrambling after the first pitch or two, but some steeper terrain compelled us to again rope up and resort to pitching and simul-climbing on fourth and low-fifth terrain. The climbing is moderate, but generally solid and fun, with adequate protection. *As you will see in the summit register pics, Roger Jung soloed a route on the north face, but it's hard to say if he took our route -- there is certainly latitude to wander on that big north face. The photo album, which includes some pages from the register: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4JU83LgK6XKFdbSA7 We descended via a walk off to the south and east--no crampons required. The short-ish approach, moderate and generally solid climbing, and straightforward descent (not to mention the blueberries!!) might make this climb more appealing than some of Rolf's and my other routes. I'll wait for Rolf to correct me on any details (which are already fuzzy), downgrade the level of difficulty (as is his crusty wont), etc. etc. Here's an early musing about Arches from the cc.com archives: Gear Notes: Standard rack with emphasis in finger-sized pieces; tri-cams were useful Approach Notes: Via Easy Pass, drop to and cross Fisher Creek, find your way up through the lower cliff bands, wiggle-chimney between moat and rock to the start

Over the last 3 days, Lani and I climbed what we believe to be the FA of the North Ridge of Redoubt. This is the long, NW trending ridge that looms over the North Face glacier route. The route was actually quite classic and comes with a high recommendation. It is by far more enjoyable than the standard route scree encountered on the descent. The route was primarily low fifth class and fourth class scrambling and we roped up for roughly 1100', though snow coverage and comfort sloping may drastically impact this number. The ridge gains a bit over 2000' over around .5 miles of horizontal. The name is inspired by the little ball of fire, Calcifer, from howls moving castle, as we watched the Perry Creek fire grow in the distance. Day 1 We approached and bivied at Ouzel lake. A bird tells me the Depot Creek "trail" is in particularly excellent condition, requiring NO bushwhacking, and they said handlines are even avoidable. The same bird mentioned that current logging roads take you all the way to the border, making the approach to Ouzel Lake 4.5 miles. We bivied all the way up at Ouzel lake as we were initially planning on climbing Spickard the next day, but growing smoke from the Perry Creek fire changed our minds on that plan. There is also an excellent potential camp at the top of Depot Creek falls, potentially allowing for a direct approach, though this would require bushwhacking of unknown taste... There are also potential bivy options on route to help facilitate a 2 day itinerary. Day 2 From the lake, we made a long contour on talus, loosing only around 400', once near and below the objective, we made our way up talus and slabs to the toe of the ridge. Excellent running water out of the toe of the glacier. We initially attempted the cracks smack on the toe of the ridge, I bailed around halfway up after encountering some 5.11 tips and entering unpleasant looseness. There is an obvious corner left of the toe that potentially holds a very classic potentially moderate direct start. The unsent directismo After bailing off the toe, we looked to the right and zig-zagged up ramps to gain the buttress crest. Snow coverage will drastically impact your experience here. Once on the ridge crest we found thousands of feet of enjoyable scrambling on mostly sound rock. Lani compared it to the NE buttress of triumph but with mostly better rock. We roped up for the occasional pitch, but mostly soloed. There is a broad saddle at 7600' where things begin to steepen subtly. This would also make an excellent bivy with a permanent snowfield for water access. Above the notch, the climbing steepened and we climbed a few back to back pitches until we were below a prominent gendarme. Unsure what the top of the gendarme would be like we traversed into the chossy gully to climbers left and climbed a short, overhanging pitch of surprisingly solid shist. After topping out the gully, we found the descent off the gendarme would have been chill, so Future parties should consider a direct line up the cracks on the gendarme for a more classic finish. Once at the notch in the ridge we met up with the large talus fields that define the slopes on the south summit. The traverse over the sub summits to the true summit was generally easy but involved a few sections of fifth class. Once on the summit, we began the "joys" of doing the standard route late season. Lani in the canonball hole Once at the base of the gullies we encountered awful scree, one could only imagine how much more awful it would be to go up, so there is that... The entire day we had been watching a fire grow in the East. Seeing it expand so quickly and already beginning to envelope spickard in smoke we decided early on our descent to forgo spickard and plan on hiking out the next day. Mordor to the East Day 3 Hike out, blueberries... Suggested Rack Single Rack .3-1, optional 2; full set of nuts; we had a single 60M rope, but it could be done with a 30M line to save weight.

Trip: Seefar Peak, Brooks Range, The Long Way - East Gullies From Marsh Fork To Dalton Highway Trip Date: 07/28/2025 Trip Report: TLDR Version/Intro: Me and 4 buddies went to the Brooks Range in Alaska for 12 days of hiking through one of the largest wilderness areas in North America. July 28 to Aug 10. We had a blast and it went great. We got flown in by a bush flight, walked along many river valleys, hiked up a talus pile peak and then through the wilderness, across rivers and over hills to the Dalton Highway where we got picked up by a commercial shuttle service that drove us back to Fairbanks and the World. Long version: Day 0: Drive from Bellingham to Seattle, Fly from Seattle to Fairbanks on Alaska Air (duh), van ride, Uber ride. Walk around town, hit a bar, Thai food. Beers in the hotel room. Day 1: Fly to Coldfoot on Wright Air, slight delay due to missed flight (don’t believe the hotel that you don’t need to be early to Wright Air, they take their business very seriously). Immediately upon landing in Coldfoot we jumped into prop plane the same age as my parents and fly with Dirk of Coyote Air into Upper Marsh Fork landing strip on the Marsh Fork of the Canning River. The flight was incredible, frequently with wheels just clearing ridgetops and flying the terrain up and down valleys. Extremely scenic, caribou and sheep. Upon landing there was much exclaiming and pointing and backslapping. Once we got settled down and the final packing completed we hiked up valley. Warm, patchy sun, overnight hard rain. Glorious, glorious, glorious! I got a good chuckle out of everyone later admitting that they were forcing down the nausea the whole bush flight and hiding it from the others. 5.5 miles, 2.5 hours. “Rainy Camp” Day 2: Hike up Marsh Fork, cross into unnamed very upper East Fork tributary of the Ivishak River drainage. Camp at headwaters. Hard day, with technical talus and side-hilling above cliffs and raging water. The river was running pretty high from the previous night's rain so walking in the canyon bottom was not an option for us, otherwise this would have been easier. Cool and misty with rain. Amazing, just like home but nothing like it at all at the same time, so great all around; we expected weather, didn’t rain enough to get wet. Much exclaiming about the scenery. 12 miles, 9 hours “Frosty camp” Day 3: Awoke to frost on the tents and plants. Hiked down canyon to junction with upper east fork of the Ivishak, down river past multiple small confluences, easy walking. Over interminable ridge with tussocks (our first!) to Ivishak River main stem. Camp in a “hay field”. Bluebird sun and warm, 2 long great breaks for lunch. Much exclaiming about the scenery. We pushed hard on this day to set ourselves up for a potential summit tomorrow assuming the weather held out. We didn't want to get stranded up high looking for a campsite with no water. 16 miles, 11 hours “Hayfield camp” Day 4: Ascended Ivishak valley toward Continental Divide, turn south to climb Seefar Peak via dogleg east gully, awesome snow in first gully, then major talus slog to the summit. Amazing time spent on the summit, warm but breezy. Lots of cool fossils in the limestone. Descent to the south and west terrible talus, so we bailed off the ridge early to Wind River valley. Made camp. Amazing dry tundra camp next to river. Shoes and socks dry at camp! First time since 5 minutes into the trip. Bathed in river and washed clothes. Bluebird, sun, warm. Much exclaiming about the scenery. A good time was had by all. 10 miles 4000', 10 hours “Swimming Hole Camp” Day 5: Hiked down Wind River, saw wolves with puppies, then later moose which led us into a lousy tussock field, camped in side creek. Very mediocre spot, but extremely close to water and some dry wood, so we had a fire and drank margaritas to enliven the spirits a little. It worked. Much exclaiming about the scenery. 14.3 miles, 7.5 hours “Margaritaville Camp” Day 6: Up wind River tributary, saw a grizzly with two cubs, a heard of sheep way up high, and a lone wolf across the valley making quick work of the talus. Up a unique talus-ey canyon, over two passes, one being the Continental Divide, down a tributary of a southern fork of the Ribbon River. Great walking most of the time. We got showered on twice, but mostly sunny. The area where we looked to camp was somewhat brushy with knee-high vegetation and it took a bit of looking to find a good campsite, eventually made a spot work quite well with great moss and blueberries. 13 miles, 8 hours “Barefoot camp” Day 7: Nice enough weather early, quickly turned to rain, then hard rain, despite the Inreach weather saying it would improve throughout the day. Misery. Trudged up to beautiful lake, too windy and cold to enjoy it. Saw wolf puppies briefly. Over pass separating the Ribbon and Accomplishment Creek and down to tundra on other side, just past dangerously slick boulder field. Dove into tents soaked through. Very cold and wet. Lunch in tent, nap. Whiskey helped spirits a lot... at least in my tent. Less exclaiming about the scenery today, though everyone admitted it would have been great if we could have enjoyed it. 8 miles, 4 hours, no breaks. “Sunny dry happy fun camp” Day 8: Woke to fog but no rain, weather improved dramatically throughout the morning. This was clutch since our base layers were completely soaked. First thing in the morning everybody got ready to hike then leapt into our wet clothes and immediately started walking quickly to warm up in an attempt to dry out some clothes. Down Accomplishment Creek, up side creek over a pass with lots of caribou antlers, half way down canyon on other side to camp. Beautiful country, lots of exclaiming over the scenery, sunny and warm, dried out everything. Decent walking. Saw moose, wolverine. Drizzle just before camp. “Sewing camp” due to a near catastrophic pack blowout. 9.5 hours. 16 miles Day 9: Drizzle, fog, cool. Down interesting puzzle canyon, that was tons of fun to figure out, left side, right side, in the creek, does it go? It goes! Saw a griz at a distance, then across a big river, nameless east tributary of the Sagavanirktok, (tough, fast crossing), hardest of the trip. Slogged up a tussock hill, to canyon, over pass and down to Sag valley, mediocre camp, not many options. We were told that the Sag was a tough crossing that kills people from time to time, so we were excited to get a look at it from up high. I had done a lot of satellite and map reconnaissance of the entire route and had picked out an area of the Sag that is quite braided, hopefully making for the easiest crossing. I had read a few scattered reports of people who crossed just a couple miles further north and had to use rafts. “Lumpy camp” 12 miles, 7.5 hours Day 10: Foggy AM, then sunny and warm. Across the Sag! It ended up being not that big a deal, but it helped that we were on day 10 and river crossing 1 million +/- a couple hundred thousand. Up the valley wall to an amazing broad sunny saddle with rolling fog, for a tea break. We were on a plateau above the confluence of the Atigun and Sagavanirktok Rivers. The fog started to break up after break, we walked slowly; some bad weather was predicted today and the next couple so over the previous few days we had hustled to make sure we could get across the Sag before the rain set in. Unlike the previous days, the weather report ended up being pessimistic and we had great afternoon sunshine. We strolled through tussocks to camp on a sunny alpine tundra slope. Amazing day. Surprise sun! Everyone tard sailed all their gear out on the tundra to dry out everything. Dry socks even!! The low tundra around camp made for great lounging and camping, and beautiful. The sun and sense of accomplishment really made the light on the hills glow that long afternoon. “Kick Ass Camp” 5 miles, 5 hours Day 11: Hiked off the plateau to the Atigun River, up the river valley to the road, road!? Long road walk to Galbraith Lake camp. My knees hurt after the 8 miles of road for the first time in the entire trip. Mostly cloudy with sun patches and a short drizzle. Surprising amount of traffic on the road, saw a civic! Fire and celebratory attitude at camp. “Galbraith Lake Campground” 6 hours 15 miles Day 12: Woke up leisurely, lounged around, day hike to West Galbraith Peak, tea and coffee on the summit. Camp time, eating everything that was left. Mostly cloudy, mild. “Galbraith Lake Campground” 5 mi, 4.5 hours Day 13: Lounged in the tent, rain and drizzle, picked up by van at 11. Wes from Dalton Highway Express picked us up in a beater 15 passenger van. Two entrees and a beer at the truck stop in Coldfoot. Food at the farthest north truck stop and bar in America was cheaper than in Bellingham. “Hotel Camp” 10 hours in the van, zero walking. Photo credits to Mike Graw. Gear Notes: backpacking gear, bear spray, rain gear Approach Notes: Airplane, deproach by van.

During the past school year, I’d made the plan of doing a bike to climb trip this summer. Mainly due to the fact that it’s difficult to borrow a car from my parents for a while, but it also just seemed like a neat concept, and I was down for an adventure. After getting back from the North end of the ptarmigan traverse, I was inspired by the peaks further south. My partners were either out of commission or had came up with the lame excuse of “work” and “paying bills” so I figured I’d make it a solo trip. The peaks on the ptarmigan traverse made good sense for this since they’re usually 4th or low 5th making it a pain to bring rock gear. The only challenge was glaciers, but I hoped with my later-season climb they would be mostly dry. I was pretty lazy about prep so a late Saturday night found me and my brother binging a show. I woke up at the too-early time of 7am on Sunday and packed my bike before setting off at 10. Sunday 8/17 The first day was quite chill until I got to the centennial. At my first break on the centennial, I went for my phone when I realized my pannier pocket had been completely open and in a position to spill out the contents for the last hour while I’d been biking down a windy hill and over railroad tracks. I looked around but couldn’t find it so I asked a kind stranger to see if I could call my parents to find out the location. The man, Tom, ended up driving me back an hour of biking to the last known location but after a 1.5 hour ordeal, I came out empty handed. I figured I’d continue on with a garmin and stop by somewhere to get a map. Hour or so later, When I reached down in my frame bag for some snacks, I found it tucked behind some bike tools. The rest of the day went smoothly and I got into Darrington around 6 or 7 in time to get some food, buy groceries, and set up camp. Monday 8/18 As was the trend for the trip, monday was also a moderate day. I biked 30 miles to the trailhead and hiked up to itswoot ridge. The Downey/Bachelor creek trails are now well cut out. Always able to see your feet. At the Bachelor turn-off I ran into two climbers who were coming down from dome. Once I got to cub lake, I met a backpacker who had twisted his ankle a few days ago. An hour later I watched a helicopter come pick him up. I worked it up to Itswoot ridge where I went over to back the peak before setting camp at the established bivy sights to a nice view of dome and glacier. Tuesday 8/18 Trying to save phone battery and figuring the ptarmigan was obvious, I navigated the old fashion way. I knew that I had to climb through snowfields to the spire col so went to what I thought would be the obvious one. Once I was climbing the gully to the col, I found that it was much much looser than I had expected. Topping out, I realized I was definitely in the wrong place, I’d gone to the spire/west spire col. A shitty descent and some more vert later, I got to the right col. I scrambled up spire peak and enjoyed a mix of sun and clouds. TR’s had reported a licheny slab that wouldn’t be fun in approach shoes but it wasn’t too licheny anymore. From here I made the awful descent down to the basin where I traversed around to cub lakes. The only snow of the entire day was between the col and the base of the spire point. I got into cub lakes early and bagged 7340 and Lizard before heading to bed. Wednesday 8/20 The goal for the day was simple, Sentinel and Old Guard. The south cascade glacier was entirely dry and it was cool to see all the glacier monitoring equipment. I found a nice left leaning ramp up the West face of sentinel and scrambled to the top. With the sun and clouds there was a cool glory effect. I descended down, traversed over to the Leconte Glacier, and followed the dry glacier to the col. With some endrunning I was able to stay entirely on ice except for a large snow patch right before the col past the schrund. The scramble up was fun and I enjoyed good views of the more northern peaks. I descended back down and got back to camp by 4. Made some oatmeal and figured I’d scramble up old guard at 4:30. Made it from camp to the base of the North ridge in 45minutes before realizing that there may be some 5th class. It ended up being about 5.6 but it was a secure chimney so I felt comfortable. Made my way down by 6:30 where I found a deer at camp. Picked lots of berries alongside the deer before settling in for the night. Also lots of unfazed marmots. Thursday 8/21 Woke up to find my helmet 20 yards away from my tent. The marmots had stolen the foam padding from it. Spent the morning walking over to the dome-dana col. I went up and over to the itswoot ridge side since I didn’t want to solo the Dana glacier. Set up a nice camp before scoping out conditions. Figured it would probably be do-able but I wanted to do it in the early morning before sun hit everything and while snow conditions were firm. I was doing everything in approach shoes and hybrid crampons so steep stuff was not my forte. Listened to podcasts and sat around for the easy afternoon. That night was horrible, some mice disturbed me for two hours, eventually getting into my tent by making holes in the mosquito netting. My food was hanging but they still walked around by my feet. Didn’t get a ton of sleep. Friday 8/22 Started at 5am, picked my way up the glacier trying to stay on ice. Summited dome at 6:30, down by 7:30 before the sun had even hit camp. Figured I might as well make it down to the trailhead where I found myself at 2pm. Quickly packed the bike and headed towards darrington where I stopped to gorge myself at the burger place. Afterwards I hopped back on the bike in the 93 degree heat to bike to arlington where I camped in a park. This night also sucked too. Loud music + heat + my grimy body only gave me like 2 hours of sleep Saturday 8/23 I knew it’d get hot so I was moving as soon as it was light out, made it home in 5.5 hours where I showered and gorged myself. I’d been doing some moderate rationing for most of the trip so was, and still am, quite hungry. Overall it was a great trip to end the summer. I’ve got a oral surgery tomorrow that will put me out for 2 weeks and by then, I’ll be a week into the school-year. Been busy getting out recently but with this off-time, I’ll probably put together some mini-TR’s on my site(https://lucasfng.blogspot.com/). I’d been wanting to do a long trip over the summer so this satiated my hunger, though it would’ve been nice if I could've got more than one in.

Trip: High point of The Needles (AKA Big Methow Needle) plus the East Peak - Standard Trip Date: 08/02/2025 Trip Report: It seems to be that after 20 years you can repeat a peak and it is almost like you've never climbed it before. Almost. The memory of the character building approach in soft snow wasn't entirely forgotten when @Trent suggested the high point of the Needles (Top 200!) on a Saturday a few weeks back. I had last been up that way 23 years before with my friend Dennis and we had gone straight up from the highway/campground, traversing endless ribs and isothermic mush for a few short 5th class pitches. BUT, Steve had found a better way! Or, so I sincerely hoped, and so I found myself gearing up on the shoulder of 20 again, peering into the brush and looking for the faint hint of a trail @Eric Gilbertson had mentioned was in there. After some minimal thrashing indeed a halfway decent trail emerged, though downed logs were beginning to reclaim it slowly but surely. Things were looking better than I remembered and we continued up. Thankfully the valley thrashing is relatively short lived and the ascent up an open forest rib soon lifts one to views and cooling breezes. A couple hours slogging brought our first views of the Methow Needle, which was more impressive than I remembered. The views to Tower and Golden Horn were also much better than I remembered: Soon we were at the base of the climbing, racking up for 3 pitches of 4th/mid fifth class: @Trent took the sharp end first and launched up on the surprisingly steep first pitch, which was solid, if somewhat kitty litterish: A couple more rambly pitches brought to the lonesome summit, which really hasn't gotten much more popular since the register was placed in 1968. It was a much more entertaining read than most, and I especially enjoyed the firsthand accounts of FA by Pete Doorish and his partners many moons ago: We were definitely not worthy, but we were there, on the summit nonetheless: And the views, of course, were better than I remembered. Buckner, Boston, Sahale, Tower, Eldorado, Mesahchie, Katsuk, Kimtah (L-R): When I had last climbed it via the not recommended approach in less than ideal snow conditions, I was a young man and was still thoroughly whupped by the end of the day after climbing only Big Methow Needle. This time, we were older and wiser and had some extra energy to head over to the East Peak of the Needles which afforded a grand view of the North side of The Needles, along with many ladybugs (visble at black specs in the photo of @Trent below): But, pleasant as it was up there, we couldn't stay forever and reluctantly had to descend back to the brush and blowdown to battle the masses back west across the pass. Still, a parting view of Big Methow Needle as we dropped to treeline was a good reminder that we have an exceptional backyard here in the North Cascades: Gear Notes: Light Rock rack to 2", 60m rope, helmet Approach Notes: Stay in the valley and find an old trail up Pine Creek on south side. Where it crosses to north side of creek follow for a bit longer into timber until it peters out and you head up via open forest to treeline and the peak.

Trip: Cascade Volcanoes - Bike-athon Trip Date: 06/06/2025 Trip Report: Summary: I set out to stand all 5 WA volcanoes in the same 7 day (168 hour) period, bike powered between them. As usual, antics ensued. An unplanned road closure added ~100 miles on the bike and the goal was adjusted to 8 days/192 hours. In the end, I stood atop Mount Baker on hour 189 since departing the Mount Adams summit. The journey in between had deep suffering, even deeper discovery and an adventure I’ll always remember. The trip had to be solo. But the story was too good not to share… Classic DC shot, peak 3 of 5 In recent years I’ve become increasingly obsessed with long bike-hikes. But it's hard to remember exactly where, when or why this dream came to be. A while back some lunatic bike/climbed all the Cascade volcanos and that certainly added some fuel to the fire. There is something about doing it all on human power makes the adventure feel a little more....real…for lack of a better term. Earning every inch helps put me more in touch with the broader landscapes which connect our High Places Planning an effort like this was sort of an impossible task. Timing the trip would require some favor from the weather gods. But knowing the patterns of the PNW and its’ volcanoes, June would be the time. Without better criteria I figured lets pencil it in around the longest days of the year in order to limit the odds of after-dark cycling. The snow coverage on Rainier in particular would also help mitigate the risks of solo travel on big glaciers. So I wrote it in for June 14-22…but a forecast presented in the first days of June that was too good to pass up. I was not fully recovered from training, nor was my equipment or logistics in order. But that was all figureoutable. With a week of solid high pressure I eeked my way out of whatever responsibilities I had, and set off. Originally the plan had been to start the trek from the Adams TH and climb with a friend. The new plan instead had me start the ride from White Salmon, at the Oregon border. That green-blue-white color scheme 😍 Its finally summer in the hills Call it a warm up! The 37 miles to the Adams TH went pretty quick until the last few. Reports warned of a “rough” “dirt” road leading up to the south side climb. Rough was fine, dirt was fine. The sandy parts were nearly impossible on a bike loaded up with camping and climbing gear. Despite that, I eventually reached the TH, unpacked and slept as soon as I could. By 2am it was too cold to stay asleep. The forecast for the week was going to be very warm. So I chose the lightest quilt I had in order to save weight. But that first night I paid the price. Preferring to rest longer but knowing when to bend I got up, packed, ate and started trudging upwards. Because my concept of this challenge was starting the clock when I departed the first summit, I kept my pace slow to conserve energy for what would inevitably be a very long first full day. By 830am I reached the top. Perfectly clear, sunny…but bitter cold wind. By 845am I started the clock and raced down the mountain. A few thousand feet down the surface was soft enough for efficient plunge stepping. By 1130am I was back with the bike, repacked and ready to coast a bit. The road would not make this as carefree as I hoped. Tedious, bumpy miles eventually lead to a delightful (paved!) forested downhill. Once in Trout Lake I found the restaurants closed. So I had my first gas station meal of the trip. A secondary goal of the trip was to eat ice cream at every country side store I could. Feasting junk food on the front porch, the staff asked “isn’t it early for through hikers?” I must have smelled like one already. The first of 22 ice creams... As we chatted I learned that forest road 25 was still closed due to a combination of landslide, construction, lingering snow and owl conservation. I spent most of the day having my at home contact help brainstorm how I would re route after climbing Mount Saint Helens. In the mean time I continued, but the uncertainty weighed me down. Riding to MSH took the rest of the day. There were a few miles of pushing the bike through snow. Definitely among the low points of the trip. That night I slept at the climbers bivouac TH after 19 hours and 12k of combined vertical gain. I was exhausted and the stoke was low. That night I had some thoughts of giving up. Ultimately a series of bad dreams in the early morning were disturbing enough to force me awake. Sometimes nightmares can serve that benefit. Within seconds of waking my mind refocused. Trying to close the distance before dark on day 1 Hiking MSH under good weather was a treat. The ascent went fast and easy, but not as easy as the descent. I was totally out of water but snagged a liter that had fallen out of someone’s pack on the glissade track. Back at the road, some kind soul had packed a can of coconut water in a snow patch they built near my bike. A little trail magic- bike touring edition. It really made me happy. Not just the fluid intake but that some strangers had the consideration of doing that for me. Solid folks can still be found… At first I thought it was a beer...probably for the better that I was wrong... Another huge boost came that morning when I was high enough to catch cell signal. I was able to devise a re route to get me to Rainier. It would add a day of cycling, and push the 7 day goal to 8, but the mission would continue! Riding back to the I5 corridor was definitely not my preference but flexibility is a trait we learn on quests like this. I spent the night at a trashy motel near the freeway. The next day was type 1 touring. Flat farmlands with many, many ice creams to be had. I reached Ashford in the late afternoon and settled in for a 13 hour sleep. The next “day” (actually two days, no sleep in between) would be huge. Arguably the crux “day”. It was some of the best sleep I’ve ever had. The schedule for the next segment required I wait til around noon to start. Timing travel on the upper slopes of Rainier was the priority. The 20 miles from Ashford to Paradise was actually pretty nice for being continuously uphill. I took my time through there, keeping my heart rate and mental stimulation as low as possible. Reaching Paradise at 4pm on a perfect Saturday, I remembered why I avoid this place on summer weekends. Luckily, on a bike parking is not an issue… A nice melty treat...and also an ice cream The permit stop was pretty seamless. Months prior I had received approval for a solo climb. Checking in was a simple formality. I killed a couple hours (and ice creams), letting the sun begin setting and the snow firming up. By 630pm I could wait no longer. Setting out from Paradise I continued to be intentional about managing my pace. Once on the snowfield I started to open it up a bit. At Muir I was surprised to find absolutely zero wind. I took this opportunity to rest for an hour. After that break, something came over me. My energy was maniacal. It felt like nothing could stop me. By the time I reached the top of disappointment cleaver I had passed 52 people. 3h 53m after leaving Muir, I was standing alone on Columbia Crest, well ahead of sunrise and ahead of schedule. I had stood there many times before, sometimes alone, but this was a very powerful moment. Its hard to describe the feelings that came over me as the first bits of dawn stumbled over the horizon. Its amazing how full life can be…I hope some day I can better explain what came over me. The descent was uneventful… fast, efficient. By now I was getting better at repacking the bike, even though one of my cheap panniers had exploded. Riding down from Paradise was probably my favorite segment of cycling in my life. Almost no pedaling, fantastic views. Hardly any traffic, surprisingly. The bliss would not last. The rest of the day would be 80 relatively flat miles but with a strong headwind and temperatures reaching the low 90s. To boot, it was the first hot Sunday of summer and the roads were bustling. The miles were stressful and seemed to never end. Eventually I reached home in South Seattle. I had started the effort 32 hours earlier. In the end I would gain over 16k feet of vert and drink 15L of water. It was nice to be home for a second. But I had many tasks to complete in order to be ready to ride out the next morning. New panniers arrived. I did laundry. Tuned up the bike…and even had a few minutes to tend to garden tasks. The next morning I had pizza and cake for breakfast and then hit the road. The day would be 12 hours and 117 miles but it actually went pretty well. The first ⅓ of that were on routes that I ride often. I encountered some nice bike paths from Snohomish to Arlington, and beyond to Darrington. The gas station there was closed due to “extreme heat”. But I still managed to find some ice cream and groceries before continuing to the Glacier Peak TH. It was at this point that I started to feel like this could actually happen… It was a poor night of sleep there. But by 550am I was on the move, even if it was a little sluggish. If you’ve hiked GP before you know what a slog it is. It seems never ending, like you’re making no progress. My morale and energy improved as the day went on. I made the summit around 430pm. What a view. Glacier Peak is a highly underrated IMO One of the few photos that day. Rainier seems real far away ! It would be a long ways back to my sleeping pad and fart sack. But I made pretty good time. When I left White Pass at sunset the beauty was astounding. I had enough energy to run a few miles. The slog along the river valley did seem to take forever but at the stroke of midnight I strolled back into the parking lot. It did not take long to eat and fall asleep. The next morning I woke up and ate the 100 calories of crumbs left in my bag and started the (easy) 25 miles back to Darrington. Once at Moe’s I ate an unspeakable amount of food. Probably it was “too much” because my pace slowed to a crawl on the miles from there to Concrete. Once in town I decided I had better over-eat again… holy cow! just one left... It would be just a few more hours of uphill pedaling until I’d park the bike for the final time on this trip. There is something odd that happens at this stage in a grand-journey. Two strong but opposing feelings. On the one hand there is incredible relief that the work was nearly over. But the part that might be unexpected to some is the feeling of sadness that the mission would soon be over. So many years of planning and preparation, and now this week of total focus…it would be done soon. I had found comfort and identity in my striving. And with the finish line in sight I would lose them both At Schreibers Meadow I had a few hours to rest before starting up. A friend was at Sandy Camp and would be joining me for the final hours. Before the trip I wondered how my energy would be at this point. Would I be exhausted and barely hanging on? Or would I have tapped into some deeper energy and be racing to the top… A night to remember...headlamps stayed in the pack It was the latter...stoke was through the roof...through the clouds even... At 550am we stood on top So much of what makes a journey like this worthwhile are the elements that can't be transmitted in words or photograph...but I've enjoyed trying Gear Notes: no gear. just ice cream Approach Notes: no

Trip: Darrington - Gardening on Salvia (5.7 A2+) (A Ground Up Scary Darry Adventure!) Trip Date: 09/05/2024 Trip Report: WARNING! LOW QUALITY PHOTOS AND FEET PICS! Back in September of 2024, I teamed up with my homie Ethan @macropipette to go on a ground-up adventure in Darrington. We set our sights on the NE face of Mt Ulalach, an 800-foot slabby face on a granite dome. As far as we knew, the face hadn’t seen a lot of climbing activity, and we later found out some pretty good reasons why. Ulalach from Squire Creek Wall (Nathan P, Mountain Project) We departed the car with our packs loaded with the kitchen sink, eventually finding a “good” spot to turn left and begin our shwack up the forest slope. Immediately, we started post-holing in the spongy mixture of thick moss, decaying wood, and tangled roots. After about 150’ of this, I started to realize that this approach was going to suck big time. Fresh off a week and a half bout with Covid, I was drenched and wheezing as we slogged upward through dense brush and ankle-snapping blowdowns. All smiles for the most mellow bushwhacking of the whole approach! I have to applaud Ethan for sticking with it with no guarantee of any quality climbing ahead. A final push through brutal slide alder led to a welcome respite, easy travel on a boulder field. While my body was thoroughly worked, I could let my mind relax as we trudged up the final 1000’ to our campsite. We dropped packs and began surveying the face, and decided that tomorrow we would start our ascent up a flaky left-facing corner/arch and then aim for the steepest, square-shaped part of the face we dubbed “The Box”. "The Box" After a few puffs on a spliff and a guide’s ration of some gas station vino, Ethan and I called it a night. The Climb: Ethan sorts gear in preparation for our excellent adventure P1: 5.7 C0 We scrambled up a low-angle ramp to a small ledge, where Ethan took the lead. After moving up some easy terrain into the left-facing corner, he found his way up a right-trending crack that petered out quickly. After questing 20ft up the increasingly blank slab, he was forced to retreat and perform a heady downclimb. After regaining the corner system, he followed it up the loose, flaky arch and pulled the final mossy undercling moves to a well-placed stance for two. P2: 5.6 C0 I took the lead, pulling a couple of fun moves up and right to exit the arch. A slabby, dirty, and vegetated ramp led to a short but splitter finger crack, then to a gently sloping ledge. I spent probably 15 minutes throwing clumps of dirt and grass down the face, looking for gear to no avail. 15 feet above the nice ledge, I dug out a good cam placement and got a decent pin. I fixed the rope and descended to the ledge for a snack break. P3: 5.6 A1 R I pushed through a dense clump of bushes just above the anchor, then started up a slab with good edges but no gear. I finally reached the bottom of “The Box”, where the wall started to steepen. I decided to aim for a right-facing corner with a thin crack in the back. Still without options for protection, I slung a small shrub and had a quick laugh. Between me and the corner was a precarious stack of flakes. I looked down and determined that they would miss Ethan and the rope if they fell. I traversed under the stack and was rewarded with a perfect #2 C4 that granted me access to the bottom of the corner. From here, I made good time on cam hooks and pulled up to a roomy stance, the best belay on the route. Me reaching the bottom of "The Box" P4: 5.7 A1 This pitch held the best climbing on the route. After moving leftward up flakes, I reached a sequence of free moves on thin, incut holds. This bit was only about 5.7 but so fun, and well-protected with a downward pin behind a flake. Directly above me lay another right-facing corner that I shuttled up with cam hooks. Exiting the corner and wrestling with some bushes, I stepped left to what would have been a 10/10 belay stance if it wasn’t built out of loose flakes with only small gear available between them. In hindsight, the anchor I built was sketchy, and I really should have taken the time to drill a bolt. Pitch 4 P5: A gumby gets gripped on moderate aid: 5.5 A2+ I stepped left around the large flakes and got established in a hand crack, which led to easy climbing with lots of big loose flakes and blocks. I tiptoed around bushes and looseness before reaching some slab moves below a roof (barely any good gear to this point). I found a good inverted cam hook and poked my head over the top of the roof. My heart sank as I saw a broad, featureless slab. It seemed our relatively moderate line had come to a dead end. Hanging from the hook, I looked around for other options. 6 meters to my right, I saw a pair of thin cracks splitting a slab above, but I would have to nail the thin, dirty seam under the roof to get there. The seam was packed with moss and grit, and the rock looked crumbly. My last okay piece was now well below my feet. I composed myself and started placing a beak, chips of rotten granite fracturing from the seam with each blow. I tried to block all thoughts of zippering the traverse and taking the big, ugly swing as I put in a foul string of upward-driven blades and beaks. I gingerly inched closer and closer to a shallow 0.3 placement and finally breathed a sigh of relief as I clipped. At this point, I was nearly to the end of the rope, and the drag was so bad I could barely stand up in my aiders. Yelling curses, I pulled on the rope as hard as I could to gain the last bit of slack the rope would yield, then pulled the last few moves up and over the roof. The cracks were too flaring to accept cams or nuts and too shallow to give a solid pin. I decided it would be stupid not to place a bolt, which took the last bit of physical and mental fortitude I had in the tank. I fixed the rope and yelled down to Ethan, then sat at the hanging belay sideways, my left cheek resting against the cool, gritty granite. The sun was just kissing the horizon next to Whitehorse, and I felt a surge of gratitude for Ulalach for teaching us, humbling us, and allowing us safe passage on its steepest flank. There was another pitch of densely vegetated slab between us and the summit, but I knew our push was over. Ulalach had won. Ethan: After finally hearing JT yell that he had made a belay, I was pretty overjoyed. It was starting to get dusky, and we both knew we were looking at a lengthy descent in the dark. Cleaning the pitch with my large pack was not an easy feat, and after jugging up hundreds of meters of slab, I was pretty spent. I was thoroughly impressed by the work JT had put in to lead the last pitch, as the roof traverse seemed like quite a piece of work. Once I reached JT, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and were promptly in the dark on the wall. Ethan's thoughts about descending in the dark Bonus Reel: The next morning, I was boiling water in camp. I dropped the Fritos bag I was eating from onto the cook pot, which promptly tipped over and poured boiling water onto my shoe. I started yelling and ripping the shoe and sock off my foot, but I’d already received some gnarly burns. Just my luck! Free foot pics. Can you guess which approach shoe I was wearing from the burn pattern? Not too far from the car, we ran into local legend Bill Enger, fresh off completing another fantastic-looking new route (Miracle Ramps 5.8+) on the South Face of the Squire Creek Wall. I sprayed about our GNARLY NEW AID ROUTE… How embarrassing. This isn’t an FA of the NE face or even remotely close to being a good route, but we named it anyway. Suck it! Any of you old-timers climb this thing? Tell us about it! Gear Notes: Too much junk! Approach Notes: Approach to the base of the Squire Creek Wall and climb an actually good route.

A few days ago Lani and I did a fun link up on forbidden. We climbed the East ridge North Ridge and West Ridge. This is a rad way to move through a lot of scrambling terrain. Uncertain weather before the atmospheric river gave us a pretty narrow window to work with, so we headed up the evening before and bivied at the base of the East ridge. We left the B basin trail around 5pm and set up camp around 8 for an early night. The cloud ceiling quickly raised up, putting us in a thick,misty whiteout for the whole of the night. We woke up to even more whiteout and low confidence, expecting to bail we went back to sleep for a few hours. We ended up leaving the bivy around 8am. We climbed up the East ridge, then down climbed the north ridge. Down climbing the North Ridge was surprisingly mellow, we didn't end up needing to rappel. And the route finding was almost easier on the way down than the way up. There is only one 20' section of 5.5 at the very bottom, otherwise it's all sustained 4th class and secure low fifth. Once at the low bivy of the north ridge, the clouds again threatened us. So we sat and weighed our options. We ended up watching the clouds for an hour before deciding our fate. Our original idea was to traverse the glacier and climb the NW face/rib. But whiteout and impending rain steered our decision to "bail" back up the north ridge. Though the north ridge is such a fun knife edge it's hard to complain. We then down climbed the West Ridge. We hit the base of the West ridge 6 hours after starting up the East ridge and made it to the car just before 5, almost 24hrs after we left. The epic rains to come that night validated our decision to limit our time in the mountains on this one. For those who don't know yet, you no longer need to touch snow to climb either the west or east ridges. The glacier below the cat scratches is more or less completely gone. While sad, it does mean you can do this whole link up in approach shoes without carrying axe/crampons. Starting up the East Ridge Headed down the North Ridge, with clouds threatening to spill in from the west. Headed back up.

I was coming down the Baker River yesterday afternoon and passed by the slab feature shown in the photograph. I've seen it many times before but this time decided to grab a quick snap of it. It's located on the north side of the river at approximately 48.82863, -121.43918 if you want to google earth it. I'm sorry to say that it would be a hellish ~seven miles of vicious travel up the river from the trail end at Sulphide Creek. The view looks to the north. This is on the south-southeasterly trending ridge that extends from Mineral Mountain to the Baker River. Has anyone heard of anyone visiting or otherwise investigating it? From the air it looks much like something you'd see in Darrington. The photograph was taken from 48.80671, -121.43873, while at an altitude of about 6400'. The slab extends below the bottom of the frame, but not all the way to the valley bottom.

Trip: Squire Creek Wall, South Face - Nature's Way Trip Date: 09/05/2025 Trip Report: I was joined by Rob Stephenson on Sept. 5, 2025 for a climb of the newly prepared route, Nature's Way. This is a three pitch route on Squire Creek Wall's South face, located just right (East) of the route Concerto in C for Drill and Hammer. p1: From the two-bolt anchor at the base, walk up granite ramps and blocks to a prominent V-gully. Ascend the gully to find good pro cracks at its top sides. Step out left to an easy mantel move on the slab. Climb up easy blocks to a large ledge, 5.5. p2: A series of ledges cut the wall into five or six distinct problems, each protected by a bolt or two. The crux is at the fourth bolt, where a rightward slanting seam forms finger edges leading to a nice face hold to the ledge above, 5.8. Then a final 5.8 move in a shallow dihedral passes two bolts to a helpful tree/bush providing balance holds to the anchor. p3: The obvious hand crack soaring above is the route objective. It may look intimidating, but there are good pro options for cams all along its length. With lieback moves or stemming at first, gain the only big knob on the wall. Hand jamming for a couple of moves brings one to a restful patch right of the crack. Prepare for some undercling moves and fire out to a foot edge on the left wall with a useful sharp-edged finger crack for resting. Another ten feet of undercling leads to the top of the flake with a blessed hold at the end. Small pro can be plugged in here, protecting the high step move onto the narrow ramp to the chains, 5.9. Route history, timeline Yale Lewis spotted the "curvy flakes" of pitch 3 in September of last year while we were finishing up a climb of Miracle Ramps. The idea percolated all winter, and we drilled the bottom anchor on May 25, 2025. On June 15, Yale opined that one pitch would reach the curvy flakes. When he climbed the first pitch we were halfway there; there was some foreshortening involved. He drilled one anchor bolt at the big ledge. I climbed the second pitch by going wildly left into the trees whenever it looked hard. But I made it to the goal, the bushy ledge at the base of the curvy flakes where I drilled the two-bolt anchor. Later in June, on a solo mission, I placed chain anchors on p1 and p2. On June 29, we made the first attempt at the big flake crack. Yale led over to the crack and placed two cams, but could not move up as the crack bottomed out. He backed off and tried climbing around the flake to the far left and placed a couple of bolts. These bolts will have to be removed as they are way off-route. We descended. In July I went up for two days by myself and finalized the second pitch, placing six bolts at the interesting spaces between the ledges. I cleaned the pitch with the wire brush and some trundling, all good fun. On August 10, I made the breakthrough on pitch three. I knew the crack would have to be cleaned before I could free it, so I would have to use direct aid to get on top. With new energy from Linnet Vacha and Sam Pickel, I got on aiders and gardened pockets every five or six feet. Feeling like I was on a big wall again was so great! I had assembled a double rack of cams between blue TCU and yellow Camalot, and I placed 21 of them. I drilled the top anchor, avoiding some very loose surface flakes, finding solid rock up high, and fixed a static rope. On August 22, I returned by myself for three days. I jugged up to the top a p3 and rapped with the wire brush. I got the lichen off all the foot smearing within three feet of the crack. Then lower down, I got out the ice axe and dug out the dirt from the hand crack section! So satisfying. On August 5, I teamed up with Rob Stephenson for the free climb. Overcoming the weakness of mental negativity, I found enough rest spots to get it done clean with ten cam placements. Rob opined that a confident, strong leader could do it safely with five placements, and I now agree. Special thanks to Yale Lewis, Linnet Vacha, Sam Pickel, and Rob Stephenson. Photos by Rob Stephenson. Topo by Bill Enger. Gear Notes: Double rack between .3" and .75", and one 2". Strangely, no No. 1 (red Camalot) was needed on any pitch. Specifically, used on the FFA: One blue TCU, One yellow TCU, One blue Totem, One .4 Camalot, One yellow Totem, One .5 purple Camalot, Three .75 green Camalots, One No. 2 yellow Camalot. Approach Notes: From the well-known "paradisiacal grassy saddle" bivy area, cross the wide granite apron and cruise past the start of Concerto in C to the opposite wall. See the two bolts with ring anchors, installed to provide a descent option in case of bad weather.

Nice line. Here's what it looked like 54 years ago on July 10, 1971.

Trip: Porcupine Peak - Salad Days 5.11a Trip Date: 08/23/2025 Trip Report: Climbing and Crowds on a Newish Classic Liza, Kurt, Marc, and I headed out over the weekend to climb the newish @dberdinka and @lunger route, hoping for some fun, remote climbing in one of our favorite zones. After a solid week in the Sawtooths earlier this month, Marc and Liza were feeling strong and psyched to push their grade. A climb with bolted anchors, mostly in the 5.8–5.9 range with a single splitter 5.11- pitch sounded like just the ticket. We left Easy Pass trailhead around 8:30 a.m. and made quick time along the PCT before turning off on the climber’s trail toward the base. Following the approach line on Mountain Project’s map turned out to be super helpful. The first 400 feet of trail were a bit schwacky, but we soon hit a more established path. Liza and Kurt had climbed Arrested Development (5.10-) the year before and found the climber’s trail felt way more "developed" than last season. The approach took us about 1.5 hours. When we arrived at the base, two parties were already on route with one finishing P2, the other starting P1. As we snacked and racked up, three more teams arrived behind us. We were expecting maybe one other group… not SEVEN! But everyone was friendly and in good spirits. Liza and Kurt headed up first, with Marc and me climbing behind. Some highlights from the day: P1 (5.8) starts with a fun, heady mantle protected by a bomber cam just below—great start. P2 (5.9) was a blast: good jams, a wide layback crack, a delicate face move, and then a bolted jug haul to the anchor. Super varied and enjoyable. P3 (5.11-/10+?) was the crux: Liza and Marc led it and totally crushed it, especially considering it was their first 5.11- trad pitch. Liza took a quick rest for finger pain and Marc got the onsight. Tape on the left pinky was nice beta. This pitch gobbles up nuts and will take all the 0.2s and 0.3s you’ve got. P4-6 (5.8/5.9) The next three pitches served up moderate jamming, laybacking, stemming, and some delicate bolt-protected face moves between crack systems. By then, four of the teams (including us) were stacked on top of each other, climbing around and over each other. Fortunately, everyone was having a great time and the vibe stayed positive and chatty. After a quick scramble pitch, four teams topped out at the false summit together, took one look at the awkward mantle to the true summit, and collectively said “nah.” Instead, took some photos and all combined our 70m ropes for a mega party rappel down the route using all the techniques (carabiner block, simul rappel, gri-gris, ATCs, single-strand, double-strand)! The rappels were straightforward. Though it’s unclear whether the party-rappel saved us time or cost us some, but it sure was fun. Unfortunately, one of the ropes got a coreshot on the final rappel…. We packed up and made it back to the cars by 7 p.m., tired and happy. Final thoughts: The climbing was well protected throughout. The rock was a bit slipperier than expected. A great route for pushing into the low 5.11 range in an alpine setting. Thanks to Darin and Eric for putting up this route and all the work to clean and bolt it! Party climbing! Cruxing Summit selfie! Gear Notes: We brought triples 0.3-0.5, doubles 0.2 and 0.75-1, singles 2-4, and a set of nuts (many sm-med). An ideal rack would be doubles 0.4-1, single 2-3, set of nuts (many sm-med), and as many 0.2-0.3 cams as you want to carry (triples or quad). Approach Notes: Follow PCT until

That’s a lot of people. I think had I been in the middle of seven parties climbing on top of one another I would have collected my gear, muttered something under my breathe, unclipped and jumped off. Glad the younger generations are not as antisocial as myself.

Trip: Dragtooth - North Buttress / The Dragway Trip Date: 08/19/2025 Trip Report: Got to sneak in a quick 24hr mission with my friend Miles while visiting family in Reno. We climbed the Dragway on the Dragtooth of Sawtooth Ridge because it was a short drive for High Sierra climbing, a "short" approach, and a short route. We failed to factor in the ridge traverse and descent as significant factors and it took a little longer than anticipated. Sawtooth Ridge is the NE boundary of Yosemite NP but this route is approached from Twin Lakes on the E side of the range, so you are in FS and Hoover Wilderness the entire day unless you drop off the ridge line to the W. The rock quality is good by N Cascades standards but poor by Sierra standards, as is apparently the case on much of Sawtooth Ridge. This route felt quite a bit harder than other 5.10s I've done down there, but if you like 5.10 OW and fists with the occasional thin stemming move you will have a good time. The descent has several options, none of which are great. We traversed the summit ridge for quite a while but didn't like how it looked so dropped down a gully to the W to some sandy slopes and reascended to the Matterhorn/Dragtooth Col. In retrospect continuing the ridge traverse just below the crest on the W side appears to go easily. The couloir from the col back to the E was pretty atrocious scree/dirt/ice. We opted for the skiers R couloir after the initial rappel, which appeared better than the L, but was quite awful by any standard, even Canadian Rockies! Maybe bring crampons? Or climb Matterhorn on the 400' of shattered 4th class ledges and descend the 3rd class dog route on that peak, which would add some mileage but would be way faster than waiting for a helicopter rescue after getting pounded in the couloir. Here are the pictures... Approach, Dragtooth with the route and the Matterhorn visible. Head up and R to the Tarn after the scree at the head of the valley. Creek next to the tarn. Horse Creek Tower on the R. Saddle to it's L is way to route. View of the route following obvious dihedral, note ice on the water. Sawtooth Ridge N of the Dragtooth. Route up close. 3rd pitch, 1st dihedral pitch Fun anchor shenanigans. Rest above Crux on Pitch 4. Sawtooth Ridge to N Last hard pitch, amazing splitter crack from fingers to wide hands. Looking over to Tuolumne. Miles on the summit. Ridge traverse shenanigans. Matterhorn is the prominent peak. Miles in the col, starting down the gully of choss. Yummy choss gully. Negotiating firm snow once out of the couloir. Matterhorn in the sun. Back in the meadow by the tarn. Route not visible from here. Just 3k' hike down to the car and a 2.5 hr drive home! Gear Notes: Doubles to 4 Approach Notes: Free day parking at Annett's Mono Village, Horse Creek Trail to the top of the scree field then climbers trail to the tarn and cross country to the route.

As if you stepped out of a time machine into the hallroom of the Darrington hardmen of yore.

Nice line, especially the side view. Naming history: Little J-Berg. 7945’ on map. P745 (now Lidar P790). This was the original (August 23, 1968) name for this summit since from Easy Pass its shape resembles that of massive Johannesburg Mountain near Cascade Pass. (A "berg" is a mountain; a "burg" is a town.) Fred Beckey was lukewarm about this name for his guidebook, so Legends Peak came to mind to honor Indian legends and legendary climbers. The alternate name was Arches Peak for its arcing shape and for a blocky arch low on its north slope and was so recorded in green Fred CAG. I still like Little J-Berg best.

Boom! Just look at that proud face! (at least I hope that is your buttress on the skyline)

Thanks for the foot pictures btw. Normally we have to pay for those.

Gardening on Salvia is definitely some other best that YouTube has to offer. But naming something up in Darrington after it is next level. Traditional is made alive or revived or made new whatever. Thank you for this contribution to the zeitgeist.

here’s one when I got new panniers on day 5 and just for fun, here’s what I was rolling with when the old ones exploded coming down from MSH 🥲

It’s just me reading the TRs 1000s of times

Good luck with that. That FA was put up by a badass.

Different people! Not to say anything of Mr Ng’s ability or potential. Maybe we all want to spot the next jeans wearing Cheamclimber, but I think it best just to encourage and help out the youth who clamor for the hills in our little community here. No sense in saddling expectations or projecting where someone is going. He will find his own way, and I hope his motivations are always his own. I do enjoy the TRs! Thanks Lucas!

I’m trying el cap soon after last climbing it 40 years ago! Also hoping to repeat an fa called solid gold on prussik 37 years later

Trip: Cascade River Road - Forbidden, Spider, Boston, and many more solo Trip Date: 08/11/2025 Trip Report: Went up to Cascade River Road for the past couple days to take advantage of the good weather. Didn’t have a partner so just decided to mess around for a while. Apparently my adult friends do this thing called work. Who does that! Summits were: Forbidden, Boston, Sahale, Magic, Arts, Formidable, Spider, Little Devil, Devil Benchmark, Teebone Ridge. Thursday 8/7 Dropped my mom off at work before heading north, got there around 11. Pretty cloudy and had big plans for the next few days so I just ran up to little devil peak and copy climber kyle. Bagged Teebone ridge and Devil benchmark along the way. Enjoyed some perfect huckleberries on the way up. Startled a large bear on the way down, only 25 feet from me. The fur was brown but I don’t think there are any grizzlies out there so who knows. Friday 8/8 Arose at sunrise and moving at 6am up to Cascade pass with 3 days of food, went over the cache glacier and saw a black bear on the other side of the col. This time we saw each other and maintained distance. Slogged it over to the other side of the middle cascade glacier where I got to the bottom of that South-facing gully around 1. Went up Spider mountain using the left gully at first before gaining the rib between the two. Got back to the ptarmigan traverse trail around 5 where I worked my way over to the access col to formidable for a nice night. Saturday 8/9 Arose once again at sunrise and climbed formidable in the morning in 4 hours camp to camp. Saw another party coming up as I headed down from the col. Slogged it back up to the middle cascade and felt pretty pooped by the time I got to the red ledges. Dropped the pack and scurried up Art’s Knoll. After that headed over to kool-aid lakes where I stashed a lot of gear before going up Spider. Made it back down around 6 or 7 before more slogging up to cache col for a sweet bivy site. Spilled my pad thai all over myself which I was unhappy about. Sunday 8/10 Another sunrise wakeup got me moving at 6, down to cascade pass, and up to Sahale where I summited around 11:30. Stashed overnight gear on my way up to the arm. Always fun passing people in trailrunning vests. Simply buying an vest and some poles won’t make you kilian jornet, still need cardio. Anyways, over to Boston where I topped out around 12 or 12:15? Explored the summit register before rappelling down. Yes I did carry a 60m purline all that way for 2 rappels. Training weight or something. Cruised it back to the car. Monday 8/11 Had to meet a neighbor in the evening to talk about watering his plants but nothing else going on. Also had a dentist on Tuesday preventing me from staying another day. Soloed up W. ridge Forbidden in 4:15 car to summit. Topped out around 7:15 before heading down at 8 with another soloist from Montana. Rope was nice for rappels. Back at the car by 12:30, home around 3:30. I guess I could’ve waken up later. Don’t see myself becoming some big free-soloist but the route seemed like a good option for it. Sure is nice to not fuss with ropes through easy terrain. Gear Notes: Approach shoes and Crampons would work for everything. I carried boots because I like carrying things I regret carrying later. Rapping boston feels good and a purline doesnt weigh much. Approach Notes: Forbidden can be reached without touching any snow

Trip: Eldorado zone tour, with EMS - South and west ridges of Eldorado, SW face of Early Morning Spire Trip Date: 08/08/2025 Trip Report: Got to do some routes in the Eldorado neighborhood from a base camp last weekend. This was another trip I’ve been meaning to do for a long time where the pieces finally fell into place. Climbed with Ben who has learned quickly in the three years since he started climbing. Solid partner, his only real error was leaving glasses back at the car. On the first day this was mitigated with some tmnt Inuit tech. Cowabunga! Luckily at camp there was a climber who elected to stay there while his guided team climbed the E ridge. Heard the guide had extra shades and we arranged to borrow them for the weekend. Sky harp We set off for the south ridge. I love knife edges so found the route just barely in the worth doing once category. If you don’t particularly enjoy knife edges there’s no reason to do this climb. Unincorporated choss county Some fun atmospherics helped make it somewhat enjoyable despite some of the worst quality rock I’ve climbed. We counted it as good mental prep for W arete the next day. At the end of our three hour tour camp to camp we arrived to find the guide-lended glasses waiting for us. Most of the rock climbing in the next two days was in the shade, but this was still quite the score. Got up early the next day for the W arete and kind of raced another party departing camp right after us. There turned out to be a third party on the route that day too (!) Below Dorado Needle col we saw tracks through a snow bench above and left of the tarn, and followed these around to slabs near the sit start of the route. We misjudged the heathery path from below. What looked fine turned out to be dirty, crumbly, overly narrow and exposed, with mostly down sloping rock and dirt. This was a bit of a traverse coming from the NW to the ridge around 6700-6800’. Not at all recommended, there must be a better way, maybe more directly from the west? The other two parties took the considerably higher entrance from snow that bypasses all the green stuff, which seems more appealing in retrospect, though it looks like it has a bit of hazard too (steep, bad runouts). We were glad to be in front. There was one particularly thunderous episode of rock fall accompanied by muffled shouts and we were relieved to eventually see all 5 climbers back at camp that evening. After pulling through some legitimately scary terrain we soloed up briefly sound rock before it got questionable again. Then we started to simul. I think two blocks got us into the gendarmes. We had climbed up a chimney to a piton, but it didn’t look anything like photos of the crux traverse. After some confusion we saw another piton down below and realized we were above that crux. We rapped past it. It looks exciting, kinda wish we climbed it. Unintentionally mimicking the rocks’ posture From there two more blocks got us past the snow into lower angle terrain where we unroped. I found mostly pretty good stuff to the summit. The path of least resistance isn’t always the best path. It was so early I proposed heading back down for the SW buttress of Dorado Needle but we elected to rest up for EMS instead. With the south ridge the day before, the west arete completed the Eldorado compass for me (north and of course east ridges climbed before). South ridge! meh I enjoyed solitude on the summit for a while and left as a large group of sunburned youth neared the top. The hours drifted lazily by. We chatted with various day trippers throughout the afternoon. Next morning another early start had us retracing our steps to Dorado col. Celestial choss, earthly choss This time we passed by the tarn and its outlet stream. One slope looked inviting but it cliffed out on the other side. Proceeding lower we found a nice path through trees to cross the ridge with friendly heather downclimbing. EMS presents quite the striking mien all along the approach. We met someone at camp the night before who had his own route beta for EMS which he shared with us. Compared to Nelson’s it had a direct start, and above that, more of a diversion to the right and back left, rather than straight up. Both of these variations turned out to be good calls. The start was a little tricky in terms of climbing and pro. First piece The climbing quickly got to be really fun. After about 70m I took the lead. After scoping a more direct line I tried the shallow right facing corner diversion to the right, and was pretty delighted with this section. I think this wide low angle splitter was in this pitch. I stopped about 70m later just below the ledge below the crux roof. Ben took over again and dispatched the slightly wet moves and drifted out of sight. This pitch ended up maybe 80m with a little simuling to the slab under to the roof. As I followed pitch 3 the rope hung over some excellent mid 5th friction slabs, where Ben had fortunately not placed pro. I took these optional sections (easier ledges around) to make the pitch even better (out of frame right of this photo). Pitch 4 was another rope stretcher with quality stone and low-mid 5th climbing. Ben took off again and neared the ridge crest. He selected a scruffy 5.10 chimney to get us to the slab and stopped there. I got to lead the finger traverse above this slab, another route highlight. I crossed the crest and continued up it, placing hardly anything, mostly focused on keeping the trailing rope from crossing the abundant choss that now sadly replaced the excellent rock. A seventh rope stretcher got us near to the summit ridge. We did one more short pitch that turned out to be unnecessary, should have unroped after 7. Tempered expectations may have been a factor, but we reveled in how good this route turned out to be. It’s not Stuart range classic quality but I think it’s up there with some three-four star WA pass routes, with an obviously much more engaging approach and return than you can find there. Our descent began with sandy goat ledges on the south side of the ridge. When this cliffed out we crossed back north. It was very exposed here with a deep moat below, but with bomber easy staircase rock leading down. There was one low 5th body length, an awkward long step and then we were at the moat. The gap was significant but absolutely doable. Still got high dive butterflies before finally making the leap. When Ben’s turn came he sprang from both feet, launching far beyond the gap and came skating into me lol. The hypothetical descent to the south had looked atrocious during the approach, and there is at least one epic going that way documented here on cc. We instead followed the advice to climb snow to the choss saddle north of marble peak. At the crest we saw rather steep snow to the east, so followed the snow up and south to get a look around. This passed so close to the summit we thought we might as well tag it. Took rock down here to bypass the steep snow. I scouted south while Ben scouted north. We never found existing anchors, so when a good crack on the north end below the steep snow presented itself we set an anchor and rapped down. 70m easily made it, might have been 25m or so. Next we crossed the McAllister, almost exactly matching my track from 3 years ago (snow levels early August this year look even lower than early September 2022). Having decided to skip our last night out, we zipped over to camp where we packed up, ate dinner, and quickly hiked down, getting past the boulders and close to the bottom before pulling the head lamps out. The dip in the creek at the end was extremely necessary and welcome in a dumbfounding sort of way. Gear Notes: Doubles 0.3 to 1, single 2 and 3. Some C3s and nuts. Ax and crampons. 70m rope. Radios were very useful for our long pitch strategy on EMS. Approach Notes: Counter clockwise

Howdy friends, it's my pleasure to present you all with the newest Washington classic - Negligence located off the Hannegan pass trail. This is a stellar line that links up several crack systems to access a shield about halfway up the large buttress seen across the valley. We spent most of the spring/summer of 2025 developing and cleaning this line and would like nothing more than people to get out there and climb the thing. Approach - From the Hannegan Pass Trailhead, hike Hannegan Pass Trail past the first two switchbacks about halfway to the campsites. Shortly after the second switchback, drop down the open talus field on your right. Continue down the talus almost to the creek, cut right into the woods, then make your way down to the creek from there. Jump from a large log across the first narrow creek band and you’ve found the tunnel through the slide alder. Be bear aware here, we found multiple fresh signs of them (probably due to the golfball sized salmon berries). Follow this until the major creek crossing, then cross the creek. After crossing, head through the trees directly towards the nose of the buttress, hopping another small creek braid before entering into the talus for the final approach. Follow cairns up the talus, then follow the path (likely overgrown) through the underbrush to the base of the wall. The route is located a couple hundred feet to the right of the nose. In total, the approach is around 2 miles, but tends to take around 45 minutes, give or take. Climb - This route takes a series of remarkable crack systems 400 feet up the Hannegan Buttress over four pitches. Protection is traditional, styles vary from off-width to tips, and all anchors are bolted for ease of descent (316SS all around). Each pitch ends at a conferable belay ledge. Pitch 1 - Depending on snowpack, either hop right into the offwidth start, or cross a deep snowfield to dig right into the rest of the pitch. A long continuous crack system varies from tight fingers to the wide stuff, favoring tight hands and good feet. This pitch reminds me of a steeper version of the Apron with lots of flared hands, sustained 5.9 climbing with several good rests. The bottom wide bit is a little dirty and will probably remain so since it gets buried under the snow pack, but it quickly cleans up. This pitch would be a classic all on its own. (5.9+) Pitch 2 - Amble up from the belay towards a notch gully in the leftward wall, clipping in a pin down low, then placing a bit of gear before firing a few fun moves to gain the gully. Make your way up the 4th class to a great ledge to top out this short pitch. (5.8) Pitch 3 - Step left from the belay and begin climbing up a wide box. Tread lightly on the red stone before pulling into the right-facing dihedral towards the alcove. Exit the alcove on thin tips, and continue upwards until bomber hands placements allow you the confidence to trend left in the flake system. Follow the flakes until the roof, then brace yourself for a thin, thoughtful, arching crux protected by small gear as you pull out onto the Shield. Save a .2 and your smallest cam for the business. The crux of this pitch is short and sweet. Its probably easier for folks with thin fingers or long arms and can easily be pulled through on gear. (5.10d) Pitch 4 - This one's in the money for best pitch in all of Washington! Climb the stupendous splitter to the top of the Shield. It is as good as it looks. Some finger crack moves will take you past a loose book size rock (never fear, that thing isn't coming out) to glorious hand jams. It gets a little steeper at the top so be sure to take in the scenery and catch your breath a bit. Top out on a large ledge. (5.10b) Descent: Rap with a single 70m rope. Use the intermediate anchor on the ledge climbers left between the P1 anchor and the ground. Otherwise, just rap the route. Gear - 70m rope Double rack .2 - 3. Singles of 4, .1, and a purple c3 (or equivalent tiny cam, or trango gold ballnut… the best option) to protect the crux. Wires, all sizes. Consider triples in .4 and .5 for the long first pitch and a 5 if offwidths make you shake. Background - The vision and much of the labor for this route came from Nate Fearer with additional help from myself, Neil Miller, Spencer Moore and Alex Pederson. The route name comes from the fact that Nate started this project while on paternity leave and completed it within the first four months of his son's life (he really is a good father and loving husband). The route was established ground up as an aid line, then dug, cleaned, and scrubbed. Then scrubbed, then scrubbed, then scrubbed. Further ascents will clean it even more. Also, we found some evidence of prior development out there including a bolted (2 pitch?) line left of the nose. If anyone has information on this route please let me know.

I did this climb a few weeks ago and my friend did a write up that I thought I’d post here (source https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=2902617). There wasn’t a ton of information on it, but overall a fun way to get up the mountain. Jack Mountain (East Ridge) & Crater Mountain Team: Damon, Jon, Chris Dates: July 11-13, 2025 Short Version: A successful 3-day trip to the seldom-climbed East Ridge of Jack Mountain with Jon. The three of us climb Crater Mountain on the way out. Jack's East Ridge is a long, serious, and committing route with sustained exposure and multiple pitches of 5th-class climbing. It should not be taken lightly. Crater Mountain provided one of the most spectacular summit panoramas in the state, a perfect reward for the intensity of Jack and a supremely appealing scramble objective by itself. Statistics: Total Mileage: ~25 miles Total Elevation Gain: ~12,500 ft Day 1 (Approach to Jerry Lakes Basin): 9 miles, +5400' / -1400', 7h 30m Day 2 (Jack Mtn): 5.8 miles, +/- 4660', 13h 08m Day 3 (Crater Mtn & Exit): 9.7 miles, +2390' / -6420' Full Report Day 1: The Approach Our trip began at the Canyon Creek Trailhead. A quarter-mile in, we hit the ford of Canyon Creek. I was glad to have brought Crocs, which I cached on the far side. From there, the trail winds its way up and up. We left trail at 6400' to ascend towards the 7200' col. We made steady progress under warm skies. After crossing the pass, we descended snow below the Jerry glacier into the beautiful Jerry Lakes basin. We camped near the outlet of the biggest lake, opting to bivy to enjoy the clear night. The area was scenic but quite buggy. Day 2: Jack Mountain - The East Ridge Jon and I set off for Jack early, moving by 4:30, climbing a goat path to exit the Jerry Lakes basin. As we reached the col, we saw Jack partially shrouded in a high cloud around 8,000 ft. From there, our route involved descending 800 feet into the adjacent basin before beginning the ascent up the SE arm of Jack. We then traversed over to the snowfield below the glacier, which led to a few hundred feet of scrambling to gain the East Ridge proper at 7,200 ft. The East Ridge itself is a magnificent and fiercely serious undertaking. This is not a casual scramble. The route involved three distinct pitches of 5th-class climbing: one up a gully early on, a memorable and wildly exposed 5.0 crux in the middle of the ridge, and another section to gain the summit. Jon, whose extensive experience was essential to our success, led these pitches and found ok placements. The true character of the ridge, however, lies in the terrain between the technical pitches. We spent hours moving together on exposed Class 3 and 4 rock, requiring sustained concentration. The summit, while somewhat cloudy, still offered stellar views of Baker, Shuksan, the Pickets, Ross Lake, Hozomeen, and the massive Nohokomeen Glacier sprawling below. We also took a moment to look down at the upper part of the South Face route; it looked unappealing, reinforcing our choice of the East Ridge. The descent was a mirror of the ascent: a long, mentally taxing exercise in precision. For the 5.0 crux, Jon employed a protected downclimbing system, providing a crucial safety margin. The opening move where I had to blindly face-in downclimb over a bulge to find footholds to enter a solid crack system, with 1000' of air down to snow far below, was totally insane even with a few pieces of protection that Jon placed below me. We made one rappel lower down off an established tat anchor. We were so happy to be off the East Ridge, but proud that we made it work. We tried to stay on snow to cross the glacial basin. As we walked over, a 20-foot snow finger near the glacier toe collapsed in front of us onto the rock. It was a powerful reminder of objective hazards and the unknowable elements of alpinism that defy simple analysis. We turned and went back the scramble way The 13-hour day was a testament to the route's length and complexity. We made it to camp by late afternoon. The East Ridge is a route for self-reliant parties with a deep well of experience in technical rock, rope systems, and managing risk in a remote, high-consequence environment. Day 3: Crater Mountain & The Exit We awoke to a beautiful morning with interesting cloud formations. All three of us made the climb up Crater Mountain. The route involved fun Class 3 scrambling with some light exposure and a single, unexposed Class 4 move. The rock was loose in places, so I was happy to have a helmet. The summit of Crater Mountain is, without exaggeration, one of the finest viewpoints in Washington State—perhaps even better than Jack's. The 360-degree panorama under clear skies was staggering. It offered the same incredible views of the major Cascade peaks, but with the added bonus of a stunning perspective of Jack's massive South Face and the beautiful Jerry Lakes basin below. After soaking in the views for an hour, we descended and began the long hike out. The descent went quickly as we talked about Star Wars and the Matterhorn. The river crossing was downright enjoyable in the heat. A challenging, humbling, and ultimately magnificent trip to a wild corner of the Cascades.

Trip: Chikamin Peak - Dog Route Trip Date: 09/05/2022 Trip Report: Me and fuzznut climbed Chikamin Peak yesterday via the Mineral Creek trail. We camped at the trailhead (busy as you can imagine being the holiday weekend). This approach to Chikamin also uses a little bit of the PCT, and at this time of year the people who will complete the whole thing are coming through, so saw a number of them including a woman with norovirus who was going to take a break from the trail too recover and then hoped to finish it....I guess there was a norovirus outbreak at one particular location on the trail. It is a really beautiful area back in there, especially when you get off the PCT and go over that little pass....all the mountains and lakes. Spectacle, Stuart, Glacier, Pete, Lemah, Chimney, Big and Little Chief, Hinman, Bears Breast, Daniel, etc. There were two cruxes for us, one down low by Glacier Lake when you go past that dramatic boulder that is stuck on end. The boulder field there has big rocks, and one of them I had to lift Kiba up so he could make it, but he cruised the rest, leaping from boulder to boulder. Then up on the third class section near the top of Chikamin I had to lift him again to get past the one step. Our time on the summit was in a swirl of clouds with views that came and went quickly. Shortly after we left it totally cleared off to a bluebird day. Up high the views were even better, that is a great summit up there. My GPS watch said 17.5 miles and 5.5k elevation for the day, but @JasonG tried to tell me it wasn't all that. I definitely wasn't feeling challenged on the way up after all my Olympic Mountain fishing trail hikes this summer, but man my legs are sore this morning! Kiba fell asleep almost immediately after getting into the truck, don't think I've ever seen him so tired. Photo dump, a few out of order: Gear Notes: trail running pack, cordelette and full harness to lower the dog (didn't use) Approach Notes: via Mineral Creek....wow what a job they did brushing that out! You could drive a Mack truck on it.

You don't need a sledge hammer to drive a tack.

This might help @emilio taiveaho pelaez: Dana col light show, 2022.

Was noticing that recent TRs are seeing many hundreds, if not many thousands of views in a few days. Feels like for the last decade it’s been way less than that, so what’s going on? Is cc.com about to experience a Renaissance of community, culture adventure and creative writing? Or have bots really replaced human beings and it’s just a 1000 different AI start-ups scrubbing the Internet for data?

Another 2 weeks and there would be zero bugs. Bugs die fast in the far north as summer ends in late August. I think that might not have been so aytpical for mid August.

We just walked through everything with our shoes on for the entire trip. We never had dry feet while we were hiking. You stop and take long lunches with your socks off to dry out your skin, then again when you get to camp. We took plastic bags to line our shoes with so that you can walk around camp with wet shoes on and dry feet. It works really well. This experience has really changed my attitude about river crossings and wet feet.

Has the great Wayne Wallace never climbed Backbone Ridge? !🤔

Sha na na na. Sha na na na. Hey hey....

Well done, amigos Jason and Steve! And kudos for the rare TR that includes poetry, history, geography and fashion, as well as the outstanding photography we have come to expect.

Little J-Berg! Thanks to @John_Roper, @rat, and @lunger for getting me to peruse some images and revive this thread!

"The climbing is moderate, but generally solid and fun, with adequate protection." "We opted for the safer option" Nice job, BUT WHO ARE YOU GUYS and what did you do with Eric and Rolf???

In case you haven't seen it yet:

Such a bad ass trip! Great work. I'm super impressed by how fast you guys climbed the West Arete. It seems there are several ways to go on the lower and upper ridge - some of the terrain in your photos looks a lot different than what we did. The crux traverse of the West Arete is pretty sweet but I understand how you accidentally bypassed it. It is not an obvious entrance to that section. EMS looks so, SO good. I'm really stoked you guys got it done. I'm definitely going back for it.

Trip: Markhor and Needle Peak - Traverse Trip Date: 07/07/2025 Trip Report: I am too behind on everything right now to write much, but I figured some of you may be interested in a lesser known romp across the valley from Yak Peak off the Coquihalla. It is quite the scenic and reasonable outing for the mature mountaineer, but I think most would enjoy the lovely ridgeline between Markhor and Needle Peaks. It starts with a steep grunt up the climber's trail up Markhor, with expanding views of Yak Peak across the way: Within an hour or two, the summit of Markhor comes into view, with nothing more challenging than some exposed class 3 standing between the car and the summit: The view expand greatly, with the shapely Needle peak beckoning across a kilometer (we're in Canada, eh) or two of ridgeline: The bugs were a bit on the bad side so I didn't waste much time picking my way down Markhor to a rap station and fixed line which greatly aided the descent down a slabby section. I wrapped a prusik around the thin line which was a nice hand hold as I slid it down and scrambled lower. Here's looking up at the slabby bit below the summit of Markhor after clearing it: And then the really good stuff lay ahead. Always scenic, often exposed, sometimes a bit on the kitty litter side, it was nonetheless "distinctly alpine and a pure joy" to quote Fred from some peak or other in the North Cascades (Logan?). It was usually pretty easy, although a few sections edged into exposed 4th class where a fall would end very badly: I caught a glimpse of another couple behind me as I scrambled along: And soon was on the summit of Needle, alone with the festive summit register: The bugs here were terrible as well so I didn't stay long, mosying down the well trod Needle Peak trail that was very scenic the entire way. Yak Peak on the left and Markhor on the right: Partway down there was a nice viewpoint where I could take in the entirety of the Markhor to Needle ridge traverse: And soon was spit out at the well marked Needle Peak trailhead: I think it took me about 5-6 hours for the loop, including stops, which was a bit longer than the drive, thankfully. The only bummer is that it isn't longer! Gear Notes: helmet and approach shoes. Brought a 30m RAD line to rap but fixed line in place on slab downclimb Approach Notes: Park at Needle Peak Trailhead and find flagged route up Markhor to the east, starting in pipeline swath. Descend well marked Needle Peak trail after traverse

WA taxes are high enough. It's all about what the politicians in Olympia prioritize - and it's NOT wilderness recreation and access!

The problem is not religion or Nietzsche. It's people. People suck. I prefer to be a misanthrope. The outdoors is the place to be - and finding places there without people is getting harder and harder these days. Thanks IG! Fucking hell.

they should stick to cutting bolts on Forbidden, and keeping the cat scratch gully rappels as dangerous as possible. priorities, people!

There are lots of fun adventures to be had by choosing a class 2, 3 or 4 route in a Beckey Guide. Keep an eye out for the 'obvious gully' and prepared to be humbled. Thanks Fred!!!

Thanks for the validation @psathyrella. Just for that, you get another today! Jailhouse Rock in Capitol Reef NP (discerning viewers may notice that I am not afraid of posting exact locations on cc.com):

Trip: Meulefire and Indecision - East Face Date: 8/2/2008 Trip Report: It has long been a goal, nay, a lifetime dream of mine to climb every peak in the Repulsive 69. To those not in the know, the Repulsive 69 is a list of the sixty-nine most obscure and unappealing peaks in the Cascades. Inclusion in any “Selected” or “Classic” guidebook is an automatic disqualifier for this list. No one has completed the Repulsive 69, as two of its peaks are as yet unclimbed. As far as the race for completion goes, Dallas (aka Obi Wan) has a comfortable lead with sixty some odd. Scott (aka The Moat Master) is a distant second with twenty-twoish. I am unsure of the exact number, he keeps his count secret. Jason (aka Snaffle Bait) is in the running with nineteen. I am trailing the pack with a measly fifteen. Jill (aka Dr. Jill) has climbed twelve, but she has a lot of spare time and could easily catch me. I needed a few of the grand boys ticked this weekend to pad my lead over Jill and gain on Scott. I pulled out the cell phone and started calling prospective climbing partners. What would it be this weekend? Seapho Peak? Berge Mountain? Canadian Border Peak? Or the ever-elusive South Hozomeen? Damn caller ID. Ever since I set my sights on completing this list, most of my regular partners won’t answer the phone anymore. Just when I was ready to give up, the phone rang. Caller ID listed Scott. “Wanna go climbing this weekend?” he asked. “What, couldn’t find anyone else?” I retorted. “Shut up and be at my house at seven AM, and make sure that you are not followed”, was the answer. “Where are we going?” I inquired. “I’ll tell you on the way. I have an FA route scouted on one of the 69”. An FA on one of the 69! This would be our golden ticket to Cascade mountaineering history! I could hardly contain myself. I arrived bright and early at Scott’s place packed to the gills and ready for anything. “Lose the rock shoes.” he said. What was I thinking? This was one of the Repulsive 69, not exactly known for their quality rock. Once out of cell range, he finally revealed the objectives, Meulefire and Indecision, with the added possibility of Little Johannesburg or Repulse! This would be an epic weekend indeed! Fisher Basin The approach to Silent Lakes Silent Lakes. Muelefire in the background. After a quick march over Easy Pass and up Fisher Basin to the Silent Lakes, we dropped our packs and ran up Fisher Peak. To enjoyable for inclusion in our list! The next day we set out for the crown jewels of Grizzly Basin, Indecision and Meulefire. We summited Arriva to check out our prospective route, the North Ridge on Meulefire, and said hi to Mr. C. on the summit. The ridge looked good, but getting on it looked difficult. Too many gendarmes and notches. Well, we would have to get this mighty one via the dog route. The North Ridge on Muelefire After traversing down heather slopes to Grizzly Basin, the real business on Meulefire began. We started climbing what quickly became fourth-class scorist. For the uninitiated, scorist is a combination of forest and blocky scree that is common on sub-alpine slopes in the Cascades. Scorist has ratings from class one to class five, and further gradations reaching 5.9. The rating system is quite similar to the commonly used YDS. I watched Scott pull a figure eight over a u-shaped fir tree, spraying needles everywhere. “Nice move!” I yelled. After the scorist, we emerged to a seemingly never ending field of steep heather interspersed with steps of unusually shattered rock balanced precariously at their angle of max repose. Scorist attained We finally reached the summit ridge and followed to a notch just NE of the summit. Beckey says one lead of 5.2 to the summit. Who needs rock shoes for 5.2? And what exactly is 5.2? Well, in exploring my low fifth-class boundaries, my grade-inflated head was certainly wishing for some sticky rubber! The next 30 meters were enjoyable climbing on surprisingly solid rock! I guess that it can’t all be bad. We topped out and looked over at Indecision. To our untrained eyes, the summits looked to be the same height. A ten-minute scramble took us to the top of Indecision. The last entry in the summit log was from Roger Jung, on a solo traverse from Fisher in 2003. The author contemplates 5.2 The summit of Muelefire. Another tick! Joe and Joan Firey and John and Irene Meulemans made the first ascent of Meulefire in July of 1966. However, Indecision, the higher peak according to Beckey, was not climbed until 1972. The question arises, why didn’t the Firey and Meulemans crew, who were prodigious peak baggers and FAers in their day, climb both peaks when the other summit was only ten minutes away? Beckey’s guide lists Meulefire as a lower sub-summit of Indecision massif. Perhaps this is comeuppance for the Fireys and Meulemans, who nabbed the first ascent of Arriva the day prior in 1966, when Beckey and crew had climbed the slightly lower East Peak in 1940. After a rap off the summit, and an interminable steep scree, slab, and heather down climb, we got lucky and rapped through the scorist to Grizzly Basin. The next day, unable to recall what the traverse to from Fisher to Repulse looked like, we climbed Fisher again. It would certainly be a coup to pull off on ascent of Repulse, the namesake of the Repulsive 69! The traverse had been done the opposite direction by Roger Jung back in 2003, but it was too involved for us on our last day. Oh well, this is how the ball bounces when you are bagging the big boys. We decided to get Little Johannesburg on the way out. The second run up Fisher. Black peak and the N Ridge of Repulse in the background. But like so many of these Repulsive climbs, the mountain had other ideas. On the traverse down to Fisher Basin, Scott slipped and took out a chunk of his palm on a talus block. We limped our way back over Easy Pass under the scornful gaze of Little Johannesburg and to the car for some warm beer. Little Johannesburg patiently awaits our eventual return and conquest. Another two of the proud giants vanquished, and my list closer to completion! Graybeard. A worthy peak but it made Nelson's book. There will be blood The price paid Gear Notes: Forget the rock shoes, eye protection (for scorist), first aid kit. Approach Notes: Over Easy pass, hang a left up to Fisher Basin, take obvious gully up to col, good camping at Silent Lakes.