aikidjoe

I will say, we brought of lot of modern tech to bare to help with the navigating. GPS on our phone with satellite photos to help guide when to be on the river (or when to go back to the river), slope angle shading to help along the ridge. But most of all: Joe and his uncanny ability to sniff out a path through brush.

Maybe we were just being dumb! I had some bad scratches on my hands by the end. Though as I recall we only ended up in really bad devils club and nettles on the last day out, which was appropriate, since the entire approach and deproach felt like the Picket Gods were determined to destroy us, only to let us pass when spirits were at their lowest (for me anyways)!

That's impressive! Getting up Pioneer Ridge looked more difficult than what we experienced on the ridge leading up to Challenger. Do you remember battling a lot of brush while ascending that ridge?

Some things Joe did not mention: Joe is responsible for the vision, leading through all the difficulties and figuring out the route finding, and tolerating my moments of doubt. As I told my wife before the trip, I only hoped to keep up with him, and I barely did! In all seriousness, this is easily one of the most adventurous trips I've done and I felt really fortunate to get to do it with Joe!

I started that this year too, basically for the same reasons. It's funny how just a simple shift of when the week "starts" can make such a positive difference in managing weekly volume!

Thanks for sharing! The climbing aside, I find the planning and logistics to make your year successful to be equally impressive!

Just to second what bedellympian said: unless you're super fit already, I think if you just follow their basic program/structure and pay attention to your body, a serious hobbyist can use the information they give for self coaching in their books and website. I saw a huge leap in my endurance this year following their basic program/structure/ philosophy for mountain/ ultra running from their newer book tftua. Before knees surgeries, following the basic structure in tftna gave me a big jump (for me) in what I could do for alpine climbing. It's pretty simple, not gimmicky, and it works for the vast majority us. I think you'll only get value for paying for a coach if you're really advanced climber and athlete (which maybe you are?) Otherwise I suspect you'll pay a lot for them to tell you to do what is in their books and website! Just my opinion. They are super generous with putting the information out there for self coaching but you do have to put the time in to learn the material. Though once you learn it i feel like the prescription is simple.

Super cool! Thanks for sharing!

I was (half jokingly) wondering if almost the whole climb was done in the dark of night and so early to avoid the authorities! ha!

All good points @JasonG and @PorterM. Nisqually Ice fall also appears (to me) to be more broken up than 10+ years ago. Could that be that the upper glacier is moving faster with more liquid at its base, causing more rapid flow? I'd always assumed it was just really rapidly its top layers, exposing its more broken base. More likely: I'm bored of being at home and am shamelessly speculating on a topic I'm woefully uneducated in...

My friend an I did this in 2015 (I think March?) which was a super low snow year, and we did not encounter serious cracks like you did. My suspicion is this is a symptom of extra warming melting out glaciers far faster than snow each year can count for. Each summer melts away the last winter's snow and then some more. Hence more cracks, even on an "average" snow year. It's really depressing to think about (for me).

Thank you for sharing! Really stellar

This is great!

I think maybe you missed Bigtree's sarcasm. Or maybe I'm projecting my reaction onto this conversation.

I feel like more than half the time I just end up taking my tools for a long walk in the bushes.