aikidjoe

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.

wow that is sad to see. and not surprising. which makes it even more sad.

thank you for posting this. I left a comment urging the proposal be rejected online.

Thank you for sharing. My take away from this is for the rapeller to bring a prussik system on a blind rappel like that, so maybe they can prusik up the rope if they end up free hanging? Just curious: is there a reason that would not have helped if the anchor had held in this situation? I'm also curious: did you bury the picket and axe anchor as deadmen? Or straight into the snow? (Just to be clear: this is not meant as criticism. I'm genuinely hoping this leads to good discussion and insights. Protecting in snow is tricky and I thank you for sharing what happened that we might learn from it). Cheers!

Thanks!!!

Sounds like maybe you drove there.... did you get a look at Colonial perchance? any photos? Thank you!!

Anyone been to banks lake? Much appreciated!

Glad you made it out! Looks really fun...sorry I missed it!

Nice effort. Did you get any photos on the north faces on Dtail and Colchuck? Thanks!

The problem isn't that natural gas produces 1/2 the CO2. The problem is that fracking (a) poisons the water supply and (b) leaks a lot of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. There is growing evidence this more than offsets the reduction in CO2. Fracking is not a valid answer. Carbon taxes, yes. I'm more open to the idea of nuclear after reading Dr. James Hansen's Storms of my Grandchildren, though there are a lot of troublesome issues with it. But fracking will only make the problem worse. Ultimately, civilization cannot sustain its current trajectory, and I'm not convinced there will be a technical solution. This can really only end in disaster unless we make hard choices, or probably more likely: until disaster forces hard choices. We don't have control over other people; we can only control ourselves, and the choices we make matters. The best we can do as individuals is make life choices that reduce our footprint (eat vegan, use alternative transportation to single occupant cars, reduce consumerism, etc.); support politicians that are not in the pockets of fossil fuel, meat, and dairy industries; and don't support industries that destroy what little old growth rainforest we have left (palm oil, meat/dairy, etc.).

ha! The one that pays you..,

Really cool. As an average guy with a full time career with a hope of some day doing the cassin I really like the style you did it in. I hope you don’t mind if I ask a couple questions: Did you split your packs into a lighter lead pack / heavier follower pack for the Crux pitches? I see you did some pre acclimitizing on rainier before going, but what have you the confidence you could acclimatize on Route? How did you convince your boss you could take off for a week at a moments notice? (That’s a flippant but also kind of serious question....) really cool!

Agreed with JasonG. My one trip to the Pickets (so far) was amazing, but hardly any technical climbing due to weather. It's an amazing, wild, rough place, but not easy to accomplish a lot of climbing... or 5th class climbing anyways.