Alisse

Trip: Primus and Tricouni Peaks - East and West Ridges Trip Date: 07/23/2020 Trip Report: While poking around Google Earth last winter, I came across the Borealis Glacier and its little lake and my eyes got very large. I had to at least go there to spend a night! Further investigation revealed easy routes up the two peaks that cradled this basin, Primus and Tricouni. And so I somehow convinced Aaron to join me, and we went on a fine Cascadian outing Wednesday to Friday. We went in with little research and the adventure was complete with logjam navigation and dirt clod/root ball problem, steep schwacking, faint climber's trail, amazing camp spot, easy glacier travel, lots of wildflowers, and some class 2/3 travel on average rock and two summits! Wednesday morning we had a backpack weigh-off, and I was the smug winner. 26 pounds with a liter of water, two nights' food, tent, stove/pot, fuel, glacier gear, and tiny alpine rack! I haven't weighed my backpack in many years, and I was happy with the number. We left Seattle and stopped by Marblemount for permits, then got out to Colonial Creek Campground. Even the first bit of easy trail along Thunder Arm was beautiful. We continued along the mostly flat Thunder Creek trail for about six miles, past the washed-out bridge and then began scouting for logs across or possible not-certain-death fording opportunities or cairns for help. A bit over a quarter-mile past the old bridge, Aaron spotted some bootprints down the mossy duff off the trail, and we followed. Unfortunately, our "this looks trail-ish" senses were not fully engaged at this point, and we spent longer than necessary battling brush to get to the river. When we did, we saw that we needed to go upstream to access the logjam extravaganza and shallow water to the key log and root ball to get onto the western shore of Thunder Creek. That all went fine and then we readied ourselves for the steep AF ridge climber's trail (about 4,000' in less than 2.2 miles). Decision time: schwack up steep hillside that didn't look too thick and intersect the climber's trail (direct route) or schwack-traverse around to the climber's trail and take it from there? I have a tendency to always want to go direct.... which I often realize is not the best way, yet I have a hard time learning this lesson! Although we think the time spent would have been about equal between, the steep bushwhack was certainly much more mentally taxing. We intersected the trail and followed it up and up.... in places it was obvious, other places very faint, and in some places absolutely nonexistent. Not bad overall, though! We got up to the heather slopes and the mosquitos got really bad -- oof. About 7 hours from leaving the trailhead, we got up to the camp spot. Super mega primo! The 360 views are incredible.... north to the Hozomeens and Jack, across McAllister Creek to Snowfield, up Fisher Creek to Kimtah and Mesahchie, and then the framed and majestic LOGAN massif! The glacial lake actually isn't visible from the spot, but the giant banded gneiss cliffs and remnants of Borealis Glacier are! Dinner for me was an alpine burrito complete with avocado, a lot of cheese, rehydrated refried beans, and sriracha. MUCH better than ramen and tuna.... The sunset was outstanding, and later that night, the bare sliver of moon made the Milky Way pop. We woke up to sustained winds and a mostly-cloudy sky with solid clouds to the north and west, including some dark ominous ones. Primus was almost completely socked in. D'oh! We had brought a 60m half/twin and tiny alpine rack with the plan of ascending Primus via the N Ridge (low 5th), descending down the east side, then going up the west slope of Tricouni. Alas, our stoke was not there for the technical route and so we left the gear at camp. We made our way around the basin up to the snow and roped up for the simple glacier travel across toward Lucky Pass, and made our way up the slopes of Primus. This turned out to basically be a talus walk up to the broad, flat top. Unfortunately the views weren't very open when we were up there, but the weather was improving... What is this flower called?! I love it... Tricouni was much more fun, some options for solid 3rd and 4th class scrambling with easy walking, and the views opened up for Austera, North Klawatti Glacier, Klawatti Lake, Eldorado, Forbidden and Forbidden Glacier, Buckner and Boston Glacier.... WOW. And Goode! And Logan! Made our way back to camp (about 9.5 hours round trip)... and about twenty minutes later, four climbers come (dare I say staggering) up the climber's trail! I was floored to see anyone else up there, especially on a weekday. We chatted for a bit, but they really just needed to find a spot to camp....I hope the rest of their Inspiration Traverse went well! (I asked, and two said that they were consistent lurkers of CC... so I hope you guys see this and let us know how your trip went!). Views of Logan in the afternoon were fantastic: The exit was straightforward and we got to downclimb the fourth class dirt and trees. We took the climber's trail all the way down the ridge as far as possible, ran into a family of ptarmigans, then Aaron spotted a lizard creature. We followed a faint but easy half-schwack back to the creek crossing (on the approach, stay right after you climb over the root ball, and stay along the creek below the cliffy section!). From there it was an easy time back up to the trail, and then lots of huckleberries and blueberries were eaten and we picked about 3/4 liter to take home! In the parking lot, we met Arthur and Annie, a very sweet older couple with fun stories and their new Winnebago van. Oh, and we saw a fat ground squirrel. A lovely trip! I'm already excited about the Isolation Traverse and exploring this area earlier in the season, and on skis! Gear Notes: Glacier things, light axe. I used aluminum crampons on approach shoes and it worked for me in the fairly soft conditions we found. Approach Notes: See above.

Jon!!! Nice work!

Hey @Ian Lauder I wasn't trying to critique your choice of pro or anything like that, I just hate carrying pickets. Heavy, loud, annoying to carry.. that's all I meant. Skis on the other hand, I'm totally fine carrying!

We found a phone in the dirt at a great bivy spot at the Hogsback on Mt Baker on Saturday. Trying to find the owner .....

Nice! That was one of my favorite climbs last year. You had great weather, sounds like a good adventure! That's a lot of pickets to carry 😲

Hey @DPS He was not with Jason, I think he was with a Dave or a Tom... I'm embarrassed the name didn't stick.

Trip: Mt. Baker - North Ridge Trip Date: 07/19/2020 Trip Report: I just wrote a nice TR but then hit the back button on my phone, d'oh.... Gist was: getting to ice step was pretty straightforward, it's an interesting route, AJ was my ice rope gun (thank you), we found a half pitch of AI3, the rest of route was very mellow, which was a little disappointing. There were 14 people on/at the ice step when we were there and I bet at least 30 people climbed the NR yesterday...nuts. Walking down was not cool and I vow to only ski down volcanoes from this day forward. On the summit I met @Juan Sharp and his partner (I'm not confident I remember his CC handle, sorry!) who had come up the Boulder. Pics without captions, feeling lazy: Gear Notes: We brought 7 screws of varying lengths, did not need the shortest ones. We brought 3 pickets but didn't use any of them. Approach Notes: Long traverse around 6600'...

Hello! A friend and I are planning to do the Ptarmigan Traverse on skis next week, likely Tuesday-Friday, hopefully including Dome. We both have plans this weekend so on Monday we'll finalize things. Weather for next week looks fairly stable at this point, though. If you're interested in joining us, get in touch! Of course, we'll want to know about your climbing and skiing experience 🙂 Alisse

Fun TR, love the first photo of Lani 🙂

Awesome! Looks like a good adventure!

Never, Michael! I refuse to believe it

How was it? 🙂

Looks like a good adventure!

I hadn't heard of this -- thanks for the TR! Glad you're getting out

Trip: Mt. Daniel - Daniel and Lynch Glaciers Trip Date: 07/06/2020 Trip Report: I had a great couple of days out in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness with my skis, getting about 3800' skiing, a new summit, blue skies, and lots of peace and quiet. Scatter Creek was still flowing enough that I didn't want to see if my Civic could drown/be swept away. So I started my Sunday by walking the road for three miles, to the Cathedral Pass trailhead. The views started early. Cathedral Rock and some of Daniel behind, from the road! I couldn't really start skinning until about ten minutes from Cathedral Pass. Ah well... the views from the west side of the pass were incredible, down into Deep Lake. Deep Lake Wow, what a beautiful basin! I skinned up the boot track to 7000' and peeked over at views of Rainier and the Chimney Rock group, then got some pretty fun turns down to my camp near Peggy's Pond at 5500'. Pretty good view from where I set up camp... Cathedral Rock and STU! The next morning I went up and over and down and up and down and up the summit of Daniel. More carrying... So dang nice! Hinman. I'll be back for you earlier in the year, next year... and then skiied the Lynch Glacier -- super fun, great snow, not a soul anywhere all day. It was a sea of clouds to the north of Daniel, and I could barely see Baker and Glacier out there. The top of Forbidden was poking out, too. Oh yes, this will be excellent... Pea Soup Lake under the cloud layer Skiing the Daniel "glacier" (is there actually a glacier here?) had less than awesome snow, as expected, but it wasn't sticky, so..good enough! Beautiful, beautiful... About the slay the slush A soul-satisfying time. Gear Notes: I brought whippet, light axe, light pons, and ski pons. Definite overkill... Approach Notes: Up and over and down and up and down and up!

Still available, work well for summer turns!

VERY lightly used La Sportiva Spectre 2.0 AT ski boots, mondo 29.0. Great shape, only a couple very minor scuffs (see photos). Vibram soles in near new condition. $250 OBO. In Seattle, will meet you. Alisse Threesixoh 224778three

I enjoyed reading this, and maybe you will, too: https://blog.nols.edu/2020/04/06/patience-in-the-mountains

Old phone cord, haven't seen one of those in many years. That website you linked to reminded me to add rope rug making to my list!

Maybe, probably? I haven't seriously looked into it. Trying to keep a dying forum alive

Love the thread! Tinkering with gear... something low-risk we can do at home! Let's see... I won't take credit for coming up with this: when the foam grips on my ski poles started coming off, I tore them off completely and replaced them with rubber electrical tape -- and extended them further down the pole to give me more options for where to grip it. I would love to hear what other people have done to create a secure water bottle holder on a backpack shoulder strap.

Nice work! 👍 Oh, wind slab... Backing off sounds it was the smart choice. Your wisdom will carry you into old age in the alpine!

Way to make it happen! Didn't take long...

@aaronohn was up there last Sunday.......

Glad you're okay! Going to read the blog post now...