geosean

Wow, great photos Jason. Thanks for the TR!

Oh yeah, and a special thanks to Jon Luthanen for taking his Sunday to drive up with me and scout the road. I don't think we would have had the guts to try it in a day without knowing the road conditions.

Excellent write up Jason, except I don't remember beer! Did you guys have beer without me? It was a real treat to do such a tough climb and such great conditions with such great partners. Definitely a trip for the metaphorical scrapbook.

This sounds like one of your more relaxed trips, in camp at sunset even, almost like one another person would do... almost. Nice work!

Just did the route yesterday. We were planning to be "sick" and go when we saw your report, it helped inspire us to pull the trigger. Thanks again @Lucas Ng for posting and nice work on the climb! You did a great job reading conditions and getting it; snow routes like this don't come in much in the winter and it was pretty prime right now.

Thanks for the post, love it!! Nice work.

Nice work guys! I had heard tell of the name change but didn't know you had put up a register. I need to get up there, I would love to do the traverse also some day.

Trip: Colfax Peak - East Ridge Trip Date: 01/18/2025 Trip Report: Me, @Albuquerque Fred, and Mike (the 3 amigos) climbed Colfax Peak on Saturday the 18th. We camped at the trailhead and woke up early enough to be able to get beers and dinner at Graham's in Glacier that afternoon (this alleviating thys of the need to eat and food on route). Which was good since it was so cold none of us really ate or drank anything all day. We were able to drive to maybe .5 miles from the summer TH before we stopped at the snow park berm. Others chose to drive past this but I believe it is bad form, the snowmobilers are our friends, let's play well together. All users of the outdoors share more than they differ. The Grouse Creek approach worked well, booting for a short time through the forest before switching to skinning. The skin to Colfax Saddle was easy on firm wind packed snow; some areas required ski crampons so we just wore them most of the time. The wind at the saddle was brutal, making the already cold air almost unbearable. We left skis at the saddle and cramponed over the false summit to the true summit of Colfax. We spent 30 seconds, then returned to the skis in the lee of a rock at the saddle. The sun and shelter were amazing, but we had to descend some time, so back into the maelstrom we went. The ski was actually excellent... If you are a connoseur of ski mountaineering skiing, not laps. Firm wind pack, but smooth, with patches of re-worked powder, and, lower, dust on crust. The exit was amazing, 3 hours total from Colfax to the car with a nice long break in the lee. We called it the best skiing on a mid-winter ski mountaineering trip. So in short, excellent***. Cosley-Houston is out, Polish looked ok, but I'm not good enough to knowuch about it. The upper ice ribbon was continuous but narrow: Baker from Colfax: Gear Notes: Skis, ski crampons, crampons, axe, helmet, glacier gear. Approach Notes: Grouse Creek in ski boots.

Hi all, I bought some ice screws off of somebody on craigslist like 13 years ago and he threw in this thing as well, I assuming is a snow anchor of some sort, but I have no idea. Can't find anything online either. Does anybody know what this is? If anyone can tell me what it is or how to use it they are welcome to have it for free! (unless it turns out it's really valuable) 😉. I have never even carried it on a trip in over a decade.

@JasonG, hard man points all the way. No way was I going to let him solo it and not do the same.

Trip: South Hozomeen Mountain - SW Route Trip Date: 09/08/2024 Trip Report: On Saturday September 7th, me, Mike, and @thedylan drove up to Canada and then darn near back into the US to go for South Hozomeen. We camped at the Skagit River Campground in the provincial park. The next morning we woke up at 4:00, drove a couple of hundred meters (that's what they use up there) to the international boundary and parked near the gate, the NPS implied on their website that it was totally fine to walk across the border, not that anything less would have stopped us. We walked around the gate and into a different country. The couple of miles (that's what we use around here) of trail were immaculate, the NPS has done some maintenance, all too quickly though we plunged off the trail and into the brush and deadfall of the low elevation valley bottom. GPS proved essential through here, particularly at night, but even in the daytime coming out. We hit the creek bottom that drains the cirque between South and Southwest Hozomeen as soon as we could, if only just for navigational purposes. The brush was pretty bad but it really wasn't that long, pretty quickly the creek bed opened up and it was easy boulder and occasional slab walking. 3000' ish: There were a few easy scramble steps and ample water available in the creek bed up until 4100' where we encountered a waterfall and an impasse. We did a gorilla scramble just climbers right of the waterfall and made it through, although it was ugly. Above that more easy walking and boulders and occasional short scrambles until you hit the beautiful slab walking at around 5800’ I think. 200 or 300 ft below the 6900 ft saddle the slab walking turns into scrambling but it wasn't too bad on the way up, we tried to follow beta that we had but I think it's pretty much follow your nose. Gorilla Scramble (Reminds me of J-Berg): Slab City: At the saddle our entreaties finally failed and Mike called it a day, he had been not on form for the last hour or two, although we were still moving pretty quickly. If you're just not feeling it this is definitely not the peak to push it on, so he made the right call. I think he was exhausted from riding his bike to the farmers market Saturday morning. Me and Dylan descended from the saddle, contoured left and crossed through two minor rib notches, then up the rib to the ridge crest at about 7,600’. From there it's basically straight up to the summit which is where it looks like. The route finding was quite straightforward… if there's a notch go through it. Everything since 6900’ looked intimidating and you wonder “how the heck are we going to do that?”, then you just start moving and it falls into place; we both had the same image of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he does the leap of faith and walks along the easy bridge. It was kind of like that… but the bridge is class 4 here. Leap of Faith: There was some tricky exposed scrambling on the ridge crest but stuff was solid when you needed it. We soloed the obvious 12’ crux step and finished the scramble to the summit. Over the last couple of hours the smoke had really filled in so we were very glad to be done going uphill, there was no view at all so we just turned around and headed down. It was thrilling to be done but only in a very muted way, knowing that we had to descend for it to count. Classic Ridge Scramble Shot: Crux: Worth it for the Views: On the descent to the 6900’ saddle there was a whole lot of “how the heck am I going to do this?” But you just have to start and it all falls into place. I liked this route because there's no dinking around, there's not really any point in route finding or thinking about gear or anything since that's not possible (there is basically no pro anywhere on this whole mountain above 6900’). There aren't any features to the rock, it's just pillowy and jumbled, pretty much any line is as good as the next. We confirmed that you only need a 30 m rope to do the crux rappel. We made it without incident back to the saddle, then descended 100-200’ where me and Mike decided to rappel, Dylan down climbed of course. We did a 100’ rap through the worst of the scrambling down to boulders and slabs. Approaching Mike's Nap Spot: After cruising down the slabs and part of the gully we made a stupid decision (possibly my fault). We traversed skiers right out of the gully, across two minor gullies to the forested slope. For some reason we thought this would be more efficient than down scrambling all of the steps and then figuring out how to rappel the gorilla scramble. This was not true. If I were to do it again I would definitely chance the gully and just figure out a rap. I've been climbing in the Cascades for 15+ years and this was the worst forest slope I've ever descended. I don't know how it's possible but this had everything that sucks, lots of sharp pokey downed logs, loose rock, deep loose dirt, then lower, brush, but still lots of loose rocks somehow! Wtf!? Even Dylan admitted that it sucked! Pokey Logs, (there was a lot of this): Anyway, eventually we swore our way down the slope and back to the trail then cruised back to the car in Canada. We were extremely thrilled to be done, but the no-see-ums made it impossible to relax with a beer. Me and Dylan washed off in the Skagit River (the lake is too far away), then we made the 2.5 hour drive home to Bellingham. I think if you could take the gully all the way back down to where it fades into the forest slope the descent could end up being okay, then this climb would be not too bad. The way we did it I will definitely never go back. @Albuquerque Fred has done this three times! What's with that guy!? This was certainly a very challenging peak, but I would say most of the overall difficulty is just getting to the high country, from the 6900’ saddle up it is one of the easier difficult 10 peaks, but overall it definitely deserves to be on the list! Gear Notes: 2x 30m rope (only 1 necessary for the crux), helmets, approach shoes. Approach Notes: Canada, US. Easy trail, then brush. I recommend hitting the gully ASAP and go up.

Daaaaaamn, nice work! We did two 16-hour days on that route. You guys cruised, it sounds like you soloed a lot more than we did. Very strong work and thanks for the writeup.

Trip: Inspiration Peak - South Face Trip Date: 07/14/2024 Trip Report: Me, @Albuquerque Fred and Mike climbed the south face of Inspiration Peak over two days July 13 and 14. We also walked up Glee on the way to camp since Inspiration in two days wasn't enough exercise for them. For beta we had @JasonG's TR: and @Steph_Abegg's beta, although I thought her suggestion to go past the base of the gash was crazy. We did so and it involved an insanely airy step across where the ramp disappears briefly just past the gash, then you climb up just to go back down to just above where you were before the airy step. I say go up the ramp to the gash, then go up, easy. This photo of Steph's was gold: The camp is melting out with about 5 good sites available and dry. We had excellent conditions on the glacier, easy navigating up a direct line, then a walk directly onto the approach buttress where we left the snow gear. A pitch, then simul traversing, up the ramp, up the gash, to the top. Easy route finding. We did like 12 or so raps with a tiny bit of down climbing right back to our snow gear. Many of the raps are tough. The big block to start the South Face raps has quick links going both directions, with additional stations below both ways. We went more westerly off the block but it was a hard steep traverse at the bottom of the rap to get to the next station. What have other people done here? The climbing was, I thought, great in the gash. A good, tough route to a tough peak. Crazily enough the mountain was getting tons of action this weekend. We talked to a group that did the east ridge the day before, another that did the south face, and then on the hike out another going for the east ridge on Monday. We were stupid and hiked out on the same day as the summit. Around 14 hours camp-summit-camp, 20 hours camp-summit-car. +2.5 home. Ew. In bed at 3:00 am with a 5:30 alarm for work. The trail: In camp: Fred finding the direct line through the glacier: Easy moat: On the summit, beautiful day: So happy to be on dirt again: Terror Basin conditions from Glee: Gear Notes: Single Rack to #2, 2 30m half ropes, crampons not really needed but used, rock shoes. Approach Notes: Grueling to camp, easy from there.

Wow, "reservable overnighting facilities operated by three private commercial entities" is exceedingly vague about who gets to use it. I feel like if you're going to allow any kind of development on public land it should be publicly accessible. The way I understood it last time was that the huts were going to be for private guided groups. I don't want more access for the rich pay to play crowd at the expense of any portion of the public trust. Cheap public huts like in Canada... maybe.

"something felt not quite right about that, like I hadn’t earned it." Hahahaha, nice. I wouldn't have expected anything less from you Eric! Glad you made it at least even if it wasn't exactly your style. I bet Pemba was thrilled to have you as a client on that one! I assume you're way less work and more helpful and self reliant than basically everyone else that uses Sherpa support. Thanks for the great read, I loved it.