geosean

Actually, I was the follower through that stretch, and glad of it. We bivied on the top of the last tower on the east ridge right before the first rap station. It was nice for two and broke up the route nicely, also a handy snow patch for water.

Nice write up Nick. Me and @thedylan did the '51 rib this past weekend and were surprised at all the names on the register this year. If anyone goes again this season take some Rite-in-the-rain pages for the register, it's almost full. Also many of the rappels only have a single carabiner at the anchor so if you have some bail 'beaners please add one here and there. My most important piece of gear specific to this climb was work gloves! They really save the hands in the heather and the vertical brush. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the '51 or the '57 route are better (aka more fun)?

Does anyone know the status of the North Fork Sauk River Road? (AKA Sloan Creek, AKA Rd 49). I know the FS says it's blocked by a slide, but I heard this might be passable. Just hoping someone has fresh beta. Thanks.

Well done, thanks for the report! It's curious that it was so hard to get onto the base of the route this year; was your attempt to last year in the same season?

Nice work Jason, it looks like you had good conditions for skiing. We had terrible visibility everywhere except in the couloir. Apparently I blew up the stash.

Has anyone actually ever climbed the Triad and winter? I mean I know it's been done but I can't find any information about it and I am just looking for some general beta. Volken briefly mentions it under the Hidden Lake section in his ski touring book. If anybody has any information I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Trip: Lost Marbles Couloir - Hidden Lake Peaks Area - Lost Marbles Couloir Trip Date: 03/01/2020 Trip Report: Tim did a nice write up on TAY, for our ski descent and boot-up of the Lost Marbles Couloir. Link To Report Here Does anyone know if this is a commonly done trip? It seemed too good for the almost total lack of information online. I'm mostly posting here because I love Cascadeclimbers and don't want it to fade into oblivion. BTW that's what will happen to your trip report if you post it on Facebook. No one will ever hear about how awesome you are, nor will others benefit from your beta in years to come. Gear Notes: Skis Approach Notes: Hidden Lake Trail route to around 4800'

Is anyone interested in selling a Black Diamond Eldorado or I-Tent? I'm looking to buy!! Let me know if you are interested! Thank you for reading.

Yeah, actually that was the initial inspiration for this peak. One day I'll have done all the Smoot guide but probably only because I'll have done most all the peaks around; it might be a while yet. He is a good source for peaks that don't necessarily catch your attention, that are best done shoulder season.

Trip: Columbia Peak - West Spur Trip Date: 10/06/2019 Trip Report: Sunny skies = had to get out. Light snow cover = nothing "in" season Solution = scramble! Columbia Peak from the Monte Cristo area, standard route. 21 miles, 5700' vertical, 11.5 hours. We had a great time I believe. It's always good to get out and get some sun in October and it felt extra sweet this year with all the crappy early fall weather. Columbia was a good choice, mellow, but with a couple of spicy spots to make it feel real. There were 3 or 4 places where a fall would have been gnarly and we had to introduce some mixed skills, but no ropes required. A bit more snow would make it better/safer still, so feel free to be inspired to hit this up yet this year. It was a fun shoulder season trip. @Albuquerque Fred please contribute some photos if you would. Max McHale is a lurker and thus will not be @mentioned. Fred and Max taking a break at Monte Cristo: An easy step below the gully: Fred descending the gully: Max downclimbing: Gear Notes: Axe, crampons, poles, bikes. Approach Notes: Bike wagon road 5 miles to Monte Cristo. Trail is in great shape, hit snow at the 4820' saddle and switched from runners to boots.

Damn dude.

Wow, nice work guys! That looks amazing.

I know, 1 visit ever 5 or so years over decades, then 3 this summer! Views are over rated anyway... I didn't have any on Redoubt in July.

Trip: Pickets - E & W Fury, Luna - Standards Trip Date: 08/15/2019 Trip Report: @Albuquerque Fred and I teamed up again... West Fury as the main event, East Fury happened to be in the way, Luna was convenient. Day 1: We took the water taxi to Big Beaver, leaving pretty late at 10:30am on Thursday. In about 4 hours of really good trail we were at the good log crossing right where it was supposed to be. A GPS was clutch here as there is no indication along the trail of where to turnoff and really no trail to the log. After thrashing some brush on the other side of Big Beaver Creek we wound up on the wrong (south) side of Access Creek. It is misplaced on the map by about .1 mile, shown to the south of reality; there is a tiny creek about where Access is shown on the map. After some bushwhacking upward we eventually found the climber's trail which was surprisingly good. I guess people heard about the 4G on the summit. We walked into Luna Col camp at 8pm, just in time to get one picture of the northern Pickets before they dissapeared for the next 3 days. Water is acceptably ample on BB trail and the traverse to Luna Col, lacking at the Col however. There is snow in the col and a tarn below the snow patch a 10 minute walk to the north of the col. Obligatory boat ride photo: The lake was a little low: Only good view of the southern Pickets, from the traverse to Luna: Our best view of the Furys: Day 2: We awoke at 4:45 am to lots of clouds. Onward to the Furies! Over 3 major humps and down into the basin SE of E Fury. It was all snow free which made for tedious travel. We found a ledge system at 6800' to round the SE buttress of Fury, then turned right and scrambled a talus and slab slope near a stream (last water!) We gained the east edge of the glacier at about 7400' due south of point 7820'. Crampons were required for the bare ice and moderately steep firm-ish snow ascending the east ridge of E Fury. There seems to be some mixed scrambling required at both the east and west approaches to the snowfield just below the summit. (We went up the east and down the west). Onward to West Fury! Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Three towers and the summit block with loose crappy gullies between each. Tower 1: on a tip, we descended 100' on snow to a talus ledge, then scrambled up, left and up some more, then left again (you'll figure it out) to wrap around the tower not quite summiting. We soloed this. Oh, by the way, I should interject that since the lower glacier we were in total whiteout conditions and would remain so all day. This made route-finding challenging and despiriting. Tower 2: we climbed directly. Descending was trickier; scramble down an eroded dike/gully, when you approach a notch and a filthy gully on skier's right take to the arete and downclimb into the filthy gully. Legend has it descending the dike to the bottom leads to 5th class no holds traversing to get around the arete. Soloed all this. Tower 3: climb directly up a chimney just right of the obvious one. Easy soloing by now. Then we scrambled to the summit! Three times in fact; the whiteout kept making us think we were there just long enough to get excited, then another rise would loom in the white. Eventually we did make it and signed in as #22 in the register. We descended by rapping all 3 towers. Tower 1 required a 60m rope. Long and tedious trip back over E Fury, multiple basins, and many towers and rises back to camp. 12 hours round trip going hard, but with slow route finding. Morning right out from camp: Outrigger Peak and the south Fury Glacier: Mixed step on the east side of the summit of E Fury: Fred on the final summit ridge: Me descending somewhere between the Furies: Fred descending somewhere between the Furies: Gloruous summit photo on West Fury! Worth it for the views!!: Register: What, you dont mountaineer with manhattans? I left the shaker at home so we had to drink them warm, but it was pretty chilly out anyway: The rest is history. Sleep, lounge, climb Luna. We descended to Luna Camp day 3, then hiked all the way to the car day 4. Victory pose on Luna summit: Lots of this on the way out: The summit register on Luna was totally full, please replace it if you go there. 3 summits 49 miles 14,000' 12oz of manhattans Gear Notes: 60m rope for rappels Crampons Axes We took some rock gear but didn't use it. Manhattans Approach Notes: Big Beaver to Access Creek, cross Big Beaver Creek at 2520', cross Access Creek to south side at 3900'. Trail was great, trail into Access basin was decent climbers trail, good even, in places.

Yeah, the "LNT" was pretty tongue in cheek I guess. Obviously I'm still leaving a trace. I always leave at least 2 pieces at a rap station, but I try to clean up all the old rat eaten stuff, I just hate the clutter when there are like 10 pieces and you cant even inspect them because of the nest of tangled webbing. Also my opinion of good enough to rap on is pretty liberal, a couple of bleached pieces are great in my book, I took some stuff off of Redoubt that was cut loose and left lying there.

Trip: SE Mox, NW Mox, Mount Redoubt - West Ridge, SE Face, South Route Trip Date: 07/25/2019 Trip Report: @Albuquerque Fred and I were at it again, this time up in the Depot Creek drainage over July 25-28. Fred had gone up a month prior to scout the approach and tick off the requisite easy Bulger peaks. Now we were back to get the ones he needed my help on. We hiked in on Thursday none too early after Fred graciously picked up the permit in Sedro Woolley. If you follow Steph's approach beta you will do fine. The trail was decent, we lost it a couple of times, but only once for more than a minute. There was brush... and deadfall, and mud and swamps and bugs and waterfalls and fixed ropes and bear crap and loose moraines and stream crossings. No problem. It took us 7 hours to 7200' camp at Redoubt saddle. If you are used to climbing in the Cascades it's a little worse than the average for a trail, but better than off-trail. Fred and the falls: Me somewhere along the trail photo by Fred: Redoubt N Face, photo by Fred: Me below the glacier on the direct route to 7200' camp, photo by Fred: Camp below Redoubt: Friday we climbed both Mox Spires beginning with SE (or "Hard") Mox. This turned out to be much easier than "Easy" Mox. The route finding was my biggest concern going in as it sounded complicated, but Beckey was dead on. Follow his beta, we never went wrong. Ignore Klenke and his heavy-handedness, the best beta has been available in print for decades. It was a great climb; if you like loose gullies and lots of route finding on moderate ground to a very moderate rock climb, with more loose rock, as I do, then this is for you. We did 6 hours Col Of The Wild to the summit and back to the col, exactly as Beckey states, with about 30-45 min on the summit. Fred on the approach: Col Of The Wild, photo by Fred: Me downclimbing the "major snow gully" photo by Fred: Fred's silhouette on route: Pickets: My favorite part, cleaning up old rap tat, photo by Fred. Please do your part too; if is not good enough to rap on, its trash. LNT!: Next NW Mox, southeast face route from Col Of The Wild. We followed Matt Lemke's beta here from his NW Hikers report: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8028072 It was scary. The gully you climb is loose with lots of large detached blocks to pull on in the class 5 stretch. I lead the first pitch and I was scared; easy climbing, but no decent pro since everything is loose and/or detached. This was probably the most dangerous climbing I have ever done. Either we missed something or Matt was being ironic with his summit register comment of the route being 5 stars. Any comments would be appreciated. The scramble was easy though and we made about 4 hours round trip. The rappelling was actually pretty safe and easy. It was great to get both Mox peaks in one day and in reasonable time as well. If there is a better way up the SE Face of NW Mox it would be a spectacular paring. We did 13.5 hours camp to camp this day with good breaks on both summits and a long break in the basin in the afternoon. Loose death gully, photo by Fred: Victory pose, photo by Fred: We slept in until around 9 the next morning due to rain, this was expected. All we had left to do all day was Redoubt. We did a bit of a route variation and instead of trending left from the first snowfield into the second snowfield and the talus we continued from the first snowfield straight up a narrowing snow couloir to within 300' of the summit. Then we scrambled left in a rusty chossy gully to regain the standard route at a minor notch in a small buttress. The scrambling was easy with one tough move at the "cannon hole". We mostly followed Steph Abegg's beta here, limited but sufficient. The views were non-existent on top so we descended fairly quickly, going down the more standard route. View up-route from the basin on the south of Redoubt: Fred in the couloir we climbed: Me approaching the summit, photo by Fred: Best photo I had of our couloir from the standard route on descent: We ascended the right line and descended the standard route on the left: Drying out camp that afternoon: We did about 5 hours camp to camp on Redoubt moving fairly mellow with some route-finding in the fog. In the afternoon we went for a stroll on the glacier ice next to camp, it was way cool to just stroll and look around: We slept a lot again and hiked out the next morning, 6 hours to the car. Fred on the Redoubt Glacier on descent: In the falls: More falls, photo by Fred: Gear Notes: 60m rope medium rack (small would be better) crampons axe rock shoes (would skip if there is a next time) Approach Notes: Long and arduous, as advertised.

Trip: South Twin, Jaw's Tooth, Skookum (Kloke), Little Sister, Cinderella - Green Creek Circuit Trip Date: 06/30/2019 Trip Report: Me and Dylan climbed the Green Creek Circuit per the "Cascades Rock" guide: Green Creek Arete to South Twin, NW Face of Jaw's Tooth, NE Ridge of Skookum, central arete on the NW face of Little Sister, then the west ridge of Cinderella. It was amazing. Lots of fun mostly easy travel on varied terrain with soloing, simul-climbing, downclimbing, snow, loose gullies. My kind mountaineering and classic Cascades style. I would say that the left arete on Little Sister might be better due to a section of scary detached blocks on the right one that we climbed. On the left one you would get more ridge scrambling which was amazing. 14.5 hours car-to-car, 7800', 13.4 miles. More terrain to be explored past Cinderella at left: Dylan on the final scramble to Cinderella: Looking back up Green Creek after a great day: Dylan in the upper Green Creek basin: Dylan eschewed my offer of a trekking pole in favor of looking like a doofus crossing the Middle Fork: Gear Notes: 30m rope got us off Jaw's Tooth with some easy downclimbing and was perfect for simul-climbing axe small rack Approach Notes: Per Darin, the Forest Service has actually cleaned up their part of the trail and it is getting moderate use to Elbow Lake.

Definitely give us some route conditions beta if you do the Price!

Cool, sounds like a cruiser, fun day. Thanks for the report.

Nice work, thanks for posting!

Trip: Mount Baker - Watson Traverse Trip Date: 05/27/2019 Trip Report: Me, my buddies (Fred, Dylan, Max, Tim) and Josh (whom we met on route) did the Watson Traverse up and over Baker on Memorial Day. We left the Heliotrope trailhead at 4 am and arrived at Heather Meadows at 4 pm. It was a lot of work after skiing the Park Glacier, but a way cool route. We summited at 10 am in blasting gusty conditions, but the Park was soft and buttery, pretty much perfect. The crevasses took some thought to navigate, but no real issues. On the miles of traversing I learned that you can skin without skins with sufficiently sticky snow by just switching to walk mode and keeping the angle moderate... pretty cool, and a lifesaver on this route. Coleman Glacier skinning: Kicking it on the summit: Tim ripping the Park Headwall: I wussed out and took the Cockscomb Ridge down a ways, though this doesn't lessen the angle, just the distance you ski 55 degrees above crevasses: Park Headwall: Somewhere west of Coleman Pinnacle: You could see our tracks from as far as Artist Point, pretty rad: Photo credit goes to Tim, Max, Fred, and Dylan. It was great skiing with everyone! Gear Notes: Ski mountaineering gear. Used axe and crampons. Running shoes. Approach Notes: Running shoes to the bottom of the Hogsback, then skis to Heather Meadows. Car shuttle.

Sounds casual, don't know why it isn't super popular. There will probably be a line next weekend.

When I was there on 4-20 C-J was pretty ugly from a skiing perspective, mostly avy debris the bottom half or more. Not sure if you're looking to climb it, probably doable.

I would have added pics, but I didn't take any. I have so many pictures of the mountains, and my partners are not handsome enough. I believe it is pretty easy though.

Trip: Sahale Peak - Sahale Arm Trip Date: 04/20/2019 Trip Report: Me, Fred, and Max skied Sahale arm and summited yesterday, 4-20-19. The road was closed at MP18 so we had a nice 5 mile warmup to the summer trailhead. We started hiking in runners at 7am. After 4.5 miles we hit the abrupt beginning of continuous snow, it was glorious... the way spring skiing ought to be; hike dry road bet to 4' of snow. Bam. Skis on. We skinned up the gut toward the pass, booting a short section though the cliff band at 4800'. From there it was cake to 100' below the summit. We cached skis there and booted up, around the east side to the top. It was a one at a time affair up there, we each tagged it and bailed back to the skis. The exposure was real, on steep snow, and added a killer thrill. The snow was firm at the top, mashed potatoes at the bottom, but pretty good all the way to the pavement. Summited at 2:00, car at 6:00. 11 hours with a couple of long breaks. 7300', 18.4 miles. P.S. I did this on my phone in about 10 minutes... post your trips people! Its great to hear what is going on out there, and this forum is way cooler than facebook! Gear Notes: Skis, axe & crampons for the top 50' Approach Notes: Trail shoes. Lots of road.