Mo 8501

25 bees.. gnarly! Water is a crux of this route, so I could see that being a plus having some options for that unknown section. That ridge near Mildred is very pleasant when you’re on it, I’ll have to scope it out next time! Appreciate the beta that it could go, cause it looked far and thick from my vantage point. So much incredible terrain to explore back there! Yes, some of the bushwhacking is heinous but there are some real pleasant sections too, especially on the ridges. see you out there! 🤙

I may have struggled for longer than I’d like to admit with the pictures. Emilio there’s just something about ridge running! We’re out here doing our best to train for the Linville crusher!

Trip: Olympic Mountains - Cushman Six (FKT) Trip Date: 08/17/2024 Trip Report: After being thwarted from our larger August objectives in the cascades by fires and lightning storms, I decided to return to ol’ reliable. Except for a budding fire just north of Lake Cushman (we got lucky with the wind), the Olympics had good air and good enough weather compared to the east. All we needed to do was a ridge link-up of 6 summits in the Mount Skokomish Wilderness area before the thunderstorms hit. This route involves 22 miles and 11k vertical gain (and loss). While much of the route has some sort of trail to follow, I would put it closer to the category of alpine rather than hiking or trail running given the technical sections. This includes all types of mountain moving such as traversing rocky ridges, 3rd-4th class scrambling, and just enough bushwhacking to feel like an adventure. While I enjoy being able to go to the peninsula for the isolation you can’t find as easily in the cascades, I share this story to hopefully bring more love to the delightful and often maligned mountains of the Olympics. Also to entertain those who are unable to climb in the east due to the fires hitting the cascades. Cheers and enjoy our joyful suffering! I learned a few lessons from my solo run a year before. 1. Start later because route finding is easier and sleep is key 2. Bring crusher wife in order to run several hours faster. Note: A few pictures are from my first run. The only benefit of a 12:30am start is the stars and sunrise. Summit of Washington 3:15AM - Heavily negotiated wake-up & drive to Big Creek - 5:21 AM start Washington - 2:36 - Hard push up Mt Washington leading to a summit. It’s all up-hill trail moving for the first 7 miles. I was proud of my 3 hour push last time, but Monica showed me how it was done by running up sections I walked last time. Definitely high effort the whole way and my legs were getting a taste of the soreness to come. Monica began feeling sick here and was close to puking. Being one not to complain, she kept pushing despite this feeling persisting for the whole day. We took one of the spicier technical sections to get to the summit block for good measure. The road to Ellinor. Some day this whole route can be done on the high ridge connecting all peaks. I tried some of this ethic on my last attempt but it makes the route significantly harder. This time we were going for speed. The final section on the low traverse to Ellinor. Ellinor - 4:02 - Other than one accidental cliff-out section, we didn't have trouble finding the optimal route to Ellinor. Running on some sections of the heather and scree. Lots of snow in the Col below Ellinor but not worth stopping for water. At this point, We were an hour and a half faster than my last attempt so stoke was very high for the day. Dropped our packs to feel a little free on the last hundred feet. Awesome Some creative engineering to create bridges and hand lines to bear camp. Luxurious Rock House at Bear Camp. Rose - 5:47 - Before traversing to Rose, you descend a horrifying amount of the vert you've gained. You then cut off the main Ellinor trail and enter an old but well-maintained side trail to one of the coolest camps we've ever found. It's the type of place one goes to retire and live in relative isolation. Monica got her first of 5 bee stings during this section. The uphill section of Rose did a number on us as we began overheating (down-side of a late start). Luckily we stopped at a much appreciated stream and took a 5-minute break while dunking our heads in the water. Here we each filled up with 2.5 more liters of water. Eating lots of huckleberries while moving. The sweet sugar bomb aid stations almost made me classify this as supported by nature. Some of the easier sections The amazing view of easy scrambling after an hour of bushwhacking. Copper 1 & 2 - 8:20 & 8:36 - Compared to some of our earlier trips to the cascades this year, the bushwhacking felt easy enough for this section. However, my MCL began having a sharp pain so we slowed down to avoid what felt like a potential tear if I took the wrong step. Here I made the decision of slowing down significantly which added a good amount of time overall. A rescue would have been treacherous in our position and I’m getting to the age of starting to value my long-term health over silly things like FKTs. Luckily it went away after a few hours of cautious moving. As is often the case, my body began feeling much better when my hands began relieving my legs of some of the effort. Looking back at the progress: Washington, Ellinor, and Copper 1. We were 10 feet below the summit on Copper 1 and didn't do the easy scramble because there were hundreds of bees swarming the summit. Literally a swarm amassing several meters surrounding the summit. After 3 bee stings for Monica by this point and a yellow-jacket allergy for me, we decided to skirt around to avoid potential death. If anyone wants to contest the route for this reason, so be it, but you must send the message from Copper summit. We maintained the ridge rather than dropping down to access Copper 2 which presented some fun 4th class climbing. The line down to Cub. Cub - 10:20 - The talus fields below Copper are incredible with some of the most unique rocks on the peninsula. Would love to know how those pinks, blues, and purples are made. The pictures don't do it justice, so you must go see them yourselves. We made better route finding choices than I did last time by avoiding several cliff-out sections, but we still hit our crux of the route leading down to Wagon wheel lake. We mistakenly took the devil's club route to start, then BEES!, then took a few good slips & slides once we got to the steep old growth. Finally, we crashed down onto the trail with a few new cuts and bruises. The last few hundred feet of elevation gain to get to Cub peak may have cooked us but it didn't break the stoke. Weirdly there were hundreds if not thousands of biting flies on the summit of Cub. I didn't have time to think if this was some type of weird mating ritual where insects congregate on summits as I suffered through the black mist to briefly stand on the high point. The ridge is always longer than I remember to traverse but at least you have constant views of the rugged sawtooth ridge to your west. The serrated ridge reminded me that the soreness in my body doesn't compare to the physical and emotional pain Emilio and I experienced when we attempted to sharpen the saw… Could some mountain goat attach the Cushman Six to Sawtooth Ridge?? I dare not name this line but one wonders if it's even possible. Maybe in my next life. Staircase TH - 11:32:42 - I could hardly call this section running, but we somehow hobbled down the trail compelled by downward momentum and thoughts of food. Thinking about how to satiate a deep hunger after burning 5k calories, only eating 400-600 throughout the day, and also feeling sick. Here we were lucky enough to find some Reishi on the trail we brought home for tea to heal our bodies. The quads took their final beating and we arrived back at the trailhead to our second car we parked in the morning. We remarked on the brutality of having to run through that dusty shoulder-less road to get to big creek; later to find out the FA party did this. I respect this type of masochism, but thank you FA Party for not choosing that kind of suffering for the rest of us. Link to FKT: https://fastestknowntime.com/route/cushman-six-peaks-wa Gear Notes: 3.5L & 2.5L of water to start (would have suffered immensely without the water we found below Rose), shorts, t-shirt, trail runners, 8L running vest, 4 bars, 2 PB&J BoBos, half a cookie, 2 handfulls of dehydrated fruit, huckleberries, electrolyte pills, and Stoke. Approach Notes: Easy 1hr drive from home. Then Run. IMG_1121.HEIC IMG_7121.HEIC IMG_7132.HEIC IMG_1123.HEIC IMG_1125.HEIC IMG_5056.HEIC IMG_1130.HEIC IMG_1131 (1).HEIC IMG_1132.HEIC IMG_5074.HEIC IMG_5080.HEIC IMG_5049.HEIC Copy of IMG_5024 (1).HEIC Copy of IMG_5024 (1).HEIC

Snow slopes west of Spickard. Looking towards Easy Mox.

To be fair, there has been a long standing pole fetish; Mongo now has something for everyone. The rooster comb and pole are really what deserve some attention. I don’t know how you climbed the RC without knocking some huge blocks off like we did, Wayne. How is something like that created?? About the Pole, there’s a big gendarme that’s separating the RC from the pole and I was wondering if that would be considered part of the pole or not. We belayed from the notch in between the 2 (circled) for our route up the south side. That may have been what was referenced as the hypothesized 5.11 5-pitch headwall? On a ridge like this, when is one tower considered separate from another? Agreed! Although I welcome the challenge of our SKT. You’ll need to bring more salmon to win.

And you didn’t just romp up that after getting that close!? Wow does that look way more gnarly than I expected. Thanks for sending the pics Bret and Jason! I just want to share the Mongo experience with more people so others can know the magic of that ridge. Whether someone can do Wayne’s line in a single push, add to the ridge from below, or climb more of the gendarmes then I’m excitedly awaiting the report. However, just to live on that ridge for a time and truly appreciate its beauty without rushing through it is a life changing experience. Bivying on tower 3 should be a requirement.

😂 It took us that long to get the right training and preparation for Mongo! Haha. When Wayne pioneered this, Emilio was 12 just moving from Equador and I was a chubby 14 year old just starting to run. Seeing this post makes it really feel like fate! The North Carolina reference also makes so much sense. Certainly some of the most BURLY and stellar climbing in the US. The linville gorge is worth a trip for any climber who likes the traditional ways and gorgeous nature. Just look at the Open Book!!

We contemplated checking out the toe, but it looked very steep as far as we could see from the east and we were running out of daylight. It would remove some of the toughest route finding and technical climbing on the route, but who knows what it would add. Maybe some canyoneering around that waterfall at the base. Damn am I curious what it looks like from below. The whole ridge is ripe for untouched pinnacles and variations on Wayne’s original line. We were focused on following his steps as closely as we could, so the venture to the toe seemed like an over-reach for us. However, I see the beauty in connecting his line to the toe. It may just add a thousand feet of vertical bushwhacking and an even more gnarly approach. But hey, some people are still into that kind of adventure!! Thanks for the kudos, John. I’ll say it again, what an incredible ridge!!

Very inspiring line and objective you chose! Thanks for the pics and shout out, loved reading your report and connecting some dots for all the tracks we saw. We have more copies of the poem if you wanna read it! awesome trip and write up!!

We always sleep the best in the alpine. The first few nights were recovery from the wedding for sure, but once we slept like royalty on tower 3 (~10 hours) we felt completely fresh. And Chads is meant to be shared! Named after my cat, a stellar climber, and inspired by Beckey’s cat food diet, its been our main food source these trips. Most of the other meals we have tried do a number to our stomach and are low in fat. I’m mainly looking for fat, fiber, flavor, and protein when I make it. It’s quite an ordeal to make, so I’m definitely leaving a few things out below since there are many little additions, but I’m happy to share in more detail somewhere else. Half dehydrated eggs following a recipe on YouTube, and most of the rest is a blend of various legumes/quinoa/onions/garlic/etc that I cook and dehydrate. Then tons of herbs, greens, seasonings, and powders like bone broth and some cheese powder this year. These trips were the first time we realized we could eat entire meals of it completely dry and the wedding couple even liked it more this way. So it’s a pretty versatile meal and we mostly ate it dry on Mongo and on the journey home. Which is great if you can wash it down with fresh water but there’s a benefit of not needing water for it. Plus when you make it to the bottom of the bag it makes an incredible hearty soup.

That was you!! You were the only person we saw in the alpine despite all the boot pack up east fury on our way down. We figured you were going to picket pass and out the south pickets. Rad!! I’ll send you a few photos I got of you.

Very glad you enjoyed it, and good to hear it sparked some memories. What a ridge!! Endlessly entertaining, especially when well rested like we were lucky to be. We hoped to document as much as we could of the route and we have more photos. Which was challenging to arrange for this TR given the complexity of the rock. We have video from our amazing bivy on tower 3 and the diagonal rap off the RC but not much more than that. Now that we debriefed a few times, I think there’s a good chance Emilio will have another write up of some kind coming up. Atleast I hope!

You better believe it!!

We absolutely loved the climbing and specifically the rock, Wayne! The monster chimney on the fin, the arete on the first castle spire, and the chimney/face on alpha all offered unforgettable climbing. Certainly that range hasn’t been explored enough. Lots of admiration for the line and questions about your path compared to ours came up during the trip. Would love to know more specifics about your route up cruiser and castle spires. Thanks for the inspiration which facilitated an amazing trip to the mountains! 🍻