Lucas Ng

There’s a mandatory 50 yard band right along the top of the ridge but that’s it, steep enough that you’d like crampons though. Towards the base of spire point it becomes snow-free, was able to go from summit to white rocks without touching snow. Glaciers are going quick, lots n lots of dry glacier. Dome was the only one I crossed that wasn’t just a melting sheet of ice.

There was a defined trail the entire way. On my way in I got off-trail once but quickly picked it back up and on my way down I was able to go from the cub-lake notch to the downey-bachelor split in 2 hours without checking any gps. still a good amount of logs to step over and every once in a while there'd be some shenanigans to end-run a blow-down but far from horrific. I'd seen some other TR's mention the new condition of it in the past year or two but not sure if I'll be able to find them. By the way, your trip report was one of the big things driving me to explore the area so thank you. That photo you took of dome with the tree at white rocks lake has been stuck in my mind for a while.

During the past school year, I’d made the plan of doing a bike to climb trip this summer. Mainly due to the fact that it’s difficult to borrow a car from my parents for a while, but it also just seemed like a neat concept, and I was down for an adventure. After getting back from the North end of the ptarmigan traverse, I was inspired by the peaks further south. My partners were either out of commission or had came up with the lame excuse of “work” and “paying bills” so I figured I’d make it a solo trip. The peaks on the ptarmigan traverse made good sense for this since they’re usually 4th or low 5th making it a pain to bring rock gear. The only challenge was glaciers, but I hoped with my later-season climb they would be mostly dry. I was pretty lazy about prep so a late Saturday night found me and my brother binging a show. I woke up at the too-early time of 7am on Sunday and packed my bike before setting off at 10. Sunday 8/17 The first day was quite chill until I got to the centennial. At my first break on the centennial, I went for my phone when I realized my pannier pocket had been completely open and in a position to spill out the contents for the last hour while I’d been biking down a windy hill and over railroad tracks. I looked around but couldn’t find it so I asked a kind stranger to see if I could call my parents to find out the location. The man, Tom, ended up driving me back an hour of biking to the last known location but after a 1.5 hour ordeal, I came out empty handed. I figured I’d continue on with a garmin and stop by somewhere to get a map. Hour or so later, When I reached down in my frame bag for some snacks, I found it tucked behind some bike tools. The rest of the day went smoothly and I got into Darrington around 6 or 7 in time to get some food, buy groceries, and set up camp. Monday 8/18 As was the trend for the trip, monday was also a moderate day. I biked 30 miles to the trailhead and hiked up to itswoot ridge. The Downey/Bachelor creek trails are now well cut out. Always able to see your feet. At the Bachelor turn-off I ran into two climbers who were coming down from dome. Once I got to cub lake, I met a backpacker who had twisted his ankle a few days ago. An hour later I watched a helicopter come pick him up. I worked it up to Itswoot ridge where I went over to back the peak before setting camp at the established bivy sights to a nice view of dome and glacier. Tuesday 8/18 Trying to save phone battery and figuring the ptarmigan was obvious, I navigated the old fashion way. I knew that I had to climb through snowfields to the spire col so went to what I thought would be the obvious one. Once I was climbing the gully to the col, I found that it was much much looser than I had expected. Topping out, I realized I was definitely in the wrong place, I’d gone to the spire/west spire col. A shitty descent and some more vert later, I got to the right col. I scrambled up spire peak and enjoyed a mix of sun and clouds. TR’s had reported a licheny slab that wouldn’t be fun in approach shoes but it wasn’t too licheny anymore. From here I made the awful descent down to the basin where I traversed around to cub lakes. The only snow of the entire day was between the col and the base of the spire point. I got into cub lakes early and bagged 7340 and Lizard before heading to bed. Wednesday 8/20 The goal for the day was simple, Sentinel and Old Guard. The south cascade glacier was entirely dry and it was cool to see all the glacier monitoring equipment. I found a nice left leaning ramp up the West face of sentinel and scrambled to the top. With the sun and clouds there was a cool glory effect. I descended down, traversed over to the Leconte Glacier, and followed the dry glacier to the col. With some endrunning I was able to stay entirely on ice except for a large snow patch right before the col past the schrund. The scramble up was fun and I enjoyed good views of the more northern peaks. I descended back down and got back to camp by 4. Made some oatmeal and figured I’d scramble up old guard at 4:30. Made it from camp to the base of the North ridge in 45minutes before realizing that there may be some 5th class. It ended up being about 5.6 but it was a secure chimney so I felt comfortable. Made my way down by 6:30 where I found a deer at camp. Picked lots of berries alongside the deer before settling in for the night. Also lots of unfazed marmots. Thursday 8/21 Woke up to find my helmet 20 yards away from my tent. The marmots had stolen the foam padding from it. Spent the morning walking over to the dome-dana col. I went up and over to the itswoot ridge side since I didn’t want to solo the Dana glacier. Set up a nice camp before scoping out conditions. Figured it would probably be do-able but I wanted to do it in the early morning before sun hit everything and while snow conditions were firm. I was doing everything in approach shoes and hybrid crampons so steep stuff was not my forte. Listened to podcasts and sat around for the easy afternoon. That night was horrible, some mice disturbed me for two hours, eventually getting into my tent by making holes in the mosquito netting. My food was hanging but they still walked around by my feet. Didn’t get a ton of sleep. Friday 8/22 Started at 5am, picked my way up the glacier trying to stay on ice. Summited dome at 6:30, down by 7:30 before the sun had even hit camp. Figured I might as well make it down to the trailhead where I found myself at 2pm. Quickly packed the bike and headed towards darrington where I stopped to gorge myself at the burger place. Afterwards I hopped back on the bike in the 93 degree heat to bike to arlington where I camped in a park. This night also sucked too. Loud music + heat + my grimy body only gave me like 2 hours of sleep Saturday 8/23 I knew it’d get hot so I was moving as soon as it was light out, made it home in 5.5 hours where I showered and gorged myself. I’d been doing some moderate rationing for most of the trip so was, and still am, quite hungry. Overall it was a great trip to end the summer. I’ve got a oral surgery tomorrow that will put me out for 2 weeks and by then, I’ll be a week into the school-year. Been busy getting out recently but with this off-time, I’ll probably put together some mini-TR’s on my site(https://lucasfng.blogspot.com/). I’d been wanting to do a long trip over the summer so this satiated my hunger, though it would’ve been nice if I could've got more than one in.

Trip: Cascade River Road - Forbidden, Spider, Boston, and many more solo Trip Date: 08/11/2025 Trip Report: Went up to Cascade River Road for the past couple days to take advantage of the good weather. Didn’t have a partner so just decided to mess around for a while. Apparently my adult friends do this thing called work. Who does that! Summits were: Forbidden, Boston, Sahale, Magic, Arts, Formidable, Spider, Little Devil, Devil Benchmark, Teebone Ridge. Thursday 8/7 Dropped my mom off at work before heading north, got there around 11. Pretty cloudy and had big plans for the next few days so I just ran up to little devil peak and copy climber kyle. Bagged Teebone ridge and Devil benchmark along the way. Enjoyed some perfect huckleberries on the way up. Startled a large bear on the way down, only 25 feet from me. The fur was brown but I don’t think there are any grizzlies out there so who knows. Friday 8/8 Arose at sunrise and moving at 6am up to Cascade pass with 3 days of food, went over the cache glacier and saw a black bear on the other side of the col. This time we saw each other and maintained distance. Slogged it over to the other side of the middle cascade glacier where I got to the bottom of that South-facing gully around 1. Went up Spider mountain using the left gully at first before gaining the rib between the two. Got back to the ptarmigan traverse trail around 5 where I worked my way over to the access col to formidable for a nice night. Saturday 8/9 Arose once again at sunrise and climbed formidable in the morning in 4 hours camp to camp. Saw another party coming up as I headed down from the col. Slogged it back up to the middle cascade and felt pretty pooped by the time I got to the red ledges. Dropped the pack and scurried up Art’s Knoll. After that headed over to kool-aid lakes where I stashed a lot of gear before going up Spider. Made it back down around 6 or 7 before more slogging up to cache col for a sweet bivy site. Spilled my pad thai all over myself which I was unhappy about. Sunday 8/10 Another sunrise wakeup got me moving at 6, down to cascade pass, and up to Sahale where I summited around 11:30. Stashed overnight gear on my way up to the arm. Always fun passing people in trailrunning vests. Simply buying an vest and some poles won’t make you kilian jornet, still need cardio. Anyways, over to Boston where I topped out around 12 or 12:15? Explored the summit register before rappelling down. Yes I did carry a 60m purline all that way for 2 rappels. Training weight or something. Cruised it back to the car. Monday 8/11 Had to meet a neighbor in the evening to talk about watering his plants but nothing else going on. Also had a dentist on Tuesday preventing me from staying another day. Soloed up W. ridge Forbidden in 4:15 car to summit. Topped out around 7:15 before heading down at 8 with another soloist from Montana. Rope was nice for rappels. Back at the car by 12:30, home around 3:30. I guess I could’ve waken up later. Don’t see myself becoming some big free-soloist but the route seemed like a good option for it. Sure is nice to not fuss with ropes through easy terrain. Gear Notes: Approach shoes and Crampons would work for everything. I carried boots because I like carrying things I regret carrying later. Rapping boston feels good and a purline doesnt weigh much. Approach Notes: Forbidden can be reached without touching any snow

Trip: Mount Index - North Face Trip Date: 06/29/2025 Trip Report: Kinda tired but figure I should write some stuff down while it’s fresh in my mind. I’ll split this into two parts, the story and the beta. The Story is pretty simple, me and a partner decided to go for the Index traverse on Sunday and Monday. We had extra time on saturday so we hiked into lake serene to make for an easier morning. Without light on Saturday night, we made the mistake of trying to bivy at the flatter spot in the topo on the north of lake serene. This is very schwacky. Don’t do it. It wasted a lot of time. Anyways, Sunday am we worked our way up the talus and then up to the ridge. It was still a little wet and loose so we decided to rope up. Halfway up, my partner bonked and our pace slowed considerably. We made it to the summit late and decided that in his condition it wouldn’t be safe to commit ourselves to the rest of the traverse. A nice summit bivy ensued and then 16 rappels + downclimbing the next day. We chilled in by the lake and hiked out at a reasonable time. In the descent we also realized it was prolly a good idea we didn’t commit ourselves to the traverse. It fingers were beat and the rock was so warm that touching the rock was truly painful. Wouldn’t be fun to be forced to climb in that. My partner has a brain and realized this blue collar suffer climbing aint for him, but if anybody wants to get on something suffery with me, let me know. I got a lot of time this summer and like to put my head down and work. Anyways on for the beta Beta: Approach via Lake Serene. Take the trail around the lake to the talus field. Follow the talus field up, eventually getting near the cliffs on the left but not on them. Eventually you will be forced into the bush to the right of the cliffs where there is a faint climbers trail. At times it can be decent but often, its only marked by the fact that you can see the ground every once in a while. Bushwack 4th class up onto the NE Ridge, pulling on lots of branches. Eventually you’ll get out of the schwack and onto the ridge. Take the easiest looking route up, roping up if you feel necessary. Climb this until you reach a slab with two pitons under a roof. Once here take the leftward brush filled ramp for about 50ish meters until you reach a short E facing exposed rock rib. This is a great pitch with exposure above lake serene. It will quickly ease up into a nicer gully below an open book feature. Climb to the treed ledge on the left side below this open book where you’ll find the crux pitch of the route. Start up on left side of the open book before traversing right on smaller holds to get to the easier gully above the open book. Here you’ll find a block with a lots of slings for a nice belay. At the block, climb hard right out of the gully and then climb straight up the steep trees and brush until it gets too steep. Here you should see a small hidden ledge going around right. Take the narrow, exposed ledge around the right skyline where you’ll finally see the North Bowl. Traverse, pulling steep brush, to get into the open bowl. Once in the bowl, the route goes up the steeper long gully on the left. Work your way up this thing, staying on the right side of it for most of the time. Eventually, before the gully turns right, you’ll find yourself on a nice ledge to the right of the gully with a slung tree and a piton + nut anchor above it. Climb up here and then to the left back into the gully. From here(when the gully turns right) it is 60 meters of steep bushwacking up to the toe of the North Rib. The North Rib is the highlight of the route. Stay right on top or barely(a few feet) to the right the entire time. This can be led in 2-3 pitches or one easy simul. It is exposed, but the holds are great unlike the rest of the route, and the location is amazing. Once at the top of the ridge, quickly climb up the small slabs onto the summit ridgeline. Scramble this, along, or slightly to the right for most of it until you reach the summit. slab with pins below roof. Ramp off to the left great exposure on E facing rib topping out of open book looking down rightwards turn at end of gully filled with steep branches. Taken from toe of N. Rib ig I'll have to come back for these guys summit bivy summit ridge scrambling(taken on way back) Gear Notes: Double rack to #2 but a single would probably be fine. Bring lots of double length slings, you'll be slinging a lot of shtuff. Approach Notes: Lake Serene -> boulder field -> Shwack

Props for following that approach in the dark. Was tricky even with light. How was the traverse between bottom of Argo raps and the Colchuck glacier? I Remember it seemed like a slog so we quit and descended back into the Argo basin.

Trip: Mixup Peak - East route Trip Date: 06/10/2025 Trip Report: First day of summer break was yesterday for me. What I’ve learned from summer breaks is they pass fast, can’t just sit around. I’ve got a lot of things to get to but figured I’d set myself a standard by getting out the first day, even if my partners were busy. Spent Monday night at graduation for the old seniors and the mounties gear grab so got home at 9:30 and talked to my parents. Originally wanted to do an overnighter and bag magic too but couldn’t take a car on wednesday so I settled on just mix-up. Slept through my alarm by 30 minutes but was driving by 3:30 and and at the TH by 6. Later than I would’ve liked but wasn’t gonna do anything better with my day so figured I may as well give it a shot. Biked up the road in an hour and tossed it in the alder. 2 hours later I was at cascade pass with a lot of cobwebs in my face. Followed some goat tracks on the traverse over the cliffs and was soon moving up towards the U notch. There was one old track continuing to cache col but nothing super fresh. The gully towards the U notch was more melted out than I’d seen in any photos. Brought two ice axes and was glad to have em. Very doable with one tbh but if snow conditions were harder I would’ve definitely wanted both. Traversed around to the V notch and made a few 5th class moves before being on steep 4th class until I gained the hump. Was glad I brought a rope to rappel that. From here I was onto the slabby ledges and had a fun time working my way up. The summit was intimidating but I found a low 5th path onto the ridge. The final move pulling onto the ridge was steep and airy but I felt confident in my holds so took a lil breath and everything was okay. Summited around 12:30 and was very glad to see some rappel anchors with fresh-ish tat. Summit register was full but of the few random pages I flicked through, I found Jeff Wright, Fred Beckey, Martin Volken, and most notably, my freshman science teacher. Took a photo and he was pleased to see my find. Enjoyed the summit until 1 and then figured It was time to get off that god forsaken rock. Ooh but the views were pretty cool. First time looking at the middle cascade glacier, I could even see all the way out to dome. Gotta do the ptarmigan this summer I guess. Anyways, a couple rappels brought me off the summit block, then a lot of down scrambling, then 1 more to the V notch by 2:00. Wrapped around to the U notch and made a rappel down through the top section since there was an anchor already there. Was also this insane cornice thingy that seemed to be precariously balanced. Tried to stay off to the side because I didn’t wanna get killed by some goofy looking snow glob. Once at the bottom of the gully, it was a nice stroll with good views back to cascade pass. Saw a group of four goats at cascade pass which kinda scared me. 1 idiot teenager vs 4 mountain goats, I don't think the odds were in my favor. Lucky for me they ran up towards Sahale as I was taking off my crampons so it was a nice pleasant walk to the pass, where I arrived around 3:30. Saw my first humans of the day as a party was finishing the hike towards cascade pass and headed towards Glacier camp on Sahale. A nice stroll down the trail got me to my bike at 5, and by 5:15 I was at my car. I buzzed a hiker too fast on my bike which he was very unhappy about at first but then we made up and he turned out to be a reasonable guy. A bell on my bike might not hurt. Usually its cars buzzing bikers so was funny to be bikers buzzing hikers. Anyways, Twas’ my bad and we seemed to make up for it. I learned from it. Heres da photos for the populace Gear Notes: Rope nice for rappels. Crampons 'n axe ofc Approach Notes: aint so bad. Just walk n keep walking

Transition between glaciers was just a steep lil snow step. Doable, just annoying. Had to take ski's off for it but still snow-covered when we did it. klawatti wasn't fully skiable(photo below)

Trip: Austera & Klawatti - Scramble routes Trip Date: 05/24/2025 Trip Report: Went out to Cascade River Road over the weekend. The goal was to bag Klawatti, Austera, Primus, and Tricouni, then return back to the Eldorado Trailhead. With a late sunset, we got a relaxed 6am start and made decent work up through the Boulder Field. By mid-morning, we were skinning up the Eldorado Glacier, watching people post-hole through the slush. Soon we were below Eldorado and I talked to Climber Kyle & crew for a little bit. When I went up Eldorado last year it was in a near whiteout, so looking over at Moraine lake and Forbidden was stunning. Lots of parties were out as you’d expect from such a beautiful weekend. Once we started the traverse over to Klawatti, we were alone. The sidehilling was tiring, especially on a splitboard, but the surrounding terrain made up for it. We put on trailrunners and scrambled up the South ridge of Klawatti. It was fun scrambling and we were at the top around 2, albeit now with wet feet. We descended back down and made a nice traverse over to Austera. With the hot sun, we skinned in the shade below a big rock. Our skin track probably looked a bit stupid to other parties once the sun moved. Anyways, some shenanigans of snow in trailrunners eventually brought us to the Austera summit. On the rappel through the gully, I had an awakening when a carabiner unclipped itself. Luckily we had two opposite and opposed but it definitely shook me up for a second. We set up a nice bivy on the ridge below Austera and watched an avalanche pour over the cliffs on the McAllistar Glacier On Sunday, we started the morning at 6 by skiing the Klawatti Glacier to get over to Primus and Tricouni. At the bottom of the ridge the snow was already mush, over crevasses and cliffs. Knowing that this was our only exit option and that we’d be coming back out in the middle of the afternoon, we took a pause to think through our options. Wanting to make our parents proud, we decided to put skins on and head back out. Another ski party also followed suit. The climb up the Klawatti Glacier was definitely nerving. The glacier was very smooth, but big whoomphs reminded us of the cracks we were walking over. I think it was just the recent snow settling under our weight, but it still wasn’t fun feeling the snow around me dropping an inch or two. The way out was just a lot more traversing. I thought about going up to ski the northeast face on Eldorado, but Cole just wanted to get out. I wasn’t feeling super stoked about it anyways, so off to the Eldorado glacier we went. A few thousand feet of slush got us to the boulder field where it was a toasty hike back to the car. Went out to a college tour at UBC on monday and then skied Emmons/winthrop yesterday. For those wondering, the snow conditions are much better than the ranger blog makes it out to be. Nice corn to 1000' above the prow. Nice edgeable chalky to the saddle. Sastrugi Above. Skinnable snow at the switchback before the camp. Traverse to saddle or snowbridge which we saw a party belay across. Might add a TR eventually to my blogspot but got some school and other life to catch up on right now. (TR now here) Gear Notes: belay devices are nice for the rappels in addition to normal glacier gear Approach Notes: snow above boulderfield

Trip: Gothic and Del Campo - Standard Routes Trip Date: 05/17/2025 Trip Report: Took a solo stroll up Gothic and Del Campo in the rain on Saturday since I had nothing better to do. Scrambling was entertaining, summit register of Del Campo was a fun read. If anybody is going up, Gothic summit register could use a new zip-lock and notebook. Sun peeked out in the morning but by the time I was descending Del Campo, rain was coming down. Forgot to buy snacks on the way in and didn't really eat breakfast so did the whole thing on 350 calories which I'm sure my body loved. 6h45 c2c. Nice morning and got some overpriced lunch in granite falls. Oh and I think I had mold growing in my boots because I forgot to dry em out after last weekends mother's day gift of getting home at 11pm on a school-night. Gear Notes: wet feet Approach Notes: trail runners are nice

Trying to do some bike -> climb this summer since taking a car all the time proved problematic with my family last year. Also saves on gas and I got the time. Definitely want to get out to cascade river road since it was closed last summer. Maybe a northern pickets traverse and the ptarmigan??? I just want to get out for longer overnighters really. Bike's mostly ready by now after a little sewing. Just need some new tires - lmk if you got any 27.5" tubeless compatible gravel/road tires you're tryna sell

Trip: Ingalls Peak - South Ridge Trip Date: 04/21/2025 Trip Report: Been getting out a good amount but mostly ski-mountaineering. Since this was a more climbing-y thing, I figured I’d post it on here. With Monday off, I wanted to get one more trip out of the Spring break by giving an early season attempt on Ingalls. Mid-day Sunday, Asher and I drove out to Esmeralda and got the car a little past Beverly Campground. We began walking at 16:00 and set up camp at around 6000’ at 20:00 a little below Ingalls pass. I had my splitboard, Asher had snowshoes. My lighter ended up freezing so we had cold soaked oatmeal and fresh carrots for dinner. The next morning we got moving around 06:30 and were at the base of the South Ridge of Ingalls at around 08:30. There was more snow than expected overnight so but I figured I’d at least give it a shot. We started by booting up an entrance couloir. The top of it contained a dusting of snow above a slab, but a short little boulder move brought us onto a sub ridge. From here we butt-scooted a little bit until we reached the rock. A short little step brought us to the belay. Here I roped up and started up the route in ski boots. The rock was very icy with lots of snow in the cracks, but with big cracks, it was still reasonably comfortable with ski boots. I found the passive pro super useful with the icy cracks. Honestly I should've brought way more nuts. Eventually I got about 30 meters up and found myself stuck. I stuck my Gully in a crack, tied in direct, and switched from ski boots to climbing while backed up by a hex. I was feeling pretty patagonian by now… on a 5.4. I looked around but decided to try and follow a crack system on the left. Asher lowered me off the hex and belayed me as I traversed across closer to the ridgeline. Here looked more promising so I continued climbing up. Higher up the crack, I was nearly postholing in climbing shoes. Near about 40 meters, at the top of P.2, I reached a band of snow and Ice. I couldn't continue up and eventually placed in a bomber nut and lowered off after bounce testing it while backed up. Halfway down I pulled the rope again and got lowered off of a nice slung horn. I think it could’ve been possible by drytooling but I wasn’t quite desperate enough to scratch up such a popular route(also I’m definitely not that confident of a drytooler). I’ll hopefully be back this summer anyways to link up the ridgeline between Ingalls and Sherpa. Anyways, once I arrived back at the belay, we found an older rap anchor to make a final rap to the approach gully. I got some consolation turns as Asher suffered on snow shoes. We got back to camp and kept going down. We ended up back at the car by 16:00, just 24 hours after leaving. While we didn’t get the summit, it was still a great time getting out and I learned a few things about winter climbing. The truth is we just had a lot more snow and ice than expected, and climbing an icy slab without drytooling is next to impossible. Better than sitting around in the city. Next person up the South Ridge gets a little booty! Always good to learn to bail. https://lucasfng.blogspot.com/2025/04/ingalls-peak-attempt-420-4212025.html Gear Notes: Should've brought more hexes and Nuts for the wintery conditions. Anchors not visible Approach Notes: 2 hrs to walk/skin the road

With nothing to do, decided to go for a “quick” little afternoon mission up roaring ridge and scope out the entrance to the zipper couloir with Emily and Andrew. After dealing with Snoqualmie parking insanity, we got going around 11:15. Going was slow with a little wallowing and breaking trail most of the way but we made it to the entrance around 3:15. After cutting a cornice, we watched a nice big sluff run down. We belayed ski cuts to Emily and Andrew before skiing down. After them, I followed. It was great blower pow and my best line of the year so far. At the bottom we quickly found the XC road and skinned out in the dark. https://lucasfng.blogspot.com/2025/02/zipper-couloir.html cc8a5f9c703f4dbab81e8e092230b266.mp4 4ccaf903c1954a18ac20c495e35a98d8.mp4

Schrund, you're right that was me. We kinda got screwed by the permitting and could only get a single night. Hiked in for an hour then my partner decided the inevitable 2 days of suffering wasn't for him and we turned around. Looking back we should've just got permits for the other night in a neighboring zone but it's fine. How life goes I guess, N. Cascades permits are just a PITA.

Thanks so much yall. Don't want to get too hung up on gear, comes with the sport I guess(though if anybody in wallingford needs lawn work, I have a lot of experience and many happy customers). Here's my Skagit Alpinism/Cold Thistle inspired blogspot. I'll be honest I just write stuff and then don't re-read it since it's more of a memory project(though I could probably throw some more trips in there) but you should be able to find nooksack. Maybe I'll do some editing during class tomorrow . I'll try to start posting some more TR's in here given how helpful it is for most of my trips.

8 pickets, a screw, and a lot of slings but ya, was well worth it. Parties have used more(12 I think) Just means my broke high school ass needs to get to work. Wouldn’t have trusted a bollard in those conditions and after using/arguing with them for a few raps down nooksack, I don’t think highly of em anymore.

Well it wasn't the radness that took place on Sloan Peak that weekend but with the great high pressure, Cole reached out to me about climbing Lincoln. It's been on his mind for a while and given that he was willing to do Nooksack with me over the summer, I figured I'd take him up on the offer. A flu and vacation had also meant I hadn't done something hard for a while so with a lot of stress from highschool, I decided I needed to get a little scared. I skipped the afternoon on Friday to beat the traffic up to B-ham and enjoyed a nice afternoon of trying to get caught up on schoolwork at Coles place while he was working. Once Cole was done, we did a little last minute supply-grabbing and packing before we met up with Fletcher to get a little beta. assuming it would be a quick approach to camp, we decided on leaving Bellingham at 7:30 to be at camp early afternoon. Saturday morning we leisurely took our time getting out of Bellingham. We passed the turnoff for FS 38 but eventually found our way back and made our way along the road. The road was bad but easily subaruable until the 3rd switchback, where large ruts made us park our car and start walking at 10am. I was still in a poor mood but forced myself to shut up and walk, knowing this was what I needed. The road eventually got bush-wacky but soon enough we were climbing a dense forest. Instead of going into the basin, we climbed up to the ridge along the Deming glacier and booted to around 5800' where it opened up to great views of Lincoln. From here we skinned to 6050' and set up camp by a stand of trees with a great view of Lincoln The night was rather uneventful other than Cole spilling his pasta bolognese in his sleeping bag. Luckily we both brought an extra meal so instead we just enjoyed what warmth there was to our sleeping bags(my MYOG one did surprisingly well) and thought about the next day. A decent 3:50 wakeup got us out of our bags and we traversed over to the base of Lincoln on our flotation devices(hardboot splitboard for me, ski's for Cole). From here we did about 1500' of booting before stashing our skis a little before the bergschrund. Unroped, I lead the bootpack up to the the mostly filled schrund. It wasn't too deep and it was angled but it still wasn't something you want to fall into. Feeling in my element, I tried to cross, watching my foot punch through slightly. I tried to go to the left with the same result before finding a small little step that I climbed over to the right. From on top of this packed snow step, a trusty big step got me across the schrund and onto a steep snow/ice ramp. I was confident on the terrain so I kept moving up. I continued most of the way up the steep snow/ice ramp before Cole called for me to rope up. From here we simuled with me in the lead, trying to have 2 of our 8 pickets between us at all times. One simul block brought us to the base of the X couloir where we took a break before I set off on a second lead. The X couloir was much chiller than expected, possibly due to the snowy winter conditions. From the hogsback at the top of this, I lead a 3rd simul-pitch to the summit. The snow on the climb was wallowy but not horrible. Pickets went in easily with a hand however, so I viewed them more as mental pro. After running out the last 60meters, we hit the top at noon. views were great but with these D10 peaks, we knew we were only halfway done. IMG_6959.mp4 Though I opted to down-climb, Cole was pretty tired and unsure of his condition to down-climb so we dug a deadman on the summit, pulled out the tagline, and left the first of our pickets. We found 3 sling-able rock anchors in the X couloir and by 3:30 we were on top of the waterfall with our final picket. By now the sun was on the face and with small ice chunks coming down, we just wanted flat ground. We were only able to pound in the picket halfway and mid-clip it so after backing it up with a marginal ice screw, I very nervously set off over the edge, extremely relieved to see that the ropes reached. From here it was a mediocre snowboard down the bottom half before a quick slog to camp, arriving at around 4:30 right before sunset. Realizing our two-day itinerary wasn't happening we settled in for the night. My MSR reactor burst into flames but after warming it in my bag for a little bit, it started working again and after a night of shivering, we were moving around 9 the next morning. 2.5hrs of skiing, survival skiing, and cutting through the forest to avoid the mess of slide alder later, we were back at the car. It was a rad yet expensive peak. I'm glad to never have to do it again but I truly did need it and am feeling much better now. I guess somehow I got what I came for.