daylward

LOVE THIS SHIT! This is the new Cascadinism! Keep pushing the envelope, next generation! Dan

Hello, I just got these with a big order from Arc'teryx, and unfortunately they don't fit. Also, unfortunately, since I got a deal, I can't return them. However, fortunately, that provides you with the opportunity to get them for a deal! I was looking for a softshell touring pant because I was tired of using my Gore-Tex bibs for every weather pattern and climatic zone. The Gamma SK seems great, they're just too long, as seems typical with Arc'teryx pant sizing. With every other manufacturer, small is perfect for me, but Arc'teryx I need small short. Dumb. Anyway, now that I'm looking for the link on the Arc'teryx website, they seem to have removed it. They still have the women's version: Arc'teryx.com - Women's Gamma SK Here's a link to another website selling the men's version: Backcountry.com - Men's Gamma SK They were taken out of their plastic wrapping, tried on, and then put back in the plastic wrapping. Tags still attached. I will sell them for $140, which is about $85 off what most retailers are asking. You can call me at (206) 617-9108 if you're interested (not in the middle of the night, please!), or personal message me on Cascade Climbers. I live in the U-district in Seattle, and I'd prefer not to deal with shipping. Thanks! Dan Aylward

Tim had seen your trip report (this one) earlier, but I hadn't. He only mentioned Wayne's name when he was telling me about it, so that's why I was surprised to see it was you who had posted! I guess Tim doesn't know you. :-) Ah, did you just loop the rope around the tree then? We didn't see a sling there.

Tim Matsui and I did Flow Reversal today, and that must have been you who shouted up at us as we were getting going! We only had one rope so we put in some V-threads for the intermediate stations, but we didn't see where you did your second rap from? A tree?

I'm a seasoned Cascade bushwhacker in an intimate relationship with my gardening gloves, but we will be approaching in the dark on a new moon, which in my experience increases bushwhacking seriousness by at least an order of magnitude. However, it sounds like there's plenty of friendly and reflective snowcover now, so I think we're golden! Thanks everyone for the info!

How much snow is there around the Mt. Baker ski area right now? Thinking of doing the NF of Shuksan this weekend, but I'm really afraid of the bushwhack that normally exists on the approach below the White Salmon after the snow is melted. Dan

Bob, great to hear from you, and thanks to everyone else with interesting background tidbits for the ol' Internet record! Steph, I think you can safely say you got the first female ascent though, if that means anything to you!

This clearly wallops my time with Dylan Johnson in 2005 (18 hours Cascade Pass to Downey Creek bridge)! Fabulous work, and glad to see it posted here! I know it's not climbing, but it is a route very much of interest to climbers (more so than most trail runs), and contains good information useful to climbers in terms of approach conditions and endurance action style. In no way do I see this as diluting the content of this forum. Uli rented an apartment from us when he was in grad school at the UW, glad to see he's still out there getting after it! Dan

Trip: Bonanza, SW Peak - West Buttress (a.k.a. "North Face") Date: 8/22/2012 Trip Report: September 12, 1975 Vyacheslav Onishchenko, Valentin Grakovich, Anatoly Nepeomnyashchy, Sergei Bershov, as part of a landmark Soviet climbing mission to North America, along with the esteemed Alex Bertulis, made the first ascent of what they called the "North Face of the SW Peak of Bonanza". At roughly 2300 feet, this is the steepest and tallest wall on the complex Bonanza massif, and a rival in size and difficulty to many of the biggest faces in the Cascades. Alex Bertulis described all this in a very interesting article in the 1976 edition of the AAJ that you should all check out (it can be accessed online by AAC members on the AAC website). August, 2012 Nearly 37 years later, John Scurlock has been flying by Bonanza periodically for the past 10 years and was always intrigued by the imposing buttress dropping precipitously slightly to the north of west from the SW summit of Bonanza. He has called it "one of the greatest singular rock features in the North Cascades", and he was unaware that it had ever been climbed. Not being a climber himself, he suggested to Steph Abegg, who is a climber who flies with him often, that it would be a worthy objective. Of course she agreed. Initial research in Beckey's CAG indicated a "Soviet Route" that went up the "North Face of the SW Summit", which was confusing because there is no clear north face on the SW summit. The ridge that heads off to the W summit goes slightly east of north, which does not leave much room for a north face. However, further digging revealed the 1976 AAJ article, which had a clear picture of the profile of the buttress, indicating the route being roughly on the buttress crest. I would call it the West Buttress. In any case, it seemed to have been unrepeated. This was very interesting to all of us. Several emails went back and forth between me, Steph and John, and then I asked Chad if he would be interested in joining Steph and I to try to pull this thing off for the second time, and in addition try to make the true summit, about a mile of ridge traversing away. He was immediately interested. None of us had ever been in the area (if you don't count flying, that is). Based in part on Chad's and my construction schedules, and in part on Steph's busy Cascade adventure schedule, we set aside some days in late August (the 20th through the 24th) and spent our free time in between gathering information and additional gear items to make this climb happen. Monday, August 20 I was busy working on an apartment remodel all day, and Chad had a number of errands to accomplish, so we were not able to get out of town until 7:30 or so. Steph was waiting and doing logic puzzles at Tom's house just off the freeway in Everett, which is a very convenient place to leave a car, so that's where she left it. We made the wise decision to stop at Ixtapa in Sultan to eat large Mexican (American interpretation) food. It was above average quality for that type of restaurant, we were quite pleased! Chad's folks have a time-share condo in Chelan, and they happened to be there for the week. They happily welcomed us when we arrived at 11:30 and we slept comfortably on the living room floor. Tuesday, August 21 In the morning, Chad's mom made us a feast of eggs scrambled with bacon and avocado, pineapple chunks and toast while we repacked our gear in the parking lot. We didn't have time to eat it before time constraints forced a rushed mile drive to catch the Lady of the Lake II, but she had packaged up our breakfast in a convenient to-go bag, and we spent much of the four hour boat ride repackaging the breakfast inside our stomachs. Oh, it was good! From Lucerne, we took the bus to Holden Village, which is really the only reasonable option. Our bags were essentially "checked" through from Chelan to Holden, and came up on a different bus. Chad was dubious of their baggage handling skills, so he made sure to check the baggage bus in Lucerne before getting on the people bus to make sure our packs were on board. His concern turned out to be unwarranted; they had everything under control. Being the only "hikers" on the bus, we had to sit through the Holden spiel before getting off the bus, and then we were pulled aside to pay our $15 each. The Holden villagers were all very nice people, and they let us store a few items in Moe (one of their snaffle-proof storage rooms). I bet you can guess what the other two storage rooms are called. We took care of a few last personal hygiene tasks and filled our water bladders at the "Hiker Haus", and promptly hiked the 3.5 miles up to Hart Lake. Like the Soviets, we enjoyed a swim in the lake, which was not too cold for a hot day, but still cold enough that I didn't feel like hanging out in the water very long. I'm such a chicken about jumping into cold water. I need to get over that. We followed the route description to ascend the slabs and bluffs below the Isella Glacier, a little exposed at times, especially with our ~50 lb packs. The slabs degenerated into our first taste of scree, which we traversed for 3/4 of a mile or so before gaining some beautiful heather slopes as the sun dropped below the horizon. We found some good flat tent spots in a grove of trees a couple hundred vertical feet below the Bonanza-North Star col. The weather seemed to be waffling - definite cloud cover in places, and some wind gusts increased in frequency and severity as the evening progressed. Wednesday, August 22 The morning was cold and windy as our alarm went off at 3:30. It wasn't too hard to get out of bed. We ate our quick breakfasts, each fitting our unique nutritional needs and desires, collapsed our FirstLight tents and put rocks on them, and headed for the col at 5:00. There was a large snow patch at the col, and the basin on the other side was mellower than I thought it would be, but certainly covered with talus of all styles. We crossed some snow patches but mostly rolled around with the talus for an hour, reaching the base of the buttress by 6:00. Racking, roping up with my two Beal Ice Lines, getting our harnesses and shoes on took only 15 minutes and Chad was off on the first block, with me and Steph each following at the end of our respective ropes, and the climbing roughly lined up with the best description of the route we had - from Beckey's CAG (presumably from conversation with Alex Bertulis). The climbing was easer than expected, and about as loose as we expected, and Chad was able to link up 7 pitches of mostly low-5th with perhaps a few 5.7 to 5.9 moves here and there. A couple times we encountered low-angle benches where Steph and I would run up past Chad to find a good belay spot at the base of the next steepness. I evacuated my bowels on one of these benches. Just so you know. It's well buried though. Chad ended his block on the prominent horizontal ledge that cuts across about halfway up the face. We traversed the ledge easily to the south aspect of the buttress, and enjoyed the first rays of sunshine. It took us a while to decide where to go from there. We looked at the high resolution photos on my iPhone, tried to match up with the route description, and didn't see anything that definitively looked right. So we resorted to our own best judgment, and I took the sharp end and led up vertical faces and grooves, very featured and often loose, with tricky and scarce protection. There were definitely some 5.10 moves. I had to weave back and forth a bit to find the POLR, and it took me to some beautiful and scary places. Each of the hard pitches were basically full 60m. The first pitch off the ledge was up a shallow chimney that gradually got more pronounced, slightly rightward but mostly straight up, and I found a belay just as the rope was running out at the top of an indistinct "pillar" that formed one side of the chimney. The second pitch was up and left, with a traverse underneath a vertical section with red rock (but not on the red rock), and then up and slightly right to a belay that seemed to match up with the "cave" reported by the first ascent party. The third ascended out of the cave and slightly right to start, then left again, with more 5.10 and sketchy protection, and ended by traversing quite a bit to the right to a lower angle exposed belay. The final hard pitch followed the description perfectly and was shorter than expected, out to the left into some grooves that led to the top of the "first step". Easy climbing along the ridge line that turned quite sharp led to a bypass of the gendarme on the left just before the notch connecting to the upper "step" of the buttress. I led that as one long pitch and continued up to the first reasonable belay above the notch, which required Chad and Steph to extract their anchor and simul with me for a while. After that, Chad took over one more time, and we removed one rope from the system and I carried it while Chad tied into the middle of the other one. He led straight up the crest to just underneath and Steph and I followed, simul-climbing on each end of the single rope. Underneath the obvious overhanging red headwall, Chad went left on very loose rock and decided to belay at the base of a gully while we got through the loose cruxes. Then he continued up the groove. A few rocks hit me in the head while we followed, nothing my helmet couldn't handle, but it was still disconcerting, and I made those around me aware of it. But, at the top of that pitch, we stood on the SW summit! In the sunshine. About 5:30 pm. It was a beautiful place on a beautiful day. Steph took some shots of Billy with his party ribbon. We rejoiced. That was 14 belayed pitches with 4 moves of belay, definitely less than the 22 pitches reported by the first ascent party. And no bivy! That's why you don't carry bivy gear, because then you won't bivy. We looked over at the true summit. Uh…. that's farther than we thought. And more rugged. Could we make it there before dark? We decided to give it a shot. In the process, we identified a way to descend off the W summit that we thought would be more straightforward than going down to the Isella and around the south side of the mountain. Most of the first part of the ridge between the SW and W summits we could bypass on ledges below, on the Isella glacier side, after making one strategic half-rope rappel. Then it started to get a little harder, but we were able to scramble up and over the ridge to the west/northwest side, and catch the last rays of sun as we ascended to the top of the W peak. So, it took us two hours to get that far, and the ridge between the SW summit and true summit was more convoluted. We would surely have to be doing it in the dark. We took 15 minutes to talk about how much we wanted it, and finally decided we didn't want it bad enough to subject ourselves to the extra suffering that it would certainly entail. We had a largely unknown descent ahead of us, so we figured it would be best to cut our losses and just use the rest of the daylight to find the descent as best we could. The W summit has a slope of talus that drops off on the NW side and rolls down to a wide swath of slabs that looked reasonably low angle. The slabs emptied out into the same basin the the west buttress, so we knew if we could get down there, we could just cross the basin underneath the route and go back up to the col to our camp. We descended a long way on talus and scree, sometimes rolling rocks toward each other and yelling to get out of the way. It was sort of a rightward traverse to a long skinny snowfield that we could see from above. We kept descending to the right of the snowfield, looking for the start of the slabs, and finally there we were. By then it was fully dark. The slabs were too steep to confidently downclimb in the dark, so we looked for a rap anchor. I found a crack in a little overhanging roof that fit a #4 BD nut nicely, and we used one of Steph's leaver biners. Chad was dubious about rapping off one nut, so we backed it up, and he and Steph went first, then I pulled the backup before I went. It held. Thursday, August 23 The full 60m rap took us to a shallow ledge with not a lot of options for another rap anchor, but finally Steph found a dirt-filled crack that looked like a knifeblade would pound into. Chad did said pounding, and the characteristic increasing pitch ring reverberated through the rock as it went in to the hilt. Bomber. Steph donated her other leaver biner to the cause, and off we went on another 60m rap. This one took us to a nice ledge, which, after briefly considering another, we decided we could downclimb. A few meanderings to find the POLR brought us to some interconnecting gullies and then to the lovely scree once again. It was very challenging getting across the scree slope to below the buttress. There were sections of large rocks, small rocks, mostly steep (30-35 degrees), and one section of hardened mud embedded with rocks that was close to 45 degrees and very very difficult. Every step was insecure, ice tools would not hold well, and it required constant body tension to keep from taking the big cheese grater slide. Chad and I made it to the other side, and Steph almost got there when the gravity of the situation momentarily got the best of her and she froze up. I climbed up a bit and tossed the end of a rope down to Chad, who tied a loop in the end and tossed it to Steph, who wrapped it around her shoulders and I belayed her the rest of the way across. She never was so happy to see regular ol' loose rock scree! The situation gradually improved as we crossed the basin, and finally we got to one of the snow patches we had crossed in the morning and saw our tracks. By the time we got up to the col, the wind had started to pick up again. We found our camp at about 2:30 am, and settled in for a weird night - Chad crashed before he could eat dinner, and I tried to wake him up to use the water I had boiled and he hardly responded. I then put my head down and went to sleep with my headlamp on. Chad woke up and realized what was going on, woke me to turn my headlamp off and then he cooked his dinner. I didn't remember anything after that until there was light on the tent. After gradually gaining consciousness, I realized we needed to make a decision about whether to go out that day or be stuck hanging out up there for another full day - we knew the bus left Holden Village at 1:45, and based on our time getting to camp, we'd have to leave about 8:30 to make it. That was less than an hour. I woke Chad up and asked him what he thought. He was definitely in sleep mode, and at first sounded like he wanted to keep sleeping. Steph had already been waiting for a sound from our tent, and took the chance to say that we could stay there if we wanted but she was going to hike down to Holden. We both knew that would have been silly, so that prompted us to action. We didn't even eat breakfast before getting our crap together and heading down. Steph suggested we try the direct descent down the valley from the Bonanza-North Star col instead of traversing the scree under the Isella, and that's a thought that had occurred to me also, so we decided to go for it. It was bushy, and our hope that it would take a lot less time than the other way turned out to be lost, but it didn't really take any longer and it makes for a more interesting route overlay line. There was one cliff band that we had to find a weakness to scramble through, and lower down there was some full-on slide-alder schwackin', but we were able to follow goat paths through a bunch of terrain that saved us a lot of time. And then, we popped out into a grove of trees, and there was the trail! Everything else went very smoothly. We skipped the second dip in the lake, and made it to Holden with plenty of time to spare. Moe still had our stuff, we took our bus ride down, and had to wait for about a half hour for the boat. The lake was choppy, the wind was still quite strong, and Steph wasn't feeling good with the motion. We all spent most of the ride lying on the floor. Taco truck in Wenatchee was a go. Benny's tacos. MMMM! So all in all, it was a super fun trip and we all felt very satisfied. It was a great team, everyone was in sync pretty much the whole time. For being in recovery for her severe tib-fib fracture in 2010, Steph was not slowing us down at all on the up and hardly at all on the down, she is a world-class scree scrambler and bushwhacker, let alone a completely solid partner on a very intimidating route. Thank you, Chad and Steph, for making this come together! And also thanks to John Scurlock, who watched the weather forecast with keen interest in our pursuit and without whom the seed for doing this route would not have been planted. On the climb, we did not see any evidence of prior ascents or any human activity the whole day, except a few jets going overhead. Does anyone know of any other ascents? Steph Abegg posted her version, with more pictures and videos and her typical amazing route overlays here: Steph Abegg's Bonanza Trip Report Gear Notes: Protection was scarce, and mostly small. We brought two #2 Camalots, but nothing bigger, and didn't wish for anything bigger. We brought triples of most of the smaller pieces and were glad for it. We left two nuts, one knifeblade, two biners and one Dyneema sling on the descent. Approach Notes: From Holden Village, it was 4.5 hours (minus swim time) to our high camp near the North Star - Bonanza col. From there only one hour to the base of the route.

Aha, nice! It always feels good to be the source of inspiration! You guys had better weather than we did - was the snow in the couloir getting slidey?

Trip: Johannesburg - NE Buttress Date: 7/2/2012 Trip Report: Chad came back from 8 months of climbing expeditions to Nepal and South America psyched to do some more climbing. For some people, the appetite is insatiable. For me, I don’t know… I’ve never actually attempted to climb enough to satiate my desire. I like the desire. Why would I want it satiated? It’s worked out well for me so far. Chad and I are working on a construction project together, which gives ample opportunity for objectives to surface, and thus the idea of climbing the NE Buttress of Johannesburg was conjured. It was Chad’s idea, but it definitely was something I’d wanted to do for a long time. Looking at previous trip reports, I found none this early in the season. I thought having more snow would make the route easier (hopefully burying some of the infamous vertical bushes). Monday appeared in the NOAA forecast to be a relative weather window (less crappy), and we were able to fit it into the construction schedule. Here’s how it went down: Chad came to my place at 1:00am and my alarm had just gone off. I somehow was thinking he’d show up at 1:30. Guess he had trouble sleeping in. Or maybe I just had it wrong. It was ok though, I was all packed, so I just got dressed and piled all the stuff in my car. We stopped at the Arlington Safeway to get gas and food. We took an inexcusably long time to decide on an undiluted 2-liter mix of Naked Mango and Naked Blue Machine for each of our hydration systems, ~1600 calories each. By the time we got to the Cascade Pass parking lot, it was almost 5:00, and plenty light enough to see, below the dense cloud layer, that there was not that much snow low down on the route. I was feeling that familiar sense of hesitation before we even left the car. I voiced my concerns as an exercise in caution – part of the process one must go through in order to have the correct perspective. Chad was determined and didn’t let that nonsense persist. I left them at the car at 5:34. Getting to the base of the buttress was straightforward, but we found some new concerns there. There were a lot of waterfalls, and some interesting looking chunks of icy snow that appeared to be waiting to pounce on us from above. We went back and forth a bit, and decided a ramp off to the left of the toe looked doable. We scrambled up it a ways, but it started to get sketchy – loose rock, negative handholds, slippery moss, steepness… all those things that make one want to turn around. We did so. Back on the snow, we went around closer to the toe of the buttress to climb the slabbier but wetter rock there. We put on our crampons just to get more traction on the wet rock and moss, and soloed up a couple hundred feet. Finally, with me in the lead, we got to a point that I didn’t want to solo that direction anymore. Chad suggested we get out the rope, and I resisted, thinking that perhaps a quicker solution would be to downclimb again and find an easier way. But after thoroughly scanning the surrounding terrain, I became convinced that such an easier way was not obvious, so Chad got the rope out and we tied in. I started climbing again with increased confidence, but that confidence slowly dissipated the more run out I got. Finally, after hemming and hawing a number of times, I found a little crack I could get two lobes of a green alien into, and everything was biscuits and gravy after that. Once on the buttress, the going got a little faster. We went into the bushes and followed waterfalls up some very steep terrain. I’m a big Atlas Vinylove fan, and while I know there are skeptics out there, no one can argue that there is a better glove for terrain and conditions like this. Cascades springtime (though technically summer) at its finest! After a few hundred feet of vertical bushwhacking, we achieved a snowpatch that turned (after a small bergschrund) into a shallow snowy gully that brought us a trouble-free ascent another few hundred feet to a heather bench. We exited excited. Crampons were of great value on the wet heather. It was here that we started seeing some hints of blue sky through the cloud cover… [img:left]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tRggy2krwzo/T_PZ2WVM1-I/AAAAAAAADnI/Oc4ssSAE-uo/s288/IMG_2793.JPG[/img][img:left]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Josya4eaW8s/T_PZ2-4PnwI/AAAAAAAADnQ/pkEoB5u0L9k/s288/IMG_2794.JPG[/img][img:left]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4vIqxb9GZvc/T_PZ3dGn2DI/AAAAAAAADnc/kR4l8KI5pb0/s288/IMG_2795.JPG[/img] We found more snow patches that led to some rocky scrambling and then more snow patches. We stayed right, roughly on the 1957 line. Finally, a snowpatch turned into a spectacular rocky ridge crest that ended in a rappel station (a single Ushba titanium knifeblade with two good slings and a biner). The single-rope rap brought us down to narrow snow finger in a gully that led to a ridge crest, and we topped out on the snow-capped upper ridgeline. From there, it was a spectacular trudge to the summit. Chad kicked the steps and I drafted, taking pictures. I was going to offer to take my turn breaking trail, but then I thought “Hey, when am I going to be here again?” and didn’t. We got to the summit at 11:45. Chad wrote an ascent time of 7:10 in the summit register. When we were headed down, he finally actually did the math, and realized it was 6:10. Oops! Yeah, I was no help, I didn’t even think about it. The ridge scrambling toward the C-J col was a bit nerve-racking, due to the exposure and the amount of loose rock. No snow on the ridge crest. We reached the shoulder above the col and found snow gullies that connected all the way down to the basin. Instead of following them to their end, however, we opted to traverse skier’s left and do a little scramble across to the col, to avoid having to climb back up to the col from the bottom of the couloir. The C-J couloir was soft snow, easy plunge-stepping and foot-glissading most of the way down. It took about 45 minutes to drop 3000 ft. Love those early season conditions! Gear Notes: We had steel crampons, light ice climbing boots, two tools each. We brought a small rack but only used 2 pieces; we roped for only a short pitch at the bottom, and rappelled once on the route and none on the descent.

Just re-read this after many years and changing times and have a few name clarifications for corrective/historical purposes: "Marshall" - Marshall Balick "Tim" - Tim Matsui "Dhillon" - Dylan Johnson "Jesse" - Jesse Huey "Chris" - Christine Boskoff ...unfortunately it doesn't seem to let me "edit" anymore. Dan

Trip: Mt. Formidable - Direct NE Buttress Date: 7/14/2010 Trip Report: Well, Forrest finally had the opportunity to get out and do something in the mountains this summer, so the date was set ahead of time. He left it to me to figure out something to do. Back in the late 90's (can't remember which year), Forrest and I had tried to approach Formidable via the Middle Fork Cascade River, with the idea of doing something new on the NE face. That didn't go so well, due to disappearing trail leading to massive bushwhacking with a healthy helping of rain. Since then, most of the reasonable lines that would have been new at the time have been climbed. Nonetheless, I somehow had the idea that it would be fun to climb that mountain anyway, so we headed out there with the plan to see which route looked good when we got there. We decadently slept in until 4:00 am in an undisclosed location within a 5-mile radius of the Cascade Pass parking lot, so it was fully light by the time we got going. We hit snow just before Cascade Pass at 6:00 am, made it to Cache Col by about 8:00 am, ate a snack at the still frozen tarn of Kool Aid Lake at 9:15, followed goat tracks up the high route above Red Ledges, and made it down to the Middle Cascade Glacier by 11:00. There, we sat on our haunches and stared up at the pile of choss before us, deciding which way we wanted to go. In the end, we suspected that the most fun would be had by getting on rock as soon as possible, which meant the DNEB. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Ha9ql-I/AAAAAAAAC-I/PDY-FdndqWw/s800/IMG_2331.JPG[/img] I had read this post the day before, so I knew it went, and heck, we'd probably be getting the second ascent of the thing. After munching some meat and cheese, we hiked up to the base of the rock and got on it via this convenient platform: [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_LnK4bkI/AAAAAAAAC-g/tQEenyV2BMY/s800/IMG_2337.JPG[/img] From there, the route was straightforward with lots of vegetation, mud, and loose rock. The climbing was interesting in the sense of not being boring, and the views and exposure were spectacular. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_NlB42sI/AAAAAAAAC-o/OKp4KvpChaw/s800/IMG_2339.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_PxqJedI/AAAAAAAAC-0/EToCBRAHCIE/s800/IMG_2342.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Q_GNqkI/AAAAAAAAC-4/cPjLGFdQMsg/s800/IMG_2343.JPG[/img] We chose a line that seems to have been a little farther right than the FA party. When we got to the snow arete, we went straight over to the notch to the right of the East Ridge Pyramid instead of climbing over it like the FA party did. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_RREnUrI/AAAAAAAAC-8/WVxN2vK8RyQ/s800/IMG_2344.JPG[/img] We sumulclimbed the east ridge almost to the summit, then soloed the rest of the way. We hit the summit just about 5:00 pm. On the way back, we decided it was too much trouble to deal with the rope, and soloed all the way back to our packs at the notch. It was a little dicey with all the loose rock, but much better without rope drag. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_Tna4lUI/AAAAAAAAC_M/9uQRJOz0MGg/s800/IMG_2347.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_UZbKzyI/AAAAAAAAC_Q/RSNU14E_BaI/s800/IMG_2348.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_V7qRJLI/AAAAAAAAC_Y/4guh_g-Bf0w/s800/IMG_2350.JPG[/img] We descended from the notch on the NE face, to skier's right of the buttress we climbed. We descended to the right of the snow arete, then down a snow finger that started to peter out, but we found ledges to traverse across skier's right to a steep snowfield that extended all the way down to the glacier. We carefully downclimbed around bergschrunds until we were on flatter ground, around 8:00 pm. Then it was another 5-hour trudge back to the car, but very beautiful: [img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zXemceoy1B4/TEG_XxXSEHI/AAAAAAAAC_k/gbMVt1r0dqw/s800/IMG_2353.JPG[/img] Got back to Seattle at 5:00 in the morning, after stopping on the side of the road to sleep for an hour on the way. It was a full day. Gear Notes: Eh... do what you want and call me back. Approach Notes: Longer than I thought. I'd done the Ptarmigan Traverse once, from the north, but I didn't remember it being so far to Formidable. We should have gotten an earlier start. It was nice to have all the snow though, we didn't have to do much scree scrambling.

Thanks, that would be fantastic!

Hey Zoroastr, great report & pictures, and thanks for posting those shots of us! Not often do you get pictures of climbers from that perspective! The route was Backbone Ridge with Fin Direct (the "correct" way, which doesn't get much traffic these days given the confusing guidebook descriptions/topos out there), and the climbers shown were Steph Kang and Marshall Balick. I was the unseen belayer.

Is the N. Face of Dragontail still wintery? Still?

Trip: Slesse - North Face Couloir Date: 5/24/2009 Trip Report: Being in Vancouver for my soon-to-be-brother-in-law's bachelor party, I decided to escape the drunken stupor for a couple days and go climbing with Seth Adams, who conveniently lives nearby. On Saturday we climbed at Squamish with Seth's girlfriend Susie, but for Sunday we both wanted to do something a little more freaky. We didn't see any prior reports of the N Face Couloir of Slesse on this board, so we looked up the route in Alpine Select. Turns out, this is the perfect time of year to do it. Decision made! We decided to try it Vancouver to Vancouver in a day. We left Seth's place at 2:00 am after 3 hours of sleep, ate a turkey bacon sandwich at Tim Horton's in Chilliwack at 3:00 am, found the trailhead marked by a short log with "SLESSE" written on it by about 4:00 am, and started hiking. Headlamps only necessary for crossing the river and shortly after, then it was light enough to turn them off. The weather was completely splitter. Uninterrupted snowpack started about 1/2 mile before the memorial. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHczJiewI/AAAAAAAAG4k/kEoubsusaz0/s720/DSCN0658.JPG[/img] Trudging across the basin toward the base of the NE Buttress was made easier by a thick crust in most places, but sometimes we punched through and found the underlayer to be rather unconsolidated. We ascended through old avalanche debris and threaded our way through a chink in the cliff bands directly at the head of the basin. We were in full-on sun now, and the crust was already starting to weaken; some of our steps went up to our knees. Soon, we could look straight into the throat of the Heart of Darkness, the massive and still unclimbed couloir separated from our route by the N. Rib. We eyed large cornices on the ridge that appeared to be above our route, noting where debris might land. We hiked up to a flat and protected area in the upper basin where we could get a line of sight up the N. Face Couloir. It was just after 8:00, and the morning sun was still far enough north that the couloir was bathed in brightness. We watched a few small slides come down on the climber's right of our route, and decided to wait until the sun had gone around a bit, to bring the feature into the shade. We took the opportunity to evacuate our bowels as we continued to assess the situation. Finally, nearing 9:00, we decided we'd waited long enough. As it turned out, it probably would have been better to just go for it as early as we could, but how were we to know? [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHi2fNtRI/AAAAAAAAG40/n0fF5fTTp7k/s720/DSCN0668.JPG[/img] We started out soloing up the snowcone, with me dragging the rope so Seth could just tie in when it came time. The going was easy up to the first mixed section, connecting the lower slopes to the middle snowpatch. Seth tied in and belayed me a full 60m pitch. Most of the climbing was poorly-adhered ice over rock and moss, but with good rock protection. It was fun, the sticks were good. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHmmB_RbI/AAAAAAAAG5E/zRXb8_wEmLU/s720/DSCN0674.JPG[/img] After that, Seth took over leading up the snowpatch, a 50-60 degree slope with multiple spindrift runnels. He was hit by a couple spindrift cascades as he traversed back and forth trying to stay out of the line of fire and find protection. We simulclimbed for perhaps 500 vertical feet before Seth felt like he was going too slow and wanted me to lead. His belay stance was near the crest of the N. Rib, and we could see through a notch into Heart of Darkness, just about the same height as the stopper difficulties of that route. [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHoQWDIbI/AAAAAAAAG5M/dY8Rsom8JVc/s720/DSCN0677.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHpXKzB4I/AAAAAAAAG5Q/PEfxOUIu_AA/s720/DSCN0678.JPG[/img] I took off from there and led through some incredibly fun & interesting climbing. The runnels provided the best climbing of course, but they were fraught with annoying deluges of spindrift. Outside the runnels the snow was soft and the going more strenuous, but still not bad. Higher up, there were extensive sections of solid sinker ice - beautiful climbing. I placed a picket, 6 or 7 cams, and 4 ice screws on the pitch, trying to have 1 or 2 pieces between us at all times. It felt safe. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHvJ9xv4I/AAAAAAAAG5k/vx7VM5mbmIA/s720/DSCN0684.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxHwSpUc1I/AAAAAAAAG5o/QmfzsB1ylUk/s720/DSCN0685.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxH0WqEZRI/AAAAAAAAG50/j9edO0s6sR0/s720/DSCN0688.JPG[/img] I stopped at a small alcove where the couloir dead-ends. It was a very secure and comfortable belay, but the only way out of the couloir was to climb vertical mixed snow and rock over the top of the N. Rib and into the upper bit of Heart of Darkness. Seth dropped the deuce. It stunk. Watch out if you're up there anytime soon, my God. I took the final lead as well. It was actually quite fun... it was only 60 meters to the finish, but it involved some excavation, some body tension, and a little levitation. Getting down the other side into Heart of Darkness was interesting - a short but very exposed traverse of loose snow covering compact rock. I created a ramp by digging with my outstretched ice tool, then walked the ramp (sinking in deeply), balancing with the rope tension to keep from swinging off. Once in the main gully, however, it was a piece of cake to top out, into the sunshine. [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxH4b24xzI/AAAAAAAAG6A/XWJyfUGGYzg/s720/DSCN0691.JPG[/img] It was 4:00 pm by the time Seth finished following. We knew the road down the Slesse Creek drainage was gated at the Chilliwack road, so we already knew our only choice was the crossover descent, which neither of us had done before. The weather was spectacular, but there were still ~7 pitches of up to 5.8 climbing to get to the summit. We had rock shoes with us, but to our surprise, there were still large patches of snow on the lower angle sections above, dripping dripping dripping. There was too much uncertainty in what lay both above and below to make it a smart choice to continue to the summit at that point. We headed down. [img:center]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxH5WByCdI/AAAAAAAAG6I/PbepHVuin6E/s720/DSCN0692.JPG[/img] I suspect our experience on the crossover descent was made easier in some places by the large amount of snow, but more difficult in others. We had a great description of the route, and only had a couple very minor hiccups in following it. Even so, it's a very, very long descent (though it is quite aesthetic). It took us 6 hours to get back to the basin below. The short description is you basically have to traverse the N-trending ridge from the shoulder of Slesse, navigating around sub-peaks via their lower-angle west flanks, until you get all the way to a big saddle called Crossover Pass. The ridge traversing was beautiful, but the snow was sloppy and a little treacherous; not quite to "wallowing" condition though. One rappel is required to descend off the final rocky peak before Crossover Pass. From there, you traverse over to the east side of ridge, in front of a peak referred to as "the Wooded Stump", which has a large steep rocky east face above the slightly less steep slopey bench that you traverse across. Finally you can reach a scree slope (in our case snow-covered) easy enough to descend into the basin. I had noticed from below that there was a snow-filled gully on the climber's right side of the lower basin that cut through the lower cliff bands. While I knew it wouldn't be visible from above, I could see that it started right at the point where a patch of short trees met with a patch of large trees. The trick worked perfectly - I found the top of the gully quickly, and the descent to the lower basin was a piece of cake. [img:center]http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxH6J0SbfI/AAAAAAAAG6M/WEk3ECQJoh0/s720/DSCN0693.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxH_pzvlPI/AAAAAAAAG6c/8u3AiMa_U2Q/s720/DSCN0700.JPG[/img] [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxIKvL7_LI/AAAAAAAAG7A/M6DScI_zqZ0/s720/DSCN0722.JPG[/img] (Looking back on the final peak on the ridge before Crossover Pass. The rappel was from the high point on the looker's left of the summit saddle.) [img:center]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ONAZzC2RKGM/ShxINwWCf2I/AAAAAAAAG7M/uBZzUJUn07Q/s720/DSCN0728.JPG[/img] By this time it was nearly dark. We were able to find the memorial without a problem, and the trail out was easy enough, though longer than we wanted of course. We got back to Vancouver at about 1:00 am. Beat the 24 hr. mark! I'd say this ranks up there in the top 5 alpine ice climbs I've ever done. It was spectacular and highly recommended! I forgot my camera, so Seth took all the pictures. You can see his full gallery with commentary captions here . Dan Gear Notes: We brought 2 pickets, about 8 cams to 2" (mostly smaller), a small set of nuts, 4 ice screws, 10 draws. It turned out to be just about perfect.

"Friend" = me Alpine Dave and I succeeded on Pineapple Express (trip report forthcoming), and heard you guys shouting over there. We were not quite fast enough to catch you, though we did see your pee stain next to that silly spectra-slung stone below the "A1" step. Thanks for cleaning the ice off that by the way. Dan

I was not aware of any other completed lines on the face besides Watusi before we did this one, but I have not researched it and I expect the chances are high that there are others. Anyone who knows anything about this, please feel free to chime in! :-)

Micah - The hike into the basin is best when there's compact snow, like there is right now. I'm not aware of any trail that goes up the creek, but I've only tried to go there in the winter. If the snow conditions are good, it's really not a bad hike. You have to duck under or hop over a few downed trees, and there's some brush here and there, but really an hour is plenty of time to get into the open upper basin. Just make sure you don't accidentally cross the creek, for example, thinking it's some sort of tributary creek in the dark, and go a mile across the hillside before you realize your mistake... Ahem. Mark - We never really got a good view of the whole line you refer to, but from higher up the first left-trending portion of the line looked sporty; enough ice, but more difficult than our line. I think it has potential. Also, regarding the pictures, I think I fixed them in the post. The problem seems to have something to do with the size; they're now 800x600. Dan

I thought about the logged-in part, and I re-logged-in, and that didn't solve it - maybe it only works while the original session is active? Even though I used the link they provide that says "Embed image", which should be for that very purpose I would think... But still, one of the Picasa pictures is always working for me, even though the rest aren't. Whatever. You can see all the pictures here.

This is very odd. They were loading fine for me earlier, now they're not. What's the difference?

Trip: Colonial Peak - "Split Shot" Right Ice Flow (New?) Date: 1/25/2009 Trip Report: Alright, it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a trip report here, but I figure this adventure is kinda worthy of a writeup. Let me know if you disagree. Back in the old days, when Lara was still relentlessly prodding us all to maximize our potential for Alpinism, she suddenly became fixated on the following photograph of the N. Face of Colonial Peak: Wide Picture of Colonial with Lines It came from a message thread forwarded by Roger Strong, and as far as I can tell the photo was taken by Charles Claassen in early December, 2005. The thread supposed that a (new?) line could be driven up one of the two obvious ice flows to the right of the summit. A number of other people were involved in the thread, including Andreas Schmidt and John Frieh, but as far as I know only one thing came of it. Lara, Chad and I went up to check out the right-hand line later that month (mid-Dec. 2005). We had a heck of a lot of fun – one short mixed pitch at the bottom of the gully where Colonial Creek forms at the base of the lower cliff bands, then tons of rambly ice. We got up to about 5400’, and realized we were running out of daylight, so we had to turn back (which involved a couple rappels down the gully). We were hoping to at least get a closer look at the phatness above, but it never really came into view. Fast forward to Jan. 24, 2009, 11:30 pm. Every time this pineapple-express-followed-by-high-pressure-inversion cycle comes along, I think about the N. Face of Colonial. When Forrest and I did Watusi Rodeo back in 2000, it was after a similar cycle, with its telltale avalanche ravaging in the Colonial basin, although there was a lot more new snow piled up on the face then. And oh, I know I’m not the only one… clearly Colin and Marko were thinking along the same lines when they fired Watusi a week earlier. Now, Chad and I figured the time was right to finish what we started back in 2005, sadly without Lara. After capturing a maximum of 2 hours of sleep, my girlfriend woke me up when she came home from the bar. Time to get going! Since I was already packed and ready go to, I watched CSI Miami for a few minutes before Chad arrived. We loaded his crap into my car and headed north with glee. We arrived at the Colonial Creek campground pullout at about 3:00 am, dorked with our gear and loaded ourselves with calories in the warm interior of the car for an hour and a half, and finally set off up the road in the LED-perforated darkness of 4:30. We found old snowshoe tracks quickly – Colin and Mark? – and followed them up into the basin after donning crampons only minutes from the road, which were definitely the correct footwear. Arriving in the basin at 5:45, more quickly than we anticipated, forced us to stop for a half hour to wait for light, and we cooled off very quickly. Oh yeah, it was cold! When the light finally allowed, we trod through the copious avalanche debris, finding Colin & Mark’s bivi platform along the way. We headed for the same gully we’d gone up in 2005 (which is far to the right of where Forrest and I had ascended the lower cliff apron back in 2000), and found that the first mixed pitch and all of the rambly ice in the gully were completely covered by firm snow! That made travel very easy, and we ascended to our previous high point by about 9:30. We were puzzled to still be following tracks though… had Colin and Mark gone up this way? It seemed as though they were going too high on the right side of the mountain to be lined up correctly for Watusi… Then we met Nate and [iForgetHisNameBecauseISuck] from Portland. We had a brief but friendly conversation. They were coming down from their bivi, where they had hoped to be in position to do Watusi that morning. But alas, the inch or two of snowfall that happened overnight, combined with some wind loading of leeward slopes and the obvious avalanche destruction apparent throughout the valley caused them to reevaluate their plans and instead make a quick exit. I must say here that while I firmly believe that the avalanche conditions were actually very favorable at the time and neither Chad nor I were the least bit swayed towards abandoning our ascent by their assessment, we both agreed that neither they, nor anyone else, should be criticized for erring on the side of safety when it comes to avalanches. We reached the first big ice flow at about 11:00. It was not as steep as we expected. It was about 60 meters in length and we soloed it, but it was near the edge of what I felt comfortable soloing – perhaps WI3+? There was a lot of variety in ice quality – some Styrofoam, some solid plastic ice, some a bit dinner-platey. Mostly good if we chose the right line, and there was plenty of line to choose from on the formation! Above the first flow, there was some more 50-60 deg. slogging, and then we came to the second flow, this one much steeper. Chad set out on the sharp end of the newly-produced rope. He found much difficulty and mental anguish above. Over a period of about 2 hours, he hemmed and hawed and went back and forth and placed many screws but finally, through sheer persistence, triumphed, exiting through a steep groove on the upper left of the flow. It was solid 4+ if not 5 in difficulty. He ran the remaining 20m of the 70m rope out to find a belay, and I followed with many a screamin’ barfy. The final pitch of consequence was not as steep, but it had a few mixed moves with some delicate verglas climbing. We reached the ridgeline by 3:30, disappointingly already in the shade. We definitely had time to ditch our stuff and go tag the summit, which took about an hour (roughly 800’ vertical, mostly steep but easy snow). From there we could peer down on the N Face proper and I could relive the final harrowing pitches of Watusi Rodeo, still burning in my mind. The descent was picturesque with the sunset... ...but would have been nicer if we’d had more light. The light disappeared when we were about halfway down between the ridge and the basin. We knew we had to angle way around to the skier’s left to avoid cliff bands, but after dark it was unclear exactly how much skier’s left. We had to do a bit of steep downclimbing and once we had to climb back up a couple hundred feet to get around a cliffy section. As we were descending, we noticed a light in the basin, and when we finally got down there at about 7:00 we moseyed across the debris to a tent, where [iForgetHisNameBecauseISuck2] and [iForgetHisNameBecauseISuck3], also from Portland, were brewing up. They were entertained to hear that Nate and [iForgetHisNameBecauseISuck] had bailed. They very thoughtfully provided us with some warm water, thank you! Well, after that it was a pretty straightforward dash back to the car, lots of footprints to follow. I was surprised to see that much traffic in the valley… But apparently lots of people have their eyes on Colonial, and for good reason - it’s a very impressive mountain with excellent winter climbing and a surprisingly easy approach. The route we did was the rightmost line marked in this picture (yellow dashed line). Chad came up with the name "Split Shot". Overall, a very fine route, but definitely not as difficult as Watusi. In these conditions at least, it rivals some classic shorter ice routes in the Rockies, albeit with a bunch more approach & descent than most short routes there! To see more pictures, go here for the full gallery.

Well, Tim does photography for a living, so he just makes sure all the photos he releases for free have his watermark. I know it's distracting but that's his business decision, sorry! :-( Dan

Trip: Ptarmigan Ridge 6/17/2007 Date: 6/17/2007 Trip Report: Four of us made some plans to climb Ptarmigan Ridge on Sunday/Monday. The forecast was looking pretty good, especially for Monday, though the weather at the time brought out a little skepticism. Chad had climbed Rainier about 74 times already, but somehow in all that time he had missed out on a successful shot at the Ptarmigan; he and Lara had planned to rectify that situation this year. I had tried the Ptarmigan twice before and been rejected by weather both times. Tim was with me on one of those times. Frankie had climbed the mountain 6 times, some quite speedily, but never by a technical route. So, in short, we were all psyched to get 'er done. Until Frankie became un-psyched, that is. Like so many other trips, this one started with difficulties leaving town. I was at a BBQ party, during which I got the message that Frankie (to be my partner) was bailing. He had a feeling in his gut; not a physical illness, but just a sense that something bad would happen if he came along. There's a trick, when we do these things that always result in some feelings of trepidation, to know the difference between normal trepidation and a real feeling that something will go wrong. It takes experience and insight to fully differentiate the two, and making a mistake will either needlessly prevent you from accomplishing your goals, or kill someone. Clearly the latter is worse. No one pressured Frankie to change his mind. After dorking with gear at the trailhead until after midnight, we finally embarked on our journey under a beautiful moonless but starlit sky. The trail to Glacier Basin is thrashed from all the flooding last fall, and trying to follow the tied yellow caution tape through fallen trees, rocks and debris proved difficult in the dark. We lost the trail a few times, which definitely slowed our progress, but we weren't too concerned because we had plenty of time and we were enjoying every minute. The snow started below the Glacier Basin camp. We rested and ate in the last trees before the open slopes below the Inter Glacier, and struck out for St. Elmo's Pass just as it was getting light. The clouds swirled in and out, and we sometimes caught glimpses of the summit. We roped up after St. Elmo's Pass and Chad led us across the Winthrop and Curtis glaciers. I took over the lead to cross the Carbon and ascend the Russell onto the lower Ptarmigan Ridge. All glacier travel around the girth of the mountain was in fine shape, very straightforward with minimal crevasse avoidance. The surface stayed firm & easy due to repetitive cloud cover and cool temperatures. We were able to link snow patches almost all the way to the spectacular bivy that appears at first glance that it will be crushed by the icefall looming above it but is actually quite safe; the calving seracs go off to either side of the ridge crest. Reached the bivy at 3:00pm. Brewed up for a couple hours. Went to "sleep". Chad snored loudly. At 9:00, with the sun illuminating the mountain brightly from the west, Chad woke up and commented that we overslept. I said, "Sure we overslept... if we wanted to have already woken up..." Chad was confused by my response. I was confused by his confusion. He mumbled about how screwed we were. I said "What are you talking about?" He said "It's 9:00 am!" I said "No, it's 9:00 pm!" He paused a few seconds, said "Oh." and went back to sleep. The alarm went off at 2:00 am, and it was about time. As we spent 3 hours brewing up, we were in the process of realizing that we should have spent more time melting water the night before, when a huge chunk fell off the serac and pummeled the route we were about to take! If we had already been climbing... I like it when "if's" turn out in our favor. It was fully 5:00 am and quite light out by the time we got moving. We opted for a more direct line than shown in the Selected Climbs guide, through a rock band just to the right of the seracs. To get there, we hurried across the seracfall track right where it formed a bridge across the bergschrund. The rock band proved to be the crux of the route. I led up and left, linking ice through rocks and making some of the diciest mixed moves I've made on an alpine route. I kept going left, and looking up and seeing that there's no way up to the snowfield above, and going further left, until finally a small ice-filled corner offered itself as a timely exit from exposure. I had used all my gear by then so I belayed off my pounded-in tools. Chad took the next running lead, covering a lot of fun ground on excellent compact snow and ice, with pro (usually in the form of good screws) wherever needed. Tim stayed in the middle, utilizing his 10 lbs. of camera gear whenever he could. Chad stopped in the small rocky gully below the traditional crux, a 15-foot rock step that dumps you out onto lower angle ice ramps that form the end of the technical part of the route. My turn to lead again, I chugged the remainder of my liter of Kiwighen that had sustained me through the morning, and began scratching my tools around on rock that turned out to be more solid than it looked. I heard Tim yell something about a piton, and I thought "Yeah, right! No way can a place a piton here!" Turned out that Tim was talking about a fixed angle piton on the step, which I had totally missed. Doh! I surmounted the step and continued simul-climbing up the ice ramps, trending rightward, and unsuccessfully attempting to stem the flow of dinner plates from my tool placements down over the step. One dislodged a rock that hit Tim in the nose just as he was pulling over the step. You can see the result of that in his self-portrait on Liberty Cap... Ow. From there, we wound our way around crevasses and did a lot of glacier slogging in the bright sun and loud wind. The surfaces was wind-scoured and progress was not difficult. Chad switched leads with me once, until we reached Liberty Cap with much imagined fanfare. We stood there, staring out across the Washington landscape and imagined Lara with us. Chad got a little emotional, which he expressed by his signature silence, while we let him be silent and dealt with our own emotions. Tim and I needed food. Chad was on a mission for a safety break, which could not be obtained in the wind. Tim and I thought he'd stop just around the corner so we could eat, but instead he headed across the plateau straight for Columbia Crest and its shelter from the wind. We couldn't communicate, being half-ropelengths apart in 40-60 mph gusts, so we were at the mercy of Chad's determination. Finally Tim couldn't take it anymore, he just sat down, put on his down jacket and started gnawing on a bar. I had managed to dig a bar out of my pocket earlier, so I had stymied my bonk well enough. Tim had no desire for the summit, Chad had to get there. Finally, Chad and I left Tim and went up to tag the summit ourselves. Sure enough, just over the other side of Columbia Crest, there was the wind-free zone Chad needed. We went back down to Tim, whose condition had improved slightly, and began our arduous descent. Tim never really regained his strength from hitting the wall on the summit, so he had to take every step down carefully. Chad displayed amazing patience as what should have been a 1-hour descent down the Emmons turned into a 4-hour ordeal. The Emmons glacier was in similar condition to the other glaciers we'd encountered on our outing – very few gaping crevasses and firm but easy snow. David Gottlieb was watching us from Schurman the whole time, not thinking it was us because we should be going faster... Finally, at 7:00 pm we joined Dave in his ranger hut, where he surprised us with consummate kindness and nourished us with ramen, something Tim needed very badly. Chad had to work the next day, and we had taken my car, so I had to drive Chad home that night. Tim was in no shape to hike out, so he stayed with Dave at Schurman. Chad and I did the Glacier Basin trail in the dark again, losing the trail again in a couple places, reaching the car at midnight and then back to Seattle at 2 am. The next day (Tuesday) I had to drive back up to the White River ranger station and get Tim. We drove up to Sunrise and had the rare experience of seeing up-close and personal where we had been the day before. For more pictures from this trip, check out Tim's web site: http://www.timmatsui.com/fs.shtml?media/20070618_02RNR/index.htm