Lincoln peak 1/18-1/20/2025

[Lucas Ng]

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. 

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.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:06 AM by Lucas Ng

[geosean]

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

[olyclimber]

Exploding stove!  Thanks for the TR!  Gotta love the character builders.

[Lostbolt]

Nice work guys It has been on my list also. Great that you got to enjoy the summit view, and hey you guys are worth way more than a picket so don't be to disgruntled about it. 

Did you guys check the snow to see if a snow bollard would work??

[Lucas Ng]

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.

[Michael Telstad]

The people want to see the Nooksack report!

 

You might not qualify, but you should try reaching out to Mark Smiley about getting some cash for those pickets. He sometimes reimburses young climbers a percentage of their bail anchors to discourage rapping off shit gear to save money. 
 

ANCHORS LINK

Edited Tuesday at 04:21 AM by Michael Telstad

[olyclimber]

 I have at least 1, maybe 2 pickets you can have Lucas.   I’m in Seattle.  DM me, even if you’re up in Bellingham I can probably drop em by sometime.

 

1 hour ago, Lucas Ng said:

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.

[Lucas Ng]

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.

Edited Tuesday at 07:34 AM by Lucas Ng

[Marko]

It's good to keep the rat fed.

 

For the reference, Feeding The Rat - Wikipedia

[Berg Schrund]

Nice TR @Lucas Ng! You look familiar- I believe we may have met at the Marblemount station back on Labor Day (i was getting permits for a backpacking trip with a visiting buddy). How'd that Inspiration peak climb go??

[JasonG]

LOVE it!  Way to get after it youth!  Enjoyed skimming the blog...will have to go back to it.  There is at least one route there that I haven't done and would like to.

[Lucas Ng]

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.

[Kameron]

Well done, youth! Keep sacrificing those pickets and you'll keep climbing for a good long time

[JasonG]

Hey @Lucas Ng! @geosean@therunningdogand  I climbed Lincoln today and were able to bring down 3 rap stations including a couple pickets. I'll shoot you a PM with how to get the stuff... thanks for the added inspiration to get it done.... it's been on the list too long!

[Bronco]

Congrats Jason!

[geosean]

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

[Nick Sweeney]

Great adventure. Thanks for posting! Almost makes me want to climb this route...