4 Peaks in 4 Weeks

[brett]

what's up all.

 

I'm curious what your thoughts are for a trip I have planned this summer. This past summer I rode my bicycle across the US, so I'd like to continue my adventurism by taking on something a little closer to home...

 

Anyway, the trip is called "4 Peaks in 4 Weeks." My best bud and I are going to ride bicycles from Tacoma to Mt. Baker, then to Glacier Peak, then Rainier and Adams, climbing them all and riding home to Tacoma.... all in 4 weeks.

 

I'm no stranger to long bike rides and I feel like I can ride about 80 miles a day through the mountains carrying my gear without any difficulties or big time soreness. On my cross-country ride I had quite a few 100+ mile days, including one over the continental divide and another day with 75 miles offroad.

 

The climbing will be the hardest part, obviously. Glacier has a huge approach and will take quite awhile to hike in. Avalanche danger, weather, etc., could all set us back and mess up the schedule. We figure if we spend 2 days per mountain and then take it easy for a day on the bike, we should still finish in time. We think we can probably finish baker and maybe [maybe] adams in one day if we push.

 

Our goal is to do all 4 mountains in a month, but if we dont do it we'll just take our time. We'll be doing it for my charity, Forward Motion, to raise awareness of being active, etc.

 

Anyone have any thoughts? Has anyone done something similar?

 

Lemme know what you think~

 

Thanks,

 

Brett

[mattp]

Sounds like a great trip!

 

In the summer, weather may be an issue but avalanche conditions probably will not be a great concern on any of those peaks. (Ice avalanches have killed climbers on both Rainier and Baker in the Summer, but that is a different sort of avalanche hazard than what we generally think of when we talk about "avalanche conditions," and it is not the sort of hazard you can avoid by waiting out a temporary high hazard condition. To avoid ice avalanches, you generally seek to avoid travelling below seracs, but most climbers will take a certain amount of calculated risk here and indeed the standard route on Mount Rainier was not abandoned after a dozen people were killed in one ice avalanche there about 20 years ago.)

 

It sounds as if you may not yet have looked very deeply into the routes on the peaks themseives. If so, consider that Glacier Peak may best be approached from the Sauk River trailhead, as the road to the previously normal Sitkum Glacier trailhead is washed out miles from the end. This means a longer hike, and the best route may well be via a route that the guidebooks will not note as "standard."

 

Also, I bet the "standard" route on Mt. Adams is probably most often climbed as a day trip -- you should have no problem doing so.

 

Good luck.

[brett]

thanks for the reply matt, i'll definitely be ironing out an exact route in the days/months ahead.

 

the major reason why i even mentioned avalanche danger is because this year is supposed to be a "la nina" ...meaning lots more precip and potential late-season snowfall. i think things should be fine however by july.

 

-b

Edited January 15, 2006 by brett

[griz]

Sounds great. Are you biking with all of your climbing gear too? Ouch,if so! If you are not a purist about it then you may want mail the gear to the nearest post office to each mountain. May save you some suffering.

[Gary_Yngve]

Sounds like a really cool trip. All the routes you mention you should be able to do in under two days. If you were fresh, someone of your fitness could probably do each of those peaks in under 24 hours.

 

I think your biggest problem would be timing around adverse weather, and I like your attitude of not having a hard one-month deadline.

 

July might be the best month to aim for.

[brett]

we're definitely gonna be carrying all of our own gear. i think i'll be able to snag some b.o.b. trailers that we can use to tow our gear. our tentative sendoff date is july 6th.... [we need a day to recover after the 4th ]

 

i dont think i'm anywhere close to doing rainier in under 24. that's one hell of a hike after pedaling all the way up to paradise.

 

thanks for the input~

 

-brett

Edited January 15, 2006 by brett

[EWolfe]

Sounds like a Grand Adventure!

 

Congrats on the XC, too.

[ZimZam]

A to your success.

[dylan_taylor]

Good luck on your objective!

 

Could you elaborate on your charity? I've never thought that "being active" demanded much publicity. What other things are you attempting to raise awareness of? How will this objective of yours raise the funds for it?

 

Suerte!

[magellan]

Sounds like an incredible trip. Please post a link to your charity.

[brett]

Check out www.forward-motion.org. That's my own organization for the bike ride I did over the summer. My plan is to sorta shift gears and take it into a new direction with the 4 peaks in 4 weeks. What I really want to do is get a few cool epic trips like these under my belt and then start giving talks in classrooms, educating kids about getting out and DOING something.... I never had any positive real-life influences growing up. All of my idols were folks I read about in books. If someone came into my classroom while I was growing up and talked about being adventurous rather than the normal hum-drum of the standard college-track, I think I would've been a lot better off. I'd just like kids to know that there's more to life than primetime TV and American Idol.

 

Anyway, I'm only 21 now. I guess I've got a lot of time to create some epics....

 

peace,

 

-brett

[RocNoggin]

Damn, what a trip! and I thought I was going to have a tough trip just biking from Oly to do St Helens or Adams! LOL