15 posts tagged “mountaineering”

On Saturday, I summited Dragontail Peak (8840'+).  Obviously, it's been an incredibly slow year in terms of mountaineering, but I finally have something to write about other than rants against the telcos.  After being an instructor for a basic climbing class in the Spring, I took some time off for family, barely staying in shape to attempt Mt. Rainier via the Emmons route last month.  Unfortunately, I tweaked my knee a couple of weeks before I was to make that attempt, on (of all hikes) Mt. Si.  The injury wasn't particularly obvious at the time, but the pain got worse as time went on, and it was one of those things where it wasn't caused by one big event.  It was probably caused by descending too fast having not been out on the trails for a good couple of months.

In any case, I made the hike up to Bandera Mountain last week with a couple of friends from out of town, and although the knee was painful, I decided it was good enough to make the attempt on Dragontail as long as I took it easy.

We got to the trailhead at about 10:00 on Friday and proceeded to set up tents for the "nap" until 4:15.  By just after 5, we were on the trail.  The first part of this climb is along the same trail that one takes to Colchuck Peak.  Just about 8, we met up with the other half of our team, which had spent the night at Colchuck Lake thanks to their backcountry camping permit.

Being my first "real" climb of the year, I was really apprehensive in some ways.  I kept thinking that I'd forgotten some vital piece of gear or that I wouldn't be prepared.  And of course, in the back of my mind was the constant thought that my knee problems only really seemed to kick in on descent.  So what if I made it up to 8840' and couldn't come down?

On the other hand, it felt great to be climbing with these guys again, especially once we slogged our way up the loose scree and rocks of Asgaard Pass.  Once at the top of the pass, we hit a snowy bowl and gaitered up, switching the poles for ice axes.  We also filtered some water.  As it turns out, my paranoia about supplies was a good thing, because I even packed the water filter.  Considering the heat, there was no way we could have had enough water without it.  I polished off about 7 liters during the day.

Surprisingly, I didn't really feel tired at any time during the climb.  The snow was welcome relief for feet, and the climbing continued steadily.  The nice thing about this route was that we were able to climb in shade all the way up Asgaard Pass, taking the heat only after we got into the snow bowl.  We made the col and then scrambled up a few more rocks to the summit after taking a quick break.  We made the summit at about 12:30.  It was a clear, beautiful day, and aside from a little smog or smoke from fires, we were able to take in a gorgeous panorama that included Mts. Rainier, Adams, Baker, Stuart, and Glacier Peak as well.

Those of us who had overnight permits then continued on to climb Witches Tower, and one of them soloed Little Annapurna as well.  I was a bit jealous, but soon put that aside as I concentrated on the descent.

Now the descent...  and the big question of the knee.  As it turned out, I was able to descend with just a constant pain throughout the afternoon.  It never really got terrible, but neither did it totally go away.  I took it very easy, and I have to admit that it was due to this slow pace that our descent took just as long as the ascent, which, I'm sure, was frustrating to the others.

Sadly, I even got to practice my ice axe arrest as I slipped while plunge stepping down the bowl, and then later, again, when I let a glissade get just a bit out of control.

Strangely enough, the knee actually seemed to do better on rocky steps than descending along the trail.  I made some adjustments to how I used the poles and that also seemed to help.  Coming down Asgaard, the main challenges were the loose rock and the overbearing sun.  The temps got up over 90 F in Leavenworth, and while it probably wasn't that bad up in the mountains, it sure felt that bad...

The only other challenge along the way was the bugs.  The mosquitos were out in force, and no amount of bug juice solved the problem entirely.  We all ended up with our share of bites.

We made the car at just after 8 PM, which seemed like forever, but at the same time, I kind of had a feeling it was take that long given my knee.  It was about the same as we'd taken on Colchuck last year, though that involved some crampons and hard snow up the very steep Colchuck Glacier.

All in all a great climb.  At this point I only have one other climb planned for the rest of the season, but maybe that will change.  Who knows...

Yes, I'm still alive.

I suppose most of you already knew that, but it occurred to me that reading that last post and then not seeing another post for so long might lead someone to think that I'd fallen off the mountain or something.

No, we didn't fall off the mountain.  But neither did we make the summit.  We turned back at 13,200' because of fatigue and the possibility of worsening weather.  We probably could have summited, but if the weather had worsened it would have jeopardized our descent considering how tired we already were.  So we made the difficult but always correct choice, and we turned around to try another day.

And for the record, I did attempt to post blog entries from the mountain.  On the evening of the first day, at 11,500' on the Ingraham Glacier, I tried to post a short update from our tent.  My phone indicated that there were two bars of digital service, but it was roaming service.  I told it to go ahead and connect anyway, but it failed.  Then, a while later, I made another attempt when the phone had one bar of digital Sprint service.  Same result:  couldn't make the connection.  I'll try this again next year when we tackle the Emmons route, because I think we may get a better signal on that side of the mountain.  But I wouldn't hold out much hope of getting a live blog entry from Mt. Rainier without satellite service at this point.  In any case, here is what I would have posted:

Ingraham
At the flats.  Very tired.  Am feeling the altitude but made decent time today.  Hope the weather holds out.  More from the summit hopefully.  8/11/2007 18:33.

So there you have it.  Sadly, there has been no mountaineering activity since then.  Honestly, I have to admit at this point that I burned myself out on climbing this summer.  It will be nice to take it a little easier in the "off-season" and focus on lots of other things going on in my life right now...

So Vince convinced me to try to post updates from Rainier this weekend from my phone. Here is the first test of the technology that should hopefully enable that to happen. With luck, the next post will be from high camp on the Ingraham Flats... more later...

It's been a little while since my last climbing update, and it's been busy.  Busy enough that I'm quite ready for a break, in fact.

A couple of weeks ago, there was big talk about heading up to Cashmere Mountain (8501') to knock off another top-100 peak in Washington.  The weather kind of turned sour, though, and instead we just went over to Mount Pilchuck (5340') with a bunch of friends.  It was supposed to just be a nice easy day hanging out on the trail, and it would have been, except for the swarms upon swarms of bugs!  I'd just picked up some DEET containing bug juice from REI, so I thought I would be prepared, but not so.  As it turned out, the bugs that plagued us all the way up the mountain were flies, which aren't afraid of DEET.  So the only solution was to move as fast as possible.  Of course, the problem with that is we were with our friends who don't climb mountains every other day, so their pace was relatively leisurely.  Not a problem, except for the bugs...  so I decided to innovate a bit by hiking down a couple hundred feet every time I caught up to them.  That way, I could keep moving, and I wouldn't have to breathe the bugs constantly.  The only solace was at the summit, where the bugs seemed to let up a little.  Still, it was a fun day and I got to hike with some friends with whom I haven't been outdoors in a while.

Last week, I took a couple of days off of work, and was really looking forward to our attempt on Mount Olympus (7969').  The approach involves 17.5 miles of hiking on the Hoh River Trail through the heart of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park.  It promised to be beautiful terrain, capped with a glacier climb to the high point of the Olympic Peninsula.  We budgeted a leisurely 4.5 days...  our first day involved just taking the car ferry across Puget Sound, getting a permit at the ranger station, and then sleeping in our car - instead of tent - at the trailhead campground.  On reflection, this would be a critical decision.

Our second day, we hiked about 11 miles into Lewis Meadows, arriving in the afternoon and finding a nice sheltered campsite.  There were some gorgeous sights along the way...  but also a lot of damage in terms of footbridges being washed out and fallen trees, not to mention a number of mudslides and subsidences.  In any case, we stayed pretty dry that first day despite an intermittent shower throughout the day.  That night, we spent a restful evening, knowing that we only had to go another 6 miles or so to get to Glacier Meadows.  It was so dark that night I couldn't see my hand right in front of my face.

The third day was a slog through a constant rain, up about 2700' over 6 miles.  I got a new pack for this trip, since I didn't have a proper expedition pack before.  I chose the Osprey Crescent 85, and though it's a heavy pack, the suspension and stowage systems work really well to keep it balanced on your hips and back.  I also got the rain fly for free, which was critical on this trip.  Through 3 days of constant rain, the contents of my pack remained mostly dry.  Next time, I'll probably put my critical stuff (down, extra base layer, etc.) in a small plastic bag as well, to make sure.  Anyway, by the time we reached Glacier Meadows, I was getting cold and I was completely drenched.  And worse, the rain started to seep through tent, ever so slowly, but surely.  Not at the seams, where you'd expect, but just because there was residual moisture on the inside of the tent, so the water would wick through the nylon.  Good thing we didn't sleep in the tent that first night, because this seepage would have started a day sooner if we had.  It was a pretty miserable day and night as it was.  By the morning, we'd have a good pint or so of water on the floor of the tent.  Fortunately, our sleeping bags were still dry, through careful placement and sleeping pad management.

And of course, all this rain meant that there was no way we'd be summiting.  In fact, we didn't even make an attempt from Glacier Meadows.  The visibility was horrible and the rain was constant.  We decided to pack it up and trudge the entire 17.5 miles back to the car the next day.  Our tents were in no shape to stand another night of rainfall, and our decision was validated by the ranger we met at the Olympic Guard Station.  He told us that another 3-4 inches were expected overnight.  This was a painful day, descending with 60 lbs. on my back with rain constantly falling.  J even fell into a creek on one of the iffy log crossings we had to make.  Misery indeed.

So that was a pretty painful 35 miles to hike to not make our goal, carrying a bunch of equipment (ice axe, crampons, for example) that we didn't even use.  At the start, we all wanted to go despite the forecast, because we all thought it'd be rewarding to make that hike through the rain forest and enjoy nature, etc.  And I agree with that still...  but it's one of those things that you do once.  And that's quite enough, thank you very much.  Next time I have a 4 day climb planned and the weather looks rainy, I'm going to head to the movie theater and catch up on some movies instead.

All this brings us finally to Cashmere again.  We decided to give it a go this Sunday, starting from home at 4 in the morning and hitting the trailhead right around 7.  Most of the distance is covered on maintained trail, with our only hiccup being a missed fork in the trail.  It was one of those times when you just keep on truckin' and then you think to yourself, "hm, maybe we should have turned at that last fork..."  Fortunately, we stopped and consulted the maps and got back on track quickly.

The climb actually felt pretty easy.  In what seemed like no time, we were up past Lake Caroline and looking for a place where our guidebook had told us to depart the maintained trail.  We did so somewhere near a switchback, and headed over in the general direction of the mountain.  The only downside to all this was that because were doing this is summer, we did have to traverse across a couple of meadows, taking care to avoid too much damage to the foliage.  In due time, we gained a ridge and there was a trail of sorts along this ridge right up to the col.  We were even treated to a mountain goat sighting.  From the col, it's a Class 3 scramble across some boulders and rocks over to the north ridge of Cashmere.  This took a while, and I was glad that T had joined us with his experience.  He set the pace and picked the route with ease.  We were on the summit in 6 hours.

Bugs were again a problem on this hike, but this time we were prepared.  In addition to the 30% DEET stuff, I mixed it with REI's "Jungle Juice" which is a concoction of chemicals that are supposed to deter just about everything.  And for the most part it worked...  I got only bites on my head under my Buff where I didn't have bug juice going.  There was one exception to this:  humongous horseflies apparently aren't afraid of any chemicals, because those bastards hounded us all the way up and down once we left the trail.  And those guys bite!  I suppose it was nature's way of punishing us for leaving the trail.

Unfortunately, the descent would take us just as long.  Descending a scramble is always worse than the ascent, and this was no exception.  It took us what seemed like forever to get back to the trail.  And from there, it didn't speed up terribly much because K had developed some horrific blisters due to new socks.  We kept the pace pretty steady, but it took us all of 6 hours to reach the car.

After dinner in Leavenworth and the long drive home, I was quite ready to take a break.  We had done two 17 mile days in two weeks, and over 50 total miles.  We had considered an attempt on Mt. Rainier this coming weekend, but K's blisters mean he's out for sure, and it was the perfect excuse for the rest of us to take a breather as well.  So we'll be making another attempt on Mt. Rainier in two weeks, but for the time being, I'm going to hit the beach or something this weekend to relax.

Summited Granite Mountain (5629') after work on Tuesday.  This was the first "real" mountain I summited last year when we started training for Rainier, so it was an interesting hike to go back there.  This time, it was a completely different mountain in terms of terrain and hazards.  We had to deal with an avalanche chute and blowing snow on our first attempt last year, which included a bushwhack to get back to the trail after we glissaded too far.  On our second, successful attempt, last year, we still had to deal with a lot of snow and a steep ridge, kicking steps and all the other stuff that has since become second nature.  This time, we had none of that.  This is the difference between a July versus an early May/late April ascent.

Indeed, this time, it was maintained trail all the way up to about 5200', and then a scramble up fairly stable rock the rest of the way.  It route the trail takes is, of course, longer than the direct snow climb.  The meandering route actually took us about 2 hours, 20 minutes to ascend, including the scramble.  We didn't really anticipate such a long scramble at the end, so I was a little disappointed that we didn't make our goal of 2 hours.  That and we pushed it really hard at the beginning, which was alright for a while.  But J practically had to run to keep up with K and me on the flatter portions, so it wasn't working out for her.  And then we got passed (even though we were bookin' it by our standards) by this insane trail running dude...  right on the steepest part of the trail.  So we pushed even harder, which was a bad move because I burned out and had to chill at a slower pace to keep it going.  Oh well, a trail runner I am not!

Anyway, I probably wouldn't have even bothered with the scramble given that we were running kind of behind and the light was going to fade fast on our descent, but we kind of had a score to settle with Granite.  See, of the three of us, I'm actually the only one who'd summited this mountain.  K and J had both gotten stomach ailments mysteriously last year while attempting this mountain and had to turn around!  So we bounded onto the scramble determined to reverse the fortunes.

Unfortunately, this mysterious ailment would strike again!  By the time we had gone about a third of the way up the scramble, J called it quits citing severe stomach pains.  What on earth is with this mountain?  K and I hit the summit maybe 20 minutes later and then headed down.  We knew it was going to be a long descent with the headlamps, but we definitely wanted to get off of the scramble with plenty of natural light left.

And to continue our misfortunes, J had also somehow forgotten her headlamp, making the descent slower and a little more clumsy than we would like.  I happened to have a tiny LED light on my keychain which she used for spot lighting while I put my headlamp on diffuse mode and tried to light the way from behind her while K lead the way.  In this way, we finally managed to get back to the cars in the same amount of time it took us to climb up.

Oh well...  I guess the only other thing to say is the about the bugs...  friggin' bugs.  At least we had some insect repellent, but I still got a couple of nice bites.  Bleh.  And you wonder why I prefer to high elevation glaciers....  hahahha.

Attempted Mount Rainier (14,410' - 4392m) on July 1, but had to turn around at 12,500' due to avalanche-prone snow conditions on the traverse above the Disappointment Cleaver.

I was on a team of 9 climbers, including 5 teammates from the BoeAlps class and 4 instructors from that class.  (Though they were instructors in class, we climbed as "equals" on the team, sharing responsibilities and gear - quite a difference from last year's climb when we were shepherded up the mountain by professional guides.)  As I've said before, the trip last year was but a taste of the possibilities, and taking the class this Spring was the first real step in opening up those possibilities.  Attempting Rainier again, this time without guides, would be another step.

From the beginning, though, we ran into some interesting challenges:  first, we had intended to try the Emmons Glacier route to change things up a little for myself and K, who had done the DC route last year with RMI.  This changed when we were unable to secure an advance reservation for the Emmons, and we decided to go for the DC instead to ensure that our party of 9 would have a camping reservation.  Even then, we were relegated to the Muir Snowfield, with Camp Muir and the Ingraham Flats both being booked in terms of advance reservations.  The happy "ending" to this was that we were able to get a spot at the Flats after all when F showed up the night before and secured one of the "day-of" spots for us.

Anyway, it seemed the instructors were cursed on this trip from the beginning:  G showed up with a nice cold going and said that he would take it step by step...  By 8200' on the snowfield D was feeling it badly and decided to turn around.  He felt alright to make the descent down to the parking lot by himself, but we sent a radio with him and checked in on him until he was safe.  F then started feeling down at Camp Muir (10,080'), and finally M had had it by the time we reached the Flats and struck camp.  M and F stayed at camp, but to my surprise G soldiered on, making it two teams of 3 on the ropes at 1 AM.

Now we'd negotiated some crevasses in class, especially on Mt. Baker.  And after class, we were again up on a glacier when we summited Colchuck.  But Mt. Rainier really is a different beast.  These crevasses were huge, house-eating numbers...  really not something you want to mess with.  And there were quite a number of them.  With the traffic going up the mountain that night (there were probably 20 rope teams and a handful of non-roped people) we decided to take it easy and just hang out behind the group in front of us, which was a guided group with IMG, I think.  In any case, others were not as patient and there were some people making some pretty ill-advised passes in some pretty gnarly areas of crevassed terrain.  All I have to say is:  this is the DC route and it's a nice summer weekend...  you'd better be in the right mindset (read:  patient and cooperative) or else it's going to be a frustrating, possibly dangerous night.

Regardless, we made it up the Ingraham and onto a series of fixed lines to gain the Disappointment Cleaver itself.  Again, lots of patience here as everyone clipped and unclipped past the anchors...  Whereas last time I had just kind of accepted whatever the guides told me to do, this time I found myself much more acutely aware of my surroundings.  We passed some pretty tense moments as we stood under some pretty rockfall-prone areas.  I can see why "speed is safety" in these areas, and I was somewhat thankful that I was too tired/ignorant last year to know any better.  This year, I felt I had a much deeper appreciation for the objective hazards around me.

The good news was that most of the DC was still snow covered, and we made only a few minor traverses across rock.  I'm sure M appreciated this, since I'd borrowed his crampons to use with my light mountaineering boots.  (I opted for the light boots instead of the plastics to save weight given that we expected the weather to be good.)  By the time we hit the top of the cleaver, we were still feeling pretty good.  Certainly a hell of a lot better than I felt by that point in the climb last year.

We stopped for a short break (it was very, very cold and windy) before heading up again, preparing to traverse over to the Emmons shoulder.  The day before, we had heard reports from descending parties that the freshly fallen snow (it had snowed on Thursday and Friday) was creating dangerous conditions here in terms of avalanche danger.  There was a visible overhang, and we were still crunching through a hard top layer onto a soft layer even on the Cleaver.  It was not looking promising, but we headed up a little ways, with a guided team ahead of us, to see for ourselves.

No sooner had I been belayed across a snow bridge and belayed J over to me did the guided teams call it.  So there we were, on this dicey snow bridge across a gaping crevasse, when we made the call to turn around.  If IMG wasn't going up, we sure as heck weren't going to question their judgment.  By turning around, we managed to make it into Mike Gauthier's blog (the head climbing ranger at Mount Rainier National Park) - and not as casualties - yay!  (Scroll down to the July 1 report and click on the picture...  from the left edge, you can see J's red helmet, and K getting something out of his pack, who were on my rope, and then G, M, and L facing us on their rope team.  In short, everyone but me!)

The descent was relatively painless, though somewhere along the way I got a nice crispy sunburn all over my face and scalp, which I'm just now getting over.  I had switched to a less oily sunscreen from Nivea which claimed to be SPF 50, but I'm not going to use that anymore, at least not on a mountain.  I ended up ordering up a different sunscreen, made by a small company in NH, which I intend to try out.  If it works out I'll post a review.

Anyway, so Rainier remains elusive this year.  The good news was that we didn't summit because of conditions, not because of conditioning.  In fact, we all felt great up there, especially J, who was on a mission after being thwarted last year.  Unfortunately, we'll have to make another attempt to get her there, but this was a great trip in that we all felt that we would have made it easily from that point had the conditions been good.

Summited Colchuck Peak (8705' - GPS Track) on Saturday with my team during a long climb and descent.  We covered the 14 mile round trip in a single day since we didn't have a backcountry camping permit.  I further experimented with going fast and light, minimizing my carry weight to just the essentials.  Unfortunately, this meant that I forgot my camera during the packing process, but you can see grliepixie's photos on flickr.

Heeding the long day ahead, we drove to the trailhead after work on Friday and slept there (which is allowed without any permit) before waking at 4 AM and hitting the trail a little over an hour later.  With the summer solstice just past, there was already enough light to navigate without the headlamps at that hour.  The first five miles of the route are on a well-maintained trail going up to Colchuck Lake.  We passed several waterfalls and crossed over Mountaineers Creek on a couple of foot bridges during this stage of the climb.  It's a fairly easy grade, gaining about 2000' over 5 miles.  Good warm up for the grueling push ahead.

We stopped at Colchuck Lake to filter some water and refill the water bottles.  We also watched the "sunrise" over Dragontail Peak.  It was about 8 AM.  We were making pretty good time, and we had hardly seen anybody on the trail at all.

Just before the trip, J and I had purchased hydration pouches for our new backpacks, which are "hydration compatible."  I find this designation somewhat silly in that any backpack that can carry a couple of pounds is really "hydration compatible" to the extent that you just have to stick the tube out through the zipper.  But I guess what it really means is that there is a designated place to stow the pouch and a designated (preferably designed so water can get out but not in) slot for the tube to thread.  Anyway, in the spirit of collateral damage, I figured since we have this great feature we might as well spend even more money to use it.  Now the rest of the world has probably known this for years, but what a difference!  Using the hydration tube totally changed the way I drank water on this trip.  With the Nalgene bottles, I would have to stop and sip every once in a while, breaking the rhythm with these "water breaks."  Either that or risk spilling precious water all over myself as I tried to drink in stride.  The tube lets me just bite and suck water in stride with no problems.  I drank more than I usually would, and stayed well-hydrated throughout the day even as the sun came out and beat down on us later.  Our guides on Rainier last year had told us not to use the hydration tubes on the upper mountain because they tend to freeze, and I will still heed their advice for next week's climb, but for anything below 10,000' in the summertime, I'm going for the hydration pouch every time.

Whereas I had plenty of water on this one, I found myself low on food.  I'd underestimated while packing, so I ended up blowing through all of my food by the time we hit the col, and had to mooch off of other team members for the descent.  I also didn't have enough sugary stuff, and found myself feeling a bit down and hypoglycemic before teammates pumped me full of chocolate and candy.

Alright, back to the trail.  After skirting Colchuck Lake to the west, we gaitered up and brought the ice axes out to hit the glacier.  We made it up the moraine and onto a boulder field in an attempt to join up with the glacier proper towards the east side.  It turns out that we didn't have to make the detour across the boulders, as the snow that we had been on did join up with the rest of the glacier higher up, but we couldn't tell that from below.  So we went across the boulder field and out onto the glacier proper at about 6000'.  The next 2700' were steep.  Very steep.  We put the crampons on at this point, as the snow was hard and icy all the way up to the col.  Without them, it would have been too dangerous to continue.

For the next several hours we slogged up the glacier, one step at a time.  I alternated between front pointing on the steeper sections and flat footing on some of the less steep sections.  Of course, the trick is to keep changing it up as you go up to keep your legs and feet from getting too tired in one method or another.  During one of the stops, we had to fix J's crampons since she had recently ditched her plastic boots in favor of the soft, lighter synthetic/leather.  This meant that her crampons needed to be adjusted for a smaller boot, but for the life of us we couldn't figure out how to get it small enough.  She actually went up a pretty steep slope with the crampons maladjusted before I forced her and I to stay behind the others while I figured it out.  As I expected, it was a very simple operation:  just turning over the connector bar did the trick.  The difficulty was in figuring out the trick itself.

So it was that J and I ended up a good 10 minutes behind for the last 1500' of the glacier climb.  We pushed hard though, and by the time we reached the col, we were just behind everyone else.  I think they also took it a little easy, but hey, I can take some credit, right?

The reward for all the hard work at this point was that we were treated to some absolutely beautiful views of the lake we had left behind.  In the increasing morning light, the colors were just the richest blues and greens you could imagine.  The photos barely do the scene justice.

At the col, we removed our crampons and had a snack before heading up for the last half mile to the summit around the back.  Aside from a traverse across a steep patch of snow, it was pretty straightforward and simple.  Some light scrambling across boulders, and then just a walk across an alpine meadow at the top.  The summit itself was reached by taking a short scramble on an outcrop.  It was 2 PM.

We found the Mountaineers' canister there, but the lid was missing, along with the summit register.  I was kind of bummed, since I haven't had the privilege of signing one of those since Mt. Rainier last year.  We didn't find one on Baker, and since I didn't take the last scramble up Wedge, I'd missed that one too.  So it was really too bad.  On the other hand, we were treated to such a beautiful vista that it hardly mattered.  We could see the formidable north face of Mt. Stuart beckoning, as well as the entire valley we had just come up through.  We had seen peeks of Rainier, and we could see the bases of Glacier and Baker as well.  The clouds enveloped their peaks.

While were clearing off of the summit, a couple of Mountaineers from Tacoma were just reaching the summit.  They were kind enough to take a picture and we chatted a bit about our respective groups before heading down.

There's something I'm really coming to realize with every climb I undertake:  the descent is, emotionally if not physically, much more difficult than the ascent.  This one was no exception.  Some teammates put their crampons back on for the descent down the glacier, but I plunge stepped all the way down.  There just isn't much to say about this, other than it sucks to be on a glacier plunge stepping in the hellish heat of the afternoon.  I re-upped the sunblock and all, and tried to keep cool, but in the end it's just uncomfortable.  At least my knees didn't start acting up on this one.

Anyway, as if descending on snow wasn't bad enough, then we ran out of snow and got back onto the trail.  Trail descents are just as bad as snow descents, but for different reasons.  This is where the feet really start to hurt, and if I don't have the laces up nice and tight, my toes will be too free to move and inevitably be slammed into the front of my boot.  Making sure my upper laces are tight really helps this situation, as it takes some of the pressure and redistributes it to my shin and upper foot instead of my toes.  Anyway, I brought the trekking poles for this one because I knew the approach would be so darn long, and I was thankful to have them all the way down.  The nice thing is that I got so heads down during the descent (I was in the back at this point just following everyone) that I missed a whole bunch of landmarks, and before I knew it, we were back across the footbridges.  So there wasn't so much languishing anticipation that usually goes on in my mind during descents.  I hate that feeling, where you're thinking "man, we should have hit that fallen log by now...  where is it?" or "I wonder how much longer it was between the fork and that bridge..."

We hit the cars at just a tad after 8 PM, 15 hours after we'd left.  Not the fastest on the mountain to be sure, but it was still a great climb and a great time with friends.  When the whole endeavor began, we had it in our heads to possibly try for the two-fer with Dragontail, but after taking a look at the route we would have had to take and gauging our tiredness, we decided there was no way.  So we'll be back.

With Colchuck, the 32nd highest mountain in Washington state, that makes a tiny 4 out of the top 100 for me.  Pales in comparison to T's 34, which he celebrated by allowing 1/3 of us to reach the summit before him.  Hah.  I'm glad we got this one out of the way in June, because I think the glacier would fall apart pretty badly later in the summer, with a lot more exposed rock and just general annoyance on that steep section.  All in all a great early-mid season climb.

Summited Mount Baker (10,781' - 3,286m - GPS Track) via a direct variation of the Squak Glacier route at 5 AM on Sunday.  This was our graduation climb for the basic mountaineering class I'm taking this season, and like all culminating events there were a lot of challenges to overcome, and a great deal of satisfaction and reward.

Team A1 actually met up at the Skagit Motel Friday night, where we did a little final planning and divvying of shared resources.  Everyone tried to go to bed by 9 or 10, but all I did was toss and turn for most of the night.  I had been jet lagged all week, after returning from Taiwan and never getting back to a normal schedule.  4:45 came way too soon, and we were off.  After a brief stop to meet one more team member and to register ourselves at the ranger station, it was a long drive up to the end of Forest Service Rd. 13.  We were able to get to within a half mile of the end of the road before the snow made it impassable, but at least we were on snow the whole way.  That would make being in the plastic boots much more comfortable.

As soon as we started off, I was feeling bad.  It usually takes me half an hour to get into the zone, but it just didn't happen on this day.  We were on trail for maybe a mile and half before we lost the trail and just headed up through the snowy woods, staying fairly close to a due north heading.  That was one of the advantages of this route:  we knew we could fall back on a due north (on the way up) or south (on the descent) heading and be pretty sure of where we were going.  Once we broke out of the woods, we were about a quarter mile west where the trail pops out of the woods.  As it turned out, this would work out in our favor.  The route we chose from there stayed to the west of the usual Squak route.  We chose this route mainly to avoid a number of crevasse fields that could be seen from Crag View.  Our plan was initially to camp under the rock outcrop (which we had a great view of) at around 7600'.  Reports we'd read recommended this campsite as sheltered and stable.  This would require a traverse back to the east after we climbed above the crevasse fields.

Not too far past Crag View, we roped up and started navigating the glacier in earnest.  The 11 of us split into 3 rope teams.  With the sun now beating down (and up, reflected off the endless snow) on us, I was really starting to feel it.  We had made frequent stops, but even so, I felt very weak and tired.  Every time we stopped, all I wanted to do was lie down and fall asleep for a while.  I didn't, of course, but the thought started entering my mind that I wouldn't be able to make the summit push the next morning.  I decided that my goal was just simply to make high camp.  I would reassess the situation there.  I usually make it a point to be on the end of the rope (either in the lead or anchoring the back) but this time, I chose the spot behind the lead on a four person rope.  And the lead on my rope was K, who I knew I could count on to maintain a good pace.  We were also the last rope team to head out, which meant that the steps would be nicely developed by the time I got there.  At this point, I needed every bit of relief I could get.

The path up the glacier was straightforward, and since we chose to stay west of the usual route, we avoided most of the crevasses.  There were only a few, which we skirted with relative ease.  A couple of times during the climb, someone punched through, but only up to the knee or waist on a small crevasse.  We managed to avoid all the big ones, and the climb went off without incident.

One of the side effects of our route was that we had to make it up past a large ice cliff before we could think about the traverse back over towards the campsite.  By the time we made it past the cliff, though, we were above 8000'.  With the weather as beautiful as it was, with very little wind, and much of the same forecasted until at least noon the next day, we decided to just find a relatively flat spot behind a small hill (so there was some degree of shelter) and set up camp there.  The lead teams had already scoped it out and made an initial assessment of any crevasse danger around us by the time we got up.  I was dead tired - at this point, I did literally lie down for a bit, using my pack as cushioning, before I even thought about setting up the tent.  J was also having troubles of her own, and it took us a while to dig out the site and get the tent up.  We both mentioned to each other that we might not make the summit, and the thought of just getting some sleep in the tent while the others made the summit push didn't seem so bad.

At this point, I pulled out the "summit treat" for the trip:  medium rare ribeye with A1 steak sauce, in honor of our team name.  Cold steak may not sound very appealing at sea level, but at 8000' on the side of a mountain, it's about as gourmet as it gets.  mmmmmmmmm

I'd pulled out the steak at camp for two reasons:  at that point, I didn't think I'd make it to the summit, and I also didn't think the steak should go too much longer without consistent refrigeration (I'd acquired at dinner Friday, and it had been refrigerated at the motel, but it had been a really hot day on the climb up to camp).  Dinner was also a bit of an experiment for me as I made and ate my first "backpacker's" freeze-dried meal.  Saved a lot of weight, and was pretty easy prep.  I'll definitely be doing the freeze-dried action again in the future.  There was so much food I actually couldn't finish it all, and ended up having to pack the remnants down the mountain the next day.  Hah.

After dinner, I retired to the tent and conked out instantly.  I hadn't even gotten into my sleeping bag, but that was alright, because the sun made it quite warm.  I woke up several hours later only because the sun was retreating and I found myself shivering before I finally crawled into the sleeping bag.  Even in that short amount of rest, I'd regained some confidence.  I don't know what it was, but Saturday was exceedingly hard.  It could have been anything:  residual tiredness from jet lag, dehydration, hypoglycemia from not eating enough, tiredness from not getting enough sleep the night before, mild heat exhaustion, even mild altitude sickness.  Or some combination thereof.  In any case, it started getting better after that nice dinner and some rest.  I decided that at midnight, I would walk down to the latrine we'd dug out, use the facilities, and then come back to the tent.  If I became at all winded from the effort, I wasn't going to make the summit push.

Midnight came, and I returned from the latrine feeling ready to go.  It was a relief.  Still, I wanted to ensure I wasn't a liability on the team, so I stripped my summit pack down to the absolute bare minimum:  fleece, shell, extra base layer, a few bars for food, 2L of water, glacier glasses, map, compass, GPS, extra batteries, a picket, and crampons.  One of the nice things about being on a big team is that every once in a while, you can count on others to carry the load.  Normally, I would have volunteered to carry a shovel or sleeping bag, but this time I just stayed quiet and let the picket be my "shared resource" carry.  Another awesome thing about our team is that it's so disciplined.  I'm used to being in groups where you say "get up at midnight and be ready to go at 1 AM" and maybe by 12:15 people have gotten up, and then they dally and by 1:15 or 1:30 you set off.  Not this team.  We were on the ropes ready to go by quarter 'til 1.  It's been a great season with this team, and Sunday was the culmination of the whole season's learning and experience.  We moved up that mountain with determination and confidence.

With the moon nearly full, and the skies clear, we could see the lights of Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, and even Vancouver, Canada, out there.  The slopes were well lit even without headlamps (though of course we had ours on to navigate the crevasses).  The night made things seem very peaceful and quiet.  I commented during a brief stop to K that this was my favorite part of climbing.  The glacier was still pretty well intact, and we made only a handful of snow bridge crossings over crevasses.  We had wanded much of the way up to camp, and continued to do so all the way up to the summit.  We had just enough to wand the entire route.  Although we expected to be well off the mountain before weather came in, it never hurts to know your way back.

Since we were already so far west of the nominal route, we just continued up the slope without wasting effort on a traverse back toward the east.  As it turned out, this route was more direct, since the nominal route calls for a westerly tack to join the Roman Wall at about 9500'.  We were able to shoot straight up the glacier, maintaining a nearly due north route to meet the Roman Wall.  I imagine that later in the season this becomes impossible due to crevasses, but we were fortunate enough to have a fairly straightforward climb up the glacier.  Straightforward and fast.  We made the summit at 5 AM, just before the sun arrived over the horizon.  What a treat that was, to watch the sunrise from the summit of a great mountain.

It was very, very windy and cold at the summit, but having my fleece and shell on was just sufficient to combat the conditions.  We nearly had the place to ourselves, too.  To my surprise, there were two tents set up just below the summit, on the sheltered side, but still pretty windy and cold.  I thought to myself:  those guys are hardcore.  And a little crazy. 

Being so windy and cold, we didn't spend too much time up there, and began the descent right away.  We ran into a number of teams coming up on the way back, including a couple of teams from the class.  We plunged stepped it back to camp, making it back there around 7:30.  We had planned to take nearly that long just to reach the summit, so we gave ourselves some time to just unwind and relax back at camp.  I crawled back into the tent and nearly fell asleep before someone shouted that clouds seemed to be moving in.  That kicked us back into gear and by 8:45 we were back on the trail.

The descent was relatively uneventful, just lots of plunge stepping, picking up wands, and trying to stay hydrated and cool while the sun beat down on us - punctuated by a couple of short but fun glissades.  We hit the trees, and then we used the GPS and dead reckoning (due south, remember?) to ensure we found the cars, which we did, at just after noon.  The only real hiccup of the trip was that we'd put down the wrong date (off by a day) when we registered (hey it was 5 AM!), so the rangers had called one of our emergency contacts since we hadn't reported in the day before.  Fortunately, she explained that we weren't actually due back until Sunday.  Oops.

A great culminating climb for the class.  It's been a really fun team to be on, and everyone's dedication has made it a very smooth operation.  Like I said before, it really helps when you have team members who are disciplined, and when everyone is so willing to pitch in on shared responsibilities.  The rest of the season is a little up in the air right now, but I'd climb with anybody from our team again any day.  We've talked about another attempt on Mt. Rainier, perhaps trying Glacier Peak at some point, and there's even been some talk about heading down to California for Mt. Shasta.  We shall see how it pans out.  Without an organized activity every weekend, the challenge for me now will be to stay in shape until the next climb.  Until then...

Thanks to a tenacious team and cooperative weather, I bagged the first 4-fer of my climbing career on Saturday.  Our team reached the summits of Plummer Peak (6370'), Denman Peak (6006'), Pinnacle Peak (6562'), and The Castle (6440'), starting at 7:30 from the Narada Falls parking lot, and returning there some 10 hours later.  (GPS Track)

The day started with Pinnacle and The Castle as our ostensible goals, but by 9:30 we had already reached the col between Pinnacle and Plummer, so most of the team went for the quick hike over to Plummer and Denman while the lead instructor took a small team over to Pinnacle to set up ropes and protection for the scramble.  We were treated to spectacular views of Mt. Rainier throughout the morning.  It was the first time I'd seen the great mountain up close since the last Camp Muir trip in September.

Coming into the national park that morning gave us the first look at the destruction of the storms last year:  the Sunshine Point campground was indeed gone, as we'd read.  The main parking lot area and many campsites were now gone, replaced by thin air with rushing water underneath.  The entire embankment had collapsed.  Past the Kautz Creek, the road was brand new, along with a brand new bridge over the new culverts where the Kautz had decided to turn.  Lots of downed trees throughout the park as well, but once we got off on foot, there wasn't much to see since most of our route was under snow which had fallen since the storms.  It allowed us to remember that some things do endure.

Anyhow, the going was a little rough at first going over to Plummer since we were now on south facing snow, which had been warmed to a mush.  The step kicking became a chore compared to the edging on hard icy stuff on the way in.  We managed to make the summit in good time, though, and then kicked it down to the lower summit of Denman before traversing back to the col.  We were going to leave our packs, but the lead instructor wouldn't let us...  hah.  Slowed us down a little, but in the end we're stronger for it.  Or something...

From the col we hiked it up across some rock and snow to the final scramble up to the summit of Pinnacle.  There, we found a nice rope ready for us, and we prussiked up the Class 4 rock and over to the summit.  When I got there, we could still see Rainier, but the clouds had been moving in all morning, and by the time we got everyone on top for the group photo, all we could see was white.  In fact, I have photos taken four minutes apart where Rainier is only partially obscured in the first to being completely white in the second.  Mountain weather changes fast.

We quickly made our way back down on an arm rappel and then over to the ropes that another team had set up for the Class 5 rock climb up to The Castle.  I belayed one of our instructors up on a mechanical belay before he and another instructor set up the rope for two hip belays at a time from the top.  In this way, we all got up to the summit of The Castle.  Unfortunately, the previous team had chosen an iffy rappel, and we spent quite a bit of cold time at the top as we moved the rappel ropes over to another location.  The only hiccup of the day came when one of our instructors was struck in the head by falling rock without warning, knocked lose by the last instructor to come down the rappel.  Her helmet suffered a nice crack, but after a really scary few moments, she was alright.

We all made our way down (this time on a mechanical rappel) and then glissaded most of the way back to the road and parking lot.  This was a great trip from the standpoint of bagging peaks, certainly, but I think what really stands out in my mind is how we brought so many skills together:  snow hiking techniques on hard and soft snow, mechanical and hip belays, the arm and mechanical rappels, scrambling on rock, climbing on rock, navigating...  and of course just having a great time out there.

Haven't been writing about the mountaineering lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been hittin' the hills hard.  Here is a quick summary of accomplishments thus far in 2007:

• Climbed Mount Si (~4000', not including the Haystack) in February.  Made the ascent in 2 hours, 5 minutes, with 30 pound packs.
• Summited Tiger Mountain (3004').
• Started taking the BoeAlps Basic Climbing Class (all subsequent climbs are part of the class)...
• Summited Big Chief Mountain (5800').
• Made the East Summit (6170') of Snoqualmie Mountain (6270').
• Summited Mount Ellinor (5920'), and then attempted the traverse to Mount Washington (6255'), but turned around due to conditions at about 5700'.
• Participated in a rescue involving a badly dislocated knee and broken tibia, requiring extraction from a rocky gully and down 2 miles of dirt road (total time to ambulance:  6.5 hours.)

Photos are from the Ellinor-Washington traverse from this past weekend.