Left Coast Livin'

Climbing the Chair

2012-02-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Niki and Monica had taken a bit of a break from climbing for the past few months after climbing in Chamonix in September, but they really wanted to get back out and climb something to get back into the swing of things. Much talk over beer the previous weekend had us looking at Chair Peak with its various alpine challenges. Also, none of us had climbed it before...adventure time!

With the weather looking halfway OK, we set out on a brisk Saturday morning from the Alpental parking lot around 745. Accidentally following the wrong set of tracks led us to a camp and a rather surprised couple who had spent the previous night somewhere off the beaten path. Sorry guys...
The morning was off to a wonderful start!

Looking for radio signals...or aliens

We reached the notch by the north east buttress around 1000 and noted that there were two other teams going for the north face before us. We geared up in no real hurry to let them climb high on the route, ate some pizza, joked with some skiers, and looked at the NEB. It was definitely in and the waterfall bit near the top looked pretty fat.

Enjoying the Alpental Valley

After what seemed like forever, we moved over to the first pitch of the climb. We decided to wait a little more as there was a ton of ice pelting the first pitch of ice from the two teams above. With a loud crack, Monica took a good sized chunk off of the helmet, which scared us a bit. We discussed our options and decided to wait a bit longer to hopefully lessen the steady stream of missiles heading in our direction. We thought about just doing the NEB instead, but since none of us had really looked at any beta for the route we chose to just stick to the plan and simul the north face.

Eventually I lead out when the bombardment stopped. The first pitch was great. Sustained steep ice for a good 15-20m. Too thin in most spots to get any sort of screw in though. About 10m into the pitch, the ice attach started again. Not much to do but swing and kick in hard, turtle behind my tools and helmet and just wait until the storm stopped. It wasn't until Niki called out "half rope!" that I found ice even close to taking a screw. It seemed solid, but not wanting to linger in the firing zone and have the opportunity to test my screw, I moved on.
The first pitch went slowly by. Make a few moves, turtle and get beat up by falling ice, make a few more moves, turtle again...repeat. I was moving a little slow, making sure my sticks and feet were good as I didn't trust that screw to hold much, but moving slow meant more time getting hit with ice. As I turtled, I kept waiting for that one ice chunk that would send me off of my points, giving me the one way express ride to the base of the climb. I swore at myself for doing something that was probably stupid, but the above snowfield was close. Pushing my worry and fear down and sacking up, I pulled over the last bit of vertical ice, slammed a picket into the snow, and kept moving...always looking upward and dodging ice.

We finally made it to the bit of trees, which I thankfully slung to bring Niki and Monica up behind in order to reset the lead.

Niki on her way through the trees

Monica down below our first belay.

After getting some gear back and taking a bit to rewarm our fingers, I lead out again. The topout was no more than 45m away with one shorter section of vertical/near vertical ice, and the two parties before us had topped out, so no more playing dodgeball with the mountain. Easy climbing compared to what we just went through. I set a belay in a notch between the cornice and the summit block. The cornice isn't fully formed yet and easy to get over.

Looking up the last pitch bit

The weather has turned at this point and it was getting really windy as the clouds began to envelop the peak. We unroped and ran up to tag the summit and snap a quick picture, but didn't linger. The winds were growing stronger by the second and we wanted to get down before the weather got much worse.

The descent was uneventful (found the right gully) and we ended up rappelling back down into the basin below instead of downclimbing. Luckily the rain held off and it was rather pleasant for the romp back to the car. Out of wet clothes by 1800.

It was an awesome climb with some good exposure and definitely some pucker at places. I'm glad Niki and Monica got back out there and we had a great time. Here's to more successful climbs in the future!

Gear Notes:
only used two 13cm screws, 4 pickets, some slings for trees

Approach Notes:
Don't crash a romantic night in the woods and stick to the trail

Turf Sticks, Dirt Screws, and Postholes - Guye Peak South Gully Direct

2012-01-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

The weather looked nice this weekend (not rain) so Ambrose, Aaron P, Alicia and I decided to give the south gully on Guye Peak a go. None of us had ever been up this route before except for Ambrose, so it would be interesting and a fun challenge for the rest of us newer alpine climbers.

At the summit west parking lot and moving around 8. We opted not to bring snowshoes or skis as we were guessing that the rain event a few days prior and the warm temps had consolidated the snowpack. Man were we as wrong as six rabbits. We made ok time though as we meandered our was through the Sahalie ski area and up to the entrance of the climb, postholing the entire way like champions. All great alpinists posthole everywhere, right?

Roped and racked up, I headed out first up the gully. I was told I had to lead the whole thing since I was "young and needed experience". The climbing was generally easy, but thin in places. I had to search for a few places to get good tool sticks to pull over some steps a few hundred feet into the gully, but they were there.

When the route wasn't thin, I was generally wallowing in snow as high as my chest. Easy enough to get purchase for your feet, but still slow going due to the wallowing.

After a few more icy and thin steps we reached what looked like a dead end, with one little overhangy bit up to a slope that was hidden around a rightward corner.

I brought Ambrose up and we discussed options. He said that he had always bumped out right at this point and wasn't sure if it went. Screw it, throw me on belay, I'm checking it out. It was interesting to pull over this feature, using a bit of stemming, an awesome turf stick and stepping higher than I thought my leg could bend. After rounding the corner and seeing that it did indeed go, I called down that I'm going to keep going up until I couldn't.

There was another higher ice step above the last one, probably about 15-20 feet. No great pro around, at least that my gumby eyes could see, so I pounded a picket before the step and changed on.

After a few more ice steps we made it out of the gully onto a more open face. Nothing technical, just thin in places.

On the summit at 1245, but the clouds were rolling in and our views were obstructed.

There was some pretty cool snow formations on the trees up there. Kind of looks like hoar, but I'm not sure if it has a different name if it grows on trees?

After a bit of a rest on the summit we traversed the ridge over to the north summit where we unroped and packed up. The cornice on the top out of the east couloir isn't totally formed, so you can make it out without having to tunnel through it. After stashing the gear, we got to practice our postholing techniques as we headed down the standard snowshoe track back into commonwealth basin. Back at the car and headed for some BBQ in Issaquah by 430.

This is a great route that's lots of fun and close to home. Short approach and easy terrain on the descent. Conditions could have been better, with more consolidated snow in the gully, but it's definitely in now and should only get better with time. There's also some sweet steps already kicked in too, so get after it

Gear Notes:
Picket or two
Half rack of nuts (only used DMM sized 3 and 5)
13cm screw
a handful of slings for trees

Approach Notes:
Posthole like it's 1999, or don't be a dumbass and take snowshoes

2011 in Review

2012-01-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Another year gone by, another to come and fill up with great experiences. Volumes of knowledge were learned, and a ton of fun and great memories were had.

2011 started off with a ton of skiing in the backcountry, and ski instructing at Stevens

After it was time to climb. A kegger at camp Muir was a good start

Got quite lucky to spend three weekends in the Enchantments

...and got some sweet booty gear while we were at it

Spent some time in the Entiat mountains

and ate friend chicken on the summits

Spent some time learning some ice climbing basics on Baker

Got to check out Washington Pass and the wine spires for the first time, and climb a few things there too

Was also able to climb at Vantage for the first time

And now that the snow is falling, getting on some steep snow, ice and mixed routes

All in all, it was a great year! While nothing went terribly wrong, I didn't make it out without a few injuries and a few long days

But had a good time with great friends in great places

Here's to an even better 2012!

Total elevation gain in the name of fun for 2011: 102,557 ft

Ditch Work, Climb Couloirs

2011-12-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

Tuesday afternoon, Aaron P sends me a message at work

"Hows your vacation situation? Can you take tomorrow off?"
"I have sick days and feel a cold coming on, what do you have in mind?"
"The zipper looks nice"

So off we went the next morning down to MRNP. It was a beautiful morning, clear and crisp at 18F when we left the car at the Narada Falls parking lot at 900. Up the snowbank, down the road, over the river and through the woods to Lane Peak we did go. There's a pretty packed in trail right now and snowshoes weren't needed. Some of the lines on Denmen looked pretty good. Photos below for a conditions update on those:

Made it to the base of a little ice step around 950 and roped up here. Neither of us had lead any sort of ice before so we were playing it on the safe side even though it looked very soloable.

Roping up

Aaron leading above the first little step

Right below the second step

After belaying Aaron over the first step, we simuled to the second step, drove in a picket then I went out on lead. Blasted up the second step, and simuled the rest of the way to the top out.

Getting through the second step

Simul to the top

Conditions were great. Nice and cold, and the snow has really consolidated to make for great cramponing. We cruised right up this thing. We reached the top of the couloir around 1100 and toyed with the idea of heading back down and climbing up Lovers Lane for shits and giggles, but decided to head up to the summit instead since neither of us had been up there before.

Followed some footsteps up a gully on the southeast side until they all stopped at a bright orange rap sling tied around a tree. From there we followed the ridge to the summit. We were surprised at the amount of wallowing we did on the ridge, but made it to the summit without too much difficulty.

Finding some loose snow

Summit Shot

The views were fantastic. Crystal clear views of Rainier and everything else around. Couldn't have asked for better weather!

After taking a few pictures, we headed down and had a candy bar at the saddle. Back out to the car and happily eating some potato ham soup with an IPA at copper creek by 1430.

A great trip and well worth playing hookie for. Thanks for making me take off work Aaron!

How to kill a snowzombie

Gear Notes:
Used 3 pickets and a 13cm screw. Could easily solo in these conditions now

Approach Notes:
Path pretty well stomped in. Follow the footsteps.

Advantage Vantage

2011-11-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

We spent two weekend rock climbing at Vantage, an awesome cragging area by the Columbia river in central Washington. When it's raining in Seattle, Vantage is usually sunny and dry, being on the east side of the Cascades.

I had never climbed in Vantage before, so it was nice to get there. Very long routes on columnar basalt made for some interesting climbing and some chossy pro. I got a bunch of leads in, which was nice, including my first 5.10 on gear. Good fun chilling in the sun

Thanks to Ambrose for the pics

More Ice

2011-10-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

I helped teach the Boealps Ice Climbing Seminar this past weekend. Another two days climbing ice in crevasses up on Mt. Baker. Great weather and everyone had lots of fun!

ICC Graduation - Climbing and drinking in the Wine Spires

2011-09-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

A nice three day labor day weekend had us heading back to the North Cascades to finish out the Boealps ICC class for me. Being the "graduation climb" I got to pick the route and other team members. I had heard about Paisano from a friend who wanted to do it the previous year as his grad climb, but unforeseen sickness turned them around at the base of the climb. Upon getting the beta on the climb, I thought it looked like an awesome, sustained climb on great rock that doesn't get done a whole lot. Plus we could link it up with Burgundy Spire. Convincing enough for me...we're doin' it.

After grabbing some breakfast from Tootsie, a generous helping of bacon and eggs in our stomachs, we headed up to the bivy site. The climbers trail is steep, dusty, hot, but uneventful. All that food didn't help much in terms of moving fast but soon enough we made it to the bivy site around 1430, about 2 hours after leaving the cars.

After setting up camp and filtering some water from the spring, we took off to do a recon mission to find the start of the route, and to drop off our gear so we wouldn't have to haul it up in the morning. There aren't many descriptions of getting to the base of the route, but we found our way there in about an hour from camp. We had found some carins leading off to the right off of the main trail that goes to the col. These were above a large rock slab about 20-25 minutes out of the bivy area. We built another carin just off the col trail to mark the diversion a little better for future parties.
Following a faint path (marked by carins) traverse climbers right for a bit until you reach a gully. Descend a slab while green belaying yourself down on trees. Cross the gully and look for the easiest way to get up on the other side of it. Once on the other side, stay on this little ridge between the two gullies. There's a faint path here, stay on the solid ground. Resist the urge to go up the nice looking small grassy gully now on your right. As you ascend, look for the distinctive notch and chockstone that are mentioned in other TRs. Scramble up some kitty litter filled benches and you're at the start of the route. I have a GPS track from the bivy to the start I'll post once I get it off of my device. Hopefully it will help someone in the future!
I'd highly recommend not approaching this from up high or from the col. One piece of beta I had said to do this; but it looked too sketchy for me, and I don't see what time it will save.

The start of the route is at the tree off to the right of this picture.

The view from the start was great in the waning daylight

After cacheing our gear, staring at and talking about the route for a while we got hungry and headed down. Fed and watered, we were in bed around 2100.

500 the next morning seemed to come too early. Out of bed and moving up to the start by 530. Our goal was to be at the base of the route by sunrise (630) and to begin climbing quickly after that to maximize our daylight.

Predawn stoke

We made our time, thanks to caching the gear and our recon mission the day before and were climbing by sunup.

I won't go into a pitch by pitch description of the climb; there are plenty of those out there, but the climbing was very good and, with the exception of the second pitch, quite sustained in difficulty.

A few highlights;
- The first pitch was an eye opener! Not what I was expecting at all and quite sustained. Guess I was still sort of sleeping when I started. Was definitely awake by the end of it.

BK Starting P3

- I got the crux pitch (our 4th, marked as 5th on a lot of other TRs), which I found awkward and very balance-y in parts. Towards the end of this pitch, leave the ridge and look for a tree and little ledge off on the left face. Set up your belay here. Staying on the ridge is unprotectable slab and there is a nice little feature system that will get you back onto the ridge line from this tree.

If you look closely, you can see 4 climbers in this section I'm talking about above. There's the obvious one (black jacket/tan pants) finishing up the crux, two on the ledge by the tree belaying (green jacket and tan jacket) and one leading the pitch back to the ridge (black shirt/white helmet)

- The pitch after the crux pitch (P5 for us, P6 in other beta), you'll eventually come to a big blocky ledge where some beta states that you can set a belay. Climb up over the next step to the next ledge. It's also big and blocky and sets you up to knock a pitch off of the climb

Pic of the above described belay spot

- If you stretched the previous pitch a bit you can combine part of P7 and 8 into one. Climb on P7 until an obvious big blocky ledge and set your belay here (this is partway into P8 in other beta). There's a nice bulgy crack on this pitch that's not rated on the topo. I'd give it an 8, just for reference.

- With your new and improved belay spot, you can make the summit in one pitch from there. Booya, shaved off a pitch with no sketch factor or heinous rope drag!

Belay ledges are generally really well defined and comfortable.

BK were both on the summit in about 5 hours after starting. Nailed it. Both Matt and Aaron were standing with us 20 minutes later. Chugged some water, scarfed some sandwiches, and took in the views

Matt and Aaron

We discussed our plan of continuing on to Burgundy from here, and while both teams weren't on the summit by our 1230 cutoff time, we were damn close. However, not all of the team was feeling up to it, so rather than split up, we decided to stick together and head down.

Summit Shot

A scramble down to the rap station, and two raps later and we were on the ground, chossading back down from the col to our bivy.
We decided to stay that night rather than hike out, because why not? We didn't have to work in the morning. Shenanigans ensued

What else are you supposed to drink while climbing the wine spires?

Whiskey bouldering in the meadow

Whiskey Bouldering!

All in all, it was a great weekend with some awesome friends on some fantastic rock. Thanks guys for a great ICC experience.

Gear Notes:
We took gear to 4", but if just climbing Paisano, gear to 3" is enough

Approach Notes:
Steep and dusty

BRC Graduation Climbs - Alpine Cragging

2011-08-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Since my computer deleted my write up three times now, I'm just posting pictures for this one as I'm sick of writing reports.

North Early Winters Spire South Face - 5.7 5pitches

Snow on route on pitch 3 made the climbing interesting

Heading up pitch 5 looking at the valley below through the crack

Brandon topping out

Brandon doing a perfect leg wrap. Notice hes not falling to his death

Alicia

Alex

Sunday I climbed the super classic Beckey Route up Liberty Bell with Jeff, but forgot my camera in the car.

ICC Alpine 4 - Battling the Dragon

2011-08-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

ICC Alpine 4 had me, once again, heading into the Enchantments zone for the ICC. This time Matt, BK, John and I would climb the Serpentine Arete on Dragontail. This was a climb I was thinking of choosing for my graduation climb, but I guess I got my wish sooner rather than later.

The route blasts up the north wall of the mountain for some 2200 feet to the summit. It goes at 5.8 and has about 18 total pitches of climbing, much of that being simulclimbing. We figured we could do the entire rock portion, bottom up in about 10 hours. Since we didn't have permits to camp, we planned on doing a one day push to climb it in 15-17 hours car to car.

Up and moving from the Stuart Lake TH at 4am we hit Colechuck Lake at 6am. Two hours later we were at the base of the route and were climbing by 830.

Dragontail North Face from Colechuck Lake


Trying to find the start of the route

We started at the highest finger of snow

We decided against the 5.7 crack in the corner and decided to simul-climb up and left to the ramp between pitch 1 and 2. Bad idea. I had to head far left and was on some unprotectable terrain just below the pitch 1 and was uneasy simul-climbing. Meanwhile, a baseball sized rock from above came whizzing by my head. I had noticed that we started at the wrong location, which has lead me to the sketchy terrain. Oh well, lesson learned.

Pitch 3 went very smoothly aside from my near encounter with a small rock. At the crux (pitch 4, my lead) we choose the far right crack. This looked easier and more protectable than the standard middle crack (plus Ambrose told us it was the right crack to climb).

Matt looking up the crux pitch, and me looking down from up top

Pitch 5 went well. Matt got to the piton and headed left up to a dihedral. This led into a nice belay spot nested into large flake rocks. Pitch 6 started just to the right and up the ridge. From here on out (Pitch 7-17) the route follows benches of ledges filled with lots of loose rock and section of low-fifth class pitches. We simul-climbed almost all of this rock. When in doubt here we tended right.

The start of the simulclimbing

Matt and I taking a break before starting the simuling

I think we eventually ended up too far right to the point we were below the 5.7 variation pitch that Fred Beckey talks about. It was difficult to tell this was the “route” and wasted a lot of time in this area. Rap slings, lots of loose rock, and little good pro was not comforting.

The way up to the 5.7 offwidth variation

We eventually pressed on knowing it was getting late. Just below the last pitch, a very large ledge blew out from under Matt's feet. After composing ourselves, I took the sharp end up the last 5.7 offwidth pitch. There are at least 2 more very large boulders that will let loose anytime on this pitch and it ran tensions high in the final push. We summited at 2030 and were mentally shot, glad to be done.

Looking down on the last pitch

Me topping out...finally

At least we were up there for sunset

22 hours after we left, we got back to the TH. Too exhausted to go anywhere, we just threw our sleeping bags down next to the car and crashed.

I think we still had a few hours to go here

A good climb with a lot of rockfall and routefinding issues. It was a good test for mental endurance and working through problems when you've been moving for 18+ hours with little food and water. I'd do it again...but need a break from the Enchantments for a little while

BRC - Smith and Squamish

2011-08-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

On the off weekends of climbing in the ICC, I decided to help out as an instructor with the BRC (Basic Rock Class). For us ICC students its a great opportunity to get out and get a lot of leading in. Since the BRC is geared towards getting students comfortable climbing rock, the students don't lead anything; that's all up to the instructors. A personal belay slave? Sign me up!

The class has four outings, the middle two being Smith and Squamish. Both places are world class climbing areas that we visited in the ICC, and it was awesome to go back a little more experienced and a whole lot more confident.

The first trip I was able to go on (I missed the Leavenworth trip due to a wedding) was Smith. I was worried that it would be scorching hot since we were in the middle of a desert in June, but it really wasn't that bad, in fact it hailed on us on Saturday. Go figure.

On Saturday my student was Suzanne and we were paired up with Monica and Brandon to climb Super Slab (5.6 3p). The route was pretty straight forward and easy going; a perfect start to the day.

Brandon, ready to go

Suzanne finishing up pitch 1

Hanging out at the second belay

Monica checking out the start to pitch 3

Brandon making his way up pitch 3

After Moscow, we headed over to the Dihedrals area and climbed some single pitch stuff, like Rabbit Stew (5.7) and Moonshine (5.9). Good fun

Sunday I had Dan as a student and we were paired up with Jeff and Pierre. We climbed Sky Ridge (5.8+, R, 2p) which I had climbed previously with the ICC. Awesome climb that really ramps up the exposure and tests you mentally with the traverse at the end.

Dan on the traverse

Pierre's turn to lead the traverse

Jeff on the traverse

The Squamish outing was two weeks later and is very different rock from Smith. Saturday I had Alex as a student and we were paired with Mike Z and Cheryl to climb Calculus Crack (5.8, 6p) on the apron. I wanted to climb this the last time we were here, so I was happy to get to lead the whole thing. At the top we decided to climb Memorial Crack (5.9) just for fun before the long walk off. Great twin cracks that merge into one nice hand crack. (Sorry, no pictures. My camera was in my pack which we decided to leave in the cars).
After our 7 pitches on the apron, we headed over to the Smoke Bluffs to meet up with the rest of the class. Our students didn't feel like climbing anymore, so I tried my hand at a 5.10d slab problem that was so polished you didn't even have to do any route finding. It was damn hard and I'm sure I took a few layers off of my shoes, but I made it with enough grunting and cursing.

It rained Saturday night and we didn't climb on Sunday due to the wet and slick rock. Oh well, next time

Just Climbing Some Ice...in July

2011-07-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Yep, climbing ice in July. We spent a weekend in the Coleman icefall on Mt. Baker to work on ice climbing technique. Lots of fun, even for July!

It was a nice day to head into the icefall

Some cool looking seracs we ended up climbing under

Tools in the ice

Negotiating crevasses

Me getting ready to jump in a crevasse to climb

Great weekend and beautiful weather. Ice climbing was never so good...

WE'RE DOIN' IT...AGAIN! : ICC Alpine 3 - Prusik Peak South Face

2011-07-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

Core Enchantment permits had us heading back into the zone for a second time in a month, and climbing Prusik again. This time we'd try our hands at the harder South Face on the Beckey-Davis rather than the West Ridge route we took for Alpine 1 a month ago.

Our route, more or less

Arrived at the Leavenworth Ranger Station at 830 to pick up our permits. Mulled around town a bit waiting for Der Sportsman to open up, as someone who shall remain nameless (me) herp derped and forgot their helmet and had to purchase a new one.

Were at the Snow Lake TH by 915 and were on the move by 945. We easily cruised up the trail and were passing Nada lake around 1200.

The Team sans Ambrose

A short time later we crossed the dam at Snow Lake, the water definitely lower than the last time. Using the logs to try to cross was like some sort of crazy game; as you stepped on one it began to sink and you had to move quickly or else get very wet. Some were successful in making it across the log jam dry, others not so much. Guess all that video game playing as a kid came in handy

Ambrose and Monica crossing the dam

After a brief time sunning and drying out a nice flat rock, we continued around Snow Lake and headed up to make camp above Lake Vivian on a little hill next to Temple Lake. What a difference a month makes! Just a month ago we were in snow before Nada lake, post holing and swearing with burning the anger of a thousand suns at how terrible the approach was. This was way easier and more pleasant! At camp by 1700 cooking some dinner and watching the goats play all around our campsite.

We would climb straight up that face in the morning

Friends

Bed by 2000, awake on Sunday at 500, at the base of the route by 630 and climbing by 700. It took us a little longer to get going than we wanted to, but such is the way these things go.

BK and Monica started up the wicked chimney on the first pitch of the Beckey route while Ambrose and I looked on. After about ten minutes of watching BK thrutch, grunt and curse his way up it, we decided that the start to the Stanly-Bergner route looked a little more aesthetic (and fun). "We could link up with them after the first pitch, right?" "Yeah, screw that thing, lets climb the crack"

BK and Monica on the first pitch

After a much nicer first pitch, and a obliquely traversing second pitch, we met up with BK and Monica; back on route.

BK at the first belay ledge

Ambrose and Monica watching BK lead the crux on the 6th pitch

A few route finding decisions and pitches later and we were at the crux, a weird bulge without very good hands. A nice little balancy problem, and the hardest thing I've led out in the alpine to date. I was pretty stoked to send it.

Me about to pull the crux move

A pitch after the crux and we were standing in the notch on the east ridge. BK and Monica had scrambled to the summit before us, and Ambrose asked them to lower a rope so that we could climb the 5.10 finger crack up instead of scrambling. Tick another first off of my list...

Finally, all of us on the summit after 8 pitches, relaxing and taking in the views. Our stay was short lived as it was already 1500 and we had a long hike ahead of us still.

Three double rope raps took us down to the snow. From there we hiked back to camp by 1730, broke down and were on the trail again. I always forget that hike is so damned long and always underestimate how long it will take to get out. Hiked the last three miles in total darkness and were at the TH by 2300.

Feet hurting and super thirsty, we were dismayed to find that absolutely nothing was open in Leavenworth (not even the gas station) and all of the vending machines wouldn't even take our money

Awesome weekend with some great climbers on a really fun route! I definitely learned a lot, and will never forget my helmet again

(Photo credit to Ambrose, BK and myself)

Return to the Entiat

2011-07-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

The week after our alpine 2 climb of the north face of Mt. Maude, Niki and I found ourselves back in Leeroy Creek basin with 5 others for a three day climb of the rest of the Entiat 9k-ers over the 4th of July holiday.

Our original plan was to climb Glacier Peak, but some last minute convincing that the 40 mile round trip approach was going to be miserable due to the high snow we've had this year, my suggestion of Mt. Fernow and Seven Fingered Jack seemed to stick, so we were off.

7FJ from the trailhead

The creek crossings were higher this week, probably due to some warmer weather we were having, and made things interesting yet again. Luckily nobody got swept away.

Monica fording one of the streams

Turning off of Phelps Creek trail onto Leeroy Creek trail, there was now very little snow; a big change from last week. Made the going much easier, however it was really hot and gaining all of that elevation that quick in the burning sun made the going slow and tough.

Up the long dusty trail

After a few hours of earning our elevation we made it to the basin. As we would have to traverse over a ridge to the north in order to approach Fernow, we decided to gain most of the ridge that afternoon so we wouldn't have to do it early in the morning. Set up camp on a bench around 6.8k and chowed down.

Home sweet home

Took in a pretty cool sunset over Glacier Peak and then hit the sack. Up in the morning at 400 ready for an epic day. Over the ridge, out of Leeroy Creek basin, then down climbed to a lake. Kicked steps up another ridge, then descended about 1000ft (I think everyone cried a little inside), around another ridge and onto the toe of the Gloomy Glacier. The glacier was quite gloomy and basically nonexistent at least as far as we could tell, no need to rope up at all. There were some pretty cool looking moraines left over though.

Levi, Niki and I

Once we got across the glacier we finally started ascending the flanks of Fernow. The route follows a pretty obvious gully that was covered in snow for us, which made for good time kicking steps up a few thousand vert. Some spots were pretty steep, up to about 55 degrees, which made things a bit more exciting.

Up, up and more up

Looking back

After a few hours we reached the main saddle we were shooting for; the end of the snow and the beginning of the rock scrambling. 500ft left.

Niki, Monica and I at the start of the scramble

After some interesting route finding and scrambling on loose, crumbly rock we were finally at the summit. We met another group of BCCers up there who had come up behind us. It was pretty cool to see other Boealps climbers way out here, all on the summit on Fernow.

Pano from the top of Fernow looking South. Maude in the center, 7FJ off on the right

It was pretty cool to look on the north face of Maude that Niki and I had just climbed the weekend before. Nice to see a different perspective. Definitely looked a lot different from this angle!

Maude from Fernow. We went straight up that!

We only stayed on the summit for a few minutes; the wind was picking up and it was getting pretty cold. So down we went, back to the glacier. The other team we ran into had taken a different route to the glacier that we thought would set us up easier for summiting 7FJ, so we followed them back up the glacier.

Niki, Monica and I heading up the Gloomy Glacier.

It was extremely hot out at this point on the glacier, probably close to 90, so gaining the 1.5k felt like torture. Finally at the notch, we could see the lake below that we had traversed around in the morning. Stopped for a little bit of a break to catch our breaths and down some water.

Urban, Niki and I above said lake

Two or our team and three of theirs didn't feel up for summiting a second 9k foot mountain and returned back to their respective camps, which left the rest of us to blast up some snow fields to summit Seven Fingered Jack. No technical climbing, just a bit of scrambling over loose crap the last two hundred feet.

7FJ summit

Fernow; where we just came from

It was starting to get late at this point and we were all pretty tired and hungry, so we were off the summit pretty quick. We split off from the other two guys and made quick time back to camp with a mix of glissading and running/tripping.

Once back in camp, the food came out and so did the booze. Feeling like we actually earned it today, we tore through two lightweight travelers of whiskey. Shenanigans ensued, a good night was had by all. Happy birfday America.

Back in camp; Sam, Urban, Niki, Monica and myself getting our food and whiskey on

I awoke the next morning glad to find myself in my sleeping bag and in my bivy sack. I don't remember how I got there but I'm glad I did. Damn whiskey...
After getting some more water and packing up camp, we descended at a leisurely pace back to the trail head. It was pretty uneventful and laid back and was nice to just enjoy the hike in good weather with good friends.
We made good time out and even got back into Seattle in time to see the fireworks show at gas works.

Thanks to Urban for some of the pictures

The Quest for Turns All Year

2011-06-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

I've been living this pipe dream of making ski turns all year since getting some turns in last October. Obviously summer months are going to be tough, but not so much around here. There's plenty of snow around if you're willing to work for it.

I needed turns for June, so I decided to head down to Mt. Rainier on Wednesday to get some midweek turns. The weather looked like crap, but hey; it's better than working, right?

I was in the Paradise parking lot by 9, and moving up the mountain by 930. Thanks to the ridiculous snowpack this year I skinned right out of the parking lot. Awesome, no booting required! The weather was less than ideal with thick fog and cloud when I left. Lame...

As I moved higher it got colder and the snow firmed up. Pan face was bulletproof ice and made skinning a real challenge. I refused to boot though; I didn't bring crampons with me and I felt that the edges of my skis wee better than boots anyway on the ice. Once on top of Pan face I was greeted with sideways rainsnow and 30mph winds. Shit...this sucked. Screw it, push on; don't complain, this could be worse.

The weather stayed terrible and windy for another 1500 vert and the snow in variable states of ice/crust. This was going to be survival skiing at it's finest on the way down.

At about 9000ft. the wind and rain stopped and a light snow replaced it. Soon the clouds began to clear the higher I got and by 9500ft I was breaking through the cloud deck to a beautiful day! The last 500 vertical to camp Muir were long, but I was happy to be in the sun and out of that windy, rainy hell. Made it in 2.5 hours to Muir from Paradise...not to shabby.

Once at Camp Muir, I took off my skis and basked in the sun for a while. I was soaked and it felt nice to warm up. I found a tall boy of Rainier beer that someone had left in the shelter, not wanting to haul it down, which complimented my lunch of a cold McGriddle from the morning McDonalds stop quite well. I BSed with some mountaineers I had past on the snowfield as they trudged into camp and were amazed that I had come up "all that way" just for lunch. Like I said before; better than work!

Camp Muir

Skis, in June!

After BSing some more and finishing my lunch, I geared up and headed down. The first 1000 vertical was actually pretty nice. Good corn snow up top. After plunging back into the clouds though I was greeted with the wind and rain again. Snow turned into ice and the rain made it hard to see out of my goggles.I skied by braille until the rain let up on the top of Pan face. Glissade shoots from the million people who head up there were like death traps. I got caught in one and was turned into a one man bobsled and nearly crapped my pants. Fun times

After about 45 minutes of ice skating I slid back into the Paradise parking lot, cold, wet, and tired as tourists took pictures of this crazy person skiing in what was almost July. I may be a little crazy, but it sure beats working!

LEEEEROOOYYYYYYYYY JEENNNKKIINNNNSSSS...er...Creek? ICC Alpine 2 - North Face of Mt. Maude

2011-06-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

For alpine 2 I found myself on a team heading to climb the north face of Mt. Maude in the Entiat range. Maude is one of the three prominent peaks at the head of the Entiat basin and the north face is rather impressive. While the standard route is a scramble at best, the north face provided us with 45-60 degree snow and ice in some pretty exposed conditions.

General NF Route

We started off from the Phelps Creek trailhead and hiked over quite a number of creek crossings, one which was pretty deep at Box Creek.

Justin waded while I tried jumping

The Phelps creek trail was pretty much covered in snow in from Box creek, so it was a long few miles slogging through snow until we got to Leroy creek. I couldn't help but laugh to myself about Leeroy Jenkins as we turned up the trail to Leroy basin where we would make our camp.

Niki crossing Leroy Creek

After crossing the creek, we gained about 2000 feet of elevation until we reached the basin. We decided to camp a little higher than the basin since we had the time and didn't want to wake up quite so early the next day, so we booted up to 6800ft, found a nice flat spot by some trees and set up camp for the night.

Camp with Maude and 7FJ in the background

Seven Fingered Jack from camp

To bed by 8pm and awake the next morning at 2am, we set out for the 7FJ-Maude col around 3:15.

On the way to the col

Once at the col we were treated to views of a beautiful sunrise coming over the Entiat river headwaters

Alpenglow on Maude

We pulled out our second tools and roped up and soon we were off on the traverse from the col over to the NF.

The snow was pretty good; firm enough for your crampons to dig in and to hold a picket, but not full blown ice. We moved our two rope teams in running belays, the second team using the first teams pro. This let us efficiently move across the traverse. Rick lead out first and brought us in on a bunch of rocks halfway to the base of the NF route.
It was quickly made apparent that routefinding on the traverse was going to be the crux of the climb. Most descriptions talk about going over the col and then dropping down to the glacier before traversing. We looked at this option but the steepness and exposure looked to be about the same and we felt that it wouldn't really save us any time to lose the elevation and then gain it again. Maybe in the summer when a significant amount of snow was melted out, a ledge system scramble down to the lower parts makes sense, but it wasn't apparent to us this time of year.
I led the second pitch and was treated to rapidly steepening terrain, a little bit of mixed climbing, and rockfall. After a kegerator sized boulder (as Niki called it) whizzed past me, I decided to pull everyone in at a protected spot and make sure we moved quickly through the next section as to not get hit by any rock falling off the mountain.

My rope team leading out

Jason belaying his team in under cover

Of course, BK had to take a dump in the area where the mountain was throwing rocks down at us

"This is the most exposed dump I've ever taken" - BK

After relieving himself, BK lead out onto the actual route and we started gaining elevation. Finally!

Niki and BK starting to ascend the north face

Jason cleaning the route, I think he had 12 pickets...you could hear him clinging form 100ft above

"The Death Cornice" was present and in a glorious way. I've never seen a cornice as big or scary as this one as we quickly crossed under it's path. We could see fracture lines in the top of it once above, so it's getting ready to go


"Death Cornice"

Side view of the death cornice

One last lead change and we were at the summit ridge, followed by a short 100ft walk up to the summit. The entire traverse and face were done in 4 leads with 12 pickets and a 37m rope.


Niki leading out

BK and Niki after topping out

Once on the summit, I broke out the 6lbs of fried chicken I hauled with me the whole time as a surprise for the team. It's the best two day old, cold fried chicken any of us ever had.

Rick getting after the chicken

"least we have chicken"

Glacier Peak - next weekend's objective

Summit pano looking W-N-E

After taking some time to destroy some chicken and take in the views, we headed back to camp via the slog route. This proved somewhat difficult as the "trail" was hard to find up there. We ended up turning off the ridge into a gully marked by a carin. We followed this down and with a bit of cleaver traversing, we made it back to camp. Refilled on water and packed up, we headed down for the slog out that to me felt like an eternity. Back at the cars by 8:30pm and in bed by 12:15am. Long weekend, but definitely an awesome climb.

Stats:
Elevation Gain: 5560ft
Distance: 18mi
Pack Weight: 35lb
Chicken: 6lbs

Into the Alpine: ICC Alpine I - Prusik Peak

2011-06-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

After three months of skills trips and practice at the crags, the ICC finally transitioned over into an alpine climbing focus this past weekend with Alpine I. We have four alpine outings in addition to a graduation climb, making the total 5 in addition to the cragging outings and the ice climbing trip coming up in July. These trips are vastly different from the BCC trips in the fact that the objectives are harder and much more technical (most if not all will have 5th class technical rock or ice climbing on them), much more committing (all ICC outings are at least two days requiring a one night bivy), and are comprised of a team of no more than four people; two students and two instructors (no more armies of people!)

This is going to be freakin' sweet!

Our assignments go out the Monday before the climb in class, and I was happy to find out that I had been assigned Prusik Peak as my objective. Prusik is an iconic and classic peak here in the Washington Cascades and really resembles "the perfect mountain" image rarely found actually in nature (see Cerro Torre in Patagonia for another example). What a perfect way to start off the alpine climbing season with a picture perfect peak! I was stoked.

Prusik Peak as seen from Gnome Tarn

Prusik is located in the Stuart range on the Temple ridge in the Enchantments area. I've posted about going into the Enchantments before here, and every time one gets to go up in the area it's a special occasion. Since it's such a beautiful place, it's regulated to hell and back and permits are very hard to get; think lottery four months before climbing season starts. Lucky for us permit season starts next weekend, so we just have to battle our way through the snow to get there.

We hiked in from the opposite way than we did Dragontail last year and left from the Snow Lakes trail head at 830 Saturday morning. The approach would be about 10 miles and gain a little over 5000 feet in elevation; that would get us to the base of the climb when the real fun starts. Definitely a long and committing ordeal.I'm glad my pack only weighed 28 lbs...

Nate blazing ahead

The Snow Lakes trail was actually quite beautiful, following Snow Creek all the way up the valley. All...the...way...

Nada lake was our halfway point and we reached it in about three hours and took a brief nap/break on it's shores for 20 minutes soaking in the sun and the views.

Next we hit Snow Lakes, which took us a considerable amount of time to circumnavigate due to the amount of snow on the ground. We were worried about snow levels since the snowpack this year is huge, and we ran into evidence of this here. Lots of cursing and wasted energy...posthole city. It took us about an hour and a half to get around.

Yeah, we have to go up there

Heavy snow year = a lot of snow melt

Crossing the dam...wet feet

After finally getting around the lake, we started heading up into the high Enchantment plateau through wet, heavy snow. After about two hours of bushwacking and following Nate, we finally emerged above Temple Lake, above where we planned on bivying for the night. It ended up being a good thing as we located a bunch of nice flat rocks to stay on, MUCH better than snow. Within a few minutes, bivy bags were out, neoairs were inflated, shoes were off, and we were boiling water for dinner by 1730 in dry socks.

Jim, Nate and Sara enjoying the sun and some dinner

View from camp

After eating something that wasn't a Snickers bar or gummy bears, I was ready for bed. Into our sleeping bags we crawled with a wake-up time of 530 set.

View from my "bed"

Jim getting ready for bed

530 came early, but I slept like a rock. I guess 3 hours of sleep the night before and then doing a 10 mile 5k ft approach takes it out of you. Well rested, we packed up camp and headed off to get started on our climb.
Lucky for us a team had already kicked steps up to the mountain the day before. Freezing overnight we had a nice staircase and we made good time.

Prusik Peak

Prusik from the West

We roped and racked up, left our stuff down at the pass and headed up for our summit. I climbed with Jim, Sara with Nate. The West Ridge route is 5 pitches, the crux being a 5.7 unprotected slab, a weird smeary flake, and an awkward unprotectable chimney. The route itself is very exposed, sometimes the ground is over a thousand feet below you and you're just hanging out on a tiny little foot crack; definitely gets the nerves up a little bit. The climbing was solid though and a lot of fun. Jim let me lead the whole thing, which was great practice, and since our team went first I also got to do a lot of route finding while climbing; definitely a skill worth practicing!

Sara coming around a horn

There was a decent amount of snow and ice still on the route. I had no kick a few steps up some ledges in order to access some of the pitches. This really sucks in rock shoes...

Last pitch...and the damn snow

Finally on top the views were amazing. We had a crystal clear day with only a light breeze, perfect climbing weather. We hung out, ate and rehydrated for 15 minutes and enjoyed the summit. We also talked to two other ICC teams in the area who also had hit their summits around the same time (Mt. Stuart and Ingalls Peak) and congratulated each other.

Enchantment Plateau

Montaineer Valley and Jim

Nate happy to be on the summit


Shield Lake

As nice as the summit was, we still had to get home and had a long hike ahead of us. Time to get out of here!

Jim starting a rappel off or the summit

Nate directs and helps with the downward routefinding

Three double rope rappels later and we were down to the snowy slopes again. Hiked back to the pass, grabbed our packs, and we were out of there.

A parting shot of Prusik Peak from the south

The hike out was uneventful. Long, wet and full of snow. Back to the car by 2030 and in Leavenworth eating some much deserved Mexican food by 2100. A great way to end an awesome trip!

Nate found a pink hat on the trail on the way out and was really excited. Unfortunately we caught up the little girl who lost it and he had to give it back.

Stats -
Elevation Gain: 6720ft
Miles: 22.5 miles
Pack Weight: 28.5 lbs
Snickers Bars: 3

Memorial Day 2011: Muirly a Kegger - 2nd Annual Muir Kegger

2011-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

It's Memorial day weekend again when people get together with friends, fire up the BBQ, celebrate the "unofficial" start to summer, and remember those who gave their lives for our country. For some of us, it's also time for a Muir Kegger. Why? Because this is fuckin 'Merca, and we like beer, mountains, and doing things the hard and ridiculous way.

The day started off on the 28th at 3AM in the Paradise parking lot with everyone waking from their cars/snow caves and getting the gear ready for the haul. After securing the keg, enough tents and some wine to the sleds we were off to Muir.

We cruised right along in the dawn and reached Pan face in about an hour and a half. Thankfully the steepest and hardest part would be in the beginning while we were all relatively fresh. We had to take 3-4 rest brakes on the way up but made it up the face in about 30 minutes, a huge improvement on last year.

We had reached the top of the cloud deck at the top of Pan point and were treated to some wonderful morning views of the mountain while we caught our breaths and grabbed some food and water.

The rest of the slog up the snowfield was pretty uneventful. Slow going with 200lbs of keg pulling you back in addition to your pack. The weather stayed mostly clear with a gently breeze for most of the way up. Besides the grueling weight it was very pleasant!

Along the way three day hikers joined the madness and helped haul from about 8500ft the rest of the way to camp. Thanks Ed, Gordon, and Doug for the help!

We finally reached camp Muir around 1:30PM or so, unhooked ourselves happy to be sled dogs no more, and sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labors. The weather was nice, but clouds were starting to roll in and the wind was picking up. No rest for the weary...time to set up camp.

The conditions deteriorated rapidly and by the time we were finished setting up our tents it was snowing and blowing quite hard. The party would have to wait...into the tents for the rest of the day/night.

With no plans on summiting, we awoke at a leisurely 7am and started milling around camp. We found that the public shelter was emptying rapidly and started filtering inside to melt water for the day. Someone then had the genius idea to move the keg inside; the party was on. First beer: 8AM. Shenanigans quickly ensued as we were determined to lighten the keg as much as possible for the return trip. Beer brats were made, and were quite possibly one of the best things I've ever had at altitude.

Eventually the party moved outside, as the weather had quickly shaped up into a beautiful day. With the sun above us and the clouds at our feet, 10,080ft kegstands were realized, and we treated the other inhabitants of Muir (and the day hikers just arriving) to some delicious beer.

With the keg killed, we packed up, strapped everything back to it's respective sled and started down. Those of us who were skiing took the sleds while the others walked. Skiing with an expedition sled, while doable, isn't exactly fun and we were having problems keeping them upright through anything but an extremely slow turn. The solution? Carry the keg over a shoulder and pass the sled off to a hiker. Worked great!

Conditions on the snowfield were great above 8000ft. Corn was beginning to set in nice with increasing heaviness and stickiness as we descended. Pan face was heavy taters and everything below was complete jank. It was still fun passing everyone on the trail with a keg over my shoulder though.

Back in the parking lot by 2pm, sunburned, tired, buzzed, being gawked at by tourists, and feeling totally full of win.

It's been a while hasn't it?

2011-02-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, indeed it has.

Contrary to popular thought, I have not died. I've just been busy. Climbing at Vertical world two to three nights a week has been sucking away a lot of time as well as being in a Wilderness First Responder class on weeknights. Couple that with Outdoors for all and trying to ski as much as possible and you've got yourself a recipe for no-time-pie.

In the meantime I've:
- Skied in Whistler
- Ski toured up Rainier twice
- Started OFA
- Bagged three new peaks
- Made my first solo ski tour ascent
- Skied 25 days
- Climbed an 11.a at the gym
- Learned how to Telemark

I just downloaded two months worth of pictures onto my computer, and equipped it with the newest version of Adobe Lightroom, so I have a bunch of work cut out for me. Now I just need to find the time to get to them...

And since this is the first post of the new year; here's some interesting stats for 2010.
2010 Climbing Recap:
Total Ascents: 26
Total Vertical Feet Climbed: 85,609
Total Miles Climbed: 186
Highest Achieved: 10,681 ft
Prom feet: 8661 ft.

Here's to hoping 2011 will go just as well or better.

Summit Stoke from Somewhere in Canada

Setting Goals

2010-11-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot of time for personal reflection lately, thanks to the few week lull in the outdoor adventures, and I've learned a lot (see the previous post). I've also set a few new alpine oriented goals for myself.

First; Summit Mt. Rainier at least twice this season using different routes.

Second; I will join an expedition to climb this mountain within 3 years:

It's Denali if you couldn't tell.

Third; I'll travel and hopefully climb something in Patagonia before I'm 35. I know this is a stretch, but it's definitely something to aim for. Patagonia really has the world's most perfect mountains...even if a summit isn't attained, the beauty is unrivaled by anything else in the world...

Always Learning

2010-10-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

It's definitely been an interesting weekend. I've learned a lot looking back on it.

Most easily seen is the Swiftwater Rescue Technician certification I earned this weekend. We spent 24+ hours on (and in) the Skykomish River learning from one of the masters of river rescue, Casey Garland. It was great fun, and a really eye opening experience. There was a decent amount of talk about death, which really put things in perspective that rivers are indeed very dangerous. Many times we don't even think about the power they hold while we're having fun boating in them, but hearing about what accidents could happen in a heartbeat that changes the fun into a struggle for life is definitely grounding. Respect for the river, respect for the nature around you, that is the key.
I'm glad I have this training now to keep myself and anyone else around me safer on the river. All in all it was an exhausting, painful (my knees and shins found a lot of rocks), cold, but fun time. Our instructors were first rate, and my fellow students were all great people to take this class with. 3 days surrounded by river people...I couldn't ask for better company.

After a successful rescue

Body surfing a hydraulic reversal (aka hole)


Napping and warming up on a rock. Rescue is hard work

Newly certified Swiftwater Rescue Technicians + our instructor

The other, very important thing I learned this weekend is that no matter what life will throw at me throughout the years, the simple pleasures of Nature and good people will get me though it. I find my Serenity out there in Nature (or "in the shit" as I like to call it), and my heart is in the hills. I look at the following images of where I spent this past weekend and I just know that I'm in the right place. I feel an overwhelming sense of calm when I get to experience the many outdoor adventures that I partake in. It's somewhat of a cathartic feeling every time I set foot on a mountain, or in a river. I have no idea how I survived back East for so long.

In addition to that, I am surrounded by the best people anyone could ask for. I've made many friends over the past year and a half, all of which enjoy being out in Nature just as much as I do. A wise man once realized that "happiness is only real when shared", and I couldn't agree more. These two things lead me to believe wholeheartedly in one, simple truth;

This is exactly where I belong.

A Year in Review

2010-10-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well, rafting is officially over for the time being, and the rain is starting to pick up again. Not much to do outdoors until ski season starts in a month, so I joined the local climbing gym and go 2-3 times a week in order to stay in shape and stay sane. Unfortunately, climbing in a gym doesn't generate many good stories or pictures.
I know the year isn't over yet, but our 3 outdoors seasons are (skiing, alpine, river). It's been pretty amazing, filled with a lot of fun, some danger, and absolutely the best people anyone could ask for. I thought the below video, made for a recent Boeing Adventure Club mixer (BOEALPS+BEWET+SKIBACS), pretty much sums up this past year's seasons, and what we're all about. You'll probably recognize a lot of these pictures from other posts on here, as well as different viewpoints of the same places from other people.
Props to Nate for putting these all together and making this video!

Happy Birthday Curtis! Or Bros Climbing Bros?

2010-08-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

Every year, Curtis has a birthday. Who'd have thought, right? To celebrate, a bunch of friends get together, pick a peak, and climb it in honor of Curtis being alive for another year. For the 4th annual Curtis Cappel birthday climb, The Brothers were chosen as the mountain of choice. The Brothers is a double peaked mountain in the south-eastern part of the Olympic range (Duckabush-Hamma Hamma group). It's a popular landmark that can be seen easily as the highest point in the south end of the Olympics from Seattle...and coincidentally from my front porch, making it that much cooler.
The mountain itself is attempted by many but only summited by a few. A 7 mile approach on a nice trail leads to the base of a 2.5k scramble. In the summer there is loose rock everywhere, making for precarious conditions. Definitely a more "technical" climb than I expected.

The group takes a break after 3.5 miles at an overlook of Lena Lake. There were 14 of us total; a huge group for this sort of thing.

Lena Lake. Very pretty spot. There's also a nice campground on the northern shore of the lake that is very popular.

Looking up past the lake into the Valley of Silent Men. Many mountaineers claim that this is one of the most beautiful valleys in all of the Olympic range. I was excited to see what it had in store for us.

The valley itself was beautiful. So much life, so much green! Moss hung from tall trees everywhere and gently brushed our faces and hair as we walked through this old growth forest. Following what we thought was a dried up creek bed (it actually was a creek bed, the water just happened to be underground this time of year), we pushed deeper into the valley. It definitely lived up to it's name. The only noises we heard were those of our own feet drumming the ground and our idle chatter. I hung back from the main group for a bit and soaked in the utter silence and beauty only the forest can provide.

We passed many beautiful sights during our 3.5 mile hike through the Valley, but this waterfall right next to the trail was one of the nicest. Some of us stripped down and went for a swim, even though the water was pretty cold. It's one of those opportunities you don't get often.

After a brief 800ft climb, we finally found a suitable camping spot. It wasn't the best as it was on a slight downward slope, but we were running out of options for sites. We had decided to go past the "climbers camp" that was 3 miles into the Valley of Silent Men in favor of a higher camp, which would translate into less vert having to be climbed the next day. This area looked pretty flat on the topo map...oh well. I was in my bivy, so I just slept on top of a large boulder, which was relatively flat compared to the rest of our site.
Once camp was made, we snacked, explored, made dinner and a fire, and proceeded to drink the 13 bottles of wine, and 1 bottle of whiskey that were packed in. It was a birthday celebration after all...

Small waterfall near camp with a few of the guys resting and soaking their feet in the stream.

Sunday's goal. Only 3k more vert to go...

Not sure what I was going for...but it looks cool.

The next day we woke up at 4:30AM, sleeping in for an alpine start. I don't think we hit the train until 5:30 or 6 as some were moving slow due to the previous night's festivities. Onward and upward...

We found this guy on our way up munching on some poor person's backpack. Goats really like the salt in your sweat, so they'll munch on pretty anything that you're climbing with.

Our backpack eating friend followed us most of the way up the mountain, and eventually summited with a few of us. It was pretty funny to have a goat shadow. This shot almost looked like a postcard when I saw it. Mt. Washington is the far mountain back in the center, with Mt. Jefferson in the forground, and Skokomish off to the right. If you look close enough and follow the ridge off of Washington, the next peak (almost behind Jefferson) is Elinor, which we climb in the BCC.

The climb became increasingly technical the higher we got. Soon we were on class III and IV scrambles with a lot of loose rock. With a party our size , loose rocks quickly become a big problem. "ROCK!" frequently echoed through the gullies we were climbing as climbers below hid and braced for impact. We had a very close call with a 400lbf rock getting loose and almost taking out part of the team. This just reinforced our determination in testing out all holds before taking them.
Route-finding was definitely a challenge, but those of us in the front did a decent job of keeping the party on track. Trail and trip reports were useless, an they lead us up the wrong gully to the summit block. Faced with a few options, we picked a route up that looked the easiest and just went for it. It didn't look too bad from down below, but once we started climbing it was quickly realized that this was a bit dicey. I was the third one up, and probably would say it was a 5.5-5.6 that we climbed...without a rope (our beta said we didn't need it, so we didn't take one). Not the smartest thing in the world, but those of us confident in our abilities made it just fine.

The first 5 up top. Many of the others stayed below. Summit beers and cigars were passed around. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in right as we got to the summit, so our views were fleeting.

Summit carin and the Mt. Constance group off to the north.

Victory

The down climb was uneventful. Definitely not fun (especially that free climb section...) but everyone made it in one piece. I had to dodge a few falling rocks on the way, and got hit by two that would leave nice bruises, but nothing serious. Back at high camp, we packed up and packed out.

High camp

Stats-
Elevation: 6842ft
Total Distance: 24.3mi
Pack Weight: 37lbf with water
PB Link

Exit 38 Rocks!

2010-08-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend I found myself with no rafting trip to guide, and no big climb planed. What's a guy to do? Well...go rock climbing! It'd been far too long since I'd been rock climbing outside, so a bunch of friends headed to exit 38 off of I-90 for a day of climbing and relaxing.
Oh yeah...I should probably mention that we carried two coolers and a grill the 0.5 miles and 300ft elevation to the rocks we were climbing on. When we climb...we climb with style!

Matt's balancing belay

Levi finishes up a pitch

New climbers Alyssa and Melissa trying their luck on 5.9s. Both did really well, and I think are hooked!

Matt living the good life.

Peakbagger

2010-08-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Another interesting website. Logs your ascents, peaks, tracks elevation gains, manages lists. Pretty cool. Check it out.

My Peakbagger Page

Baldy, Washington Style

2010-08-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get back over to the Olympic Peninsula and climb there after our Olympus trip, so I figured I would do a day climb of Baldy and scout out Gray Wolf for a future ascent. It was Seafair weekend, but I wasn't really interested in any of the festivities as I've been to the last three, so climbing something sounded good. Nate and Tracy decided to tag along, and we left a rainy Seattle Saturday evening.The plan was to grab some food in Port Angeles, sleep at the trail head, and get an early start in the morning so we could be home at a reasonable hour. We camped at the Dungeness Forks campground, a cool spot at the bottom of a small valley. The campground only had a few sites, and is very beautiful and remote, a nice place to come back to sometime.
We woke up the next morning and set out on the Maynard Burn Trail up to the summit ridge, a trail that had been cut by firefighters a few years back to thwart a fire. It was pretty much straight up, and we gained elevation quickly. Definitely a leg workout!After a few hours, a bit of route finding, and a scree field, we summited. Unfortunately we were in a cloud, so we really couldn't see anything. Every once and a while there would be a break in the clouds through which a glimpse of beauty could be seen, it's a shame it didn't stay around for long. I'd love to come back here in better weather sometime for the Gray Wolf traverse. It's on my "To Do" list!
Summit shenanigans

Nate rides the pole...

Summit cairn.

Snapped this picture on the way down. The clouds finally broke a little bit to the north for a view of Mt. Tyler.

Stats:
Elevation - 6827
Elevation Gain - 4227
Mileage: 9 RT
PB Link

Quick note on the title to explain it quick. I climbed a Mount Baldy (12445ft) in 2006 at Philmont in New Mexico. So, that's why this is Baldy, Washington Style!

Mt. Olympus - Into the Halls of the Gods

2010-07-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

18 miles to base camp
47 miles round trip
Highest peak in the Olympic Range
Jefferson County High Point
#10 in prominence in North America (excluding Alaska), #4 in Washington State

Mt. Olympus...hall of the Gods.

Olympus had been #1 on my radar ever since I started the BOEALPS class back in February. It is my "Rainier", the mountain that obsesses your climbing thoughts. Most people are hell bent on climbing Rainier. Well, screw Rainier, it's just a slog. Olympus doesn't get the attention that Rainier does...it's not the highest (only 7969 ft. at it's highest peak), and not a mountain thousands of people summit each year. Hell, you can't even see it from Seattle.
So why was Olympus occupying my thoughts and not Rainier? The remoteness and challenge of Olympus is such a draw that it's irresistible. An 19 mile hike through temperate rain forest with the densest amount of life on the planet just to get to the lateral moraine of the glacier. A starting elevation of 600ft. Glacier travel around huge ice falls. A technical rock climb with some extreme exposure at the summit. Is this not sounding amazing yet? Like I said before...screw Rainier.

Levi, Josh and I took off from Seattle around 3:30 on Friday. Hopped a ferry, and made the drive to the Hoh Campground on the far west of the Olympic Peninsula. There we met up with Monica, Sam, Shadle, Peter and Jesse, threw down camp, cooked up some steaks for dinner, distributed the group gear, weighed our packs (mine was 55lbs with 3 liters of water) and passed out for the night

The next morning we awoke at 7AM (sleeping in!), saddled up and started off on our adventure!

Day 1 Destination: Glacier Meadows. Only 17.3 miles to go...

The Hoh Rainforest. Pretty much what 12.4 miles of the trail looked like. Very pretty and lush...and hot!

We found this elevation chart of the Hoh River Trail at the Olympus Guard Post (9 miles in). The chart ends at Glacier Meadows (base camp). 3.5k feet of elevation gain after 12.4 miles...and this isn't even the real climb! I likened it to climbing Mt. Si (not so bad right?)...after walking there (shit...). We laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole situation...

Once we got to Glacier Meadows, we threw down camp next to a glacial stream. It was a great location with fresh water for meals, bottles, and sore feet soaking. We made some dinner (dehydrated chicken teriyaki for me...tasty), filled up our water, got our packs ready to go for the morning, and bear proofed our camp as there was a mom and two cubs afoot in the meadows. In the bivy and asleep my 9PM.

1AM and my alarm goes off. Shit. I don't want to move. My feet and shoulders are sore from the previous day's trek. I just want to go back to sleep. 4 hours isn't enough after what we just did.
Ah screw it...it's go time. "This will make a great story later" I think. Out of the bivy, rouse everyone else in camp (lots of groans), put on clothes, boots and gaiters, sling the pack over my shoulders, and we're off. 1:30AM and we're on our way to the top of the Olympics.

We all get to the moraine and rope up around 2:15 and I start off leading the rope teams across the Blue Glacier. The crevasses aren't all opened, and there is some thin spots. This worries me a bit as leading a team across a glacier is a little like playing mine sweeper...except if you lose, instead of getting a frowning face, you fall into a crevasse and hope to God your team arrests you before you hit something that seriously injures or kills you. Fun at 2:30 AM. We definitely jumped over a few...
Keep in mind that we haven't seen the mountain at this point. You can't even see the summit when you're hiking in to base camp. That's how damn remote this mountain is!

Quick break heading up the Snow Dome.

Sunrise on the Snow Dome

Many hours later we finally reached the summit block. Time to ditch the crampons, packs (except those of us with gear) and glacier gear and get ready for a rock climb to the top.

Epic shot of me climbing to the first belay ledge (Thanks Levi!) You can really get a sense of the exposure from this picture. That's about a 1500 ft. drop off to the front/left.

Monica getting ready to lead the last pitch to the summit.

Monica leading like a champion while I belay. The belay ledge was a bit awkward.

Levi climbing that wicked exposed chimney.

Josh getting ready to head up as Levi exits the chimney.

The view from the belay ledge.

I was the last one up. Unclipping from the rope

Victory!

Levi and Peter taking in the views. It was also Peter's birthday, so we passed around some whiskey to celebrate.

The summit stoke overwhelmed Josh. Victory Piss at 7969ft!

Pano from the top of Olympus, right is south, left is north, looking east. Foreground center is the false summit (we climbed over that) with the middle and east summits of Olympus at the end of the snow fields on the right.

More summit shots. You can see our boot path in this last one descending the false summit.

Shadle getting ready to rappel off the summit back to the glacier.

Some random rappel shots (thanks again Levi)

Overcoming the moat around the summit block after the rappel.

One look back at the Olympus massif (finally we see it in full daylight).

Now, only 19 miles back to the trailhead....

Josh also made a video with a lot of the pictures and some videos he took of the climb. It can be found here.

Summits, Summits Everywhere

2010-07-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

I've recently discovered the awesome power of Google Maps (I know...I'm behind the times), and I decided to track all of my summits with it. I thought it would be a cool way to look at, and keep track of these sorts of things. Listed at each waypoint is the route and date climbed. I figured it can also be used as a guide for anyone thinking of trying to tag any of the summits I've been on.

Link is here, and also over in the Links sidebar.

Mt. Dickerman Solo

2010-07-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was invited over to a co-worker's house to have a "geek fest" of sorts, and being a true blooded RIT grad, I just couldn't say no to a day of beer and video games. It would be nice to sleep in for once on a Saturday. At any rate, said geek fest was out in Granite Falls, so I decided to find a mountain out on the Mountain Loop Highway to solo climb on Sunday. The plan was to sober up enough to head out from the party and sleep at the trail head so I could start early in the morning.
Mt. Dickerman seemed like a good climb, rising 5760ft and about 9 miles or so round trip...not to mention the views of the North Cascades would be awesome! So, pack packed, my car looked like it was very confused. One side there was a computer and monitor, the other was mountaineering and climbing gear. Hey...I'm a closet geek. Oh the dichotomy...
To my surprise, there was a pretty well defined trail most of the way up the mountain. Definitely not what I was expecting. At about 4.7k ft. I ran into snow, and it stuck around all the way to the summit. It was a little sloppy, but still let me kick my own steps in a straight line to the summit.
Once on the summit, I pulled two New Belgium beers out of my pack and stashed them in the snow to cool and took in the views.

Monte Christo massif to the south with Rainier in the background.

Dickerman's summit in the immediate upper right foreground, then Mount Forgotten with Glacier Peak behind it.

Forgotten, Sloan (far right) and Glacier. All climbs I'd like to do some day.

After I was just about finished with my first summit beer, Ron, Leonard, and two other instructors from BOEALPS made the summit. It was cool to run into other BOEALPSers on a summit! I traded my second beer for some fresh watermelon they had brought.
Not bad for a "geek out" weekend!

Happy Birf Amerca

2010-07-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

Kaz and Steve's cousins were in town for the 4th this year. We had a party at Gas Works Park. It was great.

Into Valhalla (or that time I went skiing in June)

2010-06-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

Ah Memorial Day. A day associated with cookouts, beer, baseball, and for most of my life it was the "official" start to summer. Nothing like a three day weekend to welcome in the nice weather!

Well...that's not really how we do it out here. We decided to spend out long Memorial Day weekend skiing. Growing up on the East coast, ski season spanned from late December to early March if you were lucky. Out here it usually lasts until April. But skiing in June? That just sounds like pure, unadulterated crazy. Many people gave me strange looks when I told them I was going skiing for the weekend. However, this is not the kind of skiing most people think of. There would be no lifts to haul you to the top, no lodge to warm up and get a burger in, no ski patrol to get you to the bottom if you got scared, no nicely groomed trails (hell...no trails for that matter). This was ski mountaineering. You gotta earn your turns!

Our destination was the renowned High Enchantment Lakes area via Asgard Pass. The traverse of this area is rated as one of the best and most beautiful hikes/climbs in the country. It's so popular that just hiking there is heavily permitted through a lottery system, and Enchantment permits are worth gold. Lucky for us, Memorial Day falls just outside of permit season. Our plan was to climb to Colechuck lake, don skis, ski up Asgard Pass, and make camp on the high plateau. The next day we would ski up Dragontail peak, summit, ski down the peak, break camp, ski down Asgard Pass, throw the skis on our backs and pack everything back out to the cars. Definitely an ambitious plan when you factor in all of the ski equipment (we were carrying a lot of weight). Asgard Pass is no joke either, rising 2500+ vertical feet in under a mile, and would be the biggest challenge on this trip.

Day 1: The team taking a break at Colechuck Lake for a quick bite to eat.

Steve resting his feet

Chris with Asgard Pass in the background, and Dragontail on the right

Sunrise in the high Enchantment Lake Plateau

Getting ready to climb.

Dragontail from the east. We would be heading towards that col, then circling around the south side of the mountain to make it to the summit.

Starting out up Dragontail

Almost to the col.

This is Valhalla:

The landscape was breathtaking and felt somewhat alien. Definitely not what we're used to in Washington. It was so pure and pristine too...definitely a magical place.

The summit of Dragontail, the highest peak in the Enchantments. The "summit" was literally a knife edge that was just wide enough for one person, three sides dropping away into shear 2000ft cliffs straight down.

Mt. Stuart off in the distance

Now for the fun part...skiing! The snow off of Dragontail was amazing. Nice corn that was a pleasure to turn underfoot. I don't know if the amount of suffering involved to get there skewed my view, but it was some of the best snow I skied on all season (and this was in June!)
Steve shredding the gnar

Asgard pass was sketchy to ski, and I have no pictures of us doing that. First, it's steep, like really steep. Second, an avalanche had occurred in the pass while we were above, littering the pass with debris and balling a lot of the snow. This made for some interesting skiing, especially with a full pack on my back. No time for a photoshoot...

We did make it down in one piece however. This is Colechuck Peak as seen from Colechuck Lake

Looking back at Dragontail (center) and Asgard pass (left) from Colechuck Lake while taking the ski gear off for the 4 mile trek back to the trail head. Definitely a great weekend. Skiing in June isn't so bad it turns out...

Stats:
Distance: ~14 mi
Elevation Gain: ~5700 ft
Pack Weight: 67 lbf (with skis)
Max Speed: 47.8 mph (on skis of course)

GPS traces of our route. Red is Day 1, Blue is Day 2. No, my GPS wasn't freaking out. We actually skied across the lake (it was frozen for the most part).

Because Boealps just wasn't enough...

2010-05-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

In addition to all of the Boealps climbs over the past few months, I went out a few times in addition to get some more climbing in.
One Saturday when we didn't have a Boealps climb I decided to see how fast I could climb Mt. Si. I made it up and back with gear in a little over 3 hours...not too bad. The weather that day sucked, but I took a few pictures from the top. Definitely not as spectacular as some of my other destinations.

A later weekend, I wanted to get out and do something again rather than just sit around on Saturday, so I went to climb Mt. Pilchuck with Nate in tow. We had a pretty nice day, even though the weather said it would rain/snow.

It's pretty interesting to note that both of these hikes are an hour or so outside of Seattle.

Graduation - Mt. Baker

2010-05-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Our grad climb was Mt. Baker via the Easton Glacier. While not the hardest route, it was definitely one of the longer ones. I had actually hiked up part of this in the summer of 2008 with Nate, Pete and Shadle. There was a lot less snow then...

Stats:
Total Distance: ~18mi
Elevation Gain (up): 7578ft
Pack Weight: 62lbf

Meredith and Steve are excited for the summit...which is still 6000k+ feet away.

Protecting yourself from the sun on a glacier is of utmost importance. I used SPF 100+ sunscreen...Alicia opted for a different, more outlawed, approach (ha! see what I did there?)

The route we climbed would take us towards the Black Buttes (rocks to the left), then up to the southern facing glacier and snowfield to the crater saddle. After that we would climb the Roman Wall (left part of Baker) and traverse around the crater to the true summit.

There were a lot of snowmobiles going past us to go play on the snowfield. I was hoping that one might just pull over and let me hitch a ride. It was worth a shot...

Quick break

Still climbing the railroad grade...

The Black Buttes

Camp for the night

This is what you saw when you opened up our tent flap. Not to shabby

We woke up the next morning at 12AM (yes...midnight), and reached the summit by 8. Needless to say I didn't take any pictures on the rest of the ascent because it was mostly in the dark. Here's my rope team unclipping for the last few feet to the summit.

Victory!

Captain Morgan + Saturday Night Fever = summit victory dance (don't ask...I didn't sleep the night before and was tired)

Steve on the top of the world (from our standpoint anyway)

Looking down into the volcanic crater. That hole in the snow over there is a huge volcanic vent that was spewing out steam and sulfer. I couldn't see the bottom when I looked in...pretty wild to think that we climbed a volcano!

Pano from the summit facing north into Canada

Help! I've fallen in a crevasse and I can't get up!

2010-05-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Ah...crevasse rescue weekend, I've waited for you for many weeks. Finally something that would be pretty crazy!
This outing entailed us climbing up to about 8000ft. on the Nisqually glacier on Mt. Rainer and practicing some glacier travel skills. The joys of traveling on rope teams and climbing in crampons were visited on our ascent to find a crevasse. Lets just say that rope team travel is not my most favorite thing, and I definitely hate climbing in crampons.

Stats:
Total Distance: ~6mi
Elevation Gain: 2700ft
Pack Weight: 43lbf (with rope)

Team Blue Steel fixing on crampons on our ascent.

A look at the Tatoosh range behind us. We were supposed to climb the peak on the far right the weekend before, but we were in whiteout conditions and one of our team members got sick, so we turned around a few hundred feet shy of the summit (hence no post about that weekend). It's much prettier when you can see! Also, you can see Mt. St. Helens in the background, complete with blown out crater (it's the big snow peak with a whole side missing)

We finally hit the glacier...time to rope up

8000ft on a glacier. Getting ready to practice Z-pully system rescue.

I was the first one to take the plunge into the crevasse. I guess if someone stepped on the rope with their crampons I would be the first one to know...
So I went down...

and down...

...and down. Apparently the snow bridge I stood on in the first picture wasn't far enough in. So I jumped into this hole...

...and wend deeper into the rabbit hole. I couldn't see the bottom of this crevasse, it just faded into blackness. Not something you want to take a trip into...

Although looking up was pretty. Here you can see that bridge that wasn't "deep enough".

And here's the other view from the bottom of a crevasse. I climbed up about halfway on my own at this point using two prusik knots.

Josh in the crevasse while Sergey looks on. Mt. Adams is the big peak in the background.

Back down off the glacier. I'll be back for you soon Rainer.

It was a long day full of high altitude, low oxygen, lots of sunburn, and a bunch of ropes. Team Blue Steel is pretty knackered.

Leavenworth Rock Climbing

2010-04-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the anchor class in Icicle Canyon outside of the little Bavarian town of Leavenworth. It also happened to be the spring campout for BOEALPS. We had a campsite reserved for us for the weekend and a potluck planned on Saturday night.
We trucked over Stevens Pass late on Friday night in the Warrior so that we could do some rock climbing on Saturday. We didn't get to the campsite until late on Friday (11:30PM), but we found a decent amount of our friends who were still up; and some that were even climbing by headlamp. A party in the Warrior quickly ensued.

Monica anchored in for safety

Some random faces of the night:

Kind of an uncomfortable place to take a nap...

Nate approves of the shenanigans

Tracy laughs at the ridiculousness

How many climbers can you fit in the Warrior?

Saturday morning rolled around and we woke up at a leisurely 7:30AM, ready to climb. Well...at least I was ready to go.

Icicle Creek

One of the rocks we were climbing

ROPE!

Cody ties in

Belay stance

Some were still really tired from the night before and took a nap. I have no idea how Sam could sleep like this...

Cody and Nitro

Sunday came about and it was class time. Anchors, rappelling, and Tyrollian traverses, oh my!

Chuck listens intently

Alicia belays Brock on an ascent

Josh on a rappel

Meredith teaching us how to rap past a knot in the rope

Got our Learning Faces on

Guye Peak

2010-04-18T20:17:00.001-07:00

For our "experience" climb we went after Guye Peak. Guye can be seen from I-90 in Snoqualmie pass, so it's pretty close to Seattle, however it is a great peak and a good climb. It's broken up into three subsequent summits, and we tagged them all. It was a great day out, and really warm too...finally some good weather!

Stats
Elevation: 5158ft.
Length: 5.9 mi
Pack Weight: 31 lbf

Mountain in the Mist

We had to cross a few snow bridges along the way.

And a few streams. Here I practice the "Oh screw it" method of crossing.

Cptn. Boeing

Steve at the saddle

Getting our harnesses on in order to prussik along a fixed line between the summits.

Nate raps down off of summit #3

Josh on summit #3

No idea what's going on here...
Up to Summit #3

Cool reflection in the glasses

Jim

Summit #3 looking over at summit #2

Josh and Rich

Summit #2 and #1

Eat your heart out Dave

Alicia's GPS trace

Two Peaks, Two Days, One RV, and a Whole Lot of Fun (Mt. Ellinor)

2010-04-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was our "overnight" weekend in BOEALPS where we were supposed to learn the joys of snow camping. Our team had been assigned Mt Elinor (elev: 5944ft/1812m) at the southernmost tip of the Olympic Mountain Range. We joined another team in the push to set up base camp on Day 1, then summit on Day 2.
Total Mileage: 9.2mi
Pack Weight: 45lbf (up, with rope)/ 32lbf (down)

GPS trace of our route to the summit. The Red denoted the route taken on Day 2 to B-peak by those who made the Elinor summit on Day 1. Thanks to Alicia for use of her GPS

The trail head is a good 3-4 hours away from Seattle. Factor in a start time of 7am and wake up time approaches bar closing time. Lucky for some of us, Josh decided to take his RV out on Friday night after work so we wouldn't have to wake up insanely early. The Warrior was definitely awesome!
Warrior interior shot. The only way to travel!

Alicia watches the miles fly by as we chill in plush interior of the Warrior

Inside looking out

We stopped on a beach at the southern part of the Sound and found a bunch of oysters. Free dinner!

Beautiful sunset on the Sound.

Mt. Elinor in the background

Kicking steps like a champion. It had snowed a lot the week before and the approach was slow going as kicking steps was tough.

Once we made it out of the trees we set up camp at the base of the mountain. Home sweet home.

A few of us decided to go for the summit on Day 1 after we finished making camp. We figured we had enough time to make it up and kick some good steps for the rest of the teams. This would also free us up to go after A-Peak on Sunday.
Brock on the Elinor snow slope approach.

A small pano shot taken looking South from a little nook I was taking shelter in from the wind. The view was great but I only could stay a few minutes.

Summit in sight

Josh, Sergey, and Nate at the summit as the rest of us walk the final ridge

Awesome (and deadly) cornice at the summit of Elinor

View from the summit. The stitch is pretty terrible but it was beautiful. You could see Seattle and the Pacific from the top! Pano looking South to West

Part 2 to the pano above (reference the cornice). Pano view looking North to East out over the Olympic Mountains

Day two those of us who summited the day before went after A-Peak; however due to bad snow conditions we decided not to climb it. Instead we climb the next peak, which we dubbed B-Peak. I unfortunately didn't bring my camera along on this portion of the climb, but Nate has some great shots of the B-Peak team. Check out his blog (linked in the upper right)

There...and Back Again

2010-04-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

At the end of March I took a few days off to head back to Rochester and catch up with everyone who was still there. It was the only weekend we didn't have a climb for BOEALPS so it was perfect. Oh, and it was Nate's birthday too...it's like the stars were aligned!

The following were from Nate's birthday party one of the nights. Not amazing image quality, but what do you expect from some intoxicated kids in poor light.

This kid is the best

Jake was there too!

A wild Sam appears!

Mike and I drank a lot of Falcon Punch that night

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this one here

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam
One of the best pictures of the night

Motion blur is cool

Carter has the best chops ever
Asa after eating pickle cake
Wide angle Nate!

Kurt and Tyler wrestling

Big Chief and Silver Peak

2010-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Our first two "real" climbs of BOEALPS, and both had terrible weather. There's nothing like climbing when it's pouring down rain.

The following few are from the Big Chief climb on 3/21 (Starting Elevation: 4000ft, Summit Elevation 5840ft). I actually didn't take any of these because it was raining so hard when we were at the cars that I decided not to bring my camera along. It eventually turned to snow once we gained enough elevation, but no camera for me. Thanks to Steve and Alicia for the following:Getting ready to practice ice axe arresting

And practicing ice axe arresting. Think sledding...but instead of a sled you're using your body...and you have a weapon. It's one of those things that's fun to practice but you hope you never have to use. Still badass though...

I'm really yellow...

Our next outing, Silver Peak (Starting Elevation: 2130 ft. Summit Elevation: 5680ft), was supposed to be a navigation intensive outing. It turned out that we didn't have to hard of a time getting there...the approach (while long) was a pretty well defined trail and due to the low snow year we could travel on it. Again...it rained most of the day. Thankfully it stopped once we got onto the final snow field to the summit. I only had time to snap a few shots as we were setting fixed ropes and getting ready for the final push.

Alicia is ready for some summit treats...
...and Nate can't wait for the summit...so he eats a tree. Altitude can do crazy things to one's mind...Final push
The view from the top. Looks like I forgot to take a picture of that tree to complete the panoramic. Don't worry...it's just a normal tree. Nothing to see there!
This weekend we have a break for Easter. The weekend after will be our Overnight outing where we'll climb both days and snow camp. Should be a good time...and here's hoping for some better weather for a change!

Some other shenanigans (thanks Alicia!):

Mt. Erie

2010-03-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was our first "real" outing of the BOEALPS mountaineering class I am taking. We traveled up to Anacortes, WA to do some rock climbing on Mt. Erie. Nothing terribly difficult, but we were climbing in big, clunky mountaineering boots and not the tiny, grippy rock shoes I'm used to. Definitely a challenge! I only have a few pictures from there as taking pictures with an SLR proves difficult when you're hanging off the side of a rock

Beautiful view from Mt. Erie. We had to get up at 4am in order to get there...at least this made it worth it!

These were from Alicia who had a considerably smaller and easier to use camera.

GO CANADA GO! Or The Day I Pretended To Be Canadian

2010-03-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

The weekend just wasn't enough Olympic action. The following Tuesday, Nate and I donned our Canucks jerseys and headed back to the Olympics to watch Canada play Germany in the first round of the Men's Hockey playoffs. This was amazing, and the energy in the place was like nothing I've ever felt before at any other sporting event. It was very cool to get to see a lot of my favorite players all skating on the same team, and my favorite player in goal!

Sidney Crosby...the man who would eventually score the gold medal goal for team Canada.
Crosby on a break away!
Roberto Luongo about to make a save.
GOAL!!!And in case you didn't know...I was actually playing for Team Canada (I wish!) This isn't photoshopped...really! Look up Rick Nash if you don't believe me. Really cool to see my name on the ice at the Olympics.

WHISTLER!

2010-03-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started skiing when I was 7, it was a dream of mine to come to Whistler to ski. Well, that dream was made into a reality...and the Olympics were going on at the same time! Talk about luck! Honestly this was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to, and such beauty is too powerful for any camera to capture, these images are only a fraction of the magnificence that is Whistler.

Shadle is happy to be here...
...and so is Steve. Smiling was the theme for the day. Although it's kind of hard not to at a place like this!
First order of business: catching the downhill portion of the Men's Combined event. We got awesome spots right on the fence that we skied right up to. Shadle was excited about getting to see some Olympic skiing!

A Canadian skier sticks a jump. I only had my wide angle lens, so getting a really close shot was impossible. Thankfully we were one trail over from the race track! These guys were moving so fast I barely had time to get a few shots in before they were gone. After the end of the downhill we were dying to ski, and ski we did!
It's a really long way to the top of the mountain. Just when you think you're there, you've got another lift to ride.
So we kept going until we got there

Kaz acting crazy next to a 100ft. cliffAnd Nate...being Nate. Blue Steel or Magnum?

On the last run I took a dive through a bunch of glades and tree runs. I was pretty tired from the whole day (I didn't stop to eat) and decided to just take in the quiet serenity of the forest while I rested for a few minutes. So I just sat for a while and snapped this quick shot. A great way to end an amazing day.

Vancouver Redux

2010-03-02T21:44:00.001-08:00

Here's some more shots around Vancouver during the Olympics and our random adventures.

This is what "Go Time" looks like.
The Swiss house!
BC Place. This is where they have the Opening, Closing and speed skating. We couldn't get inside without tickets.
The Olympic Village, seen from Cambie bridge. This was about as close as you could get without passes. If you look closely you can see all of the flags hanging in the windows, although you don't have to look very closely to see the giant Australian boxing kangaroo!
This is what the Olympic Village was across from. Not a bad view!
The gang, sans Yash.Granville Island Public Market...think of it as the Pike Place of Vancouver
Inside the market was decked out with the Olympic spirit and filled with athletes from around the world!
Colors!
There was even a zipline set up downtown!
Riding the Aqusbus across False Creek. Yash seems to be the only one paying attention.
Vancouver Waterfront

Vancouver 2010 - American's in Canada

2010-02-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

The Olympics. A gathering of the worlds top athletes for an epic show of strength, will power, and determination. The whole world was looking at Vancouver for the last two weeks...and lucky us...it's right in our back yard! After a 2 hour drive and a fun border crossing, we arrived in Vancouver, BC ready to take in the entire world. The next few posts will all be pictures from there. I'm separating it into a few different posts because I took about 8GBs worth of pictures...and I'm only one man, so it takes time to sort through them all and process the good ones! So enjoy some from our first two days in Van:We were very lucky and Tara (Steve's girlfriend) lives right next to Granville Island and let 7 of us pile in her place. It was a little cozy but the location couldn't be beat! This was the view from where we were staying.

Shots from poking around the Granville harbor
Kaz had too much caffeine and was going crazy. Shadle was indifferent to his hyjinx
A pickup game of street hockey between some Americans and Canadians (the big USA-CAN game was the next day). I kept thinking of Wayne's World while watching this...
Other than this guy, we were the only ones in the whole city wearing American flags. At least that little kid over on the left with the Flyers jersey on knows what's up!

The Olympic torch in various states of lighting. I'm surprised these came out as well as they did with no tripod. Low f-stop saves the day again!

A night Vancouver skyline as we crossed the bridge back to the apartmentWHISTLER!!! Just a little preview of things to come :)

OFA Cabin/Superbowl Weekend

2010-02-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

So a few weekends ago all of the OFA ski instructors rented out a cabin outside of Plane, WA. After a few hours of driving and at the end of a dirt (snow and ice covered) road we found our mansion for the weekend. 15 instructors + hot tub + keg = good times.

Cody lends a helping handNothing like a roaring fire after a long day of skiing!The table was one giant lazy susan. Drunken hilarity quickly ensued!Bob - our lovely Mexican bobcat,watched over the party
Levi was confined to the kids room...along with Shadle and Steve. I'd probably look sad tooGreat minds think alike!
Adam thought it was a good idea to jump from the second story onto the couch. About a half a second later we found out that it wasn't such a good idea
I...well...I have no words for this picture.
We did ski! While everyone else was at the ski area, Steve and I decided to go to a different mountain...and ski uphill. Definitely hard work, but exhilarating...and peaceful.

At the top taking the skins off of our skis for the trip back down.
Mini-tanks in the bar during the Superbowl ended the weekend with a bang...and a large pile of people.

Seventh Heaven

2010-02-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, Seventh Heaven was the name of a long running shitty TV show back in the day, but it's taken on a new meaning out here. One of my new favorite spots to ski, and here's why:

So what you're saying is that this next run might be on the hard side?

Steeps + Trees = FunNate and the Rev makin' it happen.

We sat here looking at the view for so long that ski patrol had to come by to tell us that this part of the mountain was closing. That was after she chilled with us for a while and took in the view.

The back side of Seventh, a little socked in but pretty awesome. This is by far my favorite picture I've taken. Epic

Mike Comes to Town

2010-02-12T17:23:00.001-08:00

Mike came out to visit us as part of his birthday present (awesome idea by the way!) so we took the weekend to show him around Seattle. The drinking commenced when his plane landed at 10am on Saturday, so I'm surprised some of these pictures came out as well as they did!

A trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without a visit to Pike Place Market.

Fish and chips (and lots of beer) at the Pike Brewery!

Nice hat you've got there Steve...

How many people can you fit on a golden pig? Apparently 4, although I bet we could have gotten more if we tried. That would have made a scene though...

Definitely not inebriated at all in this picture

It's Mike the Co-op!

I don't remember taking this picture at all...but it turned out pretty good!

January at Steven's Pass

2010-01-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

Christmas and my birthday, only being two weeks apart, can sometimes lead to a lot of gifts in a short amount of time. I'd rather have it spread out over the year (ie. summer birthday) but I can't complain too much when I got a Canon 7D DSLR camera with a Canon 17-40mm f/4L USM for a combined holiday gift. Just in time for some great winter excursions too! The following are from some days at Stevens Pass spanning a few weekends in January.

The top of Big Chief Mountain. We had to hike a ways out of bounds of the ski area to get there. It took a little long, but the view was incredible...

...but being the first track down this was worth it!

Levi getting some freshies

Steve likes pow this soft...perfect to take a rest in!

Tye Mill Valley