Little Tahoma via Paradise

May 13, 2023

Little Tahoma had been on my list for years but I had always prioritized other peaks and routes. With a heat wave this weekend and one day to get outside, getting high in MRNP seemed like a good plan. Colin and I decided to be responsible mountain citizens and secure a permit, which meant with work schedules that we had to wait until 7:30am when the ranger station was open. We left Seattle at 5am, secured our permit after waiting in line for a bit while all geared up at 8am, and left the Paradise parking lot just after 8am.

It was smooth sailing in the conga line up the Muir Snowfield until we curved climber’s right away from the beaten path around 8,500 feet. As we traversed onto the Cowlitz Glacier, we decided to deviate from the guidebook instructions and rise up to almost 9,000 feet to get around the crevasses and seracs. This involved a little extra effort, but was very smooth and straightforward. We then were able to slide our way down to 8,600 feet again to cross the rock rib with only a short stint on rock and dirt.

The Ingraham Glacier was even more straightforward. We did a descending traverse to 8,350 feet or so before rising back up to the Whitman Glacier access col. This face was pretty firm but we didn’t need crampons since there was an existing boot pack. We reached the col 3 hours and 15 minutes after starting our day—reasonably quick compared to the ski touring guidebook estimates, so it seemed our up and down approach across the Cowlitz and Ingraham Glaciers had paid off.

After a snack, we booted (with some terrible isothermal post holing) up the steep snow just below the rock cliffs and did a steep traverse on snow that was pretty warm and slushy but not showing signs of full-on wet slide. This brought us to the cirque below the Southeast Face of Little Tahoma at about 9,200 feet. We skinned for a ways before hooking into a nice boot pack which carried us up about 800 feet below the summit. Some trail breaking in snow from here (ski tracks must have filled in the boot pack) got us to 100 feet from the top where we scrambled up rock, across the ridge, and then down and back up to the summit.

The last 50 feet or so were heads-up in ski boots, but we never felt the need to get the rope out in either direction. We reached the summit 6 hours and 20 minutes from the car and soaked in our up-close-and-personal view of Rainier. The exposure on the Northwest Face of Little Tahoma is pretty breathtaking from the top.

Our descent from the summit to our skis was forgettable in deep isothermal slush but the ski from there made up for it, with heavy, buttered corn and a perfect slope angle to enjoy it. We retraced our steps back out and got to the car just over 9 hours after we’d started. This day ended up being a bit bigger and more effortful than expected with our extra elevation gain in both directions and the slushy snow, but was right within the time expectation we had. Great day!

The Triad

September 25, 2022

The Triad had come up a few times in conversations with climbing partners over the years. Goran had suggested we climb it on our way to the West Ridge of Eldorado. Colin and I had thought about ski touring over to it from Hidden Lake Lookout. But it hadn’t quite made it to the top of the list yet. During this odd time when my rock climbing shape is at an all-time low, it seemed like a nice single-day, late-summer objective.

Mitch and I drove to the Hidden Lake Trailhead on Saturday night and found a nice flat spot to sleep for the night. We’d packed and remembered everything except for his sleeping bag, and so he spent a pretty sleepless handful of hours while I happily floated off to sleep. We got moving right around 5:15am on Sunday morning, making quick time and reaching our turnoff from the main trail in 1 hour. Less than 15 minutes later, we were at the saddle to start the ridge as the sunrise alpenglow started lighting up the North Cascades.

The heather-covered ridge was truly awesome, with views of Baker, Shuksan, and The Pickets to the Northwest and the North Cascades laid out all around us otherwise, with Eldorado, Forbidden, Boston, Sahale, and Johannesburg close by and a close-up view of Hidden Lake. We hiked along the ridge for about 30 minutes before finding the spot to descend to the glacier on the North side of the ridge. It was quite firm in the early morning and we were glad we’d brought aluminum crampons and light axes.

The 3rd class descent toward the South from the next saddle at the end of the glacier section was pretty terrible. Loose rock and dirt on top of very steep rock and heather made for a stressful hundred feet or so before it turned into just plain unpleasant scree. We were glad to get past this “Drainage of Despair” as Mitch dubbed it and into the next drainage to the East, which was much better-behaved. We found our way down and across this drainage, then headed straight for the high saddle which started the East Ridge. It was about 9:45am at this point, so roughly 4.5 hours from the car. Things had slowed down considerably since the trail had ended on the ridge.

We had a snack and put our harnesses on before heading along the ridge. It was relatively straightforward to gain the ridge via some ramps and then a slabby section that switched back near the crest where we saw an old rap anchor. The very next section was the low-5th class pinnacle, which we decided to rope up for. I plugged in a little bit of gear, but the protection wasn’t great. Thankfully, while the climbing was exposed and relatively steep, it was quite easy with good holds throughout. I belayed Mitch through this section and then we scrambled together to the true summit at 11:15am, 6 hours after leaving the car. Our up-close-and-personal view of Eldorado was pretty awesome.

There’s not much to report about our descent. We rappelled the 5th class step and scrambled through everything else. The heather-covered ridge was now showing off all of its colors. And we saw a bear sauntering along the trail ahead of us. Whiskey helped me float down from the main trail junction pretty expeditiously for a car-to-car of about 10.5 hours. While the climb itself was short lived and the Drainage of Despair was pretty terrible, it was a gorgeous place and a nice, low-5th climb in the heart of the North Cascades.

Mount Fernow

September 5, 2022

Mount Fernow had been on my list to climb since my first trip to the Entiat, mainly, as George Mallory famously said, “because it’s there.” It’s the eighth-highest peak in Washington State at 9,249 feet. My research of the route itself suggested there was a reasonably high price of admission in the form of cross-country travel from Leroy Basin, loose scree, and a route that looked to be mainly 3rd class with a small bit of 4th at the top. Recovering from getting COVID two weeks prior, I wasn’t sure if this climb would set me back or make me feel better. It was a bit of a roll of the dice.

Mitch and I drove out on the Sunday evening of Labor Day weekend seeing that the best day for it was on the holiday itself. We crashed at 11pm in a tent at the surprisingly quiet parking lot at 3,500 feet with alarms set for 4am and got moving in the morning just after 4:30am.

Having been back in the area for the North Face of Maude earlier this summer, the approach to Leroy Basin felt all too familiar, but it helped to bang much of it out in the dark. It took us exactly 2 hours to reach the camping area in Leroy Basin. From there, we made it to the 7,800-foot col on the shoulder of Seven Fingered Jack in another hour or so.

The view from this col was a bit disheartening. The descent looked really loose and it didn’t look like things would improve much all the way to the summit. We made our way down and it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked most of the way, but it was certainly unsavory. At 8:30am, we had finished losing vertical down to 6,600 feet or so.

The route itself was a lot less steep than it looked from the col and wasn’t as loose as the approach until the top where it was equally shitty. We reached the summit at 10:25am, just shy of 6 hours after we’d started. The views were thankfully stellar, with Glacier Peak feeling like we could reach out and touch it. We had lunch and then retraced our steps. It was painful. A huge amount of loose rock made for quite the ankle workout, including plenty of near misses, slips, and falls. By the time we made it back to the col, we were very much over the loose rock.

We made it back to the car before 5pm for about a 12-hour day, which felt reasonably quick for the amount of cross-country travel we’d done on loose terrain as well as the nearly 8,000 feet of up and down. Thankfully, I felt a better over the course of the day. I’m glad I’ve done it, but I have absolutely no desire to go back. Not recommended.