Washington Pass Double-Header

April 20, 2013

News of the North Cascades Highway opening over Washington Pass spread like wildfire around the office this past week. Goran and I quickly agreed that, given the weather forecast and likelihood that visibility wouldn't be good enough to warrant an ascent of Glacier Peak or another big mountain, Washington Pass was a solid choice.

Southeast Couloir on South Early Winters Spire

We left Seattle around 7am and made it to the Blue Lake trailhead in about 3 hours, slowed slightly by a quick bout of motion sickness and painting of the shoulder with oatmeal not far from our destination. We pulled our relevant gear out of the car and quickly started skinning. The approach went quickly, with a short section through the woods and a longer section out in the open with enough visibility to see the spires on our left and not much more. We made it to the base of the couloir in just under an hour and switched our skis out for crampons and mountaineering axes.

There was a veritable boot-pack highway up the couloir and solid snow cover, so ropes were far from necessary. Things steepened and narrowed a bit as we went, but we made it up the chute very quickly. There was a group of mountaineers at the top, preparing to rappel the route. We said hi and scrambled the quick low 5th class move on frozen rock with our crampons to gain the summit. It was exceptionally soupy—we could barely see down to the valley floor in certain directions and definitely couldn't make out the other spires. With no view to take in, we quickly scrambled down and down-climbed the couloir, which went even faster than our climb up. Goran stopped at the wider section to slap on his skis and enjoy a few tight turns. I was not so bold.

The descent was pretty easy, but my knee was still hurting from our day on Baker, so I took things pretty slowly and had a few low-speed falls that must have been pretty funny to watch. We were quickly back at the car where I made salami and cream cheese sandwiches while Goran navigated the hairpin and road to Mazama.

Prime Rib

It was about 3pm by the time we made it to the parking area for the Goat Wall, but we were feeling frisky and decided to try and make it up as much of Prime Rib, a classic 11-pitch 5.9 , as we could before dark. We racked up quickly (thankfully with no trad gear) and quickly made the approach. Judging by the number of shoes left at the base, a number of groups were already high on the route. We started simul-climbing and swung simul-leads for the first 5-6 pitches. We were ticking off a pitch every 20 minutes, so we made it to the higher section with more consistent and exposed climbing in no time.

The clouds were ominous and the wind was picking up, but it didn't look like we were going to get caught in anything too nasty, so we pressed on, narrowly avoiding a little rock fall from some groups rappelling above us. We caught the next group just as we finished the 11th and final pitch. Up at the top, the wind was howling and we felt like a couple of windsocks with our hoods blowing back and tugging at our necks. The raps weren't terribly memorable or fun and involved a bunch of 3rd class walking between stations. Nonetheless, we finished the raps before dark and headed for the car with visions of burgers and beers dancing in our heads.

The 20-minute drive to Winthrop involved a number of "I can't believe we just did that" moments and high-fives. It was a big day to have started in Seattle. We made it to the brew pub with 5 minutes to spare before the kitchen closed. The burger and imperial stout could not have tasted better. There was even a live band to keep us from falling asleep on our table—it was awesome.

After a night at the Early Winters Campground and a decadent breakfast at the Mazama Store, we started the approach to Sisyphus. Unfortunately, mother nature frowned on our plans and a big snowstorm pushed through the valley. We still finished the approach, but it was obvious that we wouldn't be climbing any rock. We could only be so bummed after such a solid Saturday.

Coleman-Deming Route on Mount Baker

March 30, 2013

Goran having a blast skiing down good snow on the Roman Wall

With the promise of an unseasonably awesome early spring weekend in Seattle, Goran and I convened at work on Friday afternoon to discuss potential objectives. After considering a few routes, we flipped to Mount Baker. We couldn't find a single early season report for the North Ridge, but there were plenty for the Coleman-Deming route, including one from the previous weekend. The conditions seemed right, so we made the call to leave town on Friday night and sleep at the trailhead (or as close as we could get). After a leisurely dinner at home and some quick packing, we hit the road around 9pm, reaching the end of the road just shy of midnight. We'd brought camping gear, but the ground was wet and we were only going to squeeze out about 4 hours, so we set up our sleeping bags in the front seats, laid them flat, and passed out.

4:15am came quickly and smacked us both hard enough that gearing up was a pretty slow endeavor. Nevertheless, we had our bags packed with all sorts of gear (crevasse rescue and avalanche), and began skinning up the road. We were about three miles from the trailhead and made it there under headlamp, as the ambient light slowly rose. The trail was pretty easily identifiable as it looked like a few parties had headed up the day or night before. We followed their tracks and paralleled them in places where the tracks had frozen into a bobsled run. Conditions were still pretty bulletproof at tree-line when we got our first glimpse of the summit. We'd come a significant portion of the distance at that point and treated ourselves to a nice little snack.

We headed straight up the ridge from the tree-line break and actually found it easiest to go directly up rather than switchback, given the icy conditions and lack of ski crampons. The sun was just peeking over from the far side of the mountain at that point and made for some pretty dramatic, long shadows. The snow thankfully started to soften up as we made it over one crest and then followed the skin track climber's left up a steeper section. As we made it over the next crest, we could see a bunch of ski descent tracks and another party higher up the Coleman Glacier. We also passed someone's high camp, which looked like a cozy spot on the snow-covered glacier, relatively well protected and with an amazing view to the North and West.

From this spot high on the Coleman Glacier, we stayed up toward the Black Buttes and Colfax Peak, twisting through the icefalls and avoiding any crevasses that all seemed to be chock-full of snow. A few more sections of easy skinning brought us to the Coleman-Deming Saddle and much steeper terrain up the Pumice Ridge and Roman Wall. We started skinning and quickly realized that boot-packing would be necessary. The change in style of motion was greatly appreciated—my hip-flexors had been on fire and not well traveled on skins so far this season, so putting the skis on my pack and taking step after step worked out quite well. We met a few other parties on the Roman Wall and had at least one break to down some calories.It was a long day already at that point and we were both aware that it was going to be a fun, but long descent.

After booting up the rest of the Roman Wall, we slapped the skis back on and made the easy traverse to the summit. A number of other parties were up there and we all traded off doing obligatory photo shoots. It was a gorgeous day with a little bit of haze and the North Cascades were out in force. Shuksan was especially prominent in our view, but we could see Glacier and all the way down to Rainier. Whenever I get on one of these summits, I can't help but realize that there truly is a lifetime of climbing in the area. Once we both started cooling off, we skinned back to the Roman Wall, nearly heading too far to skier's right before we realized our mistake and dropped in. The first few turns were a bit spicy for me, but it quickly opened up to really fun skiing on snow that had loosened up a bit, but wasn't wet. It was awesome, especially with the view down to the saddle and glaciers in front of us.

We continued skiing down and never needed our skins again. The section at the top of the Coleman Glacier was especially powdery and fun—we spent a while whooping and loving the experience despite aching quads and lots of unnecessary gear in our packs, weighing us down. In an effort to find an easier way out, we traversed higher than we'd come in on the trail in hopes that we could avoid skiing out the tight, winding path. Unfortunately, the snow had warmed significantly, but still had a bit of a crust. The combination was really tough for me and I proceeded to eat it a number of times into the soft snow. We eventually made it back down to the main trail and found the ski out from there to be surprisingly easy. I snow-plowed to glory with some total survival skiing. The final bit on the road back to the car was exceptionally easy going, but still tough given how tired my legs were. I stopped a few times to shake them out before coasting to the car and ripping off my boots. We were elated and commiserated about our feet that felt like hamburger…we'd done about 9,000ft of elevation gain over the day and had covered just shy of 20 miles. It was a big one.

With celebratory beers complete and shoes removed, we began the drive home, having the standard, jubilant, retrospective conversation people have after big days in the mountains. It was a great day and first climb with Goran.

Circumnavigation of Chair Peak

February 18, 2013

After two awesome days of climbing in Vantage, I came back to town and met Cam for a little President's Day ski tour. As we drove up towards Snoqualmie Pass, I didn't actually know what our objective would be--I assumed a simple skin up to Pineapple Pass and some laps. As we pulled into the upper parking lot, Cam started talking about circumnavigating Chair Peak. My lack of preparation (no real lunch other than bars, aching arms from two days of climbing, and first time on skins for the season), was mildly alarming to me, but I successfully suppressed any fear and put a smile on. It was time to get dragged around a bit.

We passed a group while still heading toward The Tooth (mainly due to Cam's stance that switchbacks are typically unnecessary and that, as long as skins are grabbing, one should go straight up) and then took a right to start skirting Bryant Peak. We hit one section steep enough that a boot-pack was necessary, but otherwise were able to make good progress on our skis.

Just over the Bryant-Chair Col, we hit an incredibly fun section of powder with only one other track. We cruised down toward Melakwa Lake (ok, Cam cruised and I did one submarine-tip double-ejection superman fall, then cruised). From there, it was a long, but pretty mellow, ascent up to Melakwa Pass, where we struggled to see where the cornice broke since the light was so flat. Cam grabbed some pine needles and chucked them over the lip so we could see. With a little more confidence, we headed down a steep, fluffy pitch of skiing to Chair Lake, popped the skins on briefly to get over one more rise, and then had a longer, really fun descent to Snow Lake. As we headed down our run, which felt plenty hard for me, some skiers were coming down a tight chute from higher on Chair Peak. It looked burly.

Snow Lake was gorgeous and perfectly flat for quite a ways, so Cam broke a "conversation" track next to me and we chatted our way until the last climb, which brought us up above Source Lake. A bumpy descent through avalanche debris got us down to the well-traveled 'bobsled run' and back out to our car. The whole adventure was about 5 hours and we weren't pushing the pace much. Good times!