Table Mountain Circumnavigation

April 22, 2018

Kelsey and I originally planned to ski Ruth Mountain this weekend to soak in views without worrying too much about avalanche potential after recent spring storms and warming temperatures. We drove up to the Hannegan Pass Road on Saturday night, planning to drive up to the trailhead, but quickly encountering more snow on the road than we could drive through. We called it a night there and gave it a brief shot early in the morning, but quickly discovered that the road was melted out further up, which would have meant walking over 6 extra miles each way, so we bailed and drove up to the Baker ski area instead, took a nap, and then headed off for a tour around Table Mountain.

We left the car just shy of 9am under clear skies with awesome views around the range. We made it to Artist Point in about 35 minutes, ripped skins and did a long traverse below Table's South face, and climbed up to the base of Ptarmigan Ridge in about 70 minutes from the car. The ski down to Mazama Lake was pretty fun, though short lived. We skinned back up here and cruised across Iceberg Lake and up the steeper section to the saddle between Table and Mazama Dome about 1 hour and 50 minutes in.

The first 500 feet or so was pretty fun skiing on easy terrain before finishing the ski on increasingly heavy, wet snow and traversing, then skinning out to the car, finishing in 2.5 hours. Beautiful day and great views with better-than-expected snow. I just wish we'd gotten on top of something a bit more ambitious!

Scraping my way down at the edge of the basin

The Brothers East Basin

April 1, 2018

From my apartment in Seattle, The Brothers are a prominent landmark on the Westerly horizon. During clear days in the winter and spring, the snowy East Basin looks like an alpine playground, so I just had to check it out.

Kelsey and I drove over on Saturday night after dinner, arriving at the Lena Lake Trailhead at about 10pm with enough time to enjoy a beer before going to sleep in the back of the car. We woke up at 4am and were on the trail with skis on our backs by 4:45am. It was an hour on the dot to the sign at the South end of Lena Lake. We made a bit of a wrong turn here in the dark, thinking we needed to stay right along the lake and realized our error after hitting a pretty bushwhacky section right next to the lake. We doubled back and regained the normal trail, only losing 15 minutes or so, which took us exactly where we wanted to go—past the Lena Lake campground and to the Northwest corner of the lake, where we crossed the river and headed up the Valley of Silent Men.

We started encountering ice and snow on the trail, but it wasn't consistent enough to start skinning, so we plodded along, sometimes in foot-deep snow, until we were in the lower-angle area at about 3,100 ft and 3 hours in or so. It started snowing very lightly at this point, but was calm. We skinned up, past a campsite, and to the head of the valley where the route finding began about 4.5 hours in at 3,600 ft. While it looked tricky, with a series of cliffs and tighter trees, it wasn't actually that bad. The snow was an unfortunate breakable crust, which was pretty slick, but could be packed just slightly, so we took turns bashing our way up. A couple of sections were too steep and tight to skin, so we booted those brief bits, breaking fully through the crust and post holing up to our knees. A few curses were uttered for sure.

Halfway through this section, the weather started to get worse—visibility reduced and the snow started falling harder. While it wasn't pleasant, it also didn't feel unsafe, so we kept going, hoping that things would clear up for us. We eventually made it to the top of the steep section and entered the basin at about 5,000 ft 6 hours in. It was a total milk bottle up there, at times so bad that we felt vertigo not being sure if we were about to be going up or down the slopes. Still holding out hope, we kept going up and got to the high bench at 5,800 ft about 6.5 hours in. At this point, we were quite close to the top and couldn't see it at all, so we sat down and decided to have lunch while waiting it out. Going up the couloir in the whiteout didn't seem wise and would only be to tag the summit—not really the goal.

45 minutes later, the visibility hadn't improved, so we started skiing down. About 1,500 feet lower, as we were in the middle of the cliff band section, it cleared up significantly and the sun came out. Damn! We decided it was hard to know if the summit was actually clear and it wasn't worth heading back up, so we kept going down, reversing our tracks, switching back to shoes at the same point where we'd left them (and the whiskey), and hiking our way back out to the car, reaching it about 11.75 hours after we'd started.

While it was a bummer to not get on top, I'd rather do it when the views are clear and I can look back at my apartment as a spec on the horizon. It was a good training mission regardless.

It was not lost on us that we'd been fooled on April 1st. We drowned our sorrows at the Hamma Hamma Oyster Saloon.

Dawn on Mount Tasman from the upper Linda Glacier

Linda Glacier on Aoraki Mount Cook

December 7, 2017

A Year In The Making

A year ago in November, I was a day away from buying tickets with three friends to head down to New Zealand and climb Aoraki Mount Cook, but I snapped what was left of the scapholunate ligament in my right wrist and had reconstructive surgery that put me out of commission for months. Having recovered from that, Dale, Owen and I bought tickets to do the trip for real. Then, in October, I dislocated my knee in a freak sport climbing accident and tore my PCL and part of my medial meniscus. I thought the trip was toast. But I talked to the ortho doc and started doing PT like mad. 8 weeks later, we boarded a plane (a series of planes, really) for Christchurch.

The Approach

We provisioned up quickly in Christchurch on the day we arrived, crashed in an Airbnb, and then woke up early the next day to drive to Mount Cook and start the approach. The drive was beautiful—past sheep pastures, alpine meadows, and the stunning Lake Pukaki. We checked in with the climbing ranger at the Department of Conservation who told us about the approach hike and route conditions. She was excited that we were planning to hike in as most folks fly in via helicopter these days to the Plateau Hut. She said if you can do the approach, you can climb the mountain. It sounded like there would be space for us in the hut, though it was going to be packed.

We suited up in the early evening and left the Tasman Glacier car park, headed for the Ball Shelter about 5 miles in. The hike is mostly on an old road which eventually washes out and turns into a trail on and around the moraine. We got to the hut in about 2.5 hours and settled in for an early bedtime and early start the next day.

We started a little after dawn the next day, searching around for a bit to find the best way down to the Tasman Glacier and eventually deciding that a shallow gully near the hut was best. We dropped about 500 vertical feet down to the glacier on scree—not so savory. Then we kept heading North on the glacier until the confluence of the Ball and Tasman Glaciers, where we had to navigate some undulating glacial ice covered in rock debris. It was at this point that we got our first view of the meat of the approach—about 3,000 feet of steep scree before snow on the Boys Glacier. We stood there for a bit. Nobody talked about bailing, but it was clear we were all thinking about it.

Crossing the Ball Glacier on our way to the scree festival to reach the Boys Glacier

The traverse of the Ball Glacier went fine and we used the last snow on the face to get as high as we could before stepping onto the downward escalator that we rode up the hill for the next few hours. It was bad, but not absolutely horrendous. We were very happy to reach the bench at about 5,250 feet and had lunch right at the edge of the snow. It seemed that the difficulties of the approach were over and that we just needed to slog up the Boys Glacier, over one col, down a bit, and then over Cinerama Col before descending and traversing the Grand Plateau.

Creating a channel across the bergschrund below Cinerama Col

It turned out the technical crux of the day was still ahead of us—the bergschrund on the Caroline Glacier just below Cinerama Col was quite sunbaked and the snow bridge a party from earlier in the season had used no longer existed, so we had to get inventive. We found one spot where a few-foot thick piece of snow was still attached and stood on that, using a pole to create a channel in the snow through which we climbed up and to the other side. Dale got hero points for finding a way there.

From the col, it was a solid hour and a half traversing the Grand Plateau in very slushy snow. I wasn't at all frustrated by the conditions though, since it was so beautiful up there, we could see the hut, and the ranger's quote hung with me: "if you can do the approach, you can climb the mountain." It was especially true for my knee, which had held up beautifully.

We found the last 3 beds in the Plateau Hut, got some words of encouragement from guides and folks in the hut who hadn't seen many people hike in before, and crashed after agreeing that we needed more than 2 hours of rest before heading up the mountain, so our next day would be a full rest. We woke up late, ate all day, and enjoyed some down time in the gorgeous Plateau Hut. A number of parties had headed up that night and only a couple of them had made it to the summit—many parties turned around due to the state of the glacier and one party turned around at the summit rocks due to their timing in getting there.

The Climb

The ice gully to access the summit rocks

We awoke at midnight after a few hours of fitful sleep, had breakfast and geared up, then left the hut just after 1am. One other party, a guide and client, was also headed up that day. We were on a similar time table, which was good to be able to keep eyes on each other. In the darkness, but with a pretty full moon, we traversed the plateau and headed up the Linda Glacier on mostly frozen snow, finding many gaps to work around and jump over in the process. Three crossings in particular were more tenuous and, in the darkness, the crevasses seemed to go on forever below us.

Thankfully, we made it through the maze with the help of the boot pack from the day before to guide us. We then turned left and headed up the upper Linda, underneath the huge ice fall and through a massive amount of debris, before making it to the hard left turn below the Gun Barrels. Dawn was just starting at this point and Mount Tasman lit up in beautiful hues of purple before getting bathed in golden sunshine as we continued up snow, across more crevasses, and to the saddle below the summit rocks on Zurbriggen Ridge.

The access gully for the summit rocks was moderately steep ice and snice, which we simul-climbed. It produced heroic one-hit wonders. Dale let out some big whoops he was having so much fun. The summit rocks took a bit of time with about 6 30m 'pitches' or so. We simul-climbed some bits and pitched out others, given the amount of loose rock with little snow and ice to keep it together.

At the top of the summit rocks, it was 9:45am. We were all nervous about the ice fall and snow bridges below us in the afternoon heat, so we stopped there and debated our options. We eventually settled on comfort in the fact that we could skirt the bottom edge of the debris and that the snow bridges still had some life in them, as well as the fact that the snow bridges were pretty far down the route and we could bivy there if absolutely necessary.

So we pressed on, reaching the summit 45 minutes later after climbing pretty exposed, steep snow and running all the way around the bergschrund on the ice cap to the North Ridge before being able to gain the summit. We celebrated briefly before starting to head down. Everything went smoothly on the way down, including the raps down the loose summit rocks and one gap that we had to jump since the bridge had collapsed and the snow was too soft to simply step over. We took turns giving each other boot-axe belays and hucking ourselves across the thankfully down-hill gap.

On Zurbriggen Ridge below the summit rocks

We made it back to Plateau hut a bit before 6pm with plenty of daylight to spare. We were elated and had a feast with all the food left by the parties flying out that evening. It turned out only our party of 3 and a party of 2 Japanese climbers were in the hut that night, so it was a stark contrast to our first night with 28 other folks in there. Everyone was leaving because the weather was closing in—strong winds were expected overnight, but it was supposed to be good enough in the morning to fly, so we arranged for a helicopter and flew out in a nice lull in the weather with our new Japanese friends. Having expected to spend more time up there to climb more peaks and/or wait for weather, we found ourselves with over a week to explore the southern island of New Zealand. Not bad at all!

We lucked out in terms of weather and conditions. It was a great climb, with lots of different experience required to reach the top—endurance, glacier travel, steep snow and ice, as well as rock.