Skiing down beneath Colfax Peak’s icefall

Coleman-Deming on Mount Baker

May 4, 2019

Colin and Jen were headed up for Jen’s first time on Baker this weekend and I decided to tag along. We drove up Friday night pretty late, arriving just below the trailhead at midnight. A 5am wakeup had us moving at about 5:30am in trail runners with skis and boots on our backs.

The road had some snow on it, but much of the trail was bare or too patchy to skin, so we were glad to wear shoes until the normal clearing at the base of Heliotrope Ridge where we switched to skis. It was icy enough in the early morning that we needed ski crampons to get up the ridge, but things softened quickly in the sun and we took the ski crampons off after gaining the ridge.

We took a direct line through the flat camp area while most folks were going high—this saved us some time. We were at the saddle at about 9:45am and switched to boots and crampons here as the ridge looked pretty icy and not worth skinning. This was the right call. I put my head down through the Roman Wall and got to the summit at 11:30am on the dot. I’d gone quickly enough that I decided to wait for Colin and Jen so we could ski down together, but got cold up there in increasing winds, so I skied down to the saddle to wait in a warmer spot, running into them on the way and letting them know.

The Roman Wall was pretty icy up high for the first 500 feet or so, but then softened up a little bit and was more enjoyable. Skiing from the saddle down to our shoes was much more fun, particularly in the middle where there was a great corn harvest. It got a bit wet and heavy down low, but never terrible, even with my matchstick 78-waist skis. The hike out went easily and we were back at the car around 3:30pm.

Lover's Lane on Lane Peak

April 28, 2019

Lane Peak’s North Face with Lover’s Lane coming up from the bottom left

With some colder weather, consolidated spring snow following a warm spell, and a short weather window, I talked Colin into heading down to Rainier and getting on one of the couloirs of Lane Peak. When we got to the Narada Falls parking lot on Sunday morning at about 9:15am, I scoped out the face with some binoculars and it seemed like Lover’s Lane would go.

We hiked up the steep face to the road, went around to the bend, descended through the trees, and were at the base of the North face in about 35 minutes. We put crampons on and racked up on the flat before heading up the slope towards our couloir.

The snow was nice and firm, but still gave a little for steps. Since Colin is getting used to more wintery routes, we decided to rope up and throw in some protection along the way. Where the couloir necked down, I found a cam on the left and proceeded to put in one piece every 20 meters or so in order to always have one thing on our doubled-in-half 60m twin rope. The conditions were so much fun that I let out some whoops and was having a grand time. At the high constriction, there was even enough ice to pop in a screw and we got full swings into the neve above for another 50 feet or so.

At the top of the couloir, I descended to the far side and put Colin on belay from the tree anchor. We did the double rope rap down into The Zipper and then soloed up to the top of it quickly, doing our best Ueli Steck impressions. From there, we curled around to the South side and followed the gully to the top, where we ate our lunch and watched the clouds roll in.

The descent went smoothly and we were back at the car about 4h 45m after we’d started. Really fun climb in great condition right now.

North Arete on Matterhorn Peak

September 10, 2018

Goran originally planned to fly up to Seattle for a fall weekend in the Cascades, but the weather up here wasn’t great, so we switched to a 3-day weekend in the Sierra, targeting the Evolution Traverse. I flew into San Jose late on Friday night and we drove toward Tioga Pass, hoping to sleep at 9,000 feet to acclimatize a bit. Unfortunately, traffic and my motion sickness delayed us a bit and we spent the night on the other side of Yosemite at only 5,000 feet or so. We started the drive decently early on Saturday morning and made a stop in Mammoth for provisions before busting down to Bishop and packing up.

We quickly hiked up and over Lamarck Col to get to the Darwin Bench in about 4.5 hours, hoping to start the traverse that day, but the elevation hit us like a ton of bricks as we went around the Darwin Canyon lakes. Goran was feeling pretty nauseous and I got quite the headache. We ended up spending the night and deciding it would be best to save the traverse for a time when we were better acclimated, so we hiked out and then did some cragging in Pine Creek Canyon as a consolation prize before deciding to use our last day to climb Matterhorn Peak.

After camping nearby, we crossed the creek and started hiking at 6am. The trail was pretty quick and we found a pretty efficient way up the cross-country section. The sun-cupped glacier was also easy travel, so it was only the last few hundred vertical feet up loose scree that was slow going. We made it to the base of the route in about 3.5 hours and then started simul-climbing around 10am. The terrain was mostly pretty mellow, so we made good time, reaching the corner pitch (which was quite fun) about an hour later and then getting to the true summit at about noon.

Enjoying some exposure on the final section to the summit

It was a bit chilly in the shade as we went, but we kept moving pretty fast and eventually got back in the sun for the last section. Our lunch on top was lovely and warm with great views. We started our descent at about 12:30pm and got to the car at 4:15pm for a 10.25-hour day. Fun route and nice peak, though I would have liked a bit higher climb:approach ratio!