The Slot Couloir on Snoqualmie Mountain

February 12, 2023

Colin suggested we head up to Snoqualmie Pass on Sunday to ski The Slot couloir, hoping that the north-facing snow would be in better shape than most everything else we might find. He was right.

We left Seattle at 7am, which was a painful start for me being 7 weeks into new dad sleep deprivation. We met Mitch and Richard at the Alpental backcountry parking lot and began ascending firm snow with ski crampons shortly after 8am. Our ascent was pretty straightforward weaving our way up the ridge crest and became downright pleasant as we reached more open slopes up high when the sun unexpectedly came out in full force. We stripped down to our t-shirts and soaked in a rare dose Vitamin D.

We took a brief look at the couloir on our way up to the summit and it appeared to be reasonably intimidating, but difficult to judge from above. We continued our way to the top, arriving at about 10:45am, a little under 3 hours since we’d started. We ate lunch and took in the views for a bit before clicking into our skis and shimmying down to the top of the couloir.

Colin wasted no time contemplating and zipped past a large group that wasn’t yet ready to head in at the top. I went next and had a few moments of doubt as the terrain was pretty steep and the entry was only wide enough to side slip, but things quickly became much more manageable and we got to experience some exhilarating turns in the ambiance of Snoqualmie Mountain’s frosty, rocky, North Face. We whooped and hollered our way down and then dog-legged left to catch the skin track back up.

Not much to report from our descent other than the snow became quite heavy and unpleasant as we picked our way through the trees. We were back down at the car about 4 hours and 45 minutes after we’d started, ready for some burgers and beers to round out our Sunday Funday. Great day out!

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.