Table Mountain Circumnavigation and Herman Saddle

December 24, 2020

Owen and I drove separately from Seattle and enjoyed a wonderful socially-distant, but still highly social, ski tour on Christmas Eve. Nearly every bridge on I-5 North had a spinout crash on it in the early morning and the drive took a bit longer than normal, but was worth it as we crested the last few rises to the Mount Baker Ski Area and views of Shuksan looking regal in its winter coat.

We cruised up on the edge of the groomer to Artist Point in about 35 minutes. A quick traversing ski brought us to the flats below the South Face of Table Mountain. The wind which had been blowing up at Artist Point was nearly gone and we enjoyed the beach-like atmosphere and Shuksan views.

About 1 hour and 15 minutes in, we were on the Southern shoulder of Table Mountain, checking out a cool igloo some folks had made there with an expansive view of Baker. A pretty icy and wind-crusty traversing ski brought us down to Mazama Lake. We quickly transitioned and crossed Iceberg Lake. The climb from the lake was pretty icy and required care skinning up without ski crampons.

We weren’t ready for our day to be over at this point, so we decided to head up to Herman Saddle to see what it looked like on the North side. After a short ski down, we skinned up and were able to skin the whole way on sun-softened snow. Unfortunately, the North-facing slope down to the lake looked icy and windblown, so we called it good here and had lunch in the sun with a nice view of Baker.

Our turns down to Bagley Lake had their moments, but conditions certainly weren’t amazing. No bother—spending a day out of the house with a good friend I hadn’t seen in months and phenomenal views more than made up for it. Great day.

Hurricane Ridge Ride

September 10, 2020

Looking to escape the smoke, I found some green air quality indicators over the Olympic Peninsula on Thursday and decided to make a one-day trip to Port Angeles for the big climb up Hurricane Ridge. Leaving the town, the climb starts almost immediately and only relents a couple of times. Knowing it would be around 17 miles of straight climbing, I tried to settle into a rhythm and pace I could maintain.

As the road climbed higher, the views started to open up on my left and they were thankfully pretty clear up high, with smoke clearly filling the valleys below. I could eventually see the Mount Olympus massif in the hazy distance. With few cars on the road and little smoke, it was a pretty nice day for the ride despite the heat and I saw a couple of other cyclists on their way down. I started to fade a bit at the end but was pretty happy with the effort overall.

I arrived at the main parking lot just shy of two hours after I’d left Port Angeles and decided to continue on to the end of the road. I must have done a pretty good job emptying the tank because the short climbs on that last little bit were really tough and I felt myself bonking hard. I stopped at the end of the road for a massive dose of sugar before turning around, soaking in the views at the visitor center, and then barely touching the brakes on the way down. Great climb!

Upper Exum Ridge on Grand Teton

September 6, 2020

When I was 17, my family took a trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone. As a young rock climber at the time, I was captivated by the Tetons and my parents set me up with an Exum Guide for a day of multi-pitch trad climbing in a canyon near the Grand. It took over 20 years to return on this road trip vacation to the Wind River Range and Tetons for me to get a chance to climb The Grand.

We’d just hiked out of the Winds on Saturday, having spent 5 days back there climbing the gorgeous granite spires and enjoying the Cirque of the Towers area, so we were a little tired, but well acclimated. Dale decided to drive down from Bozeman to meet us and we got together in the Lupine Meadows parking lot at 5am to go for the Upper Exum Ridge, figuring that the Full Exum with Labor Day traffic on the mountain wasn’t a great idea to go for car to car.

We hiked briskly in the dark, then early morning light, which illuminated a significant wildfire smoke haze. In a little over 3 hours, we had made it to the lower saddle, where we took a break to switch from shorts to pants and snag some water from the magical hose there.

Note: for a detailed topo of the route, check out Wyoming Whiskey.

We quickly headed up the low scramble of the Owen-Spalding and found the low crossover to get to Wall Street. As soon as we went through the notch, we saw at least 5 parties in a bottleneck at the step across. It was blustery and cold in the gully and we were not excited to wait. Dale planned to solo the route, while Colin and I were going to simul-climb quickly next to him. We debated our options and started moving back to go up the Owen-Spalding when we looked back from the crossover to see that most parties had cleared, so we headed back, geared up in a protected alcove, and then waited for one party to finish and another to do the step before pulling across into the daylight and starting our glorious romp up the route.

I wasn’t sure how much 5.5 to expect on the route, but knew many folks soloed it and, after doing it, can understand why. It’s very secure, with good hands and feet nearly everywhere. I placed a cam here and there when things got more exposed, but otherwise climbed along with Dale at a fast pace, thanking parties as we climbed past. Memorable sections were the Golden Stair, the Friction Pitch, the V-Pitch, and a boulder move up high. Everything else was fun, but quite low angle or stepped and unexposed. We made it from the step across at the end of Wall Street to the Summit in 1.5 hours.

The views were unfortunately quite smoky, but we were still happy to have gotten up the Grand and via such a fun route. We soaked in the summit for a while and had lunch before starting down, getting stuck in a long line of rappel beginners for an hour, and then eventually getting our turn before scampering down the rest of the route. The hike out from the lower saddle was uneventful, though a bit painful with long, low-angled switchbacks and a longer section at the bottom than it felt like we’d done in the dark that morning. We made it back to the car in 13.5 hours, then immediately drove to Jenny Lake for a brisk swim and then on to Bradley Lake Trailhead parking lot for chips, pickles, and beers on Dale’s lovely van “terrace.” What a wonderful day with great friends and exceptionally gratifying to climb the mountain after thinking about it for over 20 years.