Chair Peak, Northeast Buttress

I have finally reached the point in my winter climbing that I no longer feel the need to wait for trip reports to make a run at a potential route.  In Washington if you do that, by the next weekend or opportunity the chance will have slipped through your fingers.  It means that I now accept the risk of taking "the tools for a long walk" in order to reap the rewards.  Two weeks ago, Eric K. and I made an attempt at the Cauthorn-Wilson route on Cutthroat Peak in the North Cascades.  It wasn't in, but it was close.  And now, the highway is closed, so we won't get another chance at it.  It was a fun day anyway.  Yesterday, type 1.5 fun was had on Chair.  For those of you who are familiar with that grading system, you will appreciate that for Winter climbing, that is pretty dang good.  In fact, I don't think conditions could have possibly been better.  The sun was out.  There was no wind.  There was no avalanche danger.  The ice was present where needed, and protectable.  The snow was perfect for cruiser climbing.  I had an awesome partner, my good buddy Matt.

We met in North Bend around 6:30, and left the Alpental parking lot at 7:20.  We took the Summer trail due to minimal snow cover, which worked out.  The approach went smoothly, and in a little over two hours we were racking up.  As we made the final approach from the Thumb we saw a party of two stalling out while attempting to gain the approach ridge by making a few rock moves, and eventually they downclimbed.  We headed climber's right from the Thumb and took an easy snow gully to gain the ridge.  That party ended up bailing altogether, which left us being first at the base.  As soon as I got started on the first pitch a party of four showed up.

Northeast Buttress of Chair Peak

 After surveying the options, I decided to take the right variation on pitch one.  The left variation actually looked like easier climbing with fairly moderate ice, but it looked thin enough that protection would be difficult.  The right line was more mixed, but looked more protectable.  Two or three years ago Matty had led the right variation, and at the time stated that it was one of the hardest leads of his life.  Conditions must have been better this time.  I found the first pitch interesting, thought-provoking, challenging, but never scary.  It was very protectable, and super-fun!  I used mostly rock gear, and clipped one existing piton.  There was a short ice step, but I didn't place a screw.  There are plenty of big trees at the top for anchors.

Pitch one has two variations, we took the right

 Matt took the second pitch.  "Safety Matt", as he calls himself.  In his words, he got lured by the siren song of rock outcroppings for protection on climber's right.  The easier climbing was straight up the open snow, which was perfect 50-degree styrofoam for Ueli-stylin'.  He ended up stopping halfway up and bringing me up.  At that point we got passed by the couple behind us, two out of the party of four that came up after us.

Pitch two, perfect 50-degree styrofoam snow

Matt hangs out at the second belay

 That was unfortunate.  I led the rest of the way up to the base of the ice pitch.  But there was only one good place for an ice anchor at its base, and the previous party was established there.  So I went climber's left a little and built an anchor out of one 22" screw and a picket.  The unfortunate thing was that it was directly in the line of fire from above.  I got shelled big-time.  Once the party moved on we moved the anchor over.  I led the ice pitch as well, as Matty wasn't feeling to solid after his struggle on the steep snow pitch.  The ice section was short, but steep.  It was slightly overhanging at first, then mellowed out.  I'd give it a WI3 rating currently.

Pitch three, short steep ice step

 After pulling the bulge it was back to 50-degree styrofoam to the summit.  It is longer than 60 meters from the base of the ice to the summit plateau, with marginal protection in between.  I placed one piton, slung one shrub, and then we simul-climbed.  I felt pretty solid, but it was interesting to be simul-climbing, knowing that Matt was still on overhanging ice.

Josh on top in perfect weather 

Matty is always happy in the mountains

 We made the summit first, then the other party joined us.  Their other twosome had never made the top of the first pitch.  We are still not sure whether they made it partway and then lowered off, or never attempted it, or what.  We ended up teaming up for the descent.  There are two possible gullies that can be descended from the summit to gain the final descent gully.  From the true summit, the best one is the second one encountered.  We took the first because of a bunch of rap slings on the ridge in between the two.  It worked by rapping into the second gully, but did result in a stuck rope.  Two 60's barely reached the notch and the start of the final descent gully, pictured below.

Good buddies at the rap station

Again, two 60's barely got us out of the gully to the snow below.  Single ropes would have worked, as there were multiple intermediate anchors on the way down, but none of them looked great.  From the bottom of the rappel it was more 50-degree styrofoam downclimbing to the basin and easier terrain.  Darkness fell about midway out on the Snow Lake trail, and were back at the car by a little after 5pm.  What an awesome day!  That one was a long time coming.

Dragontail Peak, Serpentine Arete

Going up is almost always fun.  Going down sometimes is not.  I had looked forward to climbing Dragontail for a long, long time.  For the first time in my alpine climbing career, I had Type 3 fun.  For those of you who don't know what that means, here is a basic rundown.  Type 1 fun is just pure fun.  Type 2 fun is not fun at the time, but in hindsight was actually fun.  Type 3 fun is not fun at all, but just suffering.  Maybe this was more like Type 2.5, but you get the idea.  I'm still glad I did it, but it really wasn't fun even in hindsight.  But that was my fault.  It could have been 1.5-2, depending on tactics and other factors.  Enough blathering.

I again had a lack of partners, and again turned to Cascade Climbers.  Again, it worked out fantastically well.  I met Taylor Brugh, who is way stronger than me, knowledgeable, and is an all-around great guy.  Turns out he recently met Matty P through SMR, and they have been doing stuff together.  Anyway, we decided on Dragontail, and decided to do it in a day car-to-car.  We met in Monroe at 3am.  I had "gone to bed" around midnight, but was basically unable to sleep.  We were hiking by 5:30.  We initially did well, but then missed the turn to Colchuck Lake.  Even after I had predicted missing it in the parking lot!  About an hour lost.  By the time we reached Colchuck Lake I was already starting to drag.  We made quick work of the moraine and quickly spotted the start of the route.  We stuck to the snow finger for as long as we could, which was a good move.

Moraine approach

Start of the route

We short-roped and simul-climbed to the base of the detached pillar, including the short 5.7 offwidth.  All led by Taylor.  I was breathing extremely hard.  The rock so far was clean and solid, with fun movement.

5.7 offwidth

We rested up at the top of the detached pillar, and prepared to pitch out the next two 5.8 pitches.  The first was the delicate face/finger crack.  I took that one.  I was feeling pretty horrible and hadn't been on anything harder than 5.5 since my leg injury.  But I thought that the first pitch suited my strengths better than the next, which was hand and fist crack climbing.  It was probably a good choice.  For 5.8, the climbing wasn't terribly hard, but a little heady.  I started up, then downclimbed once, then finished it.

Josh at the base of the 5.8 crack

Josh on the 5.8 crack pitch

Admiring Colchuck's North Face

Taylor follows the 5.8 crack pitch

Taylor easily punched out the next 5.8 pitch, which was equally clean and high-quality.  These two pitches are really the main attraction of the route.

Taylor leads the second 5.8 pitch

Looking down the second technical pitch

After that, the route deteriorated dramatically.  There was a little bit of solid mid-5th simulclimbing, but quickly the rock became more and more shattered and loose.  Wayfinding was tedious, only so as to not dislodge a rope-shearing rock or rain down massive debris on your partner.  We swung leads, covering the 1000-or-so vertical feet in a little over an hour.  I felt like an absolute slug.  I stopped frequently to heave and wheeze.  I prayed for the end to come.  I suffered.  Finally, the end came.  Actually, it was only a little after noon.  But it sure felt like I held Taylor back.

Rainier through Colchuck Col

The views of the Backbone Ridge and the Fin were spectacular.  I would say that I really want to come back and climb that route.  But given how much I suffered, I'm not really sure.

Colchuck Lake the the Fin on Backbone Ridge

Josh on the summit of Dragontail

Getting down was pretty painful.  Figuratively, and literally.  I lost a toenail for the first time in my life from all the pounding.  Coming down Aasgard is just as bad as people say it is.  Although, I will say that for me, coming down the Cascadian Couloir still takes the cake.  We strayed from the true trail toward the bottom and had to make one annoying rappel to reach the lake.  And then it was endless cruise control back to the car.  We made the cars around 8pm, 15 hours or so car-to-car.

I still think that Dragontail is a cool mountain and a worthy objective.  The route was just okay.  The positives of the lower route are negated by the crappiness of the upper route.  I do think that if I had actually been in shape, rather than trying a Grade IV climb car-to-car literally straight off the couch from a major injury, I would have had a much better time.  I do hope to climb with Taylor again.  

Yellowjacket Tower

I had low expectations for this one.  And I think largely due to that, I actually had fun.  Lots of friends had pooh-poohed this climb.  It is not a real summit, just a bump on a ridge in Leavenworth.  It's not really and alpine climb, and has too long an approach beyond the other crags to fit into that category.  It is one of the most commonly attained "Basic Rock" "summits" to be ticked off by Mounties Basic Climbing students.  

I injured my leg bad this April on a mountain bike.

After two operations and a lot of time with a wound VAC,

I was finally ready to get out.

My buddy Matty was leading a Mounties group. I invited myself along. I thought it would be the perfect way to get my feet wet after my injury. It turned out be just the ticket. The rock was surprisingly solid and fun, but easy. If you're not really expecting much out of it, I'd say it's worth it.


 The approach took about an hour and a half at a relaxed pace.  We geared up.  I offered to put myself on the middle of one of the ropes, and the Jen was psyched for her first time as a "rope lead", and it was the second's first "alpine rock climb."  I felt that would be the least intrusive.  That way I wouldn't take away from any leading, cleaning, or belaying experience. 

The first pitch was a 4th class gully, leading to bolted anchors on a big ledge.  The second pitch looked like this, mid-5th class, easy, protectable:

From the top of the second pitch, you traverse a big ledge and crawl through a rabbit hole, arriving at another giant ledge.  Then it is one short 15-foot pitch of low-5th class climbing to the summit with bolted anchors.  The actual summit is pretty small, only big enough for about two people.

Matty P. from the summit:

Jen and I on the summit:

 

Mt. Shuksan, White Salmon Glacier

Mt. Shuksan is one of the iconic ski mountains.  On a clear day, it just sort of taunts you from the Mt. Baker Ski Area.  For those who don't know, the ski area actually exists on the edge of the Shuksan Arm - much more intimately attached to Shuksan than Baker.  Anyway, the view from the ski area on a clear day is impressive: the complex North Face and Hanging Glacier host numerous hardman ski routes.  It is simply a beautiful mountain.  For me, it was another mountain that deserved patience and preparation.  Specifically, I needed to wait until I was ready to ski it.  Sure.  I could have climbed it on foot years ago.  But I wanted to ski it.  I got my backcountry setup two years ago.  And since that time, I have been holding out hope that weather, snow conditions, time off, and partners would align.  They finally did.

The North Face of Shuksan and the Hanging Glacier

 This past year I have reached out through Cascade Climbers to find partners for alpine rock, cragging, and ice.  I still don't have enough ski partners.  So this was my first trip with random partners through Turns All Year.  It worked out, sortof.  Both guys were competent in terms of snow safety, gear, fitness.  Johnny was a very experienced skier.  Fletcher was a splitboarder with a lot of peakbagging experience and a lot of mellow touring, but not much big mountain time.  He struggled a bit in ski mode, especially crossing gullies, avy debris, and the like.  At one point not far into the trip, he came really close to heading back to the car, and we almost let him.  I'd say that all in all, his presence on the trip probably added 2-3 hours to my car-to-car time.  Oh well.

The day was a bit of a mini-epic.  It all started out when we decided to approach Shuksan from the South side, via Baker Lake at the Shannon Creek TH.  I had no beta in books or online about the White Salmon Route, which is the route that gets the most play in the Winter.  That was the main reason we chose the easier Sulphide Glacier route.  Bad choice.  We met up at the Chuckanut Park and Ride at 3:45 am.  We made the drive to Baker Lake, but promptly got shut down by blowdown on the road to the Shannon Creek Trailhead.  We actually cleared one log by sawing through it with my snow saw.  Only to find a whole series of other logs 100 feet further.  We were still 4 miles from the TH.  Rather than pull the plug completely, after much debate, we decided to drive all the way around to the White Salmon side.  We would just see how far the weather and snow would let us get, and enjoy whatever turns we got.  It was a good decision.  We finally embarked from the Mt. Baker Ski Area parking lot at 8:30 am.  Nobody really knew the beta for the route, but you could pretty much see it from the parking lot.  We made a rising traverse on a cat track below the ski area, and then dropped down to the base of the White Salmon and Hanging Glaciers.

It was a bit tedious crossing avy debris and gullies.  This was where Fletcher almost threw in the towel.  Johnny and I spent about an hour waiting for him to catch up.  But once we hit the skin track heading up the White Salmon Glacier, everything seemed to hit cruise control.  It was awesome being so close to the unforgettable North Face of Shuksan with its Hanging Glacier.  We saw a big bus-sized serac calve off and come rushing down the face right next to us, which was exciting.  We kept moving, as the White Salmon actually held some sweet-looking wind-packed powder in the shady areas and the skiing looked great.  We ended up making great time, climbing 3500 feet in 2 hours, and were now at the top of the Shuksan Arm looking at the Upper Curtis Glacier around noon.


White Salmon Glacier

Upper Curtis Glacier and the Summit Pyramid

Shuksan Arm and Mt. Baker

Upper Curtis Glacier

 From there we began to really bake as we headed into the parabolic curve across the Upper Curtis toward Hell's Highway.  But by now, we were thinking summit.

Hell's Highway

 After booting up the last steep bit of Hell's Highway, we hit the broad shoulder of the Sulphide Glacier, and could see the summit pyramid looming close.

Hell's Highway, Sulphide Glacier, Summit Pyramid

It was easy going up the mellow slope of the Sulphide, and soon we were taking off skis and getting ready to boot up to the summit.

Sulphide Glacier

Summit Pyramid

Sulphide Glacier and Baker Lake

 I wrestled with the issue of whether or not to take my skis to the summit.  While it would have been sweet in terms of bragging rights to be able to say I skied off the summit, it didn't look very good the closer we got.  The slope angle wasn't too intimidating.  But the snow was deeply runneled, and looked quite crappy.  Johnny ended up taking his, and Fletcher and I left ours at the base of the pyramid.  He was happy skiing it, but I was very happy personally to have left mine.  The snow was rotten, aerated, deeply runneled, and just not very inviting.  Johnny made jump turns down, with a fair amount of side-slipping in between.  He made it, but didn't make me wish I was skiing it with him.

Beta note: at the top of the funnel, go left to get onto the shoulder leading to the true summit.  Johnny and Fletcher got themselves into a sketchy spot with some crazy exposure and had to downclimb a bit before rejoining me on the correct path.

Johnny and Fletcher booting up the wrong gully on the summit pyramid

 The views from the true summit were spectacular.  This was the Northernmost peak in the Cascades that I've climbed.  So there were a ton of mountains around there that I didn't recognize.  A lot off rugged terrain and mountains that are hard to get to.

Sulphide Glacier and Baker Lake from the summmit

Me on the summit

 It was also crazy to be able to look straight down the North Face, and see the parking lot way off in the distance.  We had a lot of skiing in our near future!


Relief from the summit to the bottom of the White Salmon

The ski out was spectacular!  Much, much, MUCH better than expected.  Creamy, but fast corn awaited on the Sulphide Glacier, which was over in a blur.  Styrofoam and powder along Hell's Highway.  The a brief skin up and across the Upper Curtis Glacier.  More killer corn down the Upper Curtis to the top of the White Salmon.  Then more styrofoam, short bits of powder, and some wetter corn on the White Salmon.  It was over too soon.  We had descended 6000 feet on skis, and I wanted it to keep going!

Finally, the long slog back across the avy debris, gullies, and back up to the ski area.  Again, waiting at least an hour for Fletcher.  Back to the car around 7pm.  So, not too too bad, considering interesting start to our day and late car departure.  What a day.  Glad I waited to ski it.  And I'm glad we ended up skiing the more interesting route.

Hyalite Highlights

Just got back from an amazing 4 days in Hyalite!

Man, it's been nice to get the ice tools back in action this year after being stymied by work and weather the past two winters.  This year, I've climbed over 20 pitches of ice, by far my best season.

Eric Krumland and I decided to fly out to Bozeman in order to maximize our time there.  We climbed for three full days and one half day before flying back home.  Each day we hit a different area - most new for me from last trip.  The only pitch of ice I had previously climbed was the first pitch of the Hangover.  We had variable weather ranging from single digits the first day, to mid-30's and sunny on the second day.  The ice was good.  A little thinner than my last visit, but that year was apparently a banner year for Hyalite.  So I think we found it in "typical" condition.

Day 1: Genesis area.  We slogged up through waist-deep powder to do the Hangover (WI3, 2 pitches), then did both the right and left variations of Upper Greensleeves (WI3).  Upper Greensleeves felt hard and steep at the top.  It hadn't seen any traffic recently, and was cold and chandeliered.  Maybe we were just getting our lead heads on, because looking back at the photos, it doesn't look that steep compared to stuff we climbed later in the trip.  At the time, we called it WI4.  We also made the error of going straight back the gully to the road on the way out rather than traversing back to the Hangover and taking our trail back down.  What a mistake!  The slog out was horrible.  Won't do that again.

Eric gets us started off on the Hangover

Screaming barfies!

 Day 2: Unnamed Wall.  Comparatively, the approach was extremely chill.  A nice path had been beaten in.  The weather was warm and sunny.  We wanted to start off on the Fat One, but there was a party of three on it.  Instead, I led a short steep flow that is not named in the book to its right.  It was WI3, and ended with low-angle frozen moss sticks to a tree.  Good warmup.  We then hit The Fat One (WI3), The Elevator Shaft (WI3+), Jeff's Right (M4), and toproped Jeff's Left (M5).

Josh leads The Fat One

Another party on the Elevator Shaft

Eric sews up the Elevator Shaft

Jeff's Right was definitely my scariest lead of the trip.  It started off with a 10-foot overhanging section of rock.  Each time I tried to pound in a piton to protect the moves, the rock would break off.  Not inspiring.  Finally I got a knifeblade to go.  Then, as I made the moves onto the ice, I got sketched and had Eric take.   As I slowly fell onto the KB, it bent over as I hadn't been able to pound it to the hilt.  But it held just fine.  Looks like that's staying there for good as Eric couldn't clean it.  I eventually got the moves onto the ice, which was very thin and hard to protect, but much easier climbing.  The screws were not very reassuring, so I was quite nervous the whole climb despite the relatively easy WI3 ice climbing to the top.  Definitely a heads-up lead for me.

Josh pounding in a knifeblade to protect the overhanging rock moves to get on Jeff's Right

On the much easier, but thin, ice on Jeff's Right

Day 3: The Dribbles area.  We started off with the classic 3-pitch Dribbles (WI4).  Eric wanted a "by-the-book" WI4.  And he nailed it.  Made it look easy, in fact.  I think I could have led it too.  And I wanted to.  But by the time we rapped it, it would have sucked up most of our day.  I wanted to get on another new climb too.

The Dribbles, WI4, 3 pitches

Josh on the first pitch of the Dribbles

Eric styles the steep second pitch of the Dribbles

From there we traversed over to Silken Falls, WI3.  It was a really nice 2-pitch route.  It also allowed us to check out Silken Slot, 5.7.  Due to what looked like very short sections of rock and ice intermingled with a really long snow slog, we skipped it.

Silken Slot left (with the chockstone) and Silken Falls right

Josh on the first pitch of Silken Falls

Day 4: Mummy Cooler area.  We only had a half day, as we had a 4pm flight.  We decided to do the approach to Mummy Cooler 2, do that, and take a look at the Scepter.  We'd either toprope it after MC2 or Eric would lead it.  I took the lead on MC2, WI3+.  It was by the book the steepest ice line I led on this trip.  But it was really solid, and I never felt pumped.  I do really think I'm ready for WI4.

The Scepter (left) and Mummy Cooler 2 (right)

Josh heads up the steeper headwall of MC2

Looking down Mummy Cooler 2

Once we finished MC2, Eric decided to cap off the trip with a rad lead of the Scepter.  It was a really stellar route!  The bottom half had blobby overhanging moves.  But the blobs led to great feet, so it felt solid.  I'm sure getting solid screws was a little nerve wracking.  Up higher, it was a little less steep and the ice changed.  It was now a shallow groove with really solid ice.  Eric used a few rebores for protection.  Overall, so fun and aesthetic!  Nice lead, buddy.

Eric rocks the Scepter

Next time: Twin Falls, Winter Dance area, lead The Thrill is Gone and a "by-the-book" WI4 such as the Dribbles.

Awesome area.  Another great trip.  I think I'll make it an annual thing.  Unless the next ice age hits and we actually get some consistent ice in Washington...