On easier ground at the top of the North Face

North Face of Mount Shuksan

July 20, 2013

Day 1 - Bushwhacking & Awesome Bivy

We left Seattle at a very reasonable 8:30am, knowing that the road ahead of us included some serious bushwhacking through rough, steep terrain. Being mentally prepared helped quite a bit. There's no sense in fighting the inevitable. We found signs of human travel (I won't call it a trail) from the end of the dirt road which had started at the ski lodge. It took us down the steep valley slope through timber, which was relatively easy going, but tough on the feet in hot mid-summer, mid-day weather.

Our path led us to a large tree crossing at the stream and, after a little ways going along the water, we turned sharply uphill. The elevation gain and roughness of the trail did not abate until we had surmounted a few cliff bands and eventually reached some high meadows. Things were still pretty rough from there to the bivy location at the base of the ridge, but we soon forgot about the pains of the approach in favor of lounging in the sun with our sweat-soaked pants off. It was stellar.

On the ridge after the 'shwhack festival

Under clear, sunny skies, we made our dinners, drank a good amount of whiskey, and turned in for the night. There was no need for a bivy sack or tent. A light shirt over the face kept the mosquitos at bay and I was only awakened by an intense brightness at sunset when the mountain turned bright orange, then pink. I took a series of shots straight from the sleeping bag before pulling the shirt back over my face and passing out.

Day 2 - Great Climbing & Long Descent

We all woke up just before our alarms at 2 to the thunderous sound of the hanging glacier calving and spitting off a huge chunk of ice that crashed down the valley, possibly creating a small tsunami in the alpine lake below us. The sounds woke us all up and got our hearts pumping, but were nothing to be too worried about. We would be hundreds of feet above the calving face and would cross that section of the hanging glacier within the first 45 minutes of our climb that morning.

We packed up camp, got our ropes and prusiks situated, and headed for the North Face at about 2:45am. It was pretty dark except for the moon peering around the mountain from the Southwest. We quickly negotiated the hanging glacier's crevasses, traversing far to the East before coming back West and hitting a steep snow ramp that brought us up onto the long, continuous North Face. The snow was pretty firm, but held steps well, so it was ideal for climbing. We made great time, cruising up the face and pulling over the steepness just as the sun peeked over the horizon. From there, the technical difficulties were mainly over. We circumnavigated the summit, swinging down below it on the South side only to see nearly 10 different climbers on their way to the summit via a few different routes. We got ourselves up to a ledge, dropped our packs, and simul-climbed the mainly 4th class with some 5th class moves to the summit. Booyah.

With so many other climbers on the route, we decided to down-climb rather than rappel. It went really quickly and we were soon enjoying our lunch on a rock island just below the summit. With some calories in us and a successful summit complete, we descended Hell's Highway to the Fisher Chimneys. After a little route-finding, we found the path and down-climbed our way to easier ground.

Just as the technical difficulties eased, we learned from Robert and our map that we still had over 5 miles to go. At the first pass we encountered, we made the awesome decision to drink all of the rum we'd brought in the form of grape-flavored slushies. They were awesome and we were tipsy in no time. Floating on a cloud of rum (and with only a handful of slips on the snow), we briskly hiked the remaining 4+ miles out to the cars.

The North Face was a great route from the bivy to the Summit and down to the high camp above Fisher Chimneys. Before the bivy and after the high camp was nothing to write home about (though I guess I just did).

The party ahead of us traversing steep snow

Torment-Forbidden Traverse

July 13, 2013

The decision was made on Friday afternoon that TFT was in the cards. Goran and I went back and forth a bit about logistics and decided to get some sleep in our own beds on Friday, then head out early on Saturday morning. Regardless of the strategy, it was clear that we wouldn't get much sleep.

Looking across the ridge line from Torment to Forbidden

Fueled by coffee and danish, I made the drive and enjoyed a bit of rallying on the long dirt road to the trailhead. We'd left the city by 5am and were hiking up the trail to Boston Basin by 8am. In a very short 2.5 hours, after some bushwhacking across Boston Basin and travel up the Taboo Glacier, we reached the couloir start to Mount Torment. Goran led out the first pitch and we started simul-climbing as soon as enough rope was out. We traded leads back and forth after exhausting our gear (4 cams, 6 nuts, and 2 hexes) and headed past some pretty crumbly, dirty low-5th class climbing until reaching a notch on the ridge line. We descended, hiked across on the face until we found a good spot to head up, dropped our packs, backpacked the rope, and headed for the summit.

Torment was not my favorite climb, but the summit view was pretty gorgeous and the perspective on our traverse objective was stellar. After signing the summit register, we down-climbed our 4th class ascent route, grabbed our packs, and headed for the notch for our committing rappel.

The free rap was really fun and put us on a heavily crevassed steep snowfield which we traversed in order to get back on the rock. A few more sections of ridge line rock followed by steep snow traversing brought us to an intimidating looking steep snow slope where we saw a party of 3 ahead of us very carefully making their way across. My favorite photos of the trip were of this group on that section of the route—it was just so picturesque and captured the exposed feeling experienced throughout.

Shortly after that snow traverse, we climbed one more rock tower until finding a glorious bivy site with views in all directions. A dinner of chicken noodle soup for 8 knocked me out and I barely stayed awake enough to snap some pictures of the sunset from my bivy sack.

With much of the route-finding challenges behind us, there was no need to wake up super early. We slowly roused at 6:30am, made some coffee, and soaked up some morning sun before packing up camp and hitting the ridge. Things went very quickly after some initial "is this going to go?" moments early on and we cruised to the notch at the base of Forbidden without much fanfare. As expected, the classic moderate route was busy with a bunch of other parties on the way up and down.

We continued our method of simul-climbing, having not pitched out anything so far, and traded leads on the classic route. I ended up taking over at the crux (all of 5.6) and successfully stepped on some granite crystals in my mountaineering boots and pulled through, then continued simul-climbing up close to the final stretch. Goran took over to the summit where we briefly celebrated a very successful TFT.

The descent was unfortunately slow due to some traffic jams on the route, but went without any issues other than speed. We grabbed our packs at the notch, made 5 raps to the glacier, and descended to glory.

Backbone Ridge on Dragontail Peak

June 22, 2013

Some days are so epic that your memory quickly turns less-than-ideal elements into fond memories. Thus was our experience climbing Dragontail's Backbone Ridge car-to-car in about 18 hours.

We drove to Leavenworth on Friday night, getting to the trailhead around midnight. A few hours of shuteye and we were on the trail, fueled by Frappuccinos and danish. Greg had made some comment during our drive in about camping with a fire and everything, then being surprised to find that we were just going to squeeze out a few hours of sleep in the car. Apparently he was not mentally prepared for the onslaught.

We hiked quickly up to Colchuck Lake, past a party on their way to Serpentine, and got to the base of the route in the early morning before the sun had started to hit the route. Some route-finding past snow and some dead-ends brought us to a final bit below what we knew was an anchor for the first pitch. Things were a little sketchy getting up there, but not too bad in approach shoes with packs on our backs.

A quick low-5th class pitch brought us straight to the 5.9 off-width crux. It was cruxy. Goran led it in style with our rack including a #4, #5, and old #5 that might as well have been a #6. Greg and I then simul-followed, tied in about 20 feet from each other. I also had Goran's backpack tied in on a bite just above me. I'd make a move and then push it up so he could take in the rope. Not ideal, but it worked. I grunted and willed my way up the pitch, getting my knee stuck at one point and scraping up both ankles in only the way off-width can. Pulling onto the jugs at the top was such a great feeling.

From there, things were pretty mellow and wandering for quite a ways. We simul-climbed as much as we could and avoided a ton of loose rock wherever we could. Greg took over for the middle pitches and brought us up to the base of The Fin. From there, it was my turn. We'd scoped out our line from a ways away, so I was pretty sure of where to go, but didn't know for sure. I headed up some slightly dirty face climbing to a ledge, traversed right a bit, and headed up on two parallel cracks. I had a bit of a scare with a large loose block, but kept it together, finished up the pitch, and brought the boys up.

Our last couple of pitches on The Fin were the best climbing on the route—much cleaner rock and better climbing. We took them up to a notch, pulled through, and then contended with some loose rock and steep snow to get to the final summit walk. It had taken us quite a while to finish things up, but we had plenty of daylight to get back to the lake, so we celebrated quickly and then headed down toward Asgard Pass.

The descent was fast and relatively uneventful, but still felt exceptionally long. We got back to the car around 11pm and promptly passed out after a few beers and some whiskey.