Direct East Buttress on S Early Winters Spire

June 8, 2014

After our long snow slog on Mount Rainier last weekend, Dale and I were both looking for a higher technical climbing to approach ratio. With warmer temperatures forecast, Washington Pass was a natural option. We did some easier routes on Saturday (South Arete and Southwest Rib), had a great evening in Winthrop, and then drove back to the hairpin on Sunday morning.

The approach was all covered in snow and we did it in mountaineering boots, with crampons and one stubby axe ready just in case. It took about an hour and a half to get to the route and we transitioned here to rock shoes with all of the gear in the pack, which ended up weighing north of 30 pounds. The first bunch of pitches were pretty straightforward. Pulling layback moves on the 5.9+ and 5.8 bits with the pack on was pretty strenuous, but it went without too much trouble. Dale led us to the sport/aid crux where I tried my hand at the slab and nearly made it past the slab crux before aiding my way through.

The climbing was pretty good, but it was the position and view which were special. A few more pitches on the East Face brought us to a memorable top-out and third summit of the South Early Winters Spire in two days. The subsequent descent was the fastest I've ever come down snow on foot. It was a perfect consistency and we jogged our way down to the car for victory pizza.

*Sunrise on the ice cliff shortly before the ice step*

Ptarmigan Ridge on Mount Rainier

June 1, 2014

Dale and I had been discussing an early June attempt on Ptarmigan Ridge since our trip to Patagonia together in January. With a stellar forecast and a great spring of climbing under our belts, we set up our strategy. We didn’t have an extra car for a shuttle and we only had the weekend since Dale was flying in from CA, so we decided to start and finish at the White River Campground and pack the approach from there to high camp in one day.

We left the car at about 6am on Saturday morning with a pretty light setup (light tent, 30-degree down bags, 3 screws, 3 pickets, 4 pins, a few nuts, and 3 cams; no skis or snowshoes), and quickly booted to St. Elmo Pass in a little over 2 hours. From there, we crossed the Winthrop on a relatively firm boot pack without roping up, and continued traversing to the camp on Curtis Ridge in about 4 hours from the car. There was a ton of helicopter activity around Liberty Ridge at this point and we hoped it was a training exercise. It wasn’t until Sunday evening when we learned what had transpired. Terrible, sobering news.

As we roped up and dropped onto the Carbon Glacier, the temperature had risen and the sun was exceptionally strong. We aimed for a weakness WSW of where we got onto the glacier and gained the upper shelf after wading through knee-deep snow and crossing a number of crevasses. From there, we went through a large bowl and turned NW to get around the rock band. This was where the snow conditions were the worst. We took turns post holing to our thighs at times. Thankfully, some old avalanche debris was more solid and the rest of the way around the rock band was easier. On the NW-facing slopes, the snow became “hot pow” as Dale jokingly described it, which was much better for booting. We quickly ascended the rest of the way to camp below Ptarmigan Ridge at 10,300 feet by 3pm.

The rest of the afternoon and evening were perfect. We ate a geriatric dinner at 4pm, took a nap until 8pm, had a second dinner at sunset, and fell asleep again with alarms set for 1am. In the morning, after drinking coffee and packing up, we were moving by 2am and could see a few different sets of headlamps on Liberty Ridge across the way.

The snow was a perfect consistency for fast climbing—firm, but secure for steps. We traversed down to ~9,800 feet, crossed the bergschrund, and began ascending the ~45-degree slopes. From the photos we’d taken, it was clear that we should hug the cliffs on our right all the way to the hourglass, so route-finding was pretty easy. The hourglass was steep, but secure and we made it to the cliff band above at about 4am, right as the alpenglow was starting. We had remained roped together to this point, but hadn’t needed to place any protection.

At the cliff band, we chatted out whether to go left or right. From our beta searching, the cliff band on the right looked short-lived, so we decided to make it more interesting by going left to the ice cliff. We pitched out an easy ice and steep snow pitch to a rock outcrop on the right, then headed up to the ice and traversed right toward a good-looking ice chute. From there, with a great picket belay, Dale led the ~AI3 crux of about 30m with the three screws we’d brought. It was super fun and gorgeous with sunrise lighting up the ice cliff.

From the top of the ice cliff it was a long slog to Liberty Cap. We stayed roped for a while and then put the rope away as we continued up the lower-angle slopes with a rime crust, reaching the summit by 10:30am. We met a couple who were just finishing Liberty Ridge and chatted them up a little while melting snow at the summit before beginning the descent.

The descent to Camp Schurman was long and a bit painful, given the soft snow, but was otherwise uneventful. We post holed to our thighs on our way to the Interglacier, glissaded down as much of the steep slopes as we could, and then trudged out the rest of the way to the car.

While the route was fun and absolutely gorgeous, the climbing itself was surprisingly easy and felt short-lived for how much ground we covered to do the route. Perhaps I was spoiled by a very icy Liberty Ridge last spring and we should have shortened things by approaching from Spray Park. Regardless, this was a great adventure.

North Ridge on Mount Baker

May 16, 2014

The gorgeous weather this past week tantalized me enough that a marginal weather report for the weekend all but forced me to take Friday off to get out there.

We knew things had been warm and that recent avalanche activity in the area was not to be taken lightly. Thankfully, the forecast called for cooler temperatures as well as some cloud cover for Friday. We drove up from Seattle after work and arrived about a mile from the trailhead at an impassible, snowy bridge around 11:00pm. After getting our packs ready for a fast departure, we fell asleep in the car at about 11:30pm.

After a quick coffee and muffin, we were moving up the road at 1:30am. The road was patchy and clear for a ways, went under a fallen tree, and then got onto snow about a half mile before the TH. There wasn't enough snow in the trees off to the sides to give us confidence that we could skin yet, so we continued hiking in trail runners all the way to tree line. At about 3am, before reaching tree line, a pair of climbers were coming down the trail. They spoke of 20mph winds, avalanche debris, lightning to the North, and slushy snow. Yikes. It was early enough that we decided to keep going, knowing that we could descend quickly on skis if we had to.

Things were much more mellow than we expected them to be and the skin to and up the glacier went smoothly. We stayed low, rather than going up Heliotrope Ridge, and did a gently rising traverse to eventually gain the bowl below seracs on the Coleman-Deming route. All the while, the clouds to the West looked menacing and we could see lightning flashes way off in the distance, but things were stable and seemed to be getting better.

There was enough snow on the glacier to enable a direct skin up to the North Ridge, so I picked my way around crevasses and we quickly made it to the base of the right entrance to the ridge around 7am. We switched to boots and crampons here and followed a boot pack that looked to be no more than a week old. A huge thank you to whomever put that beast in. We post-holed through many of the steps, so we could imagine how loose it must have been for them.

Once on the ridge, we were surprised by how long it felt to get to the ice, but we were rewarded the whole way with a clear view to the North. The menacing clouds had disappeared and it was a beautiful, sunny day. We made it to the ice at about 10am, where I racked up quickly and headed up on our single 60m 8mm line. I decided to have a bit of fun on the steep, West-facing side before jumping over the crest and running up the ramp to the steeper finish. Our 60m rope was plenty long to go from the belay on snow up to a belay above the lip on two screws. Kate seconded without an issue and we quickly switched the belay for me to lead up what looked to be steep snow back to the true ridge.

There were no difficulties, so I banged in a picket before she pulled the belay and then we simul-climbed the rest of the route, following the boot pack as it traversed underneath the seracs and toward the summit. It was slow going up top, with lots of post-holing and air that felt thinner than it should have for 10,000 feet. Nevertheless, we ditched packs just below the summit and hit the top at about 2:15pm, just shy of 13 hours after our start at the car. Clouds had rolled in and only the bigger peaks stuck out. Shuksan, in particular, looked awesome.

The ski down was without incident, which was exactly our goal. Snow had softened nicely on the Roman Wall and it was pretty wet down low, but not complete concrete, so turns weren't impossible. We each had a few comical crashes, but that was it.

After skiing down a gully for a while which paralleled the trail, we transitioned to shoes and hiked down to the car before 6:30pm for around a 17-hour round trip.