Mount Daniel

Traversing the snow

With my hand still in a splint following surgery to reattach the UCL on my left thumb, my tick list shrank down to climbs I normally wouldn't prioritize—long approaches, less-technical routes, etc. Mount Daniel had been on my list as a ski tour, but the stars aligned to do it as an easy car-to-car mission with some good friends.

We had read some trip reports suggesting up to 12 hours for the round trip, so we left Seattle at about 5am, were hiking by about 8am, and quickly ascended the bench and up to Cathedral Pass. From there, it was a quick dip and back up to Peggy's Pond, which was beautiful, but pretty buggy. We'd brought crampons and axes and considered going up the glacier, but the snow didn't look continuous, so we went up the SE Ridge, which afforded some great views in most directions. We hit snow about 1,000 feet below the East Summit, traversed over, and hit the saddle on the South end of the East Summit.

The talus on the traverse around the summit was a bit sketchy and not something that the crew was psyched on, so we scooted up to the East Summit and called it good. The timing was perfect—an F16 jet came screaming through the valley and did a fully banked turn in front of us. It was really awesome.

From there, we retraced our steps to Peggy's Pond where we went for an invigorating, albeit brief dip before continuing on and finishing up in about 9 hours car to car. It was a solid day, followed by burgers and beers at The Brick in Roslyn and some live music in the town there.

North Face on Mount Buckner

On the face

During a climb of the Torment-Forbidden Traverse last summer, I remember looking down onto the Boston Glacier and over to Mount Buckner, thinking how expansive and remote the area looked. Buckner's North Face seemed like a good objective for the July timeframe, so Kelsey and I geared up once again.

We left late from Seattle on the 4th, departing the car from the Boston Basin lot at about 1:45pm. Our plan was to camp on the Boston Glacier, partly just for the experience of being back there for a night, knowing that it would mean a carry over. It took just over an hour to get to the snow line at the edge of Boston Basin. We headed up the Quien Sabe route in our shorts and t-shirts, enjoying the beautiful day. We decided to forego the loose scramble around Boston in favor of a (hopefully) easier drop from Sharkfin Col or the nearby ridge.

To keep things light, we'd only brought a 30m glacier line and it sounded like the Sharkfin drop would require a longer rap, so we traversed past it to the ridge just to the east. The down climb on the far side looked steep but possible, so we headed down there. The first half wasn't too bad—just steep, but secure snow. Then it got a little spicy, with a little low-grade, mixed down climbing in a no-fall zone on crumbly rock. It took a while to pull this off, since neither one of us wanted to end up with a broken leg on the North side of the divide.

Sunset on Buckner's North Face from camp

After the spicy down climb, the weather started rolling in and began lightly raining on us as we traversed near large crevasses to a flat point on the glacier about three quarters of a mile from where we'd dropped in. The approach to Buckner was obvious from here and we were starting to get a bit wet, so we pitched camp and dove into the tent for some fuel and sleep, which were both made better by the highly American P-51 Imperial Porter we'd carried in to celebrate the 4th.

Our back of the napkin math suggested that we could be back at the car in about 10 hours, so we set an alarm for 4:30am. The sunrise was quite Mordor-esque and, after enjoying it and some coffee, we were moving by 5:45am. It only took an hour to reach the route, traversing high above most of the crevasses and finding a boot pack up there.

High on the face

I'd been hoping for something at least a little spicy on the route, be it ice or rock, but the route was in fine early-season shape, with a boot pack that was somewhere between faint and well-formed throughout. We went from our traverse point at 7,800 feet to the summit at 9,114 feet in 1 hour, stepping over the final ridge into the sun at about 7:45am. The most difficult part had been steep snow just right of a rock outcrop about halfway up. We didn't feel the need for (and didn't place any) protection on the climb.

The reality hit us at this point that we'd already done what we'd gone there for and that the rest of our day would be a bit tedious. Thankfully, the descent to Horseshoe Basin was fast. In a little over 2 hours, we were down to 6,500 feet and almost to the snow finger leading to the ramp up to the Sahale Arm. Another 3 hours later (including some naps in the sun on opportune rocks), we were on the summit of Sahale, enjoying the view and the rest of our lunch before descending the Quien Sabe, which was thankfully possible as a straight shot to the Boston Basin camp. We were back to the car at about 4pm and, more importantly, at the BBQ caboose in Marblemount shortly thereafter.

I'd call it more of an alpine tour than a climb. Don't get me wrong—it was gorgeous, but the climb itself didn't quite satisfy the technical appetite. Our down climb from near Sharkfin was the spiciest part of the weekend.

Adams Glacier on Mount Adams

Kelsey, checking out a large crevasse with a thin bridge

Yvon Chouinard once said “it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.” I found myself repeating this quote to Kelsey when we found ourselves on Forest Road 2329, about 2-3 miles or more from the Killen Creek trailhead, looking at an impassable section due to snow that had just high-centered a jeep in front of us. That theme repeated itself throughout the weekend and an adventure we certainly had.

Armed with a GPS, we walked down the road a mile or so before turning into the woods and "making like a bear" through the forest. A little over a mile of bushwhacking brought us to the actual trail. While we'd cut off two big legs of a triangle and likely saved ourselves about 3 miles, we were completely soaked from tramping through the wet woods.

The rest of the approach went without issue, save for the wind and rain which stirred up as we got above 6,000 feet. Another team of 3 was setting up camp at 6,500 feet, saying that the additional 400 feet to high camp wasn't worth it in the rain and close to zero visibility at times. We were soaked already, so we decided to brave it. It wasn't any worse up at the high camp, so we set up our tent quickly, melted some water, and dove into the tent in a wet heap.

Morale was low and pretty much everything was damp to soaking wet, but we warmed up with a hot dinner and quickly settled in to try and get some sleep. It was about 7pm and we had alarms set for 3:30am. It rained that night. It rained a lot. I woke up a few times and cursed my decision to bring the Firstlight instead of the Eldorado.

At 4am (I must have hit snooze in my sleep), we awoke and Kelsey took a look out of the tent. We were completely socked in. In the minutes that followed, we almost bailed, but then I took a look outside and saw things clearing up, and then the party of 3 walked by. We had to give it a shot.

The party of three ahead of us on the Adams Glacier

We packed quickly and were on the move at around 4:45am. It took about an hour to cross the moraines and reach a flat area at about 8,000 feet. Things were clearing up at this point, with the clouds pinking up nicely, and we started putting our gear on when I let out an "oh, shit." My new aluminum crampons came in a nice little black bag, which I'd left at the tent in the dark of the morning. We briefly debated what to do. I couldn't bear the thought of bailing with the weather clearing and being so close after our crappy night. I decided to jog back and retrieve them. 1,100 feet and 1.4 miles down and back up and we were back in business in an hour, but Kelsey's wet feet had gotten pretty cold while waiting, despite bundling up in both of our parkas and walking around to keep warm.

The route itself turned out to still be pretty filled in with snow, which had been rained on overnight and re-frozen, so it mostly involved side stepping and front pointing with little penetration. It was secure enough that we didn't place any protection and moved quickly, only stopping every so often to chop out steps to rest our burning calves. We never stopped for long, though, since our feet were still soaked and would get quite cold when standing still.

There were a few sporty crevasse crossings, including one I crawled across for fear of breaking through a thin snow bridge. Beyond that, it was smooth sailing and we quickly reached the upper slopes at about 10:30am.

The North Ridge descent was not bad at first, but quickly turned to verglas-on-rock treachery. As soon as we spotted an exit gully to the North, we pulled a mixed move or two, down-climbed steep snow, and then romped down the snowfield, likely saving ourselves hours of painstaking descent on the ridge.

The rest of the descent was without incident and we were back at the car by 4:30pm, feeling somewhat dumbfounded that we'd successfully done the climb despite all of the issues we'd encountered. In retrospect, I think this route would be more fun later in the season. I was hoping for some real alpine ice on the way up and think the ridge descent would have been better with less rime and verglas.