Kelsey on the exposed arete of the final pitch

The Ragged Edge on Vesper Peak

July 23, 2017

Kelsey and I had originally planned for a big weekend on the Price Glacier, but work schedules got in the way, so we reset on a single day objective and The Ragged Edge on Vesper Peak sifted to the top.

We left Seattle at 6:15am and left the car at 8:15am. It was surprisingly hot and humid on the approach, which we did pretty fast, hitting Headlee Pass at 9:45am. We traversed over to Vesper proper, but there was a solid whiteout at that elevation, so we just started our way up, hoping that things would clear by the time we reached the elevation of the ledges. We were moving pretty quickly in approach shoes with micro spikes and ultralight axes and didn't look at the GPS to figure out our elevation until it turned out that we were 50 feet from the summit. Whoops. I'd never accidentally summited a mountain before! We arrived at the completely socked-in top a bit before 11am and decided to eat our lunch and take a nap, hoping things would clear.

Things started looking better at about noon, so we headed down the 400 feet or so to the ledge system, traversed it, including a few moments of "are we in the right place?" before finding the start of the route after down climbing some sketchy-looking stuff and traversing around a rock buttress. We started the route at about 1:15pm and immediately hit a traffic jam with 4 parties ahead of us. It was to be expected, really. There were at least 2 parties on True Grit as well, which made for a pretty social setting up there.

We took our time at the comfortable belays and enjoyed all of the pitches. The route has generally good rock, lots of variety of movement, and a fabulous position. The final 4 pitches were especially fun and exposed. After clearing up for most of the day, the clouds came back as we were finishing up around 5:30pm, which made for a dramatic backdrop.

After hitting the top, we quickly packed up and descended, making it to the car after the knee and foot-pounding talus descent just shy of 8pm. Great climb in a fun position.

Looking down at the final belay as the clouds closed in on us again

East Ridge on Forbidden Peak

July 15, 2017

Exposure on the East Ridge with views of Buckner, Boston, and Sahale

Forbidden Peak and the Boston Basin area keep drawing me back. Even after climbing the TFT, East Ridge, North Ridge, and NW Face of Forbidden, I was happy to head back and get out there with Colin—the position, rock, and views are all awesome.

We drove up from Seattle on Friday after work, enjoying a dinner at the Train Wreck in Burlington on the way, and slept in the back of the car just below the trailhead. We left the car at about 5:30am, got to the edge of the basin at about 6:45am, geared up at the start of the route at 9:30am, and were off on the sea of jagged ridgeline shortly thereafter. Everything on the approach was nice and straightforward. The Unnamed Glacier was well covered and quick in approach shoes with strap-on aluminum crampons.

Making progress with the North Ridge making up the right-hand skyline

We'd read a recent trip report suggesting that the East Ledges anchor was missing, so we brought all of our gear just in case. The route was longer than I remembered and I was surprised that it took as long as it did to reach the large gendarme. Exposure is a constant companion on this route and it can wear on you if you're not ready for it. We found fun, pretty well-protected climbing on good holds through the couple of steep crux sections (around 5.8).

Taking in the view of Rainier, Glacier, Johannesburg, and more

We hit the summit at about 2:45pm and took in the views for a little bit before heading down the East Ledges thanks to a shiny new rap anchor right off the summit block. Thanks to whoever placed that purple webbing at the top and backed up some of the raps on the way down. We did 5 single-rope raps down and then did a downward-trending traverse across the ledges, taking our time on the loose, somewhat nerve-wracking terrain and reaching the start of the route at 5:15pm.

Boston Basin alpine meadows going all "Sound of Music" at golden hour

From there, it was smooth sailing back down, including a glissade from the high point of the glacier all the way down to the waterfall just above camp and a jaunt through the alpine meadows at golden hour. Totally worth the resulting wet, frozen bum. The hike out was predictably painful, but not terrible. Another great adventure up in Boston Basin.

Coleman-Deming Route on Mount Baker

June 25, 2017

With a stellar forecast only days after returning from Peru, it was hard to pass up the opportunity to take Erica out on her first volcano and enjoy some beautiful views. We drove up on Saturday afternoon and left the car around 3:30pm in a very busy parking lot. The approach was mostly snow-free until the base of Heliotrope ridge, which itself was bare in many places. We stayed unroped up to the 7,000 ft glacier camp, with only one or two gaps to keep an eye on along the way. It took around 3 hours to get to camp, where we set up shop among many other tents and promptly took a pre-dinner nap after having dessert first—I love doing things backwards, I guess.

We had dinner to an awesome light show over the Northwestern reaches of Baker and Puget Sound, with views of a sea of mountains extending into Canada. We decided to start early since freezing levels were above the top of the mountain and we wanted to avoid a slushy mess on the way down. Plus we were motivated to get ice cream on the way out at Graham's. We left the tent at about 4:15am and made fast progress in a well-established boot pack.

We took a break at the Colfax-Baker saddle at about 6am and then headed up the Roman Wall with many other parties on the route. We broke into the sunshine on the summit plateau and were on the top by 7:30am with great views of the North Cascades and Shuksan, in particular.

It was an uneventful descent, including a brief nap at camp before breaking it down and continuing out to the car, making it there by 1:30pm or so. I'd never spent the night on Baker before despite having been up there many times between the North Ridge, Coleman Headwall, Coleman-Deming a few times, and Colfax a few times, so it was a nice change of pace and chance to enjoy the views.