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Climbing Washington Touring Mt. Rainier

Lane Peak, Zipper Couloir

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, if it wasn’t directly in the shadow of Mount Rainier, the Tatoosh range would be it’s own National Park.

The gate into the park was a little late, opening at about 9:30am. We drove from Longmire up to Narada Falls under a nearly cloudless sky. Crossing the Nisqually bridge we considered skiing the Nisqually Chute but instead stuck with our original plan to head towards Lane Peak.

From the parking lot there was obvious debris on the apron below the Fly and Zipper couloirs from what was likely loose-wet activity the day prior. Considering the northern facing aspect, it looked like there was potential for crusty conditions but the trees were holding good snow and skinning up to Stevens Canyon Road from the falls we found light powdery snow that we were hoping for reassuring us on the conditions.

At this point in the season Stevens Canyon Road has been plowed so we threw the skis over our shoulder for the short walk to the bend were we transitioned and rode the trees down to Tatoosh Creek trending west toward the base of Lane Peak.

Now the clouds came in on what had been blue sky all morning and it began snowing heavily. Crossing the creek we passed a group who was bailing due to avalanche concern. We continued on, following the skin track of an another group who appeared to be heading for the adjacent Fly Couloir.

Up until this point we had not committed to a specific objective, instead keeping an option open to ski either the Fly or the Zipper Couloir. At the tree stand that sits where the base of the two couloirs meet we decided to boot up the Zipper, being the steeper and narrower of the two as the group ahead of us was going for the Fly.

The climbing started out in thigh deep snow making for slow going, however as we ascended the booting eased up. As we climbed the snow began to warm and drop off the tree branches on the walls above. As the trees bombed the couloir the snow would pick up speed and mass flushing the slope we were on and creating significant loose-wet slides that could easily take you off your feet. We picked up our pace to minimize our time in this hazard zone and finally finished the remaining 500ft of the couloir by 1:30pm with no major incidents.

This time of year the gate is closing at 4pm and not wanting to get stuck in the park we hurried our transition to drop in. The day was still warming as well and the wet slides in the couloir were increasing in their frequency and volume. We skied the length of the couloir one at a time to reduce our exposure.

The turns in the couloir itself were incredible. The snow was soft and loose. A little too loose as sluff mitigation was critical after almost every turn. The apron had a lot of debris on it and made for some chunky skiing in spots. After this the snow warmed significantly slowing us to a crawl by the time we returned to the creek.

From here it was back up to the road and then a ski down to the car. We hit the gate at 3:50pm just before close.

We got lucky with the conditions. The skiing was great but the avalanche activity due to late spring sun on a northern aspect was much more than we anticipated. As is often the case it became a matter of timing. We got up and down without issue but any later in the day and we would have surely experienced significant hazard. Either way, another amazing ski line in Mount Rainer National Park.

Categories
Washington Touring Central Cascades Snoqualmie Pass

Mt Snoqualmie, Crooked Couloir

This season has been fickle so far and there have been very few windows of favorable conditions.

After a decent storm that set down 25″ over the weekend, the clouds cleared and Presidents Day offered us one of those weather windows.

Bish and I met a the new market at 11:30am with the intention of going up Mt Snoqualmie and finding something to ski. Starting from Alpental and noon, we set a skin track up the Phantom slide path until we ran into another track that we followed up the South shoulder to the summit.

South Shoulder with Red Mountain in the background

Once up top, we took a look down the Slot but it had already been skied pretty good by that point in the day and it was looking chewed up. Instead we decided to ski the crooked couloir off the summit which was much broader with fewer tracks.

The entrance into the top was steep and required a little billygoating to get into but after that it opened way up for some nice deep turns all the way down to the choke. At the choke the couloir takes a 45º turn left and tightens into what can sometimes take the form of an ice buldge. Today it had been scraped by other skiers but the coverage was good so it was easy to maneuver.

This placed us out on the apron of the Slot that we skied down into Thunder Creek Basin to about 4600′. Here we transitioned and split back up to the notch getting to the top at 5pm. We skied down the front side and made it back to the car just before sunset.

In the week it took me to write this it has snowed another 1.5′ and then rained 5″ on top of that so once again everything is toast. Get it when you can.

Hard turn on the apron
Categories
Washington North Cascades Climbing

Mt Shuksan, Fisher Chimneys

I just moved back to Washington from Denver and I was psyched to get out in the North Cascades on return.

I met Byron at the Mt Baker Ski Area on Friday evening and we camped out so that we could have a leisurely start Saturday morning. The road is currently closed up to Artist Point at the Heather Meadows Visitor Center, or Grandma’s Hut as I’ve know it to be called. This added only a small amount of milage/elevation to our destination for the day, the White Salmon camp just below Winnies Slide.

We started at 10:30am and made it to Lake Ann by noon. It was a warm day and we stopped by the lake to have lunch before starting up the trail toward the Chimneys.

The trail past Lake Ann is well established and there are a number of good camp sites about 5-10 minutes down the trail just before the creek crossing. After that the path switchbacks up steeply for a ways and crosses a talus field just before entering the first of the chimneys.

There were a number of groups climbing that day so it wasn’t difficult to see the route from a distance but even without other folks to follow, the path seemed to be well established. We made it to camp just before 4pm.

The next morning we started our climb at 6am. The lower bivy site didn’t have a great water source so we climbed Winnies Slide, the first steep snow pitch, up to Camp 2 where there was a good flow coming out of the Upper Curtis Glacier. We filled our water bottles and then started onto the snow.

The glacier was in great shape and travel was straightforward with minimal obstacles to navigate. We climbed the Hourglass, the second and final steep snow pitch, before traversing on to the Sulphide Glacier. The upper stretch of the Sulphide was also in good shape and we climbed it up to the based of the South East Ridge on the summit block where we took a brief break before starting our climb on the ridge.

There are a couple of notches you can start the ridge climb from. We chose the further right and slightly deeper notch which resulted in some light down-climbing after the first pitch. This put us at the saddle of the second notch. We simul-climbed the route in 3ish blocks. It is mostly 3rd class with a few steeper but unsustained low 5 moves.

We summited at 10:30am and turned around quickly to start the long slog back to the car. We down climbed via the gully which was ultimately going to be much quicker than waiting around to rappel it. The gully down-climbed no harder than 4th class.

Both snow pitches we rappelled on fixed deadman that had been buried at the top of both Hourglass and Winnies. We made it back to our camp at 2pm. A nap was the vibe at this point so we took a brief one then packed up and walked out of camp around 3:30pm

The climb down the chimneys with our overnight packs wasn’t too tricky. The first two “pitches” off the ridge were the most sustained 4th class and it seemed to ease up after that. We were able to down-climb the whole thing without any additional rappels. I think we hit the lake at 6pm, only 4 more miles to go.

Things slowed down for us after this, finally we got to the cars at 8:40pm. Just under a 15 hour day. Not too bad. It’s nice to be back in the Cascades.

Categories
Colorado Indian Peaks Wildernesss Touring

South Arapahoe Peak, Skywalker Couloir

The county plowed the road to 4th of July campground on Thursday so we got up early Saturday morning to go ski Skywalk Couloir before the weather turned to rain for the weekend.

It has been a grey and wet spring in the Front Range. The forecast for Memorial Day weekend, starting around noon on Saturday, was thunderstorms and heavy precipitation through Monday, but there was a short window of sun Saturday morning that looked like we could squeeze something in. We started from the trail head at 4th of July campground just before 7am and hiked up a trail that was equal parts dirt and snow.

Nice day!

It took an hour to get up to the base of the couloir at 11k with the skis on our backs. Here we transitioned briefly to skins and split for a few hundred vert before strapping up the crampons and throwing the boards back on our packs. We also saw a moose here which was cool.

Once you are in the couloir starting about 11,800 it has a pretty consistent pitch of 45°, ramping up to 55° at the very top. Although it faces south southeast, the walls shield it so it stays shaded until later in the morning. Because of this it was just starting to warm as we climbed softening the snow gradually but preserving it well for climbing.

David taking a breather on the climb

I believe we finished on the Princess Leia variation (direct) but I did not see where the alternative or standard finish went. At this point the clouds were moving in and we were beginning to hear thunder in the distance. We transitioned and dropped back in on skis just before 11am, retracing our climbing line.

By the time we started skiing, the snow had softened giving nearly perfect top to bottom conditions. While the crux is at the top, the whole thing is a steep ski for 1500ft that doesn’t ease up until the apron.

Will skiing midway down Skywalker

At the bottom we threw the boards back on our packs and hoofed it out, getting back to the car just before 1pm and right as the first big drops oof rain started to fall. Just barely snuck it it.

Categories
Washington Touring Mt. Rainier Central Cascades

Mt Rainier, Fuhrer Finger

It’s Friday evening, and Zach and I had just been set up by our mutual friend Whitney to climb and ski Mt. Rainier together over the weekend.  We had both been looking for partners to attempt the Fuhrer Finger route, and had both approached Whitney about skiing the Finger.   The Fuhrer Finger is an extraordinary ski mountaineering line; it takes a direct line up a south aspect of Mt. Rainier, and gets its name from the 3000 vertical foot, 40 degree chute located about two thirds of the way up the route, called ‘the finger.’  Some sources cite it as the biggest ski descent in the lower forty eight, but I’m skeptical of anything with a ‘biggest’ quantifier in front of it.   It’s definitely up there, a rad line, for sure.  In good conditions, the entire 9000 vertical feet of the route is ski-able on the descent, with the option to extend that even further by skiing to the Nisqually bridge.

After reviewing our 2-person crevasse rescue skills, we talk about details on the route.  There’s a risk of rockfall within the finger, which is heightened later in the day as things heat up.  There’s also the risk of loose-wet slides later in the day.  Timing on ascent day will be critical, as you want to be descending after the snow has softened up enough to be ski-able, yet before the rocks start firing down from above, or before the snow beneath you becomes warm and unstable.  Based on the predicted warm weather, we set a turnaround time of 11AM for summit day

Saturday, 12:00PM: We arrive at the Paradise Parking lot. We gather our permits and gear, and hit the trail at 1PM

The weather for our ascent was warm and sunny.  Just before dropping down to the Lower Nisqually Glacier, we got a nice view of our planned route.  We chose to hook low and left around the Wilson glacier and gain the ridge to camp, rather than picking our way up through the middle as some do.

Both the Lower Nisqually and the Wilson were in great shape – neither ourselves nor the other two parties we ran into opted to rope up for these glacier crossings.

Saturday, 6:00PM: Arrive at camp .  If you camp by the castle, there’s currently nice, clean, running water by the upper sites.  We skipped the water boiling routine, and haven’t gotten giardia, yet.

Sunday, 2:30AM:  Summit day!  We hit the trail and cross the Wilson glacier to begin the bootpack up the finger. 

Around 4AM, despite it being the coldest portion of the day, a softball size rock came flying down the finger between Zach and myself.  Although jarring, that rock was the only rockfall we witnessed throughout the day.

6:00 AM: Sunrise. After 9000 french steps, we reach the top of the finger.

At the top of the finger we went high and left above a serac before hooking right onto the Upper Nisqually Glacier.

We roped up here. The upper Nisqually was still in great shape – only a couple of snow bridges to cross on the way to the summit.

Slow going on the last couple thousand feet. We chose to continue booting, however, skinning with ski crampons would have been an equally reasonable choice. A group of Canadians did so, and we played rope team leapfrog for a while.

11AM: Summit! We snacked and transitioned quickly, as we had just barely made our turnaround goal. Just enough time for a ski guitar summit picture :).

Conditions were perfect corn on the way back to camp. The terrain was fantastic, and the scenery unbeatable.

We took a leisurely pace packing up camp, and ended up getting back to the car around 4PM.

What a fantastic weekend on the mountain. The Fuhrer finger delivered everything that was expected, and more – absolutely worthy of it’s reputation as one of the best ski mountaineering descents in North America.


Categories
Washington Mt. Adams Touring

Mt Adams, South Face

We had planned to do this one a couple weeks ago but the weather was bad. This weekend however delivered perfect climbing conditions so we trekked south for a Mt Adams climb.

Leaving Seattle on a Friday is a loosing prospect to begin with. Then there is the location of the mountain itself. It is said that Glacier Peak is the most remote volcano in Washington, but I think I would rather do a few extra hours hiking, than the five hours in the car it took to get to the town of Trout Lake. All the same, we camped out on Friday night which made for a relaxing morning on Saturday where we slept in, made breakfast, checked in at the ranger station and drove up to Cold Springs where we started out from the trail head by 11:30pm.

IMG_2866

We stopped for lunch at 7000 ft where the snow finally became skinnable. By 2:00 pm we were moving again, making it to Lunch Counter camp by 4:00 pm which allowed for casual evening.

The next morning we were up a little after 5:00 am and on the move by 6:30 am. We topped out by 11:00 am, rode the south ridge down and were back at camp by noon. It was a gorgeous sunny June day and we enjoyed every minute of the climb crowd negotiation included. We were back to the car by 3:oo pm. The snow was soft but sun cupped and made a choppy ride down at certain points but warmed significantly from the day before. None the less it was good to check another Washington volcano of the list.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkwQ3gmh_Ej/?taken-by=peakoftheweek

Categories
Climbing Mt Hood Touring

Mt Hood, Cooper Spur

We’re standing on the top of Oregon’s tallest volcano which by itself isn’t that impressive considering over 10,000 people attempt the summit every year but our path was windy one and for awhile the whole thing seemed unlikley so for now we are just happy to be here.  The Cooper Spur route on Mt Hood doesn’t get traveled nearly as much as its cousin route to the south. The steepness of the route combined with its relative inaccessibility early in the season while Cloud Cap road is still closed, increase both the physical and technical factors.

If you’re coming from Hood River the route follows the skyline up the left side of the mountain in what is obviously a desirable ski. We drove down from Seattle on Friday afternoon, stopped for dinner and started hiking by 11:15pm that night. We we’re concerned about rock fall up through the chimney at the top so we wanted to summit early before things started heating up.

The road is currently closed at the Tilly Jane Sno Park so that added an extra 3.5 miles and 1500ft to the day. Climbed up to 8200ft by 230am and we encountered 40mph winds and low visibility so we bivied to wait for the sun to come up. It was very cold.

At 6am we moved camp up to the bottom of the “climb” at 9k despite continued poor viz. At 830am we decided to bail on the summit because we didn’t feel comfortable snowboarding a route that we couldn’t see.

We had dropped about 500ft when suddenly everything blew off and the weather cleared. At this point we decided to go for the summit after all so we turned back around and finished the climb.

The final 2200 is a fairly sustained 50 degree pitch that requires front pointing with two tools. I only had one, so things were slower for me. The objective hazard from rock fall was mitigated by the wind keeping things cool. We opted to not rope up as an unarrested fall would have been potentially fatal for the whole team due to the exposure below.

We summited around 130pm riding the line down that we climbed. It hadn’t really softened so the top 2000 ft was fairly icy. It made for a pretty gripping descent.

The corn skiing was decent between 9200 and 7500ft and mush after that. We got back to the car by 4pm.

It was a 17 hour day with about 11 hours actually moving. A very aesthetic natural line on the mountain with nice exposure and great climbing in that last 2k feet. It wasn’t the basic route to the summit and it wasn’t our typical climb but the results were great all the same.

Categories
Touring Snoqualmie Pass

Snoqualmie Pass, Holy Diver

Having both been recently unencumbered by employment, Rory and I made plans for a weekday tour.   Monday’s forecast was for Sunshine and temperatures approaching 60F, so we brainstormed higher mileage tours that would avoid south facing, large and/or steep terrain in the afternoon.  The prior weekend was unseasonably warm as well, so we figured any good snow would be hidden on north aspects.

We settled on a loop in the Aplental backcountry with descents down a north aspect of Chair Peak and Holy Diver on the way out, and descents from Gem Lake and Snow Lake on the way back. For this route the larger more avalanche prone descents down Chair and Holy Diver are north facing and accomplished early in the day, before snow would be expected to be sliding around.  The route’s descents down from Gem and Snow Lakes are south facing and skied in the heat of the afternoon, but the terrain here is smaller and more manageable.  The ascents on this tour are favorable for a warm day as well – The south aspect ascents up Chair Peak and Mt. Roosevelt are accomplished early in the day, leaving shaded north facing ascents to Gem Lake and Snow Lake Divide for the afternoon.

GPX track for the day. 10 miles, 5400′

We hit the trail at 7:30 AM, just between dawn and sunrise.   Conditions for the tour up were hard pack, as to be expected with Sunday’s warm weather and refreezing overnight.  Travel got a little friendlier as the sun began to warm the snow/ice surface while ascending Snow Lake divide.

(L) Descent to snow lake from North Face of Chair Peak. (R) Rory scoping descent from midway bench.

The snow for our descent from Chair to Snow Lake was a bit firm and wind affected, however, the north aspect’s cooler temps and shade left a chalky edgeable surface with fresh snow scattered about.  Fun turns overall.

The ascent from Snow Lake to Holy Diver was steep, sunny and beginning to get warm. We topped out at 11AM and would have been in a tough spot any later in the day.

Booting to Holy Diver

 

Atop Holy Diver

Holy Diver held similar snow conditions to the north aspect of Chair Peak. Rory and I are typically snowboarders, but due to the mileage, amount of transitions and expected snow conditions, we opted to goon around on skis for the day.

Descending Holy Diver

After dropping holy diver we looped around towards lower wildcat lake and transitioned for our ascent and return southward through Gem and Snow Lakes.

We experienced a bit of loose wet activity on the afternoon’s south facing descents from Gem and Snow Lakes, but nothing unexpected or unmanageable.   We also noticed a small slide took out a corner of our uptrack to Holy Diver later in the day as things warmed, reinforcing our decision to tackle that bit early.  The bottom of Bryant Col. slid pretty big down to source lake as well.

Back to the truck at 2:30PM

Fantastic sunny day in the mountains, fist pumps and high fives all around.

Categories
Washington Touring Snoqualmie Pass

Chair Peak Circumnavigation, Alpental Valley

We went out in Alpental Valley on Saturday. For me, it was my first time out there on a splitboard. Our objective was to Circumnavigate Chair Peak.

We left from the upper parking lot at 8am and split up into the valley following the groomed track until it ended. At this point split left until we met up with the main skin track just below Source Lake.

The East Shoulder of Chair Peak was pretty crowded with groups skiing off every aspect, by the time we got up there around 10am. We dropped the north side down to Snow Lake making the best turns of the day.

The trail out the west side of the lake was set for us up to 4400ft where we bumped off of it passing the guys who had set it as they bailed off of Holy Diver due to warming conditions. After that we were on our own, breaking trail up to Melakwa Pass and then down the other side completing 3/4 of the pizza that is Chair Peak.

Finally the last sprint up to the top of Bryant Peak Couloir where we could look back down into Alpental Valley and at our last descent. The run back to the car could be made by the determined one footed snowboarder without a transition.

Warming temperatures couple with storm and snow and wind activity in the previous days caused a lot of loose wet slides on just about everywhere the sun hit. Early in the week some pretty big slides released leaving crowns upwards of 5ft on North East aspects and significant debris on our descents into Snow and Source Lakes.

Nevertheless the snow and the weather lined up very nicely for a time out in the valley

https://www.strava.com/activities/1434898096

 

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Categories
British Columbia Selkirk Mountains Touring

Asulkan Hut, Rogers Pass

I booked three nights at the Asulkan Hut after the third separate conversation when it came up last year. The hut was built in 1995  so who knows why it took so long to get on my radar but I guess I’m still relatively new to British Columbia huts so away we go, to Rogers Pass.

The long term forecast had looked nice for the weekend of our trip. A couple feet of new snow and clearing weather for the holiday weekend, but that changed as temperatures started to warm straining several already anxious persistent weak layers from earlier in the season. As we split out into the valley on Friday we passed the last two of our hut compatriots just as they were turning around unwilling to risk a weekend at the hut in unstable conditions. They mentioned that the other four folks who had also booked the hut had already bailed so just like that we had one of Canada’s best huts to ourselves.

We arrived at the hut a little before 2pm, about four and half hours after we had left the car. The sun wasn’t coming up fully until 8am and it was starting to set by just after 3pm so we called it early and saved it for Saturday. On Saturday the avalanche danger was not only high, but there was a special bulletin out discouraging backcountry travel in the region. With this in mind we stuck to lower angle runs below the hut like the tree triangle and the moraine. We triggered one slide remotely, probably about 300 meters across, going up for the last run of the day but kept it pretty safe.

More warming on Sunday and we decided to pack up and head out a day early. The temps were predicted to spike just above freezing resulting is a significant shedding cycle that we didn’t really need to mess with. We drove back to Seattle that night and promptly booked 3 more nights at the Asulkan hut for next year.