Always A Work in Progress (Sticky Post)

Posted on October 6, 2014 by evejakubowski

Thanks to the guy at Marathon Sports back home who made the logo! I think it’s going to have to stay here because I cannot for the life of me figure out how the hell to get it next to the title above. Eventually I’d like to have a few things added, like lists (everyone loves lists), hike of the month, and a few more categories, but for now it’s all about learning to hike, climb, and run. Elevation profiles are in the Strava links when provided, and if anyone would like a GPX file of my route, comment and let me know, I usually have one. Comments, blog suggestions, and recommendations for peaks are always welcome! Doesn’t matter whether it’s a hike, run, or climb.

Recent updates: I have added a rock climbing category as well as an Archives page so you can see hikes by month with brief notes! Figured it was about time I get organized!

Working Our Way Through the Grieving Process: Rainier via DC

Posted on July 17, 2017 by evejakubowski

John coming around the corner on our rogue route up Dorado Needle

I had a long drawn out debate over whether to post this or not. On one hand, I don’t want to make any of us relive the past two months. On the other hand, this blog is basically a hiking and climbing journal for me, and the past two months have been a huge part of my climbing life. (And it’s my blog, and I can do what I want).

As many of you probably know, one of my best friends out in Seattle passed away in a climbing accident. That’s all it was, an accident. One misstep. Nothing was done incorrectly, no one was unprepared. One slip is all it takes when this is your favorite hobby, and that’s something we all know. But no matter how often you talk about how it’s only a matter of time, no matter how much everyone says “well you’ll just make sure that never happens” (come on, let’s be real) nothing prepares you for when it does.

John and Rippley coming up Vesper

That friend was John. John who I met on Rainier two years ago, John who was thrilled to climb every following weekend and introduced me to Sam who was always down for spontaneous trips. John who finally let Simon into our meetup group climb 8 hours before we left because Simon was a stranger with a creepy profile picture, John who swore that even though Kacie might need a smoke break every 4 miles she’d kick my ass. John who finally got me to like dogs because Rippley is a bad ass, John who convinced me to hitchhike and taught me to rappel and laughed at me when I prussiked out of a crevasse I couldn’t ice climb out of only to immediately drop both ice tools back into the abyss as I crested the lip while he set up the world’s tiniest z-haul chatting with a random climber that (5 months later) would be Kacie’s tinder date when we climbed Eldorado.

So you can imagine how it went when I got the news. I had just gotten down from a climb, and I was catching up on my phone. JT told me first. John? John who? His last name passed through my mind, but I was trying to think of old people I knew named John. I don’t know any old Johns. And then I started seeing the Facebook messages that had collected on my phone. And the texts. Dozens of people saying I’m so sorry for your loss. Oh my god. The ground fell away and I was alone in outer space. I called Simon. Tell me what happened I need to know what happened and I need to hear it from you because everyone else is talking to me and I don’t know what happened.

John coming to terms with the fact he’s going to have to use Simon as a human belay

I cried the whole drive home. I got home at 1am and woke up in a sweaty nauseous panic at 4am wondering how the world still existed and how I was still there and why was I still there but somehow it was still real. My father flew out to Seattle since I had just been stuck out overnight on that climb and he hadn’t heard from me, and instead of me comforting him he ended up keeping me from falling apart. Little things. Alcohol and grocery run for everyone in a dazed fog at Shawna’s house, putting gas in my car, making it easy for me to leave work because the excuse was “my father’s in town” not “‘I’m sitting here staring into space and crying because I can’t remember how to send an email and I don’t know what 39+12 is.” It was simultaneously a whirlwind and an eternity. You’re a shell of yourself, a shell shattered in a million pieces held together by who knows what with nothing but empty space inside.

“I’m a black belt what’d you expect!?”

Every tiny task is suddenly an insurmountable mountain. Decisions are the worst. What should I wear today? Where should I get lunch? What do you want to eat? I needed someone to just make every decision for me for a few weeks. And work? I should have been with the rest of my friends at Shawna’s, helping organize the memorial, taking care of things around the house, processing everything myself as well. And instead I was sitting in an office sending emails that were about as important as an ant is to the function of the sun.

John doing his best Blue Steel impression on the Gunn Peak catwalk

But the world keeps going. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t taken a full breath in three weeks. Days still turn, bills need to be paid, you need to eat, you need to do laundry. So you figure out how to cope. All out of quarters for laundry? Cue panic, start crying. Okay, you can do this. Go to the cafe and get a tea and just get two dollars back in quarters. You can do that. And slowly, the decisions get easier. It’s just terrifying and not overwhelming, and then it’s just stressful and nauseating and not terrifying, and then it’s just anxiety inducing, and someday it’ll just be a random decision again and you won’t think twice. The small decisions are already better. But a week ago I almost puked in Manhattan at the idea of getting a new cell phone, despite mine being over 5 years old. It’s not gone yet. And then I cried for 30 minutes on the plane, too. I’m not drowning anymore, but I still get tossed around by waves.

Skin up, rap down, climb back up!

There are five stages of grief, that’s common knowledge. But there’s a stage no one talks about that we’ve deemed stage 3.5: “shit’s weird.” And that’s just it. Sometimes it’s just weird. Your brain does weird things. Random thoughts you can’t justify, random bouts of awkwardness even around good friends, wondering why you’re so uncomfortable even though you’re somewhere that’s always been comforting. You randomly suck at things, you’re easily distracted, you’re irritable, you drift off during conversation and want to run home and just be in bed. I’m basically manic depressive over climbing right now, from “hell yeah I’d solo that” to “no I don’t want to climb anything and you’re all assholes for suggesting it.” And everyone else is just as awkward and no one knows what to do or how to feel and there’s no answer to either of those. Shit’s just weird and it’s okay to take a step back and acknowledge that.

“Look it’s the perfect beer shelf!”

Last weekend, we climbed Rainier to scatter some of John’s ashes. I had no idea what to expect leading up to it, so I just… didn’t. We took it super slow up to Muir. JT carried probably a literal ton of food and supplies. A grill, a cast iron skillet, 24 burgers, buns, bacon, cheese, you name it he brought it. Capri sun juice boxes! We ate like kings at Muir that afternoon, and attempted to sleep in the climbers’ hut. I’m usually conditioned to immediately pass out upon snuggling in my sleeping bag, but not this time.

We got up around 9:30pm and got moving by 10:30pm. Cathedral Gap was oddly draining for me. We took a quick break at Ingraham Flats where I told everyone I didn’t feel well. I didn’t know if it was mental or physical or both. Halfway up the cleaver, I realized I physically felt fine. Okay, I can do this. The cleaver is like stage 3.5. Shit’s weird. It’s awkward. Short roping with crampons on rock, yuck. No one likes it.

Tsunami Wave on the way down

We took another break at the top of the cleaver, and then began the long traverse to the right (east? north? northeast!). There were no ladders, no major crevasse crossings. There was a large serac dubbed the Tsunami Wave, and there were a few fixed lines and pickets placed just in case your group needed it. The trail finally switched back, taking us to what felt like the longest, steepest part of the climb. There are no natural breaks after the cleaver, though the switchback was a mental one. The guide services shovel out benches around 13,100ft, but I always pass those without noticing. There was one large step-over crevasse followed immediately by a fixed line and some steep terrain, but nothing awful. Past that, it was a tiny bit more uphill, and then the final traverse to the crater.

Crossing the crater at sunrise, could not have asked for a more beautiful day

The tears started as soon as I realized we were nearly at the crater. I turned back to the team and shouted the usual “whoop whoop!” We dropped our stuff, huddled in sleeping bags for a bit waiting for the sun to rise, and went over to the summit register as the sun finally crept above the crater rim. It was a brilliant sunrise reflecting off the cloud deck below us. We took up a whole page in the summit register book. I didn’t know what to do. We went to the far ridge closest to the sun and clouds to scatter his ashes. The wind was whipping which was perfect, for once.* It was beautiful in so many ways, ways I never thought I’d see beauty. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s raw and it’s terrible, but it’s beautiful. My coworker (long time climber) told me when I asked for advice that this would always be part of me, part of my climbing foundation. But he also said that over time it would become a beautiful part, and that’s what I’ve been clinging to as I try to continue climbing while reconciling everything ugly that happened.

Scattering ashes over every peak in the Cascades

“I’m gonna cut really good side steps. Make sure you get a picture.”

We spent nearly two hours at the summit before finally heading down. Robert pointed out that thanks to the wind, John has now climbed most of the peaks north of Rainier. Despite a stupid bottleneck just below the crater rim (which is a lot more fun when you can bitch about it over the radios, sorry OSAT), we made it back to Paradise in decent time, including a one hour hut nap which was the highest quality sleep I’ve had in ages. I woke up a new person. We even jogged the last part of the trail to Paradise to fly past tourists and drop our stuff at Nat’s car where I promptly forgot to check out of our climb (yes, they called me Monday morning to make sure we were back).

I have come across two analogies over the past few months, both of which are very applicable in different ways. It depends whether you’re the type who sees themselves dealing with this alone, or sees themselves surrounded by a network of friends.

Guess who that is, sawing off a cornice so he can snowboard off the summit

The analogy that has helped me the most is comparing the grieving process to an ocean. It’s a rip tide on an early September hurricane weekend. You get pulled out, you’re drowning, you’re underwater and you can’t fight it you just need to swim with it and you’ll hopefully pop out. The waves are enormous in the beginning, and frequent, and you think there’s no way you’ll end up back on shore even if you’re out of the initial current. Over time the swells get smaller. It’s one every few hours, it’s one every few days. You’ll still randomly be overwhelmed and cry or panic, but those episodes are fewer and shorter with more time in between, and someday you’ll be standing on shore with the memories lapping at your feet.

Au cheval baby! “Ride the pony!”

But it’s also like a climb. In the beginning it’s insurmountable. You look up at it and think there’s no freaking way up that, through those crevasses, up those rock chutes, those ice gulleys. But there is, even if it’s long and winding with plenty of obstacles and shit to throw at you. And you’re on a rope team. You have someone to belay you if you panic or if the terrain gets too tough, someone to lead the way, someone to help manage the obstacles, someone to give words of encouragement. Your friends are belay stations. If you’re falling apart in the grocery store you just need to remember in 30 minutes you’ll be at a belay station with someone instead of struggling through a tough crux move. It feels like it will take forever, especially starting at sunset knowing you have every hour of darkness to work though. But the sun rises, and your team is still there with you, and eventually you start to get the feeling that hey, you might make it. There are ups and downs, and the hard parts seem like they’ll never end but they do. And everything still sucks and you’re still tired and maybe it’s still intimidating but it’s one step at a time and if you start struggling you know you’re surrounded by people willing to pick you up.

John and the Mountain Bastards

So here’s to John, and the awesome community that he brought together, and to my amazing family back home. I have no idea how I’d be getting through all of this without you guys. I’ve learned over the past few months that I have lifelines in the most unlikely places. My dad, flying all the way out here, or agreeing to help me pay for a last minute flight back home. Simon, upgrading my flight home to first class. Shawna, giving us her house and Wednesday night dinners and helping me get back into climbing in a healthy way. Robert, convincing me to stick with the EMT class. Kacie, cleaning my apartment (all I asked was for help with my room!) before a last minute inspection while I had a meltdown at SeaTac. Kristen, somehow making me laugh while I fell to pieces in a bar. Nat for running back across the crater to get sleeping bags when I didn’t even care how cold I was, I just wanted to mope. Tony for unknowingly telling me every step up Rainier that we could push through this. JT for the Ptarmigan Traverse and reminding me how much potential climbing has and why I chase it in the first place. The list goes on, and every tiny thing helps me take a slightly deeper breath. I used to think I had a few special friends, friends whose doorstep I could show up on out of nowhere, broken down and lost, and they’d take me in without hesitation and judgement. Now I know I have tons of those, across several states, and especially here in Washington.

*Robert didn’t have hard shell pants – “It feels like I’m wearing shorts.” That sounds nice, in 30mph winds at 14k,411 feet.

The summit that started it all!

Ptarmigan Traverse

Posted on June 29, 2017 by evejakubowski

I’m not sure I could be happier. Maybe with a steak in front of me

Starting up from Cascade Pass

So you all know my ski talents. Or lack thereof. I joked earlier today that I should be in TOO (Turns On Occasion) or TS (Turns Sometimes) instead of TAY (Turns All Year). So given those ski skills, of course skiing the Ptarmigan Traverse sounded like a great idea. I had wanted to do the Ptarmigan Traverse since I moved here, in fact it’s crazy how simple it felt after so many years of dreaming about it. Working at REI, a customer had mentioned it to me, probably chuckling at the young starry eyed grasshopper in front of her who only knew hiking and had never seen the Milky Way and got scared driving forest roads because there were psychopaths out there, man. And here she was, with years of mountaineering expertise, pulling up pictures of the Ptarmigan Traverse, on top of the world, sparkling blue glaciers and green valleys and nothing for miles besides you and the scenery and the stars. I set her up with her new hiking boots, wished her well, went to the back room, and wrote down everything I could remember her saying. In fact, I think this is how I discovered Summitpost. So I put the Ptarmigan Traverse on my to do list, a far off dream for years ahead if I still lived in Seattle.

Ants climbing Sahale

Distance: Roughly 35 miles
Elevation Gain: No idea. Highest point is 7800ish (Col next to Spire Point). Take note that there’s way more up and down than I expected – this wasn’t a “get up high and traverse flat” it was a “get up high, HAHAHA drop 1400ft, HAHAHA climb 1400ft, HAHAHA drop 700ft, actually go up 200ft, no really now drop 400ft, HAHAHAHA GOT YA back up 1400ft ” marathon
Weather: A million degrees and sunny always
Commute from Seattle: 6 hours if you include both trailheads
Did I Trip: Actually no, I don’t think I had any spectacular wipeouts! Must have been a boring trip.

Almost at the pass!

Well, a week ago, I tossed the idea to JT. Ptarmigan traverse? 3 days? Totally doable, shut up, I’m out of shape, no I’m not trying to climb Dome at the end, no I don’t want to start up at 10pm, our last trip resulted in us being overdue can’t we just have one solid normal trip at least to prove it’s possible again? I can’t write two “we got stuck out overnight” blog posts in a row. Luckily, after extensive bitching and threatening to bail right then and there, he obliged to a “normal” trip. 6/24-6/26, time to make it happen!

Looking up at Cache Col across Cache Glacier

First, let me give you a small piece of history. This traverse was initially completed in 1938 by four members or the Ptarmigan Climbing Club, who took 13 days and actually went south to north, from Dome to Cascade Pass. They never published it. No pictures, no written account, nothing. In 1953, five climbers wondered what could be south of Cascade Pass, and did the same traverse in the opposite direction, knowing that there was a route that went IF they could find it. And now there’s me, sitting on my couch with Google and Facebook and a GPX track on my smartphone and my satellite messenger beacon is also a GPS with great maps and I’ve never really stared into a void wondering if a route goes, because I know that yes, it does, and hundreds if not thousands of people have already done it and I have decades of beta at my fingertips.

We started up around 5am on Saturday after spending hours dropping off cars at each trailhead. Seriously, dropping cars off is my primary stressor before a traverse. Who knew? Anyway, at Cascade Pass, the road was gated around 2 miles from the trailhead. Surprisingly no one was checking for overnight permits: the National Park now requires permits via a lottery system, and apparently even trailhead camping is not allowed. Lucky for us, we were heading south, leaving the Park almost immediately after Cascade Pass. We walked the road to the parking lot, and from there we were able to head straight to the pass on skis, though that won’t be the case for long. We needed to boot the steeper sections (I don’t have ski crampons), and wow I felt like crap. I announced that if I didn’t feel better by the top of Cache Col, I’d be bailing. JT gave me plenty of shit. Hey, you’re only as good as the weakest member of your party and that’s ME. So I have the power right now.

JT skirting the cornice

Well, spoiler alert, we got to Cache Col and I felt fine, minus the five seconds where I nearly shit myself as a ton of rocks fell off the face next to us (and into a moat, as I ski-ran across the slope away from it). Unfortunately, I was starkly aware of the fact I seemed to have regressed in skiing abilities. Okay, so the skis were relegated to training weight. The only thing worse than skinning steep slopes is the awkward downhill traverse with skins, which I promptly gave up on. This meant there was a lot of booting in my near future, starting with the downward traverse to Kool Aid Lake. It’s still amazing how much faster this passed with snow cover as opposed to talus fields like the previous year.

Traversing to Kool Aid Lake (out of frame on left) and to Spider-Formidable Col (just right of center on the horizon)

Wiping away my tears from stumpy numb hands on Red Ledges (yes I’m kidding… about the tears)

We had already been through the first third (ish) of the Ptarmigan Traverse when we did Formidable last year, so nothing was too exciting besides Red Ledges. Last year, they were an easy scramble. This year, they were steep snow, which was great (sarcasm) because I had no waterproof gloves. Yeah yeah, don’t say anything. I legit wasn’t expecting steep snow. Which is funny, because for some reason I had brought an ice tool and not an ice axe. JT eventually was nice enough to give me his whippet since he had an ice axe and a pole, but for a while, I had the two extremes. Ski poles, and an ice tool. No bueno.

Looking down Middle Fork Cascade River Valley from Kool Aid Lake ish

We were past Red Ledges quickly, and carried on towards Middle Cascade Glacier. Why isn’t there a North Cascade Glacier? There is a South Cascade Glacier we’ll reach later, and a Middle, but no North? Who named these?! Middle Cascade Glacier was nicely covered, and we skinned to the Spider-Formidable Col with a plethora of water breaks and breathers (aka me stopping for 90 seconds because I’m tired and sweaty and sunscreen is wearing off and I can’t drink and skin uphill at the same time or I run out of breath because I’m out of shape).

Le Conte Lake in August 2016

Getting to Spider-Formidable Col seemed to fly by, probably because we were familiar with the area. I was disappointed that Le Conte Lake was still frozen, and not boasting its spectacular blue color from last year. Yes, Le Conte Lake, at the base of Le Conte Glacier, which is on…. no, you didn’t guess it. It’s on Old Guard. Le Conte Mountain does not host Le Conte Glacier. Shitty namers, keeping us on our toes. Also, there’s a trail that comes up that valley called Flat Creek Trail, which amazingly stops short of Le Conte Lake. Think of the views from that lake! When (okay, if) I get rich, I’ll sponsor that trail. Jeez.

The traverse to Yang Yang

I expected Yang Yang Lakes to be like a 30 minute downward traverse from the S-F col, but psych! It took hours of booting across steep slushy slopes in the baking sun. Oh, and I also got to self arrest on the way down the col thanks to snow balling up in crampons (I clearly wasn’t whacking them enough, and don’t even mention that skis should be on my feet, I have no chance in narrow chutes yet) so everyone thank JT for his whippet. We finally crawled into some shade and marveled at where we had come from. Okay, let’s get to Yang Yang and reevaluate there. We figured to do a three day we at LEAST had to be at Yang Yang night one.

Coming up the mellow ridge above Yang Yang, Formidable and Spider in the background. We came over the col just right of center

Camp! Spider Mountain in the background

We reached Yang Yang around 5pm and decided yeah, we’d get to the ridge above it and camp there. The ridge had looked super mellow from a distance, so we skinned up to a small couloir, booted up the steep (it wasn’t really steep, just too much for skis) part, and topped out on a gorgeous rolling ridge with patches of talus and heather at the base of Le Conte Peak. We set up camp on a small cluster of talus with a stunning background of Mt. Formidable and Spider Mountain. I can’t put into words how content I was. Tired, satisfied, blown away by the views, cozy in my down quilt, there is nothing better. I always have this annoying urge to run in circles or knock out a ton of work or start huge projects and it’s always hanging over my head, except when I’m wiped in the alpine. We laid our wet gear out to dry, enjoyed our dehydrated meals, tried to rehydrate our poor battered bodies, and went to sleep. I managed to wake up for sunset and again to get a glance of the Milky Way (new moon = amaaaaazing stars). I slept through sunrise, and we got a lazy start around 7:30am.

Traverse to the Le Conte Glacier, imagine Le Conte Lake all blue!!

Ascending the Le Conte Glacier

The next section of the traverse took us east of Le Conte and up to the base of Sentinel and Old Guard, where we wrapped slightly east of the peaks. The Le Conte Glacier last August had a small ice step (or so I was told – the group was in a whiteout and I have to wonder if they just didn’t skirt it enough). Regardless, the picture on the left hides a huge ass crevasse with a huge bridge over it (the obvious center rise) with basically a small ice cliff on the right when it’s all melted out. This time of year, with all of the snow fall this winter, it wasn’t even noticeable.

Approaching Old Guard (left) and Sentinel (right). Hard right here, then left around the base of Sentinel (don’t go between them)

From the base of Sentinel and Old Guard, we traversed south and dropped down onto the South Cascade Glacier. Cue nerd out: this glacier is super cool. We found a few cameras and some measuring equipment. This glacier is one of the most studied glaciers in North America, having been consistently measured since the 1950’s. They have daily stats, which are immediately recorded and available to the public! The average temperature the day we crossed was 65 degrees (aka “Fucking Hot”). There’s a research station at the terminus (the second hut was taken out by an avalanche in 2000), but I didn’t know that as we crossed it, thank god (I’d have wasted hours going to check it out). There’s a “trail” that connects back to Middle Fork Cascade River (which is a “trail” that goes down the drainage below Kool Aid Lake and the Middle Cascade Glacier, shocker I know) and eventually to the Cascade River Road, but I put “trail” in quotes because routine maintenance stopped in the 70’s and a huge wildfire took out what was left in 2003 (despite some attempts in 2001 to rehab part of the trail).

Smoke from the 2003 fire, taken from Dome (Source)

Prior to that (now we’re talking 1950’s), there was a 14 mile trail that connected to Siuattle River Road (PDF warning) that required you to climb up to 7,000ft just south of the hut, hop over the ridge, and then trek out via the Downey Creek drainage, similar to the Ptarmigan exit now but meeting Downey Creek further east. That was replaced by the aforementioned South and Middle Fork Cascade River Trails in the 60’s, which at the time made it only a several hour hike from Cascade River Road to the glacier. I originally assumed the trail was how everyone accessed the glacier – you’d think with such a heavily studied glacier, there would be a well maintained foot path. But it turns out this glacier is large and flat enough to land a freaking plane. I’d love to find out whether researchers still schwack up the South and Middle Fork Cascade River Trails nowadays. The trails seem to get more and more wild each year without maintenance and foot traffic.

Looking down the South Cascade Glacier, Baker back right

Zoom in, and check out the ridge just above the lake to the left!

Going by coordinates, I think I should have captured the research station in this pic, but I don’t see it anywhere! Maybe it was taken down and it’s just the cameras and measuring sticks (I’m sure there’s a fancier name) recording everything. I can’t find confirmation or recent pictures of the research station, so I’m not sure it’s still current. EDIT: I think I caught it in this pic to the right!! On the ridge to the left above the lake. I found a post on WTA suggesting it was operational as recently as 2006, have not seen anything else more recent. This article in the Seattle Times in 2009 came out when the glacier had effectively shrunk in half over a 50 year time span. Interestingly, back to the PDF linked above, a perfectly preserved tree was found as the glacier receded which dated back to ~5000 years ago. This suggests that the glacier was as small ~5000 years ago as it was in 1958, but it was rapidly advancing at that time, fast enough to shear and store a tree trunk for the next few centuries. I wonder how old the oldest ice in this glacier is. (Also, the fancy name for the measuring sticks is “measurement stakes” so I wasn’t too far off.)

Enhance! Top left!? Maybe they’re rocks and I’m just overeager.

Elephant Head and Overdrive Peak over White Rock Lakes, traverse on the right in center, col on the right is what we’re aiming for

Anyway, JT was not enthused by my nerd out, and we carried on. The col here is a mellow approach with a short, steep drop down to White Rock Lakes, which easily compose the coolest camp area I’ve seen in the North Cascades so far. Unfortunately they were still frozen over too, but the views of Dome (mostly obscured by Elephant Head and Overdrive Peak) are spectacular. You gotta camp here if you do the traverse. The only bummer was the discovery of an abandoned blue bag, complete with human shit inside which I only discovered after accidentally flinging it everywhere. I joked last year about wanting to be the Patron Saint of Alpine Shits because I have such enthusiasm for the human composting toilets, and I guess that includes packing out all alpine shits as tributary to the Mountain Gods. So I plopped it in a ziploc and carried on my way. Looking across the hills to the next col we had a brief “holy shit, we traverse THAT?!” before we thought about when we looked back at Spider-Formidable Col and it looked insane but was pretty mellow up close. Okay, so it might look ridiculous, but when we get closer, it’ll be fine. And it was! It was actually incredibly mellow.

Traverse is mellower than expected… we probably could have skinned

Looking back at White Rock Lakes (just above center line) and the col just above

From White Rock Lakes, you drop down a few hundred feet and traverse to the Dana Glacier, which you ascend to the second huge col to the right of Overdrive Peak. It may be mellow, but it takes forever. For. Ever. For starters, it’s several hundred feet taller than the col that you crested to get to White Rock Lakes, and on top of that you drop DOWN from White Rock Lakes as you traverse to the base of the glacier. We skinned some, we booted some, we skinned more, we booted more. JT shouted back to me “careful, we’re crossing running water under the snowpack!” “Yeah, neat, you can tell because of the change in texture!” It was an obvious difference, which usually means something hollow. I got closer, and laughed again. “You can also tell from the hole where the first guy fell through.” Someone had a beautiful full fledged ass deep posthole. Thanks for finding it, man. Also, speaking of shitty glacier names, the glacier on the left (between Elephant Head and Dome) is the Chikamin Glacier. Chikamin peak is nowhere near us! At least Le Conte Glacier is kind of near Le Conte Mountain!

JT admiring Glacier Peak from just east of Spire Point

We switched back to skins, and after what felt like a few hours of skinning sloppy slidey warm snow and baking in the sun and sweating and sun-burning and wondering if I was putting on too much sunscreen to even get tan we finally reached the col next to Spire Point. Holy shit. I forgot Glacier Peak existed. Oh my god. It’s glorious. Everything is glorious. JT started scrambling up a spire to our left while I lazed around below. 2 minutes later I was following him, because shit I wasn’t missing out on views. This was our last chance to be on top of the world. Better take advantage of it.

JT clicked into his skis for the way down, ready to shred. I booted a ways, and then stopped. What the fuck, I could ski this. But maybe not that next hill? Was it worth the transition? Nah, I’ll keep booting. Crest the next hill. Okay I can ski this too. Shit now I’ve missed two slopes I could have skiied. But not that next part? Is it worth the transition? Well I don’t know about the next part so nah. Keep booting. God dammit this was skiiable too! Where’s my confidence?!? Where’s my “fuck it let’s just do it” attitude?! By that time I was at the top of a short couloir I knew I wasn’t skiing, so I accepted photography duty, and agreed to get a video of JT tearing it up while I simmered with regret.

JT tearing it up in a couloir above Cub Lake

It only took us like half an hour to get to Cub Lake. Once again we laid out all of our wet gear, JT set up shop in the shade, I laid in the sun, we enjoyed meals. I blew bubbles and napped and tanned while JT did ski runs and tried to convince me to be fun. Shut up, this is as close to beach tanning as I’m going to get, let me enjoy my sun naps. We camped on snow right next to the outlet of the lake.

Except sun naps turned into sleep, and I woke up to JT having a bad dream. Or being attacked by a bear, or abducted by aliens, I didn’t know. I debated whether to throw something or shout or actually get up (we established that I’m lazy) and I settled for shouting. He woke up, and within minutes we saw some weird ass lights in the sky, so it was probably aliens. I went back to sleep. JT didn’t. If they’re determined they’re gonna get me anyway so I might as well get a good rest and give myself a chance of survival once they’ve caught up.

Surprisingly good views from Bachelor Creek before it gets miserable

We got another lazy start around 7:30am after I woke up at 6:30 with Ghetto Superstar in my head, and booted it up to the pass above Cub Lake. Ski boots are great on steep heather (seriously). Cue immediate fuckup with my GPS app that led us way too far left and resulted in a steep forest traverse which wasn’t bad for me, but JT was trying to ski and ended up booting through trees. Oops. When you hit the saddle, follow your nose, not your GPS. There’s one mellow way down into the drainage, and that’s where you should go. Luckily we backtracked quickly and picked up the trail, which led to one of the more miserable exit hikes I’ve had.

Plenty of practice after Stuart a few weeks back

The Bachelor Creek Drainage would be MISERABLE without a bootpath. I laughed at first, because I was like this isn’t a bushwack, there’s a trail the whole way! But as you drop in elevation, the vegetation gets taller, and thicker, and soon those “beautiful clear alpine meadows” turn into “stifling meadows of death.” Thick bushes on either side, trees to scramble under and over at the same time, skis getting stuck on everything, bugs sticking to your sweaty face, nature sucks. After what felt like an eternity (I think the Bachelor Creek Drainage is actually only like 3 miles) we finally started seeing signs of civilization. A log had been sawed into pieces to reveal the trail! We must be getting close. The trail is getting more heavily worn. Oh my god another sawed log. Holy shit!! It’s Downey Creek!! There’s a legit bridge to cross over Bachelor Creek to start heading south! I died with happiness.

Holy shit. A sawed tree AND A BRIDGE!

Not literally. What we actually did was walk right past it, stop in our tracks, and realize we were both out of water and should probably fill up. We dropped packs and carried water bottles and bladders back to the stream junction where we filled them, chugged, filled them again, and lay on the ground savoring the nectar of the gods. JT switched to trail shoes and I glazed over watching his repeated futile attempts to click his ski boots into his skis sideways without taking the skis off his pack. I finally started walking because I couldn’t watch, and my feet hurt, but I knew I was better off in ski boots than trail runners. Bring on the pain, baby. Around this time I also realized that the flip flops I was so excited to wear were actually in JT’s car, not my car. Shit. I announced it to him but he didn’t process my pain. Probably too busy wrapped up in his own brain.

After all that, JT doesn’t want to get his feet wet

The 6 miles of the Downey Creek trail went surprisingly fast, and were quite pleasant. You don’t spend much time along the river, but you wander through thick green jungle, over streams, past tons of different types of vegetation. Everything is so lush and alive! Including the spiders, which like to make webs across the trail, to capture their favorite meal which is obviously humans. JT mistakenly assumed I was scared of spiders and started warning me of spiders. No, I don’t care about the spider. They can chill. But if they start building a web, the friendship is over. Built your shit three feet to the left please because I am the destroyer of dream webs and I don’t care how perfect it is. I even accidentally ate some. That’s right, I can EAT your HOME.*

One more from near Kool Aid Lake

Sunset over Baker

It’s not really fair of me to complain about the Bachelor Creek exit, because the rest of the exits are worse. And Bachelor Creek used to be worse. A brief list of alternate exits:

Middle Fork Cascade River: A bushwack down from the Kool Aid Lake/Middle Glacier section of the traverse. Trail was destroyed by a wildfire in 2001, not maintained since then, and never got to the real head of the valley anyway, so have fun.
South Fork Cascade River: A bushwack down from the South Cascade Glacier, which apparently used to be pleasant. From there you can either follow “the trail” to meet with Middle Fork Cascade River, or take the ancient exit, which is schwacking up and over the ridge south of the glacier and dropping into the Downey Creek valley, where you will at least eventually encounter the Downey Creek trail.
West Fork of Agnes Creek, from White Rock Lakes or Dome. It’s tempting on a map. Here’s a quote from 1953. “If anyone is interested in obtaining information on hanging valleys, waterfalls, slide alder, whip willow, and the latest beaver dam projects on the West Fork, we will be glad to inform him on such matters.” And here’s a quote from 1980. “From where our party entered the alder thicket to where we got onto viable trail took 16 hours, working very hard to traverse a distance of a little less than 4 miles. To make forward progress, we had to ascend the alder branches and jump from branch to branch about 6 feet off the ground, periodically falling out into the devil’s club below.” 4 miles, 16 hours. A quarter of a mile an hour. Babies crawl faster than that. And I doubt it’s better now, with another 30 years of thick Cascades brush growth. Nature sucks.
In conclusion, the best bail plan is to either finish the traverse, go out the way you came, or get injured and call a helo. I put those in order of preference from best to worst.

Looking down at the eventual W Fork Agnes Creek valley

Okay, back on track. I had insisted on leaving my car at the Downey Creek trailhead, because I love the feeling of getting back to my car. And this was a perfect one. You pop out on the last few feet of trail and can see the glimpses of yellow through the trees. There it is!! My car! Yay! We dropped our bags next to it and I struggled out of my sopping wet ski boots. We only took 10 minutes to revel in our weekend before hopping in the car to drive all the way back to the Cascade Pass trailhead, where we’d get JT’s car.

The drive back wasn’t so bad, even with my granny driving. My strength is traffic and cities and being a dick, okay, not forest roads. I’m getting better but I’m not there yet (and the better I get in forests the worse I get at cutting people off and deciding I need to make a turn across two lanes of traffic 50ft before the turn, so I’m getting worse at traffic too). At the pass we swapped gear, I took off towards Seattle, JT caught up within minutes, and I politely pulled over to let him pass against all desires to go 1mph for a few minutes to see how long he lasted. You’re welcome.

View of Dome from a short scramble near Spire Point

Oh, by the way, I was back in Seattle by like 10pm. So we had an awesome, epic trip that still went smoothly, no complications, no overdue notice, no snow ledge bivvy, no helicopters. Just sunburns and nosebleeds and amazing views. Shit, we were even out before dark. So let it be known that casual trips are possible!

*And then cry about it in a nightmare later when I’m home.

Mt. Stuart via Ice Cliffs Glacier (aka Go Get A [excessive expletives] PLB)

Posted on June 5, 2017 by evejakubowski

The cornice at the top. At least 20′ tall

“Maybe I should have renewed that SPOT subscription.” “I mean we’ve only been talking about it for the past 5 weeks right?” “Yeah… it would be nice to have right now.” “I’ll take a space heater, a hot shower, and a down comforter with my beacon please. And a foot massage.” And there we were, in a nice ice ledge/snow cave we had dug halfway down the Sherpa glacier, staring at the snow lit up by the moon and wondering how fucked we’d be when I wouldn’t show up to work at 9am and no one would know why. How did we get to this point, you ask? Let’s find out. Climbed 5/6-5/8.

Distance: ~20mi round trip
Elevation: 7200ft gain (9,416ft highest point)
Weather: 30’s and sunny? Random snow squalls
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: Many, many postholes. And shattered dreams.

Come on it’s hilarious. Especially when you ring the bell.

We got to the trailhead at 7pm. Well I did, JT showed up at 10 and insisted on doing the approach. Nope, it’s like a 6 hour approach without the road, with plenty of creek crossings and no trail and I figured it’d be easier in the morning. We had time. JT begged but I was committed, I needed sleep. Call me lame.

First glimpse!

We got moving at 6am. JT had brought a hilarious electric fatbike, so we strapped our packs to the bike and he started to take them up. Don’t worry, the bike has a bell you can ring in case you need to pass anyone at your top speed of 3mph. We figured we’d leapfrog and take turns with the bike, which if it didn’t save us much time at least provided comic relief for the four miles of dry, easily driveable road. I left my trail runners on for the 2 miles of Colchuck trail we needed to follow, no traction or anything. When we branched off onto the Stuart Lake trail it started getting a little more postholey, and when we finally started the cross country trek, it got real postholey. We were hoping someone else would have broken trail but of course not. We came along an old skin track that we followed on and off, but all of the creek crossings were different. Many logs, not many good access points. The snowbanks made it awkward, since youd’ have to drop down two feet of snow and hope to land your ass on the log. Lots of shimmying. It was a lot more fun when you’re a kid, and not carrying 50lbs with skis attached to your park. I clotheslined my skis at one point because I was so worried that when I sat on the shimmy log they’d stick in the snow behind me and tip me forward and thus off the log, leading to my untimely and mildly embarrassing demise.

Route on the left, JT ready to ski!

But we survived the river crossings and honestly that was probably the hardest part of the approach. We camped just above the trees at the base of the route. We skinned up to check it out, figuring if it looked too intimidating we’d do Sherpa instead. But Ice Cliffs looked dope, and well within our abilities, so we decided to go for it. We made some turns on the way back to camp, perfect mellow green run for baby skiiers like me. Look at those S’s baby. Someone’s learning.

That’s a 5 star bivvy. Best night of sleep in months.

We dug out our bivvy spots back at camp. I walked up to some avvy debris piles to collect branches as ground insulation, because we had time and I wanted to be warm and have everything smell like Christmas. We left tracks all over that basin (this was problematic later). We melted water, watched a climber get plucked off the North Buttress Couloir on Colchuck, and went to sleep as the sun set.

We got up around 5 and started up to the couloir. There was avvy debris mixed with chunks of glacial ice from the icefall at the base of the route, frozen solid, like a talus field except snow and ice. Soon enough, the steep snow starter. We knew if we stayed left of the icefall there would be a nice snowy couloir that would lead us up to the mellow, flat section above the falls. From that section, it would be steep snow to the cornice, and…. well, we’d deal with that when we got there.

Baby turns!

Already in heaven

Luckily, it was fucking freezing. Everything was rock solid. We placed no pro, until one spicy section I was halfway up when I realized I was hanging on by like 1cm of ice pick and 5mm of crampon frontpoints. I looked up at JT. Same deal. Oh, good, we’re on ice. With no protection. With a thousand feet of terrible runout. Well. Not much we can do now. I swallowed and wished for JT to move quickly and blanked out the consequences. 30 feet later it was soft enough to at least get an inch of boot in, and 30 feet after that I was back to walking up with some variations on french technique. There are two advantages to being horribly duck footed. Breaststroke, and climbing steep snow. I have found my calling.

For once I was thankful for clouds

We took a quick break on the flat section after some traversing (which I hate, and will always hate, because it is arguably more tedious and less comfortable than downclimbing). We placed a picket for protection just in case since the runout was a nice slide down to the icefall followed by a i-don’t-want-to-know-how-far drop. I destroyed some sour patch watermelon and some goldfish. It was a short walk to where the final steep snow slope began, and we decided to start placing running belays here just to be safe. I’m still not sure it was necessary, and we’ve rehashed it several times. It slows you down a lot, but if someone’s tired, you should probably place it. So we did. One time the rope got stuck, and we took turns whipping it to get it loose. Naturally this resulted in me singing Whip It Good for the rest of the way up. Isn’t that what you sing when you’re in the middle of nowhere slogging up snow?

And that meant the pace was slow enough I could take tons of pictures. The bummer is that my phone started this trip at 7% battery, I had left the camera in the car, and that meant I had to ration photos. Ugh, the horrors.

Living the freaking dream

I saw that #1 cam crack from 50 feet away I was so proud

We mixed pickets and some rock pro as anchors. We stayed to the right since the majority of the falling debris that passed us was on the left (I think this contradicts what summitpost says). We took a break on a sweet snowdrift next to the rock, and finally hit up the last stretch. The cornice was MASSIVE. We had been pumping ourselves up to burrow through it, but upon seeing it, we could either spend 4 hours trying to burrow or we could suck it up and test out the mixed chimney that was in the middle. Survey says? Let’s try the chimney.

JT at our last break

JT made a bomber rock anchor below the chimney. Yeah, I wasn’t leading that. Maybe if our lives had depended on it. It didn’t look bad until you were in it. I could tell he was panicking too (sorry JT) as I belayed him up. And he wasn’t sure the pickets he placed halfway up would take a fall. But 15 minutes later, he was whooping on top of the ridge, and I was throwing my entire body weight upwards on the picket trying to get the damn thing out of the snow cursing his fucking indestructible placement because this thing was $25 and I’ll be damned if I leave $25 in this god forsaken chimney (this is foreshadowing).

Final stretch!

I finally got the picket out and made the spicy mixed move to get out of the slightly overhung chimney. I looked up at JT who was laughing as I dragged my fat tired ass over the edge. We organized our gear and started walking up towards the summit, jealous of the skiiers heading down Cascade Couloir, which looked so mellow and easy and fun.

It took maybe an hour to get to the top. JT was ahead of me. More front pointing on hard snow, man I’m sick of hard snow and it’s going to be a pain in the ass to downclimb this. I look up at JT as we got close. “Fuck.”

HAHAHA ahaha haha ah no.

“What? Is it not the summit?” “It’s definitely not the summit.” “Are you sure??” “Well unless there’s a bigger, taller peak right next to us… yeah, I’m sure.” I hurried up beside him and we both just burst out laughing. The real summit of Stuart was another hundred feet higher, with more hard steep snow, which meant more frontpointing and more downclimbing that shit and random snow squalls kept happening and there was just no way either of us were going up there and we didn’t even have to say it outright, we just knew. We sat down and kept laughing at how humbling it was and had some snacks. And soon enough, started the downclimb, crossing out fingers that entry to the Sherpa couloir would be easy.

Looking out at Sherpa and Balanced Rock

And it was! I lay on the edge of the couloir moaning about how much of a pain in the ass downclimbing was going to be, until I started laughing again. Look where we are! We’re on top of the world, and I’m still finding a reason to whine. We started down, I was pretty tired and I told JT to go first and kick great steps. Great steps meant like 1″ of purchase, if that. Ugh. Damn my weak winter calves.

So we kicked, or tried to, if you can call that kicking steps. After a few hundred feet there was no more kicking, just frontpoints, and laser sharp focus. Half an hour later, there was just sharp focus. An hour after that, there was blurry focus, and while my body physically felt fine, I was mentally losing it. The bottom looked so close. Maybe two rappels, if we set up an anchor and just left it? Yeah, that looked about right. JT was talking to himself as he downclimbed. “One foot now, two points in, next foot now, two more points in, now the first foot, now the second foot, just keep going, second foot, first foot, making steps.” I was singing that song that the parrot in the Lion King sings in his bone cage, somthing about I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts do do do do do do there they are all standing in a row, big ones small ones some the size of your head! I finally made a joke about bivvying.

I mean, you have to laugh a little at the situation

And that joke about bivvying basically shut us down. I hear when pregnant women make it to restrooms, they don’t always make it to the toilet. Their brains are like HEY WE’RE HERE LET’S GO! That’s how the bivvy was. My brain heard the joke and was like HELL YEAH WE’RE DONE! and I could feel myself crashing as we anchored ourselves with pickets and shoveled the biggest ledge we could after chopping through the surface ice with our tools. I put on all my layers, sat on my pack, we undid our coils and used those as ground cover too. Shivver bivvying at its finest. “Do you think there’s something fucked up in our heads?” JT asked. “No, no way. We’re normal. We’re awesome. Why?” “Because.. .we’re stuck outside and we’re exhausted and we’re spending the night here and we’re still having fun?” I mean, you have a point. I was pondering a different, slightly related, equally hilarious (to me) question. “Do you think our parents would be proud that we’re making the safe call to stop and rest here, or do you think they’d just be pissed we got ourselves here to begin with?”

Time to get moving and warm up!!

There’s not much sleeping when it’s like that. You’ll start to doze and then your body remembers you’re fucking freezing and starts to shiver and you wake yourself up again. So we watched the snow get lit up by the moon, I wondered how long it takes trenchfoot to set in and thanked the sweet baby jesus for telling me to wear ski boots instead of mountaineering boots (toasty liners), and occasionally I had some snacks. We had plenty of food and water at least.

As soon as sun rose we were moving. We had already decided to rappel off gear and just leave the gear behind. Two rappels right? No, I suck at distance judging and we all know it. 2 raps turned into six. I couldn’t get pickets in through the ice, but it was still too thin for a v thread. Snow bollards were an option but I thought they’d take too long to make since we’d have to cut through all the crust. A chunk of ice broke my helmet (not a split, just knocked a plastic piece loose, but that was enough to render it useless). Great, we’re bailing. Fuck the pickets with two flat ends, always get the ones with one sharp end. It was impossible to get the flat end ones in the snow even after I chopped a starter hole. Pound that picket in harder, Eve. What happened to your swimmer triceps and shoulders?! Bro do you even lift?!? (no. but i should.)

Somehow the snow still hadn’t softened up, here I am happily rappelling down

We finally reached the bergschrund, which was nicely covered with avvy debris. One last rap to get over it, and we were walking off! Woo! JT looked down as he was crossing. “Oh, I can get my sunglasses!” I started laughing. He had dropped them sometime on Monday, and I figured they were toast. I belayed him into the crevasse to retrieve his brand new Julbos. Small miracles!

Glacier glasses that (on their first day in the wild) were nearly abandoned in the crevasse

We walked back to the sunny soft snow where I had one of the best glissades of my life back to camp. We boiled water, had the best alpine cider ever, and started to pack. Soon we heard helicopter blades chopping through the wind. Damn, there must be another rescue! Busy weekend.

Except then the helo came and hovered right over us. And then it flew right over the ice cliffs route, and down the sherpa route. “They just… do you think they’re looking for us?” “Well they just flew literally right up ice cliffs and right down sherpa, so…. yes?” It was 10:30. Would my office have seriously called SAR at 9:01 sharp? I’ve been late to work after climbs before, this isn’t exactly the first time I’ve had an unplanned bivvy. I mean, maybe?

We stood by our stuff and stared at the copter, who hovered next to us for another 5 minutes before flying off. They definitely saw us, right? They’ve got to be going back to tell everyone we’re okay. I mean we’re standing on snow wearing bright orange and blue packing up our skis, there’s no way they didn’t see us.

The Shimmy

We started the trek out, which involved more postholing and somehow more log shimmying than the way in. Helicopters continued to fly around us, one flew next to us and we waved as they pointed while we crossed the swampy section right where you cut off from the Stuart Lake trail. Half an hour later, back on the Colchuck trail, we saw two more helicopters. “There’s something bigger than us going on out there,” JT said. I hoped he was right, but I was freaking the fuck out. Yeah we know we’re fine, but my office doesn’t. And if they called my family, then there’s at least 20 people who are panicking right now. But they pointed at us in the swamp, and they hovered right next to us on the snowfield. They must be looking for someone else and figured out we weren’t the ones they were looking for. But the thought was still in my head, and my body was on fire with anxiety and I was flying down the trail trying my best to not leave JT behind. He broke trail like all the way through the snow, and I had been lazy. But I had to get back to cell service before anyone called my family.

Shattered Dreams

We got to the Colchuck trailhead, which had been recently cleared of downed trees, bathrooms cleaned, and even restocked with fresh toilet paper. Best bathroom experience of my life. Plus, this must mean the road is open!! Great, JT take the bike and the packs, I’ll start walking, get the car, and meet me halfway up the road. Helicopters continued to fly over. I waved to one as I walked down the road. That one definitely didn’t see me. No one waved.

A few hours later, I hear an engine. And I see an FJ come around the corner. Woohoo, JT!! The road is open!! Except… behind him is a huge pickup truck. With a huge label on the side. In all caps. “SHERIFF.” Oh, shit. So they were looking for us. That helicopter was for us. All day, that helicopter was looking for us. JT had gotten back to our cars, each of which had a note saying “you’ve been reported as overdue, please call the sheriff.” So he drove to cell service, called the sheriff, who opened the gate to the road and let him come pick me up. You know what’s great about a having bright yellow xterra? They saw it from the sky immediately and said yep Eve’s car is here. Nothing subtle about that.

This is really getting in the way of our self rescue

In my state of mixed guilt and embarrassment and shame and humiliation I wasn’t sure what to do. How could the best route of my life and a simple overnight bivvy have caused all of this? We felt like we had everything under control 100% of the time. At no point was I concerned for our safety, or scared, or even stressed. I was more anxious about being late to work and missing EMT class than anything else. Sure the bivvy wasn’t ideal, but it was absolutely the right call. Tired, on a tedious 40+ degree slope with another 600ft to descend with only our crampon points, already late, and one misstep if we tried to push it would have resulted in a fatal fall. So we stopped, and got up a few hours later, surprisingly refreshed once we loosened up stiff frigid limbs.

Good look at Stuart over the swamp on the left

We thanked Chelan Mountain Rescue profusely. These guys dropped everything they were doing to send out a helo to look for us, and to be fair, from the air it looked pretty bad. They saw the bivvy ledge, the bail gear, the bergschrund, and a ton of avvy debris from earlier in the week. The bail gear ended just above the bergschrund, and it probably looked like either 1) we were hit by an avalanche and were nicely buried or 2) we were trying to bail and we rapped off the end of the rope or something failed and we fell into the schrund. They thought it was a recovery.

Luckily, neither of the above even came close to happening. We just left an awkward trail of bail gear. While they were changing plans from rescue to recovery, we were bitching about postholing and why did we carry skis and shit none of these logs are good for crossing the stream and can you believe that buttered popcorn jelly beans are still disgusting after 3 days of climbing? I’m like at least 2 days from starvation if those still taste like shit.

Sherpa Glacier on left, our route on right behind the center crag

If we had had a messaging beacon, we’d have been able to send out a text as soon as we set up the bivvy saying hey, we’re fine, just going to be late. If we had a true PLB maybe our friends would have felt a bit safer knowing we hadn’t hit SOS yet. Instead, no one knew what had happened. My coworkers knew my intended routes because I wouldn’t shut up about it all week, but none of my immediate climbing friends did, and that caused a bunch of confusion when they started wondering why no one had heard from me. Should we have flagged down the helicopter? Yeah, but I’m still not sure what the sign is for “hey, you’re looking for us, but we’re fine, gonna hike out!” In our heads, we were barely even overdue at that point (a few hours, we knew we’d be getting to the trailhead wicked late on Tuesday), and we definitely weren’t lost. Turns out they saw us and assumed we were hikers, not the people they were looking for. There were tracks all over the basin, they had no way of knowing which were ours (answer: all of them). And given the bail gear pattern, holy shit I’d probably have thought the same.

Colchuck Peak, the lone climber’s rescue foreshadowing our own epic

Get a beacon! One beacon could have saved all of this confusion, all of the effort on SAR/CMR’s part (god forbid someone else get injured looking for me, especially when nothing’s wrong with me to begin with), and all of the ensuing feelings that I, my friends and family, and coworkers all went through in the 12 hours I was missing. We had been discussing it for over a month and I was too cheap to buy my own. I always pictured beacons as purely “SOS” function, not the “hey everything’s fine but we’re going to be late” heads up to the real life friends and coworkers back in the city, and that’s what you’ll get with the satellite messenger beacons. You never think it’ll be you, until it’s you.

I have no idea if my office called that a vacation day, a personal/sick day, or is turning the other cheek. I was brainstorming my apologies and excuses while we were bivvying. “Call it a vacation day, call it two vacation days, I’m so sorry I’m so embarrassed” blah blah blah. I got into work and no one cared, everyone wanted to hear the story, and everyone was just relieved I was okay. Everyone had rallied and called in personal favors to anyone they knew who climbed or could stir up a rescue. That’s an awesome office right there. And there I was, back to spreadsheets. Spreadsheets never made me bivvy in a snow cave, or rap off $300 of gear, or resort to eating butter popcorn jelly beans. Tough choice between those and turds.

So proud of my bivvy branch collection. Good thing I got such good sleep on night #1

Huge, huge thanks to CMR and SAR for coming after us. As embarrassed as I was, it’s amazing knowing an entire community is ready to jump on it 90 minutes after someone calls us in as overdue. Thank you to everyone who called, everyone who pitched in with information, everyone who got up right away to put the search into effect. And huge thanks to JT for suffering through all of that with me, and thanks to Mt. Stuart for being a coy bitch, and thanks to everyone for not making me feel tooooo guilty upon my return.* And lastly, thanks to my family back in Boston who put up with my questionable hobby. I can’t apologize enough, nothing I say will change anything, just know we do our best to be safe. From here on out you’ll get the “we’re okay, just going to be late” messages at 3am. You guys are the best, don’t ever think I take you for granted.

So go get a PLB. Don’t talk to me until you have one.

*You now have permission to make jokes at my expense.

Colchuck Peak via North Buttress Couloir

Posted on April 15, 2017 by evejakubowski

Argonaut and Stuart from Colchuck

You know how if you break a bone you forget what it really felt like? How bad that pain was? Yeah that’s how I feel about the trail to Colchuck Lake. Let’s talk about how it feels to fall on your face skinning up ice while wearing an overnight pack with an alpine rack around 10pm to do a climb you don’t even know if you can do. I’m not even going to call it type II fun, that’s too generous. I laid there, all too aware that I would like ski crampons and cannot do the pizza backwards. And I picked myself up, took a deep breath, cursed the world, and kept skinning towards JT, who I can only imagine was laughing at my plight. So that’s how I ended up on Colchuck Peak, 4/2/2017.

Distance: 19 miles round trip, eff that road
Elevation: 6600ft gain (8600ft highest point)
Weather: 50 and clear Friday night (summer), 40 and windy and rainy on Saturday (spring), 15-20 and fucking freezing and snowing and windy on Sunday (winter)
Commute from Seattle: 2:30, longer if you forget spoons and turn around halfway down Icicle Creek Road to go buy a 50pack from the gas station
Did I Trip: Oh god. Good lord. I can’t even count how many times I fell on my face skiing.

How misery starts

We had started up the road a few hours earlier. There was consistent snow from the car, so while the idea of “car to car” was appealing, the fact we had 4 miles of road, 4 miles of brutal trail (the Colchuck Lake trail and I have never gotten along well), and then an entire climb ahead of us. The road had gone smoothly, we reached the trailhead, and I expected the trail to be a breeze. But my memory of the trail was skewed. Tony and I last year had cut off a nice chunk of the trail on the way down from the Enchantments (arguably even less pleasant), and I didn’t remember much of how it was in the winter. On several occasions I swore to myself the lake was just around the corner, only to be hit with another steep icy slope and eventually having my face greeted by ice yet again while I remembered that I suck at skiing.

What misery looks like

We finally got to the lake around 10:30pm, a solid 5-6 hours after we left the car. I needed camp and I needed it now. JT kindly obliged and we set up the tent halfway around the lake. I peed and cried and boiled water (okay, I did two of those things) while he did the hard work of setting up the tent and digging a lower level below the vestibule (my new favorite addition to a tent setup – you can put your feet down and there’s so much more room). I managed to make it through a dinner before falling unconscious in my sleeping bag, where we agreed we’d wake up around 3 and check weather.

Let’s just skip to the fun stuff

Well, I rolled over at 3am to the wind buffeting the tent and some sort of precipitation. We agreed to wait it out (to my relief, I was freaking wiped) and I woke up an hour later to even worse wind. Around 7am we rolled out of bed and debated what to do with the day. We chopped snow blocks and built an awesome wall around the tent to compliment our “foyer” in the vestibule, and finally around 10am JT was bored. We decided to skin across the lake and either scout the route or go up Aasgard, but my feet were blistered and bruised from my ski boots and I could not be bothered to put boots on. I laced up my mountaineering boots and hoofed it.

Moving camp up to below the couloir

An hour later, I was back at the tent getting my ski boots on. Feet be damned, it’s a hell of a lot more efficient than walking.I skinned back across the lake to catch up with JT but bailed like 10 feet up Aasgard. It was windy, it was cloudy, it was on and off raining, Aasgard was a lot of effort for no reward especially knowing I couldn’t ski down it. JT either agreed or just could tell that I was done, cause he skiied back down to me and I told him I was gonna hang at the lake.

The view from new camp

He somehow convinced me to move camp up to the base of the couloir, despite the fact we had already nested and made a great snow fort with an awesome vestibule and I mean shit we had it made. But it was like noon, which meant we had 7 hours of day left and I knew we’d both be bored and antsy. Okay fine, let’s pack it up.

View of the route

It was a great decision. As we skinned across the lake, the skies cleared up, the rain stopped, and it was a bluebird. Freaking. Day. We should have gone up Aasgard. Shit. Whatever, too late now. We humped our overnight gear up to a small snow bowl at the base of the couloir and set up camp on a little outcropping overlooking the lake and questioning whether it was too late to go for the route or not. I had no mental stoke, so I was content to hang at the tent. JT skinned up to the couloir and skiied back over, saying it wasn’t nearly as steep as it looks. We chilled at camp, made dinner, and went to bed early, hopeful for an alpine start on Sunday.

And we’re off!

But again, we woke up at 3am to whipping wind and snow. Dammit. 4am came along, same wind. 5am came along, wind was worse. 7am happened, and we heard voices. We poked our heads out of the tent, two guys were going for the NE couloir. JT turned to me. It’s 7:30. Should we do it? If we’re gonna do it we gotta get our stuff together now. Without thinking, I agreed. Fuck it, let’s do it. We started packing.

Someone’s in heaven (credit JT)

We were moving by 8:30, and started the climb up the couloir. The snow was great for kicking steps, and we made pretty good time thanks to the skiier who was kicking steps ahead of us. Aka breaking trail. So while I was breaking the number one rule of spring training, I wasn’t complaining. The wind was strong, snow came and went, we got glimpses of blue skies. Hopes were high.

Love me some steep snow (credit JT)

The couloir isn’t nearly as steep as it looks from the lake. It was steep and a fall wouldn’t be nice, but it isn’t vertical. I couldn’t stop smiling. Colchuck Lake trail may have destroyed me but now we were above treeline and gaining views and man I felt great. I had a Selena Gomez song in my head and found myself marveling at how she’s just great and every song she makes is great and man I can’t wait to have my snacks and this is just so great how did I ever forget how much I loved this? We took a quick break at the ridge below a huge boulder, had a snack (baby food is delicious – Peter Rabbit fruit is like the nectar of the gods and my future baby is gonna have to start to hide his food), and crossed the ridge.

Traversing is the worst

I think you need to stay up and left in the couloir, because we had to drop down a bit and traverse way out onto the face to start going up again. But we found our ski friend’s tracks again and continued up. Traversing is so freaking tedious. Up is great, down is eehhhhhh, and traversing is like why do I try so hard and only move 6 inches?! And then you look down and you’re like oh, right, if I make a shitty move here I’ll just tumble to my death 3,000ft below. Steep snow doesn’t get to me much but the thought crosses your mind once in a while, albeit devoid of emotion. JT turned to me. “This is pretty gnarly.”

Icy scramble! All those dry tooling mornings came in handy (credit JT)

We made it to the summit block. I saw a few “baby mixed” lines that I thought would go, but we kept traversing to the right. JT voiced my concerns. “Is this definitely a walk off?” I had heard that it was, but I didn’t know for sure. I sure as hell hope it is. We roped up for a short pitch to the summit that I was all too happy to lead. I nearly cried topping out. The skies opened up, the wind died down for a hot minute, I was out of slings so (sorry JT) I built most of the anchor using just the rope plus a picket with the last sling, I was staring at Stuart and Argonaut and it was basically still winter and it was gorgeous and such an awesome landscape and I imagine people do drugs to get the feeling I had on that summit.

JT on the last move, Argonaut and Sherpa(?) in the back (Stuart in clouds)

While I was basically high, JT was freezing his ass off, and said fuck you and started climbing. So I put him on belay and brought him up. We high fived, cleaned up the anchor, took a million photos, and realized the two guys from the NE couloir were coming up! We figured they’d be hours ahead of us. The first guy comes up to me and asks how our route was. Great, just steep snow! How was yours? He starts laughing. “TWO HOURS! Two hours burrowing through that cornice! You should go check out the hole.” I burst out laughing. They were so proud of their burrow, naturally we went to check it out. I hope I’m like them in a few years. Here’s a link to their trip report if you want to see a man sized hole like a caterpillar eating through an apple.

Thankful for a walk off, Argonaut looking awesome

Colchuck is a walk off, though we took a slight shortcut that involved some face-in downclimbing. Then I had the worst glissade of my life trying to avoid the awkward, uneven, crusty postholing, and soon enough we were back at the tent. Melt some water, pack it up, and bring on the misery.

Such a cool landscape

Mistake #1. I booted across hte lake instead of skinning. It was slow and sad and miserable. Mistake #2. Missed the trail the same way Tony and I had last year, but quickly corrected (but not after many posthole-and-the-skis-sticking-off-my-pack-also-get-stuck-and-i’m-hip-deep-in-snow-and-helpless snafus). Mistake #3. I didn’t put on crampons, despite a slick, icy, destroyed skin track. Thanks, everyone who side slipped the whole way down. I finally put on crampons. Mistake #4. Being Pathetic, with a capital P. We got back to the trailhead, I had the best bathroom break of my life to date, and I tried to ski down with no skins. I expected it to be awesome. At first it was awesome, but then it got too steep and icy.

This is why we try so hard

Yes, you read that right. THE ROAD GOT TOO STEEP AND ICY. DID YOU EVEN TAKE SKI LESSONS, YOU TIRED WIMP? YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE PIZZA. “but I buuuuurn and it huuuuurts and i’m tiiiiired” said both of my IT bands. “I need a massaaaaaaage.” Ugh. Shut up. “your’e wearing a paaaaack it’s haaaaaard.” I finally put skins back on and tried to skate ski ish. I met JT at the car. It took me 1118 “steps” to get back to the car. I imagine that equates to somewhere around 400 F bombs, if I had one every three steps. I crushed a caffeinated gu and the F bombs went from hating everything to making fun of my own situation, so I guess that’s an improvement.

On the outside I’m smiling but on the inside I know I’m about to be miserable for hours

I was so happy to get back to the car. The road had melted out so I had to carry skis in some plces, but it was almost entirely car to car (if you know how to ski). We had one of the top McDonalds meals of my life coupled with the best Diet Pepsi of my life (which it turns out has caffeine, which explains why the drive home was so great). We got back to the North Bend park n ride, where I only transferred half of my shit into my car (forgot the rest in JT’s car), realized I needed gas, and hated three-day-ago-Eve who didn’t put goddamn gas in her car BEFORE the trip. She’s an asshole.

Guys, this is an awesome route. It’s just steep snow early season, so not much icy scrambling to worry about. It’s a quick trip from the lake, I’d have loooved to do it Saturday and get back to the tent and have a chill night before heading out but in casual Eve and JT fashion we couldn’t possibly be back at the trailhead by dark because that would be a waste of daylight hours. 10pm trailhead, 1am Seattle is the gold standard. Sweet start to the season, can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Living the dream (credit JT)

Spring Training

Posted on March 17, 2017 by evejakubowski

Winter slogs reward you with great sunrises (sometimes)

No, not baseball. This is way more exciting than baseball. Everyone wants to know what to do to stay in shape through the winter, or to ramp up training in the spring so they can be ready for whatever ambitious climbs they’ve been dreaming about for 6 months. I have never hiked Mailbox or Si or Cable Line for conditioning because like many others, ~~I hate people~~ I go to the mountains to escape, and those trails have a lot of traffic. While slogging up Granite a while ago, I had a moment of clarity where I realized what works best for me (which probably means delirium had set in from exhaustion). Here are my general guidelines.

1) Don’t get out of shape. But who are we kidding. I like egg nog and you like hot chocolate and we both like rumchata and ever since I discovered you can mix them all together my ~~holiday~~ ~~winter~~ standard diet has gotten out of hand. So this is a fake #1.

Here’s the real #1.

Ass deep in shattered dreams (Granite)

1) Ditch the snowshoes. They’re impeding your progress to Greek body glory and double Rainier summits and one day multi peak slams. Pushing through thigh deep powder on a 30 degree slope will burn like 200 calories per step (non-scientific estimation). Offer to always break trail for your friends, unless they’re in way better shape than you and need something to slow them down (cough, JT). Just remember to step carefully when you turn off of a well packed trail or you’ll faceplant immediately, which may provide comic relief to your equally exhausted trailbreaking friends, but will not help you.

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Why would I skin all of this? (Hidden Lake Lookout, recommended winter summit)

“Logs of Sorrow” aka a great core, butt, balance, and don’t-cry workout (Eldorado)

2) Pick up skiing, but don’t actually learn how to ski. Or splitboarding, but again, don’t really ace it. Obviously, this is why I’m still bad at skiing. Make sure your ski/snowboard boots are uncomfortable enough that you always carry approach shoes, mountaineering boots, and the ski/splitboarding boots. And throw in some down booties because your ski boot liners will start to smell like death so you shouldn’t wear those in the tent or in the lookout. And overpack every time. Between carrying the skis, extra food, extra puffies, down booties, the ten essentials, I don’t know, some beer, it’ll add up.

Look how happy I am!! It’s because I thought we had 10 essentials and would be down in an hour! (Cutthroat)

3) Forget at least 2 of the 10 essentials. Now I know this may cut down your training weight, but it increases the chances that you will be stranded and moving through the night, or unreasonably cold and therefore burning more calories via shivering, or expending calories melting snow with your body heat, or not eating enough fuel in general. Okay forget the second one, bring enough layers. No one likes being cold. Maybe make your friends forget the essentials and you can be the hero with effectively the same results.*

Huddling for warmth hours later because WE DIDN’T HAVE HEADLAMPS (Also Cutthroat)

4) Mentally resign yourself to turning around all the time. Part of getting in shape for mountaineering is mental, and this is your mental training. You aren’t going to summit on those winter snow plow trips. If you do, it’s an added bonus. But this isn’t about the summit. This is about slogging and suffering and getting dehydrated and cranky and impatient and testing your friendships and climbing compatibility because no one likes climbing with assholes unless they’re snarky and hilarious. 70% of mountaineering is being generally uncomfortable for extended periods of time, and that’s part of training. The boring, tedious, yet somehow exhausting slog. And if you get used to turning around now, it’s easier to turn around in the summer too.

Wow, look how not even close we are after six hours of agony!!! (Baring)

Woohoo! Views! (Breccia)

5) Round up your good friends to join you. I have several who have seen me at rock bottom. Tony, while I was facedown on the Colchuck trail clothesline-carrying my skis after taking a tree to the face. Tony when I snapped that no, he may not make coffee after a night stuck out on Cutthroat because it’s 8am on a Monday and I need to get to work. Tony when I made it to Winchester Lookout at 5am after a 11pm start and asked that he take pics of sunrise for me before deciding I was being wimpy.

Psych! You’re gonna get lost and lose your hat bushwacking for the next 9 hours because all of your nav stuff died and why would you bring a compass?! (Snowfield)

Okay, so mostly Tony. But Sam’s had his moments (me, staring blankly at an impassable downed log when we got lost on the way down from Snowfield) and JT (also bushwacking down from Snowfield, or crawling back from Formidable), and Kacie who realized that any time I’m being extra nice it means I’m 9/10 pissed and Cheryl who combined with Simon and whiskey makes anything funny and Calvin who will never forget the one goddamn time I didn’t bring a headlamp and taught me many new versions of the f bomb. Who’d I leave out?! You’re probably in the lucky bunch. Point is, you need to make sure you have a good crew, otherwise you’ll be ass deep in posthole with your foot stuck under a branch falling downhill because your skis make your overnight pack too heavy and you can’t sit up while you wonder why anyone does this shit for fun and why the world has betrayed you.

Bonus: turn the heat off in your apartment. You’ll save money, and prep your body for cold weather. It’s called “cold training.”

Why go around… when you could go through? (Colonial)

Another bonus: Have your roommate/SO/kids/dog eat all the junk food. That way you aren’t being wasteful, but you also aren’t eating it yourself, and you seem like a nice person.

You can also be normal and go for runs, or load up a pack and hop on the stairmaster if it’s gross outside (or if you live in the flat half of America), or lift weights. Squats and lunges, buns and thighs! Cardio helps, but a lot of mountaineering is power muscles. Cooking? Warrior II while that sauce simmers, sunrise salutation while the pot boils. Doing laundry? Carry both loads up and down the stairs at once, don’t take two trips. Wash your sheets more often. Oh, you have in-unit laundry? Great, escape the lap of luxury and help me carry mine you spoiled bum. Binge watching Westworld or Stranger Things or whatever the cool folks are marathoning? 8 minute abs! Put the beer down, you know if you have three of those then you’ll end up eating the cheetos in the cabinet that you didn’t offer your roommate in the bonus step.**

The fog cleared for a miraculous 15 seconds, long enough for the real summit to say “ha, suckers!” as we sat on the wrong summit (Cashmere)

Basically, do anything. Anything is better than sitting at your desk for 10 hours straight and then going home to sit on the couch ~~which is exactly what I’m doing tonight~~ no, I’m going for a walk, and now I have ~~hundreds~~ okay, dozens of readers to hold me accountable. Doing laps on Si or Mailbox or Cable Line is fantastic if you have enough breath and patience to stop every few minutes to talk to hikers on their way down. Stuck in the city? Go hit up Denny or Queen Anne Hill or jog up and that hill downtown between Alaskan Way and 2nd and laugh at everyone who can’t do hill starts in their cars.

And fine, just because there has to be something useful in this post, here are my personal top 10 get-in-shape hikes for spring and early summer. That means elevation gain, baby! None are tougher than a class 2-3 scramble, snow level varies but hey you’re going to be mountaineering so you better get comfortable with those boots and that ice axe. And just for the record, self arresting with a 50lb pack on is a hell of a lot harder than when you’re wearing nothing. Practice it, you’ll get a nice ab workout and feel like you got hit by a bus the next morning.

I’m going to put these in roughly seasonal order depending on when you can start them. Some are dependent on snow melting. Hibox and Pugh will likely not be fair game until July, but most guided summits are June, July, and August, so I was lenient and gave them a spot. I wanted to break the mold from the usual recommendations and get a bit more adventurous.

Mt. Hood – Awesome winter peak. Better if you don’t know how to ski.
Hidden Lake Lookout (winter route) – Wallowing off trail carrying skis,with a cozy destination.
Camp Muir – WTA link
Snoqualmie Mountain – Rare glance at an old blog post

Mt. Baring – How to turn around and not whine
Vesper Peak – this can be done with a fair amount of snow but I didn’t write about it. Pics below.
Dickerman – Also doable with snow
Gothic Basin (bonus: Del Campo) – Also doable but spicy with snow
Mt. Daniel – Do it in a day. Also a great ski trip. But make sure you carry them a lot.
Hibox (or Alta Mountain) – Hibox is steeper with a class 3 scramble, Alta is further away but less steep. Pick your poison.
Mt. Pugh – This one’s only for you August warriors
Bonus: Round Lake & Breccia Peak – another one for my August summit folks

*disclaimer: all of these have avvy danger. You’re in the alpine in the winter on fresh snow. Be smart.

~~Five~~ ~~Four (shut up, I proofread)~~ FIVE!! trails get Honorable Mention, because I haven’t done them personally but I know they’re awesome:

Mailbox – The old trail obviously, the new trail is all downhill
Mt. Adams – Road currently snowed in. More slog!! Except it’s like 20 miles of slog which is too much even for us. So maybe wait for May on that one. Good for carrying skis (skinning is too easy).
St. Helens – road closed at the moment, several miles of more slog!!
Ruby Mountain – the slog of all slogs with great views of highway 20
Teneriffe – Close to seattle! Less sloggy, still steep.

She’s better at climbing than I am (Vesper)

And these three are trips I didn’t blog about, but are good to practice off trail navigation and wallowing in forested powder in the dead of winter (like December and January). These are all below tree level, which helps a bit with avvy risk. Oh, and no snowshoes allowed. If your friend brings snowshoes and the other 3 of you are booting it, steal his snowshoes and whack him with them and cast them away from thyself. Haven’t we been over this?

Low Mountain – WTA
Round Mountain – sneaky WTA
Excelsior Peak – WTA
Stettattle Ridge – Basically Sourdough but go left and up the ridge instead of following the trail right when you hit the national park sign (well this one I turned around on before the ridge because I was alone and wallowing alone is no fun – see rules 4 & 5)

Granite (winter summit)

Finally, here’s a link to one of the best winter resources, the Mountaineers’ list of winter summits. Don’t look for what days they’re doing which climbs on their website, because then their massive 12 person groups will have broken all of the trail and that violates rule #1. You. Always. Break. Trail. Stop. Whining.

McCausland (another winter summit)

One of my friends made a facebook post earlier today about losing weight, and my friend AJ had my favorite advice on there. “Just keep pushing, every day. The scale is useless, what did a scale ever do for anyone? Just do do do and go go go and wake up one day five months from now and ask yourself how you feel.” Because that’s what getting in shape is. It’s waking up after 5 months of slogging, grinding, feeling shitty, and thinking hey, I feel pretty strong today. You don’t notice it on day 3, or on day 8, or even on day 30 if all you’re doing is comparing day to day. And that’s how my spring training is. Get in a routine, space out, every weekend is physically punishing, but then June comes around and I think whoa, I can do some pretty cool things pretty easily.

Now start dreaming and savor the 10pm motivation that you’ll probably have forgotten about by 8am tomorrow!

*Guys don’t actually do this

**Owen there are not actually cheetos in the cabinet but go do some work on those damn girl scout cookies

One of many stunningly beautiful turnaround points (Black Peak)

Granite Mountain via the ‘Wind Scoured Ridge’

Posted on February 22, 2017 by evejakubowski

The lookout!

“Should I hike Granite Mountain?” you ask? I’m going to go with a resounding “no,” unless you like postholing and slogging through massive amounts of powder and have decided you need a good workout. Or if you have an AT setup, you can skip all of the suffering and just have a freaking blast, besides the stream crossings on the snowshoe-trampled trail. But hey, gotta get in shape for spring climbing, right? I nearly bailed since I had heard miserable stories about the ice crust with a few inches of fresh snow the day before, and Aaron didn’t have snowshoes or skis so we’d just be booting. And the only thing worse than struggling through several feet of powder is struggling through several feet of powder with a two inch thick layer of ice on top that you may or may not break through every time you take a step. But spring is quickly approaching, and I can’t sit on my ass on a sunny Sunday, so bring it on, Granite. Hiked 1/12/2017.

Distance: ~5 miles round trip
Elevation: 3800ft gain (5633ft highest point)
Weather: 30-40’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 55 minutes without traffic
Did I Trip: the real question is “how many steps did I take without tripping” because the ratio of tripping to walking was very high

First of all, here is a map. The red line is roughly your route from where the standard trail first meets the gulley. Don’t follow the green line. If you’re a solid skiier and comfortable in avvy territory, it did look like a great ski all the way down the gulley to the tees. This was taken from a discussion on nwhikers.net.

Red is your route

How most of the lower hike went (calf to knee ish)

Well I was originally hoping to do Pratt Mountain, a popular winter snowshoe that happens to share a trailhead with Granite Mountain. But we got to the trailhead and there was a group of 12 mountaineers that had just started, followed by a group of 12 folks from the Outdoor Adventurer’s meetup group. Shit. Okay so we’re not doing Pratt. Well I think I know a route up Granite that’ll avoid avvy territory, want to give it a shot? Aaron was down. He looked at it from the highway and laughed. “You chose this?!” thinking it’d be a few hours of quick easy hiking. Psych!

The first of several avvy gullies on Granite. Be wary.

As usual we had maybe 7 essentials between the two of us. Aaron didn’t bring traction. Okay, take my microspikes, I can use crampons. He didn’t have an axe either. Or poles. Okay take my extra pole. I didn’t have waterproof pants, and would look ridiculous wearing full on crampons on the trail, so I stuck it out in boots. And my avy beacon was broken. Great. 1=0 when it comes to beacons, so we knew we’d have to be conservative.

We started up the trail, which was basically plowed by all of the foot traffic. No ice, just compact snow, totally fine in plain old boots. At the turn off to either Pratt Lake or Granite, we officially decided to give Granite a run rather than follow the 30ish folks ahead of us on the way to Pratt. We figured if we were fast, we could do both! This thought became progressively more hilarious as the day went on. But hey, best case we summit, worst case we get a workout and turn around. Let’s do it!

The view as we broke out of the trees!

The snowshoe trail continued a little bit further until the gully. Well we sure as shit weren’t going across the avalanche gully, so I have no idea where the tracks went. I don’t think they knew the winter route and we never came across them higher up, so I’m guessing they turned back. We started heading directly up through the trees, paralleling the gully well to our right. Upon stepping off the snowshoe tracks, we were met with knee deep powder with an ice crust exactly as predicted. Ohhhh boy.

With every step, you go through frantic questioning. “Will it hold? Will it break? How deep will I posthole if it breaks? Will I slam my shin into it and get a bruise?” Nine out of ten times the answers are “no,” “yes,” “about 18-24 inches,” and “probably.” We tried switchbacking up but quickly realized it wasn’t that much faster than going straight up since you were wallowing in powder either way. Straight up it was. How else are we going to get in our daily cardio?

McClellan Butte is the pointy one

We were losing hope after maybe 90 minutes of this shit. I knew what I was getting into, I had specifically chosen a snow slog knowing I had to get in shape and needed hours of breaking trail. I don’t think Aaron realized what he had signed up for. Either way, repetitive stomping in powder with no views and no excitement gets old very quickly. We decided to head to the edge of the gully to see how far away the ridge looked.

“Well…. according to the GPS, it’s wicked far, but according to my eyes, it’s like right freaking there!!” I announced. The GPS app had us like halfway up the slope with so far to go, but looking at the ridge I was like that can’t be more than an hour. Is there a false summit?? I had done Granite before and I didn’t remember a false summit and the topo map didn’t show a false summit but something wasn’t adding up. We kept going up through the trees, planning on getting some views, having a snack, and re-evaluating.

It wouldn’t be bad if you had crampons

As usual, we broke out of the trees, team morale spiked with the sun and excitement and views, and we took a quick break and kept moving. From the trees it’s a short jaunt to the exposed rocks, which you follow to the true “wind scoured ridge.” Stay on the rocks and you are free from peril (probably, no guarantees). We hopped up on icy rock after icy rock, occasionally requiring hands and at times just booting it through snow or slippery heather. The snow was a fresh inch or two on top of ice which made it tricky, especially for Aaron who was down to one microspike. Where was the other one?! We had no idea. He had noticed he was down to one when we were still in the forest, but it wasn’t an issue until now. It must have popped off in one of the eight million postholes we endured on the way up. Oh well, we’ll find it on the way down.

Neat sky behind a tree

Obligatory Rainier shot

Crampons and an ice axe were very helpful. One microspike was not. So Aaron stuck to the rocks and softer snow while I booted up whatever I felt like booting up. I finally looked up and saw the lookout. Holy shit, it’s right there!!! We’re going to make it! I had still been having doubts thanks to the topo map. But now it was within sight, and it really WAS close. Eventually we crested the ridge below the lookout, and reveled in our views of Kaleetan, Chair, and Bryant.

The cornice up there is a good size, a little taller than I am. We walked over to the end of it which was risky, especially given its size. Cornices can break off and take a section of snow on what looks like the non-corniced side of the ridge with them, so you really need to give them a wide berth. The lookout was locked as it is in the “offseason” so we just snapped a few pics and started to head down. Plus, it was almost 3. It had taken us 5 hours to get to the lookout. Holy crap. So much for being back by 5.

Kaleetan, Chair ,Glacier (snowy peak in back), and Bryant. Who knew!?

Chickamin, Lemah, Summit Chief

The views were awesome. I had no idea, the only other time I had been on Granite we were socked in by fog. Everything looks better with a dusting of snow, but the views to the north and east were epic regardless. It was tough to head back down knowing it was one of my few weekends in the mountains, but I wanted to be back at a reasonable hour. Luckily, going down went faster than going up, though we had to play it safe with Aaron’s single microspike. I gave him an extra pole so I could walk down with a pole and an ice axe and he’d have two poles, which helped a bit. Self arresting with poles is spicy. But the slopes were mellow for the most part, until we made a decision that is a great example of “what not to do.”

Nice cornice

We descended too far on the wind scoured ridge instead of following the rocks east to the trees we had come up through. We could have kept going straight down, but then we’d have had to navigate a bit instead of following the (surprisingly efficient) route we had taken up. And I’m lazy. So instead, we chose to cross the definition of an avalanche slope, facing the south, on a sunny day, on a notoriously avalachey mountain. While the snow seemed fairly consolidated besides the few inches on top of the ice crust, and we hadn’t seen any serious red flags for an avalanche, it was still unnerving. Did I mention that the previous day in SAR we had been looking at pictures of bodies buried in avalanches on Granite? Yeah, it was on my mind. Welp, one at a time, move quickly, and don’t trip. Let’s get this over with.

Heading back to the lookout

Glissading down

Spoiler alert, we were fine. But you never know. .01% chance something goes wrong, 99.99% chance of a horrible outcome if something does go wrong. That’s how a lot of mountaineering is. Sorry mom. Next time I’ll go back up and over instead of across. But it was quick. From there on out we were back on the rock, and soon enough we were in the trees were we glissaded down our tracks (destroying every beautiful staircase we had made on the way up so you all have to break your own trail, suckers) which flew by if you ignore my immediately numb ass. We were almost back to the snowshoe tracks when I saw something curled up in the bottom of a posthole. Could it be?!

A close call with a double posthole

I started laughing. “I found the microspike!!!” We couldn’t believe it. Just saved ourselves $70! We stashed them and continued down to the snowshoe tracks, which were a relief after all of the postholing and frigid glissading. Somehow the snowshoe trail was way longer than we remembered. My legs were still fresh, though that suddenly deteriorated when we hit the parking lot.

The rest of the cars had left. I’m sure the trail to Pratt was a highway of trampled snowshoe shaped steps, but we chose the route less traveled. Why snowshoe on a highway when you can flounder in powder for a few hours and enjoy a winter summit of a crazy popular summer peak? I had been up Granite a few years ago, but socked in by fog. Here’s a rare link to one of my early blog posts before I became so wordy. I’d say it was a hell of a lot better this time around! And did I mention it’s barely an hour from Seattle? Check out those views!

Crossing the last saddle before rising to the lookout

Mt. Hood Standard Route

Posted on February 3, 2017 by evejakubowski

Illumination Rock

I’ll call it a successful trip, but it only came to fruition after we had to bail on plans A, B, and C. And plan 1A, which was “I was supposed to go to SAR first aid training on Saturday” but I was desperate for mountains and rescheduled it at 3pm Friday so I could go to said mountains. So Plan A was to do St .Helens Saturday and Hood Sunday because I forgot I was out of shape Sitting at a desk all day is really easy, physically. You never get tired! And these are both easy peaks right? Well we showed up to St. Helens at 1am Saturday, only to discover a washout that had the last 3 miles of the road closed, which prevented us from getting to the Marble Mountain Sno Park. An additional 6 miles of road walking? No freakin way. Maybe if it was the only thing we were going to do all weekend, but we had bigger ambitions. We slept at the trailhead, got back in the car when we confirmed it would be an additional 6-8 miles, and continued to Mt Hood.

Distance: 8 miles round trip? I know it’s 2 to the top of the Palmer chair.

Elevation: 5,250ft gain (11,250ft highest point)

Weather: 40’s and sunny, 20’s and effing windy

Commute from Seattle: 5 hours… be brave, you can do it! Hardest part of the climb!! I recommend stopping at Chick-Fil-A in Tacoma (put aside your morals because it is delicious), Noodles & Co in Vancouver WA, and Voodoo Donuts in Portland, and take a nap at the St. Helens trailhead because screw logic.

Did I Trip: I did not, nor did I wipe out on skis, but I did a lot of crouching and whining

Skinning up on the groomed climber’s path

At Mt. Hood, we got a lazy start. We went to the cafe in the lodge and got huge breakfast burritos, tea, and relaxed for an hour or two. Eventually we packed our bags, hopes high for the Leuthold Couloir, and as usual, we realized we forgot one of the ten essentials. Kind of two, actually. In fact more like three. We had forgotten a stove, which meant we effectively also forgot water, since the only way to get water on snow is to melt the snow. And JT had forgotten a sleeping pad. I had an extra but it was quite bulky so we figured he could just pile up the rope and his pack and sleep on various climbing gear. And water…. we’ll figure it out.

Exploring beyond the tent

It was sunny, and warm with no wind at all, it felt more like summer than winter. We had been planning on bivvying, but with Greg planning to meet us around midnight we figured we’d be assholes if he showed up and we were in body bags in snow coffins instead of a tent. So somehow, we fit overnight gear, glacier gear, and ice climbing gear for two people into a 36L and a 50L pack. If we had remembered a stove and JT’s sleeping pad I don’t think we’d have pulled it off. We skinned up from the parking lot, and followed the groomed “climbers’ trail” to the right of the ski lifts. Tons of space for snowshoers (very doable) and skiers and hikers alike. Despite the internal battle between my stomach and the breakfast burrito (it desperately wanted to evacuate), it took us less than two hours to get to the top of the Palmer chair, where we decided to set up camp.

Tents at Illumination Saddle

On the way up (I’m a chatty hiker) we ran into two teams who had just done Devil’s Kitchen. Supposedly the snow was pretty unconsolidated on the west face by the Leuthold Couloir, but Devil’s Kitchen was in fantastic shape. We figured our backup would be Devil’s Kitchen and the backup to our backup would be the standard Hogsback route. We dug out a platform for the tent and tossed our overnight stuff and continued towards Illumination Saddle, hoping to get some views. I didn’t want to burn myself out, so I opted to turn back fairly early. I also wanted to see if my skiing skills had improved (spoiler alert: no). We skiied a few hundred feet back to the tent. Honestly, my turns are definitely better, but I get exhausted way too quickly. My legs would be shaking after four turns. JT’s theory (probably accurate) is just that since I’m so new I’m using every single muscle all the time since it doesn’t come naturally yet. Well I freaking hope that’s the issue, because if that’s it then it’ll get better as I keep skiing. For the time being, I’m great at making four turns and then stopping and crying and trying to relieve my legs. Like an awkward fawn who doesn’t know how to walk. I’ll get there someday, dammit.

Ski resorts lit up like Christmas trees

Back at the tent I wished I had hot chocolate. I pretty much hopped in my bag immediately and we were dozing by 7. To be fair, we hadn’t slept much on our doomed St. Helens excursion, since we had gotten to the trailhead at 1:30am and woke up at 5am only to continue driving. Greg radioed up to us to tell us he was going to sleep in his car and would meet us around sunrise. No complaints here, more tent space for me!!

We woke up around 6 to meet Greg. Sunrise was amazing, brilliant pink through thin clouds illuminating Jefferson, the Three Sisters, and Broken Top Mountain to the south. The wind had picked up throughout the night, and by now most of the gear we had left outside was buried. I stepped outside only to immediately have my face hurt and my fingers go numb. Dammit, why couldn’t it be Saturday? I dove back in the tent. I didn’t need sunrise pics.

Sunrise over Broken Top, Three Sisters, Jefferson (left to right, photo credit Greg)

No one told me the top 1500ft would smell like farts

Leuthold was out, we’d have needed a much earlier start and weren’t confident in the snow conditions. Devil’s Kitchen, well… word on the street (okay, on summitpost) is that the wind in Devil’s Kitchen is 15-30mph higher than whatever’s on the hogsback. We lay in the tent listening to the walls flapping while it howled outside. JT wasn’t even sure Hogsback would be okay. I wasn’t about to lead ice pitches in that wind, and I don’t think he was either. Shit. JT mentioned something about potentially turning around. “It doesn’t seem that windy, the tent always makes it sound worse than it is…” I murmured, followed immediately by “buuuuut I guess I forgot to consider that it is January.” We should have just done it Saturday but I was so worried about tiring myself out. We sat there grumpy about our missed opportunity until we had our things packed for the Hogsback. We’re here, might as well go the rest of the way even if the rest of the way isn’t a sweet ice route.

The hogsback! Brace for wind!

The masses of skiiers were on the way up. I decided to boot it, Greg didn’t have snowshoes or skis and I knew with this wind I had no chance of skiing comfortably even if I did manage to string more than four turns together. JT, being akin to suffering, decided he’d boot it too and carry his skis. Ha!

We took turns breaking trail on the way up, and eventually donned crampons just below the Hogsback. It’s all line of sight to the top of Hogsback, you can see it from the parking lot. It’s a mellow “ridge” in a bowl if that makes any sense. A hogsback! I couldn’t figure out why people kept stopping on the way up it. They must be slow and tired, poor suckers. Or they couldn’t breathe in the sulfur thick air. Usually sulfur makes me want eggs but this time it just smelled like ass. You have been warned.

Traversing to the rime icy gates

Oh how wrong I was. We’re like 5ft up the Hogsback and the first gust of wind strikes us. Holy. Shit. I’ve never been so close to being knocked over by wind before. I stopped moving, concerned that if I took another step I’d lose my balance.

Bottom of the Pearly Gates (photo credit Greg)

Well, I couldn’t feel my fingers, so I had two options. 1) keep moving 2) borrow JT’s gloves 3) wait for them to go numb and then they’ll be okay. I took all three of those to heart, though #1 was slighlty delayed as we executed #2, and #3 is a brutal stage to get to but a relief once you’re there. Why were my fingers so cold? Well besides the 45mph wind and the fact it was January and the pathetic state my ripped gloves were in, I was quite dehydrated. Why was I dehydrated? Because I’m an idiot, and brought my camelback, even though I know it’ll freeze. Sorry, I couldn’t find my water bottle fast enough so I just took it and figured I’d deal, but it turns out it’s hard to drink from the bladder without spilling half of the water all over yourself. I am a child.

“lol icefall” c’mon guys be responsible

We eventually reached the top of the Hogsback. JT stashed his skis while I stood beneath ice fall laughing at what an idiot I was for standing beneath potential ice fall (yes, I moved). And we fought our way up the gates through pillars of rime ice and possibly the most wind I’ve ever felt in my life, only to break out onto the sunny mellow summit with views of St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams laid out in front of us.

St Helens, Rainier, and Adams!

We snapped a few pics and turned around fairly quickly due to the wind. I wanted to make hot water back at the tent and not be exposed to the wind for a hot minute. Was that too much to ask? We dropped back to the Hogsback where I snapped a few photos of people downclimbing and put the camera away for the rest of the trip (mistake).

Wind ripping spindrifts across the summit ridge

The closest I was to falling was at the bottom of the Pearly Gates. The wind was funneled up the chute, so we were fighting it to go downhill, meaning I’d lean into it to fight and as soon as it lessened I’d have to readjust balance immediately. So I stood there streaming curses in my head (breathing would fog up my ski goggles) waiting for the wind to be less shitty. At the bottom of the Hogsback, we took a quick break (“Okay, whose water can I drink!?” and JT skiied back to the tent while I made two full glissades(!) from there to the top of the Palmer chair. How the hell did no one glissade before me?! We could have had two incredible slides instead my ass breaking glissade trail. Step it up people!!

Climbers on their way up. “Does it get less windy?!”

Greg continued on the way down while we got warm and packed up the tent. Frozen cheezits, some slushy half frozen water. I finally worked up the guts to click into my skis. My skiing down went about as well as you could expect. I am happy to report that the pack didn’t make a huge difference, but I was still incapable of stringing together more than 4 turns, though I did get more and more confident as we went down. Unfortunately, I was ready to vomit from the strain in my legs a few hundred vertical feet from the parking lot, and I gave up. Even the groomed run was too icy for me to relax. I hobbled over to the climber’s path, tail between my legs, pride swallowed, and clicked out of my skis. And so, in classic Eve fashion, I ended up carrying my skis downhill through a ski resort.

Looking down the Hogsback. Yeah buddy!

Success!!

A few hundred feet later I decided I was being a wimp and put the skis back on, but it still wasn’t great. And the last bit to the parking lot was scary so I still had to take them off once more. But the descent still went faster than the way up, and it’s not really a trip if I never carry my skis. And it isn’t a climb without some postholing, right? Gotta build character somehow!

We were back at the car by 2, and cruised home to Seattle already talking about the revenge trip for the other two routes. But hey, we got out in the middle of January, snagged an easy 11,000ft summit, and that’s a pretty good deal. It’ll make the next few weeks in the city a little easier to manage.

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout