Chelsea, JT, and Sam above Wing Lake

Here’s the “too long, didn’t read” summary. The good: the views, the snow, the skiing, the company, Chelsea absolutely crushing her first legit climb. The bad: the lack of sleep, turning around before the summit, Sam’s shitty splitboard skins, my moldy waterbottle. The ugly: the route that I led everyone up. I fucked up. My bad, guys.

• Distance: ~11 miles round trip
• Eleveation: ~4100ft (plus 500ft you lose and regain)
• Weather: 50’s and sunny
• Commute from Seattle: Three solid hours
• Did I Trip: I was thinking about this on the way down from Lake Ann, because I hadn’t, but I jinxed it and wiped out on my skis minutes later.

Skiing down!

Black Peak over Wing Lake

When I was getting into mountaineering (I mean I still am), all the stories I heard were of success and accomplishment and the smooth trips where everything goes according to plan. Or they were horror stories, with storms and injuries or death, and you have the “it’ll never happen to me” feeling that us beginners have. No one mentioned the casual trials, the mental and physical and emotional discomfort, that often come with trips. Getting off route in a new area, or maybe you get to your destination but in the least efficient way. Choosing between being comfortable and sunburning or boiling in the sun with your base layer, or foggy sunglasses versus risking being snowblind, or do you sweat in your goretex shell or just get rained on? Or how being tired just becomes a constant and you figure out how to savor the ups and push through the downs.

JT skinning just past Lewis Lake

I don’t actually know where “snow hiking” or “backcountry skiing” turns into “mountaineering,” but it sounded catchier in the title than the other two. I tend to consider mountaineering anything involving technical glacier travel or alpine style rock climbing, but steep snow, avvy terrain, and needing basic skills like self arrest, self belay, kicking steps, and fake front pointing (we weren’t wearing crampons) and peakbagging all in one trip can blur the line.

Great visibility. Can I blame my navigation on that?

Sam had wanted to snowboard Black Peak for months, and the highway was finally open! We were originally going to overnight it, but Sam had to dog sit last minute, so we were limited to a day. But we figured a day would be plenty of time. We all drove up Friday night. Chelsea was first, getting there around 9pm. JT was second, I have no idea when he arrived. I got there at 11:59pm, just barely beating the crack of midnight. When I first got my Xterra, my mother said “don’t you dare ever sleep in it, it’s creepy and weird.” Spoiler alert: I slept in it. Sorry Mom. I’m guess I’m creepy and weird. I could set up my mountaineering tent on pavement on the side of the road in the rain and deal with a wet tent, or I could curl up in the back seat and avoid putting in any effort. Back seat it was. Sam showed up last, stopping to nap in Newhalem at 11:30pm, rallying at 2:30am, getting to the trailhead at 3:30am, and immediately passing out again. If only sleep were optional.

We got up at 5 to start moving. I was considering sleeping another half hour or so since it was foggy with low visibility and how are you supposed to get excited for a ski trip when there are no views? But with everyone else ready to head out, I conceded and grabbed my stuff. We could put on skis immediately thanks to the 4-5ft of snow at Rainy Pass, and I led the way to the start of the trail.

Nothing better than scrambling in ski boots! Oh wait, everything is better.

When I did this peak in summer, there were two areas where the trail meets the parking lot. One will lead you clockwise around the Heather/Maple Pass Loop (4 miles to Heather Pass) and the other leads you counterclockwise (2 miles to Heather Pass). This is the foundation of my error. I led us to the second trail. We started up, and began to traverse towards Heather Pass around 6500ft. Why didn’t I realize most people in winter went to the lake and then cut directly up to Heather Pass? Because it wasn’t mentioned in anything I read and I assumed because we all knew the area that we’d get there easily, meaning I never actually sat down to look at a map and figure out where the path of least resistance may be. But we knew where we were and where we had to go, it just wasn’t efficient, especially with ~50ft of visibility. Oh, and after a few pictures of us socked in by clouds, my camera decided it didn’t want to work anymore. Ok, cool.

Phone pic of Chelsea while the clouds finally dissipate

What reinforced my error was the “why would you even upload this” GPX track I had snagged from a Peakbagger trip report of a winter ascent. The guy is either a masochist or likes to fuck with innocent last minute trip planners. It led us straight to rocky crags above Lake Ann, where we broke trail, scrambled in ski boots, bushwacked through shrubs and trees and slide alder and thanked the sweet baby Jesus for veggie belays, fought postholes and tree wells, and had no idea how the hell whoever made this GPX track had been where the track said they had been. Sam scrambled up a section that he couldn’t downclimb safely, so he had to keep going up. Chelsea and I decided to drop elevation and stay on snow and traverse beneath the crags, seeing as the GPX track gained 800 unnecessary feet of elevation and had to lose all of it getting to Heather Pass (that should have been a red flag). JT took a separate route to try and find Sam up in the crags, and we agreed to meet at Heather Pass. If one team did not make it to Heather Pass, we would meet at the car at 4pm, and if not everyone made that appointment, we’d know to start worrying. Somewhere in the midst of all of the complications, the clouds blew through and the sun came out. I stopped to take a sip of my crystal lite, and instead nearly barfed. It tasted like death. Oh, you haven’t washed this water bottle in like 6 weeks. Could that be why?