Mt. Challenger & Whatcom Peak

Posted on August 1, 2022 by evejakubowski

Alpine daisy in front of Shuksan, Icy, and the arm of Mineral Peak

Obligatory pic of Ruth on the way to Hannegan Pass

I have wanted Challenger since like… 2015, probably. I don’t remember where I first saw it or heard of it. Over the following few years, bureaucracy, lack of PTO while I was contracting, grief, lack of fitness, lack of interested partners, a million things became reasons to push it off every summer. In fact I think I’m having an existential crisis right now because two peaks I’ve been looking at but was never able to find partners for (Triumph the week before and now Challenger) have come to fruition in the past two weeks and it reminds me why I don’t like setting goals. Because what do you do once you reach them?! Most people feel pride and accomplishment and I just feel like now there’s a hole, an empty space where there used to be a dream. And if I could do it, was it really that ambitious of a dream to begin with?

Anyway, saving the existential crisis for later, let’s get to some stats. Jon’s Garmin died the last day so these are estimates but they seem in line with other reports.

Distance: 44mi
Elevation gain: 18k total, LOTS of up and down wow
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: ~2:45 without traffic
Did I Trip: No legit ones actually but that’s probably because I crawled for like 30% of the trip and you can’t trip when you’re crawling
Great beta from OneHikeAWeek as usual

We got a late start on Thursday after dropping Sammy at boarding and picking up permits at the ranger station. “Are you aware of the situation up there?” My mind flashed to caution tape and helicopters and serial killers and ancient graveyards and rabid bears and massive trail damage due to suspiciously localized earthquakes. “The… the snowpack?” I said as I stared blankly at the ranger. “Yeah, we know it’s way snowier than usual.” He hyped up stories of people swimming through waist deep snow. Maybe postholing, but no one’s swimming through snow that deep this year. We were just out last weekend. We’ll be fine. We got our permits and went on our merry way wondering what the heck “the situation” would be like.

The Hannegan Pass trailhead was not too full, we were able to park nice and close to the washout. I actually love this trail. Well sort of. It’s HUGE bang for your buck in terms of effort to views, the only catch is that I’ve never experienced a trail SO DRY despite having SO MANY WATERFALLS running across it. There are streams like every fifth of a mile and yet you feel like you are mummifying in a desert for the majority of your hike. We slogged the 4 miles up to the pass in the sun and took a leisurely break, chatting with some hikers coming down from Easy Ridge (only 6hrs from Easy Ridge to Hannegan Pass, which was a good sign for us) and seeing a familiar face come up from the far side of the pass. The ranger who gave us our permits for Triumph the prior week! He had told us he’d be opening the Copper Ridge lookout but I figured no chance would we run into him. He independently brought up how dry and sunny this trail is. We laughed and shared some trip conditions and stoke before he went to head home and we went further out into the wild.

We finished out the 3.5mi to Copper Creek Camp around 3pm. Some of the creeks in the Chilliwack valley are like waterslides, carving their way through slick smooth rock instead of the rocky rivers we’re used to hopping across. Super cool features. The trail also loses a deceptively large amount of elevation. I don’t know what it is, I don’t want to know what it is, I just remember thinking shit, this is downhill ALL THE WAY TO CAMP AND WE HAVE TO COME ALL THE WAY BACK UP IT ON SUNDAY but that’s a problem for future me.

River crossing that was at least 8x scarier in my head than it looks

Copper Creek camp was, for lack of better words, lovely. Downright pleasant. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a chill day (which was funny, knowing what was about to come). We hung out at camp, found the two pit toilets, carb loaded, I think I even took a nap. There were no bugs, just warm dappled afternoon sunlight through the trees. Even the bears stayed away from my extremely accessible food. ONE COMPLAINT: People left toilet paper all ove the ground! Some mere feet from the toilet! Is the toilet too camouflaged? Do you have something against pit toilets? Omg people. Take care of our outdoors, come on. At least bury it.

We got moving around 5:30am knowing we had a long day ahead of us. John shook out the tent, which always makes me think “shake shake shake” which turns into shake your booty. So the next few hours would be full of me repeating that chorus. There is supposedly a trail to the river ford, we didn’t find it. We did find a log that I strongly disliked but still crossed thanks to stubbornness and a burning desire to not take my shoes off so early in the day. But I swore I would not be taking that log on the way back. We found the Easy Ridge trail quickly, and I’d say it was easy to follow for maybe 85% of the time. I did manage to get us off trail where we ended up cutting a switchback, but we re-found it quickly thanks to gpx tracks (Jon’s being surprisingly more accurate than my AlpineQuest app, which had yet to let me down, more on that later). We crested the ridge around 8am, but that didn’t mean much, because the ridge goes on forever. And the bugs were bad. Really bad. I had a sweet potato baby food. My new Invisalign strategy is liquid calories thanks to two recommendations I got last week. The sweet potato wasn’t as bad as it sounds I was ready to gag but it mostly tasted like fruits. Instant sugar, let’s go.

It was an easy walk past tarns and mellow slab highways and meadows to the false summit of Easy Peak, where I looked at the real Easy Peak and said ah shit, that doesn’t look so easy. We took a brunch break to crush some calories and when we stood up I said something like “well, let’s get to a point where that snow and scramble doesn’t look so intimidating.” Except that point never came, because we ended up scrambling some wet slabs up to a patch of steep snow that we ascended without ice axes or crampons. That snow led to a crumbling mess of a peak where we topped out 30ft later. And that’s where the good stuff started.

Easy Ridge is gorgeous, and the second half past Easy Peak is like 100x better tahn the first half. Only problem is there are fewer tarns (that could also be a pro depending on your feelings about views and mosquitoes). We were half in clouds, half in sun. I suddenly saw something sprinting away from us: BEAR! He was hauling ass down the snow while we stood there dumbfounded.

We dropped off the ridge to the south and started the long downward traverse to the Imperfect Impasse (or the Perfect Impasse? it’s not an impasse because you can pass it so Perfect Impasse seems wrong but I think that’s what it was originally called). It’s this miraculous canyon ripping down Whatcom’s ridge that has exactly one sketchy section you can scramble through. Except we had one problem. We didn’t really get any beta for the Impasse, because everyone had said they usually get skunked so you should just ignore it and drop 2000ft of elevation to go around the bottom where the canyon opens up onto normal talus slopes. The first wobbly piece of talus cued surfin safari, which finally replaced shake shake shake.

Well. I beg to differ. Try to find the impasse. Holy shit.

We dropped down through some brush (there IS a better way where you can follow talus the whole way) and some wet slabs before popping out at the base of the Impasse. Believe me I made that sound way faster and more pleasant than it was. But we weren’t mentally and emotionally wrecked yet, that part came later. We crossed below the canyon on snow, hearing the running water below us and having no idea how thick the snow bridge was. But suddenly we saw bear prints. Well I mean if it held a bear… it can probably hold us? Walk carefully. We scrambled up the other side of the canyon on vegetated slopes and suddenly I hear HEEEY BEAR! from Jon ahead of me. I pop my head over the hill and see Jon standing across from a bear at a stream. Holy shit. The bear lumbered away while Jon shouted HEY and then turned around to see me ready to bail back the way we had came. We pushed forward with Jon shouting “hey bear” and me talking to the bear like the Guardian of the Alpine. “Hiii bear we’ll just be here for a few minutes sorry” “Please let us through real quick we’ll be gone soon” “Ok but you could have worn a better trail here this one is kinda shitty you can do better than that” “Ok Mr. Bear we’re going uphill now thanks for letting us use your traaail!” Very kind of him.

We gained a brushy ridge. I definitely read a trip report that said “just pick your way up the basin and avoid all the brush” and instead our GPX track went… straight into the brush. We started cursing its owner, who said he had uploaded the down route because his up route was so bad. Did he upload the wrong route? Who goes through this?! WHO DOES THIS? I swear we were doing like 5.7 rated tree climbing. We saw a gully to the right. Why doesn’t anyone take the gully?! Must be a reason. Back to the trees. We found a water bottle, so some other dumbasses had gone this way. My pole strapped to my pack kept getting caught on branches. Loops of the rope kept getting caught on branches. I can’t believe I didn’t rip or break anything muscling through those trees. My sunglasses miraculously did not get slapped off my face. We saw the gully again. This is BULLSHIT I started cursing under my breath. I was getting belligerent. Manhandling trees. Jon burst out from the trees and saw the gully a third time. THIS IS RETARDED!!!! I followed in quick succession WHO CHOSE THIS WHY DID WE LISTEN WHY ARE WE HERE I was just relieved he was raging with me.

The mystical Impasse is up in that canyon somewhere

We continued upwards to slabby rock. This must be the section people rappel. Surfin Safari was placed with “now walk it out walk it out” on loop because that’s how I feel on slab. Run it out. So next time you’re in the alpine admiring views just think somewhere is someone on a slab vibing “it’s on once again, patron once again, I threw my hair back, then I froze like the wind, west side WALK IT OUT” oh hey look a rap sling. Jon got onto the arete proper. I stayed on the lower slabs, which felt like the last pitch of Ragged Edge on Vesper except there were no views and no cute flowers and no pro. Jon’s arete seemed downright pleasant with nice features and sticky rock. Another rap sling at the top (I think for two 15m raps vs one 30m rap). We took another break. “I hate slabs” I announced. “No you don’t, you do them all the time.” Touche, sir. I was tired and pissed from the trees and frayed from the scramble. There’s no way the impasse is worse than this. I pounded another baby food. We kept moving. 20ft higher was a way better break spot with way better views. I hate when I do that. “Perfect Pass better be PERFECT” Jon announced. You’re damn right it better be perfect.

I thought we had to be above the worst of it, no way would we run into anything that could compete with the trees. We carried up through patches of snow to the base of what I called the headwall, where we left the snow and headed for waterfall slabs instead. I have never scrambled so much wet rock in my life. Wet, mossy, slick rock. But I guess that’s better than 5.7 trees? We tried to find spots with sizeable footholds at least. At this point I was driven by sheer determination and stubbornness. We’re getting. To. The. God. Damn. Pass. Jon made it to the pass first, scrambling up a final blocky vegetated waterfall. He immediately started scouting campsites. Meanwhile I was below and behind him doing what can only be described as literally crawling up the rocks standing up only when I was on mostly flat ground. I dropped my pack at the first campsite Jon had found, partially because it was a beautiful, well protected spot but also because it was the first campsite he found. Upon further investigation, it was definitely the best campsite, so the pack could stay where it lay. There were a multitude of streams coming off the snowpacks, huge cornices that I imagine were absolutely wild in winter. I am surprised more people don’t come up here to ski.

4th class slabs don’t think just keep moving (PC: Jon)

I glanced at my phone and realized it was actually only like 3pm. We had taken about 8.5-9 hours from Copper Creek to Perfect Pass with much room for improvement on routefinding between Easy Pass and Perfect Pass, even though we ignored the Impasse and lost/regained the 2kft of elevation. I wanted to do Whatcom, but it was socked in by clouds above us. I figured I wasn’t coming all the way back out here just for Whatcom. “Ok, if the clouds clear, Whatcom at 4:30? Shouldn’t be more than 90min round trip from here.” “Deal.” Sweet. I went back to my nap.

Whatcom was a quick side trip. We slogged up some moderate snow (I found a ski strap just uphill of Perfect Pass, possibly from JT’s team months prior which would be hilarious) to a surprisingly pleasant, fun ridge scramble. After the knife edges we had on Triumph and Custer, this was a piece of cake. Clouds unfortunately moved in over Challenger as we ascended Whatcom, blocking out views to the south and east, but that made the ridge look more dramatic. We didn’t find a summit register, just snapped some pics and headed back down. “Would you have carried one up here if you knew?” Jon asked laughing. “Ugh… at home I’d have said yes, now I don’t know.” I put crampons on for the descent because I don’t trust my feet in trail runners on snow at all unless I can get a good 2″ deep heel print, which wasn’t happening. Jon is like the king of plunge stepping and disappeared into the fog below me, and soon enough we were cooking dinner back at the tent.

I was apprehensive about the clouds. Given our streak the past few weeks… shitty spring, left the Chilliw acks a day early, Triumph cleared miraculously but we were socked in the rest of the time, Bacon I bailed for a dozen reasons but one of the reasons was lack of views… I was going to be really discouraged if we ended up socked in by clouds on Challenger. They weren’t supposed to be here today, it was supposed to be mostly sunny! And I guess it was, minus the peaks we were on. And the Pickets do tend to frustrate you by deciding to shroud themselves in clouds and mystery as soon as you arrive. But the forecast was for sun. Just sun. Please mother nature pleeeeease give me one sunny day! I hung my food 5ft from the tent ready to fight off any bear that wanted it and went to sleep. The tent was flapping enough that I put in headphones and was relieved to have music to block out the wind, which I had forgotten on the past few trips. Fingers crossed for a clear morning. I woke up around 1 or 2 am to the sound of silence, no wind, no tent flapping loudly. A sigh of relief, and back to sleep.

Tapto and Middle Lakes with Redoubt, the Moxes, Spickard, Rahm, and Custer in the background

Looking back down the N Ridge of Whatcom

Tiny dot Jon getting closer to Perfect Pass

We woke up to an inversion, a spectacular sunrise, and a mostly cloud free sky (besides the streaks that lit up with sunrise). We got moving quickly, each carrying coils with friction knots between us in the case of a crevasse fall. You really, really don’t want to fall on a two person rope. I mean you never want to fall, but a 2p rope makes any sort of arrest and rescue extremely difficult, if not impossible. I think people overestimate their abilities on two person ropes (myself included) and underestimate the difficulty of a real two person rescue. A friend once set up a z haul for me in a crevasse (practice), and was only above to get about two feet of space in his system meaning a TON of mini hauls and resets. I’ve had to arrest single partners multiple times on slopes with good runouts (vs crevasses) and even then, the moment their weight hits you is terrifying and strenuous. I am basically of the mindset that if something happens on a 2p rope, you’re probably fucked, but like Nirmal Purja said in 14 Peaks, usually when you think you’re fucked, you’re actually only like 50% fucked. So I’ll take my chances on a 2p rope vs unroped travel.

We head up the side of the col until we could see mellow snow (vs cornices and lips), and started the long traverse. And boy is it LONG. We crossed one rock arm with a cute mossy stream running through it, and from there it was all snow, just avoiding crevasses here and there. We were moving quickly by glacier travel standards. The glacier was well covered (I don’t like “filled in” because crevasses don’t fill in, they just get covered) and we had great line of sight which made navigation easy. The two cloud strips relieved us of some sunshine while still providing ample views, and soon enough we were on the ridge heading up the mini hogsback towards a saddle between the summit and a low point east of the summit.

The bergshrund still had a huge snowbridge, but I could see how it would be entirely impassable later in the season. In fact, just a week later this crazy picture of an extremely narrow bridge was posted on Facebook, the comparison is sobering. I wish I had better pictures for comparison. The bridge was 10+ft across and 3+ft thick when we crossed it, and the pic on fb shows a very narrow piece that won’t last much longer. A good example of how quickly conditions can change and how you can never be positive what’s underneath you. That bridge could have been hollow underneath and we just happened to see a 3ft thick piece from the angle we were at, who knows.

Neat rock feature under Challenger’s sub summits

The spookiest part for us was right above the bergschrund. We switched back to climber’s left up a steep slope above the bergshrund, and I was kicking steps when we heard a WHUMPF and the entire snowpack moved and a tiny half inch crack opened up directly below our feet. We froze. “WHOA did you hear that holy shit” I was scared to kick another step for fear the whole slope would give way. But when nothing had happened in 10 seconds, we hauled ass up to the ridge (only ~20ft away). Our best guess is that it was a glide crack or something similar to a slumping cornice given we were on presumably unsupported snowpack above the bergshrund. I did not take the time to try to dig and see if it went down to ice vs rock, but believe me I wish I could 1) see what it looks like now and 2) go back and set up a safe way to analyze what’s beneath it. I texted Forrest (long time avy instructor and very experirnced climber) as soon as I was home to debrief. That’s the best we can do, try to learn from what we experienced. Maybe we got lucky this time. Glide cracks don’t tend to get triggered by human weight, but a slumping lip could.

Seconds before the whumpf and the shooting crack (PC: Jon)

I dropped into the moat near here. Baker and Shuksan HELLO (PC: Jon)

We followed another mini snow arete to the rock. I jumped into a moat because I like being snugly between rock and ice while Jon stayed on the snow slope until it petered out. At that point, we stashed snow gear and it was an easy scramble to the “5.5-5.7” rock pitch. The beta I read said “5.5-5.7 depending on how long your arms are” which suggested that some nice jug would be just out of my reach leaving me with shitty slabs, but I have fairly average arms and there was no shortage of jugs or mantles. We didn’t even use the 3 pieces of gear we had brought. There was a piton, another piton, a third piton, a fixed cam, and a fourth piton, and boom you’re at the top of the pitch. Jon led it in his freaking Merrel Moabs and I followed in some Vasque basically-trail-runner-but-with-ankle-high-tops. It was fine. Definitely not 5.7. We stashed the rope there and scrambled to the summit including another cool alpine sidewalk with some exposure. There is a rap anchor on the summit, so I think some people stay roped up for the top out too.

Summit views are ridiculous. The entire northern Pickets cirque is just breathtaking. Eiley Wiley Ridge looks beautiful. Luna seems standalone, almost not part of the Pickets ridge, but with two beautiful lakes below a face that rarely gets climbed above a valley that rarely gets visited. Fury’s NW Buttress looks insane, both the approach and the buttress itself. Like it literally might be easier to approach via Challenger than bushwhacking with the bugs in that valley, yikes. As usual I was eager to get down, so I went to start setting up the rappel while Jon enjoyed the summit views for a few more minutes. The rap was fine with a 30m rope, and soon enough we were back on the glacier where we followed intermittent tracks (surprised how quickly ours had melted/blended back in with the snow) back to camp. At one point I was moaning about dehydration. “Well have you been drinking from your camelback?” Jon asked. “….no…” I replied sheepishly. I kept forgetting it was there. 20 minutes of me monologuing later, Jon said “hey, you do realize I’m 20ft behind you on a rope and you’re facing away from me? I have no idea what you’re saying.” Oh, right. Glacier travel. Damn.

Luna far left, Luna Lake and cirque, N Buttress of E Fury just right of center. Used to be a dream route, not sure it’ll ever happen now.

At camp, holy shit – people! We ran into Ryan Stoddard and an old acquaintance Westy that I hadn’t seen or talked to in several years! Small world. They were just as surprised as us to see others. They carried on towards the summit. Jon remarked about their small packs. I said yeah.. knowing Westy, they’re probably doing one push. When we got back to cell service, yep, sure as heck they had done it in one push. Absolutely insane. Those day packs must have been nice.

Hiding from the sun in our cool hats (figurative and literal) beneath the lone boulder

We packed up camp and tried to find the impasse on the way down. Having no beta on that side made it seem mostly impossible, so we gave up after 20-30 minutes of scouting and went back down the way we came. We downclimbed the top of the slabby arete the way Jon had ascended, and then rapped the second half. Or, I rapped and Jon used the rope as a hand line. My rope management in precarious positions is quite nifty. I was relieved to be below the slabs. Now all we had left was the 5.7 trees, which we quickly found and ignored in favor of the grassy gully to skiier’s left. Which went almost to the bottom! We were forced into trees for maybe the last 15-20ft, but MUCH better than what we fought on the way up. From there, we followed the bear’s trail back over a small river, down to the bottom of the impasse canyon, and over to some talus where we regained what felt like infinite elevation back to snowfields while being absolutely cooked by the sun. I have never been so sweaty in my life. The snowfields looked so short and doable. “It’s right there Eve!!” Jon said pointing at Easy Ridge. Right there. And probably like 2 hours away.

We alternated between heather and snowfields, dunking sun hats in every river we found, splashing faces, chugging water. Jon dropped his sunglasses somewhere but we knew we had no chance of finding them, fortunately I had spares… bright pink spares. He looked great. Actually he looks better in them than I do. At the ridge our spirits lifted knowing we just had short ups and downs and ridiculous alpine views. I could hear thunder in the distance which was starting to concern me, but that was a problem for future me. Jon didn’t hear anything. The last crux for me was the far side of Easy Peak, where I knew we’d have to drop down that shitty loose rock and then steep snow again. I refused to let my brain turn off until we were past it. I immediately trundled like 5 big rocks down to the valley below. Jon went far skier’s right and I stayed left so we could both kick down whatever was necessary without concern. At the top of the snow, I put on crampons and he stuck with boots, fortunately the snow was more mellow than I had remembered it. He waited for me at the bottom while I calculated every step, too tired to trust my feet enough to plunge step given the lack of purchase I was getting. I just didn’t have the strength left to really force a good heel cup and 40whatever lbs on my back wasn’t enough to make it happen naturally. It was extremely tedious.

Early lupine, it’ll be a real show in a week or two

We ran into two climbers going to put up a new route on the west side of the Pickets. Intrigued but not wanting to press too much, I just asked if they’d post a report if they were successful. Answer: yes, and here it is!! They had a great trip doing a new route on Spectre, a seldom visited peak WAY the fuck out there. Probably in the running for most remote point in the lower 48.

We overshot our goal campsite by some lovely tarns, quickly realized it, turned around, and hiked the longest 0.1 mile I have ever hiked in my life before dropping packs and setting up camp. Finally Jon heard the thunder too, I confirmed I wasn’t losing my mind, and we looked over to see a massive storm cell to the east. I have no idea where it really was, but Challenger was about 5mi away and still in the sunlight, so hopefully it stays over there. It continued moving due south, leaving us with sunny blue skies and an interesting slow motion show.

Ridiculous!!! I can’t believe more people don’t backpack here!

We filled up on water, enjoyed out last dehydrated meal, jumped in a frozen tarn, took a thousand sunset pics over the less frozen/more buggy tarn, and then dove into the tent to hide from the bugs. The bugs. Were. Everywhere. And lower on Easy Ridge was even worse. Yeah tarns are gorgeous, but they spawn mosquitos. You can’t win them all, you know?

Just a dork being wowed by the scenery (PC: Jon) The pole and the hat omg

We got moving around 8am the next morning and had an uneventful trip out. Whatever had been in my head transitioned to Down as we lost elevation. In addition to losing elevation, I also lost the Easy Ridge trail on the switchbacks again, same as one of our gpx tracks did which was amusing. My phone had a +/- accuracy of 20ft, which is not really helpful when you are trying to find a sometimes barely visible trail. Jon’s inreach kept turning off every two minutes due to what he later figured out was a corrupted memory card. Jon with balls of steel took the log to cross the river again, I rapped the riverbank and forded it because fuck no my life flashed in front of my eyes on the way up no way am I doing this log downsloping even if the ratio of foot size to log diameter is better for me than for him. Yes, the rap would have been unnecessary if I had scouted like 50ft downstream, but I didn’t, I just wanted to keep up with this crazy guy who has no fear and far superior balance to my own. Perks of river ford: freezing water feels absolutely incredible on cold tired feet and calves covered in a burning heat rash. Upon our return to the main trail, we immediately found the trail to the river we had missed with freshly cut logs. And then we found fresh drainage ditches. And then more freshly cut logs. And then… the team clearing the trail!! Woohoo! We showered them with gratitude and praise. Turns out in the park you can use chainsaws unlike in the wilderness areas (and I guess park trumps the fact it’s all Stephen Mathers wilderness?) where you can only use hand tools.

I knew the return to Hannegan Pass would be tough. When we broke out into the sun like a half mile from the pass I was ready to get roasted. At the pass we took a long break, Jon hiding from sunshine and people deep in the trees to recharge and me plopping down with the crowds to chat everyone up so I could recharge. But first I dropped my pack and grabbed a nalgene. I had one thing on my mind. “Snowcone” I whispered as I grabbed it and then i shouted SNOWCONE as I ran to the snow to stuff my water bottle with snow and flavored mio. 10/10 prime alpine dessert.

I’m striking out on synonyms for brutal. The hike from Hannegan Pass to the car was absolutely.. heinous? Savage? BRUTAL! How can a trail with so many streams be so incredibly dry?! It was BAKING in the sun. So hot, so dry, I got mad that the streams were all so low to the ground (OBVIOUSLY) and weren’t like waist level waterfalls next to the trail that i could easily touch without squatting or bending over. We ran into a friend I haven’t seen in years, Jennifer, and we did a quick greeting before Jon and I hustled onwards because we were in survival mode. I told him all about her ridiculous garden and flowers and wedding pictures and mushroom foraging. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me to stop talking. I did it myself when I was convinced we were near the end of the trail. I predicted 800ft or 300 steps to get to the parking lot. It was 291 steps. That’s the closest I’ve ever been in my life to having my guess match reality, even when I have line of sight to where I’m going. Sheer coincidence but I was so stoked.

BIG Bolete I didn’t want to carry 9+ miles

We split a beer at the car because I couldn’t handle a full one. I was so dehydrated and hadn’t left any water at the car. Rookie mistake. Jon fortunately had some he shared. We changed into fresh clothes and beat the rush at North Fork Brewery on highway 9. We parked, stumbled in (literally, in my case), got bar seating. I almost burst into tears when the bartender said “hi” because it knew we were about to be taken care of and fed (because we were giving them money, but still).

We ordered a large artichoke dip, a calzone, and a hoagie. Next time I’ll just get two large artichoke dips. It’s fucking DELICIOUS. It arrived and we though shit that’s way too big and 10min later it was gone. I added extra romano cheese to all of my servings. I couldn’t believe I ate the whole sandwich too but I did. Fabulous. 10/10. The servers were swamped. There was a 90min wait for takeout! The manager came out to the bar at one point and said “I disconnected the phones for you guys so you don’t have to answer.” That’s good management right there. Being the boundary for his employees. But they kept on top of it in good spirits and I tipped excessively. Get there before 4:30 if you can, it’ll be a mobscene after then.

It has been a long time since I had a trip that strenuous. I have a five day coming up this weekend and I’m hoping it’s a breeze compared to that because wow. Challenger is one of the easier, more accessible and popular Picket peaks and damn it is still a committing trip. Spectacular scenery though, and worth the effort a thousand times over. But next time, I’m looking for the imperfect impasse, even though I think I’ll hate it (lots of slabby negative holds with exposure). Or I’ll go in via Big Beaver and Eiley Wiley ridge for traverse purposes (plus that ridge has some cool lakes). What a ridiculous area. I wish I had more free time. And maybe also a helicopter.

Ruth-Icy Traverse

Posted on August 11, 2020 by evejakubowski

Robert looking at Icy. Spillway Glacier on the left being sad, Icy Glacier looking good.

Gotta go up & over Ruth

We figured we’d do a 1.5d trip, trailhead camping or hiking in a bit on Saturday night and doing the real deal Sunday. Weather was iffy on Saturday, so this ended up being the right choice. We tossed a few ideas around and settled on the Ruth-Icy traverse, given we could hike in to a bunch of options for campsites and have a lot of flexibility to play our timeline/availability by ear. This ended up vastly surpassing my expectations honestly, bringing us across two mellow glaciers, lots of off trail travel and navigation, a fourth class scramble, a sweet rappel, totally remote feeling alpine terrain, and third class dehydration to top it all off.

Distance:16mi round trip
Elevation gain: ~8k ft (7100ft highest point)
Weather: 80’s… and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 3hrs
Did I Trip: No but Robert had two good talus stumbles

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Morning mist and shadows (PC Robert)

We got to the trailhead around 7pm on Saturday, and made it to Hannegan Pass right at dusk. There is NO RUNNING WATER past the signed Hannegan camp so be prepared! There were some rowdy folks at that first signed site, so we kept hiking. There was a medium site off the trail to the left (within sight of the trail) that we called Plan B, but I thought there would be more near the meadows at the actual pass, and I was right. There’s a huge site at the pass itself (occupied) but if you continue along the path to Ruth, there are two more off to the right (social trails) and a third beautiful one with phenomenal views at the meadows just before the steep treed section. Not knowing what was ahead, we settled for one of the forested sites off to the right of the start of the trail to Ruth. I am grateful for our quiet and welcoming neighbors, who pointed out the site to us and said totally fine for us to stay there. I hope we weren’t an intrusion. I think every time I’ve been up here I’ve sworn that I’ll camp on top of Ruth, or at least along the ridge. Or bring skis. But there I was, breaking all my promises.

First good look at our first climb: Ruth

Everything was socked in by clouds and the night was chillier than expected given the dampness in the air. I figured we could still at least tag Ruth in the mist and see if we got above clouds, but I wouldn’t want to do the traverse to Icy without good visibility (plus what’s the point? I’m there for views!). I could feel my enthusiasm about climbing starting to pique again. Over the past few years there have been several points where I’d be looking for excuses to bail on climbs, fighting burnout, yet here I was thinking eh, even if it’s misty we can still try for Ruth and see what happens. Part of this might have been that I had been to Ruth before (five years ago!! FIVE YEARS! Have I been here that long?!), so while I knew what insanity I’d be missing in terms of views, I at least had seen them before. But I think the other part is having had so much time off from climbing. I remember a friend mentioning that once climbing felt like a chore, it was time to take a break. I knew what that meant on a superficial level, but this past spring was the first time I truly took a break, and it has actually turned out to be incredibly refreshing.

The rock gets closer faster when half your travel is on rock not snow

We woke up to a soaked-through “rain fly,” and I assumed it was still misty outside. Demoralized but desperate to pee, I showered myself with rain-fly water crawling out of the tent, only to see clear skies! Woohoo! We’re in business!

We skipped tea/coffee (well Robert drank a canned cold brew) because it was chilly and we wanted to start moving. We followed social trails back to the main trail, and started up the 3rd-class-trees section (added bonus: muddy and slick) before skirting east around the peak on the ridge to Ruth, coldbrew in hand.

Ruth Creek valley from Ruth

Last time I did this it was snow covered, I had never been here with flowering meadows! The traverse toward Ruth’s ridge on the backside of that small peak was even better than I remembered, heather meadows looking at a glaciated peak in the early morning sun and feeling like you’re somewhere in the middle of the Swiss Alps when in reality you’re like five miles from your bright yellow gas guzzling SUV. We followed the trail along the ridge, hopping across talus until we could traverse to the lowest snow finger, where we finally got on the glacier. Snow was a nice break from talus. That became a theme of the trip. Sick of talus? Here’s snow. Sick of snow? Have some talus!

Nooksack Cirque! Seahpo Peak, Jagged Ridge, Nooksack Tower, Shuksan, Baker peaks out (heh)

Above the death gully

We brought glacier gear, but did not use it. The glacier on Ruth was still very well covered with no depressions or texture changes on the route we were taking. That said, an old friend from my REI days broke his back falling off route and bouncing off a lip and into a crevasse doing this traverse, so please make an informed decision. No matter how safe your route on a glacier appears, there is absolutely still the risk that something goes wrong.

Okay disclaimer aside, we made pretty good time to the summit of Ruth, where we had an “oh, shit, that’s far away” moment looking at Icy. The route isn’t quite line of sight because of how steep it is, lots of slopes are convex and have those weird rollovers where you don’t know if it goes or not. The glacier looked steeper from far away. We knew we had to wrap around the backside of Icy, not climb what was in front of us. The trip reports I had read took 14hrs from camp between Ruth and Icy (aka further along the route where we were), but they were large groups with newbies, and I thought we could move faster than them.

Robert wasn’t feeling it, but couldn’t think of a logical reason why. We’re big believers in gut feelings, but we couldn’t even think of a worst case scenario for the next leg (dropping down talus fields that were impossible to fall down, too mellow for rock fall, and some mostly flat snow fields where you’d just butt plant if you slipped). Between the conceived lack of risk and my gut being quiet (stoked, even) we decided to continue through the next section and see what happened.

Starting up the Icy Glacier

Robert on the col, Blum in the back

We looked for the trail down the ridge of Ruth, and it actually took us a while to find it. Don’t overthink it. Just drop off the true summit of Ruth (not the one with the benchmark) and start heading off the summit towards Sefrit/Nooksack Ridge and you’ll find the trail. It’s much less annoying than trying to cross slippery sliding talus. Then start traversing talus and snowfields to a saddle around 6,600ft, with a small knoll (and campsite) with stellar views of the Nooksack Cirque. Hopefully you aren’t sick of it already. If you are, I’d like a word.

We took the light left-ish gully

From there, you have two options. The death gully, which supposedly isn’t as bad as it looks but I mean… it looks… like a death gully. And I think you have to regain some elevation once you’re out of it. The other option is the supposedly-cairned heather slopes to the left of the gully. We didn’t find any cairns marking it, but again, don’t overthink it. Basically everything goes, and you can pick your way down game trails, heather steps, and the occasional 2nd to maybe 3rd class scramble move to a field of talus above a small patch of trees. At that patch of trees, again, don’t overthink it. You will find a boot path winding through the trees (more like shrubs) downhill towards the ridge, and with a few feed of 2nd class scrambling (maybe 1 or 2 unexposed/super safe 3rd class moves you’ll find yourself walking talus along the ridge to the Icy glacier. Surprisingly, it was similar to last weekend – we just took every piece of the route on section at a time, and things just kept going smoothly.

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Halfway up the scramble (PC Robert)

The ridge is a beautiful mellow walk with astounding views in every direction. We looked behind us at what we had come down and marveled at it. If we hadn’t just come down it, we wouldn’t think it goes. It looks totally steep and shitty.the geology along the ridge was also pretty cool, you could see scrapes in the rocks from glacial activity, huge boulders that had just split into multiple pieces. The talus overall was surprisingly solid, and soon enough we were at the Icy Glacier.

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Almost at the notch (PC Robert)

The Icy glacier was also surprisingly mellow and well covered, and we were up at the col to corkscrew around the peak in about an hour. We took a long break here, stuffing water bottles with snow and ditching our gear to do the scramble as light as possible. We hiked up talus to the obvious left hand light colored gully, and the scramble was fairly quick too. I had read everything from “2nd class” to “4th class but feels like 5th.” Robert took the left side, I took the right side. The right side was definitely 4th class in that it had plenty of solid jugs and ledges, but required hands and had some decent exposure that I wouldn’t have been stoked to downclimb. And it felt like climbing! We made it to the rap station and I headed to the east peak, having heard that was the true summit. THAT had some wildly exposed 4th class moves (and a sidewalk style slab that you can just walk across even though your brain is screaming CROUCH!!!!!), but again, mostly super solid rock and giant jugs ( which happens my favorite trivia team name in response to my friend’s team “big crimpin”).

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Another false summit! Someone’s happy (PC Robert) so we’ll pretend it’s real

Looking back at Ruth

To my dismay, there was no summit register. But the trip reports and the map said the east side summit was the tallest. I looked back at the westernmost tower. Shit, is that taller?? It looks like it might be taller. We scrambled back to the notch (like 15ft) and up the west tower. Still no register. And now the far eastern tower looked taller. Well, shit. All of the beta and maps led us here, and the western peaks are the ones marked on the map. Maybe someone took it down to be replaced. Or maybe we didn’t look hard enough on the eastern peak. But I do like summit registers, and I had heard that Icy had one, so maybe… it was the FAR eastern peak that was true. I finally found validation an hour ago stumbling upon trailcatjim’s site, which confirmed that the SE peak across the saddle from the Icy Peak labeled on maps is actually 11ft higher than the labeled peak. God dammit. Why is the popular peak the false summit?! Well, we got in two short super exposed cool ridge scrambles, which was refreshing. Reminiscent of Luna Peak where the moves are solid but wildly exposed, except way shorter. And I guess now I have another excuse to come back and fulfill that promise of camping up high.

Pretty sure that cracked one is the true summit. Did a fine fist-crack-alpine-whale to get up that, which is were sour patch watermelon were ~~spilled~~ sacrificed

One really cool feature was the Spillway Glacier, or lack thereof. Back in 2008, this entire face was filled with a very cool partially hanging glacier, heavily crevassed, plunging hundreds of feed to the cirque below. Now, there is a small chunk of still active glacier towards the top, some scattered chunks of ice several feet below it, and a middle chunk of recently-calved glacier, just waiting to be melted in the sun. A stark example of recession, and regardless of what you believe in terms of climate change, it’s still disappointing to see something so beautiful slowly disappearing. Even just compared to 2015 you can see recession – there were way more chunks down low in 2015, and the calving section up high was still partially connected. Which brought us to another topic, that requires a philosopher. If this glacier melts out entirely, and the next ice age begins and a glacier starts to form again, is it still the Spillway Glacier? If a ship is on show in a museum and all of the parts are eventually replaced, is it still the same ship? The Ship of Theseus, the Glacier of Eve.

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2008 (PC Crest Pictures), 2015 (me), 2020. Wow! More 2008 pics on trailcatjim’s site.

Robert raps down

Okay, back to reality. At this point I had accidentally scattered sour patch watermelons all over the summit notch and had almost dropped the $30 of cord I had brought, so it was time to get my hot mess ass off this peak before more calories and dollars were sacrificed to the mountain gods. We rapped the gully which was much better than downclimbing (60m rope was perfect) and quickly got back to the saddle where we took another long break trying to suck water from snow. We put crampons back on and plunge stepped down the Icy fairly quickly, getting back to the ridge in something crazy like 30 minutes. We dropped a little low on the east side of the ridge this time, less convenient because there was no bootpath but it’s all just talus and snowfields so still fairly easy travel. No snowfields had significant running water sources, unfortunately. Stupid ridges. Draining all the water off the sides.

Robert at the base of the gully

We knew the climb back up Ruth would be brutal. It’s 2,000ft of elevation gain to get back on top of Ruth. We laughed at how vertical the route looked again. But as we got closer, the texture appeared. Okay, here’s the mini third class scramble. Okay, patch of trees with a bootpath. Okay, talus slope. Okay, heather ledges and the occasional super sticky granite scramble (not exposed) and boom, back at the first saddle! Okay, now shittier talus and snowfields. We looked up at a saddle south of Ruth. It sure looked like it would go. But then what I thought was Ruth looked spicy from that side. We stuck with the original route, but are pretty sure you could just drop off the false summit of Ruth across talus straight to the snowfield near the saddle, and save yourself like 400ft of talus traversing.

Looking at the route back up Ruth… does it go?

Still hadn’t found running water. Didn’t want to melt snow. We both had pounding headaches at this point and were eating snowballs of mio, which were like the best snow cones I had ever had. We stuffed a nalgene with slush and shook it up with mio, and I tried to drink some only to have all the ice slam into my face. But it was a good idea at the time.we put crampons back on (arguably not necessary, but we decided boot skiing a glacier seemed irresponsible) and plunge stepped our way back down Ruth. We saw only one person on his way up to camp on Ruth’s summit. There were prints from other summitters, but they were long gone by then (even though it was only like 2:30pm). We made a really shitty loose traverse from the glacier to the ridge crest, and from there we started to realize the ups-and-downs of the route.

Pass Creek drainage from the saddle

Yeah, we knew Ruth to Icy involved a huge amount of gain and loss. But coming back from Ruth, the trail along the ridge went up after the saddle. And a rising traverse across a slope. And then down though 3rd class trees, where I got bitch slapped by a small pine leaving a present in my eye and I didn’t have enough bodily fluids left in my to cry it out. And then up to our campsite and the Hannegan Pass trail. While Robert packed the tent, I melted the snow left in our water bottles, and we drank the best slightly-warm mio I’ve ever had.

Above the tree patch, below the scramble

Heading down from the pass, we basically booked it to the car. I was of the opinion that we had no need to rush besides aching feet and a desire to be sedentary with drinks in front of us, but Robert was antsy, so okay, we’ll cruise it. At the first stream crossing from the pass we filled up a nalgene and took turns chugging. Ah, nectar of the gods, it was so delicious.

It was like 90 degrees in the valley. Every patch of sun-exposed plants was radiating heat at me and between the dehydration and the sunburned face I have never been so happy and enamored with shady forested sections. Sefrit was demoralizing, I remembered scouting routes on the way up yet we hadn’t even reached the valley across from its gulleys yet. Crap that means we still have like over an hour. Finally we saw the granite slabs above the trailhead and I knew we were close. Back at the car by 5:30, making it about 6hrs back from the summit of Icy, and just under 12hrs of moving. Not too shabby for two very out of practice climbers!

Almost back on top of Ruth!

This was a surprisingly spectacular traverse. I had seen trip reports but people either took crappy photos or the pictures just didn’t do it justice. It felt far more alpine than I expected, and the scramble (albeit short) was actually quite fun. Honestly, one of the spires of Icy Peak east of the main saddle almost looked higher than where we were, but that’s got to be a trick since the map and gps both had the west towers being taller.. I need to get one of those handheld triangulator things that can measure elevation of nearby peaks.

One more of the calved pieces of the Spillway. The top part is still thick.

If I did this again, I’d camp on that shoulder just west of Ruth. The view of Shuksan is insane and while you do have to hump overnight gear all the way up there, it would be worth it just for the sunrise. The whole cirque lights up pink (we got a glimpse of it leaving camp). My goal is to still be doing these things (but more slowly) in 30, 35 years. Maybe by then the Stillway Glacier will be gone and I’ll be marveling at the recession of the Ruth or Icy or Nooksack glaciers instead.

Additional note: There were dozens of beehive along the road! I couldn’t believe it when we drove past, I don’t think they were here last year. I think I’d have remembered. Not sure who is funding them or why they are there or what they are doing, but I hope they’re loving the wildflowers and helping them spread and bloom!

Beehives! I want to learn more!

Yellow Aster Butte

Posted on October 12, 2019 by evejakubowski

A break in the clouds

Foliage along switchbacks

“This isn’t sustainable.” I glanced at Surafel through my tears as the wind sprayed snow in my face. It was September. And it was like 20 degrees with 25mph winds and snow. What. The. Hell. Washington. How DARE you skip fall. All we wanted was bright red and yellow and orange all over the ground and larches and crisp air and sunny blue skies AND BLOOBS and instead you give us high winds and a foot of snow and buried blueberries? Such a cruel mistress.

Sudden winter wonderland!

We were waiting for Amber, and of course I chose the spot with the best views. That means it was the most exposed spot. That means the wind was whipping and the snow was flying and my soft summer body had apparently forgotten how to circulate blood past my elbows and knees when challenged with below freezing temperatures. We ducked around the corner behind a small knoll instead and finally went to hike back down the trail, just as Amber comes around the corner grinning like a kid seeing their birthday cake for the first time. Yeah, okay, you’re right, is there anything I’d rather be doing?

Distance: 7.5 miles round trip
Elevation: 2550ft gain
Weather: 20’s and “partly sunny”
Commute from Seattle: 2 and a half hours
Did I Trip: No, I’ve gotten really good at walking over a few decades of practice
Past comparison: Mid October 2014

Surafel taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture

We met at 6:30am at the Lynnwood Park n Ride and headed north. I hadn’t been to Yellow Aster Butt(e) since October 2014(!), but we knew the fall foliage was supposed to be fantastic and better yet, the area had the highest chance of being sunny in all of western Washington (including the east side of the Cascades). So we figured we’d take our chances.

We immediately saw how low the snow level was. The fall foliage lasted maybe two switchbacks before being covered with snow, and suddenly we were back in the woods. I had blocked the woods from my memory, apparently. But it was a winter wonderland! Fresh snow on all of the trees! Amber wouldn’t stop smiling. I kept laughing every time I saw her face come around a corner just freaking glowing. And Surafel too, the night before I was like oh you’re welcome to join us if you want to come to which he immediately responded TAKE ME WITH YOU! We were all just happy to be out there. But we were missing Brad, who we thought had ditched us to go find larches on some crazy east side off trail adventure of his own. Well maybe he found sunshine and larches, but at least I have friends!*

Surafel and more foliage

The forest opens up into meadows, from where you can see the trail steadily rising across the bowl and actually the butt(e) itself (I think). So you think you’re close, but as you continue you realize you’re about to circumnavigate the butt(e), not go straight up. Also make sure you take the left for where the trail splits to YAB vs Tomyhoi Lake. I hear the lake is beautiful, but it’s 2 miles of mostly elevation loss you have to regain on the way up.

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Hiking past a tarn (PC Surafel)

The wind started whipping as soon as we left tree line. Subalpine meadows are gorgeous, but damn was it cold. We crossed a neat outlet stream, some leftover snow from last winter, and finally broke out into blueberry heaven (bloobs, as Brad calls them). Except you had to dig through the snow to get to them. That didn’t stop us.

NEON FOLIAGE

We continued to follow the trail wrapping beneath the butt(e), and finally came around a corner to views of the Yellow Aster Tarns and Tomyhoi, which had some cool cloud action along the ridge. The final push to the top was steep and slick with fresh snow, so Surafel and Amber chilled at the knoll while I went the rest of the way. I loaned a hiking pole to a new friend, and she and I had the summit all to ourselves. She had come from the San Juans to knock out a hike before work, so we snapped a few pics and hustled down to a point where she could give me back my pole and take off to get to work on time. That was where I met back up with Surafel and Amber, and we headed back to the trailhead ourselves, ready for bathroom and drinks and a warm car.

New friend with tarns and Tomyhoi in the background

P.S. we placed bets on how many cars would be at the trailhead. I bet 17. Amber bet 22. Surafel bet 25. There were 27 when we got there, and 68 when we left. Get there early and hike fast!

*He found one larch, no sunshine, and had his girlfriend with him which counts as two friends

Winchester Mountain Birthday Surprise

Posted on September 29, 2019 by evejakubowski

Here come the balloons! Baker peeks above the clouds.

Party ready! PC Ken

Yeah, we took over a lookout. I almost felt bad, but everyone around us was pretty nice and patient and there weren’t many people because the mountain gods decided to wrap us in fog. To make the colors really pop, I assume. Thanks guys.

Eva had planned this crazy surprise from scratch maybe two weeks in advance. Like two dozen people coordinating formal wear, balloons, blueberry tarts, carpools up one of the worst roads in the cascades, how to get everyone there on time despite everyone being chronically late… amazingly it worked out.

Distance: 3.4 miles (i know, it’s almost a personal record of shortness)
Elevation gain: 1300ft (not too shabby for 1.7mi)
Weather: 40’s and partly sunny?
Commute from Seattle: 3hrs with no traffic
Did I Trip: Not today

Blueberry break! PC Ken

I got to the meeting spot at 9:45. Everyone agreed to meet at 10. They all went to the Wake and Bakery (heh) beforehand, but I was out of cell service so I assumed they were wrapping up and moments away. But then it was 10, and then it was 10:15, and then Emily rolled up so at least I had company, and then it was 10:30… and finally everyone was there. We shuffled gear into the cars of those willing to take on the burden of driving to Twin Lakes, and headed off to the trailhead.

The procession of the balloons

My car had about 40 balloons, which I figured would be enough to float us to the top. But it wasn’t, and that meant we had to actually face the road. Turned out the road isn’t technically that bad, just some small washouts. The scary part is the steep drop and the fact that it’s one lane. And I didn’t want to back that shit up (back up that shit?) in my manual transmission xterra, which, as dope as it is, doesn’t even like reversing uphill in a city. I need two gears for reverse in that car. Amazingly, we only had to pass two others, one that was a little spicy with like 3″ of space (Emily was like uhhh don’t go any farther this way…) and one where Emily and I both laughed and cheered because we passed them on a nice wide beautiful switchback. And suddenly we were at the trailhead!

Each balloon can lift ~14g, so they helped a bit with pack weight

It took a while again to get everyone organized (party decorations, balloons, kids, dogs, debating turning cars around to hide obvious bumper stickers that would give us away) and finally we were on our way. I stupidly signed “EVE – PARTY OF 12” in the trail register. Thankfully, Eva had the foresight to guide Stephen away from the register so my idiocy didn’t give us away.

The procession!

Meanwhile, we scampered (slowly) up the trail, taking blueberry breaks, pictures of everyone with their balloons, making bets on whether we’d have any views at the top. We got to the lookout and started setting up. Splitting up helium balloons (which don’t float as well at 6000ft because of the lower air density), recruiting the kids to blow up normal balloons, taping streamers across the ceiling, hanging up birthday signs, putting out the alpine blueberry tarts that Becka made, eating everyone else’s snacks because my snacks were mediocre at best:

A crumbled honey stinger waffle
A bag of muddy buddies grabbed at a gas station on the way to a SAR mission months ago
A salami wrapped around a cheese stick I didn’t know I had (aka old)
A quest bar I didn’t find until later
Some Peter Rabbit baby food (emergency sugar)
Espresso clif shot (emergency caffeine + sugar)
Pride and also Shame with a dash of Embarrassment (what I ate on the way up this time)
PB2 dust(???) in my pocket??? Basically pocket sand

My favorite on the balloons

Yeah, I hadn’t been out since like mid August. I wouldn’t have starved but I mean… I’d need a certain level of desperation. Anyway, we finished up the decor just as Eva topped out, a few minutes ahead of Stephen. We scrambled to get the last of the balloon inside, eventually shoving them in the door and closing it while we tried to get the strings loose (I can untie them!! Wait! I can’t untie them!! What happened to the strings?! DOES ANYONE HAVE A KNIFE?!” I dodged inside worried Stephen was coming around the corner and snuck the knife to Eva, who finally cut the balloons free and turned around innocently just as Stephen crested the final incline.

I am still like a child playing hide and seek, suddenly I have to use the bathroom but I know it’s just the anticipation. Don’t turn around. Don’t make eye contact. Stephen of course immediately starts heading in the wrong direction. No don’t look. We hear Eva trying to corral him towards the door. He finally turns around like okay fiiiine i’ll look inside first.

Cheryl helping with streamers

“SURPRISE!!” Those bastards going rogue, we had agreed to say happy birthday! At least, everyone except me seemed to be on the same page, and that page said surprise and I had just missed the update memo so I said more like “hhhhhhaaPRISE!” Stephen just goes “oh, hey guys??” and we can see the wheels turning. “Oh there are lots of you!” “Oh oh wow you even decorated!” and we’re all laughing and clapping and HE HAD NO IDEA. I figured he’d at least have a feeling he was getting into something, just not the full scope of what we had pulled together. But he was completely clueless.

We had blueberry tart, whipped cream, whiskey, champagne, sang happy birthday with Eva on ukelele, and caught up on just how Stephen had no idea. He said everything suddenly made sense. Why Eva was waking him up early. Why Eva was rushing him out of the house. Why Eva dodged the trail register. Why Eva was dragging him up the trail so fast. I can’t believe the numerous WHC stickers (and bright yellow car) didn’t give us away. I was worried they’d even catch up to us, because we were pretty behind schedule too!! But everything went smoothly.

Balloons make it easy to find your friends

We eventually took down the decor and headed back to the trailhead, stopping along the way for formal photos. Eva and Stephen do this thing where everyone brings up formalwear and changes into it at the best viewpoint, and we found a great outcropping on the way down that wouldn’t block the whole trail but also had a perfect backdrop. We froze in the cold and the wind in bare feet and semiformal dresses but it was totally worth it for the laughs and the pics. And we were still back to the trailhead before sunset, which is great, because it meant we could drive the shitty part of the road in daylight, instead of hugging the road next to the abyss for 2.5 anxiety inducing miles.

Great day, great company, and even the long drive didn’t bother me (it helps having company – thanks Emily!!). The days like this are just as good as the crazy climbs and runs. Happy birthday Stephen!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHEN! (don’t judge by this streamer THE REST WERE PERFECT)

P.S. I used a couple of Ken Poore’s photography. They’re easy to spot in this post. You can tell by the way that they are. By which I mean they’re brighter, sharper, and better composed than my poor phone’s attempts at making clouds look okay. You can see the rest of his (more epic) work here: https://www.kenpoorephotography.com/

Table Mountain Circumnavigation

Posted on March 1, 2019 by evejakubowski

Brad skins up below Shuksan, Artist Point in the background

Looking up at Table Mountain

I’m sure there will be a collection of winter turnaround short stories and half day might-as-well-get-out trips, but I figured I’d start with the first successful (as in “wow look where we are!!!”) trip this winter. There’s been a lot of resort skiing, a trip to Costa Rica, some weekends where I couldn’t drive the hill in front of my house and skied the 48th St Couloir in Fremont instead of touring the backcountry… and then this weekend happened. Short and sweet.

Baker! Brad scouts out a traverse route

Surafel was fresh (6 weeks?) off a major surgery and ready to get back at it. Brad for some reason had no plans. I was resigned to staying in town to work, but then decided to stick it to the man because when did the expectation change to assuming I’d be available on weekends? That’s not my modus operandi. Especially on one of those unique weekends where there’s powder and blue skies in the winter. And the slopes are like an adult playground and the snow is widespread enough for car to car instead of carrying the damn sticks for 6 miles each way before skinning and did I mention it was sunny and the days are getting longer and the skies are blue? Yeah. You bet your ass I’ll be there.

So we met late (by our standards) at 7am at the Lynnwood Transit Center. We almost lost Brad, who parked on the weird side instead of our normal side and also jumped when my car rolled because we were on a slight incline and my car is manual. Surafel had a banana for breakfast, Brad forgot to eat the muffin he had packed, and I didn’t bring breakfast because I’m too impatient and ready for action. Who needs food anyway.

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Brad’s awesome pic of Shuksan being a beaut

Heading towards Ptarmigan Ridge

We drove up to Baker, stuck in the clouds until halfway down Baker Highway. Surafel had to rent snowshoes because he forgot that I, too, might own snowshoes he could borrow, or perhaps Brad, another grizzled outdoorsman. We finally broke into the sunshine, and everything was oversaturated and the sky was bright blue and the mountains were all white and we were ooh-ing and ahh-ing staring out the windows. Every switchback on that road was fantastic, I just kept laughing looking at Shuksan. It doesn’t get old. We freaking live here. And it’s been so long since I had a sunny weekend in the mountains, wow standards were low.

The skin track was icy, and the fact that I did a shit job trimming my skins did not help. Like really shit, like ashamed that I walked into REI 10 minutes before closing and said “oh I don’t need you to trim my skins hurr durr” because then I slashed off like half of the bottom of one of my skins and now a solid 12″ strip is only 1″ wide. But whatever. Problems for future Eve. We followed the ski/snowshoe highway to Artist Point, where we debated whether to continue and I groaned about how I forgot that I hate people, and boy were there people at Artist Point.

Baker and the Seven Layer Cake

The people may or may not have been a factor in my decision to continue. On one hand, the snow was more stable than I had expected. On the other hand, I hadn’t been out in winter in a while, I’m a wimp, I’m good at psyching myself out, and I felt bad leaving Surafel behind. But Surafel insisted (he’s too nice) and Brad was pretty familiar with the area, so Brad and I took off into the silence of snow covered mountains and skied the traverse over to Ptarmigan Ridge (after wallowing in powder because I can’t transition without taking my skis off my feet). At the bottom, we switched back to skinning in a patch that had been nicely stomped down by some good samaritians ahead of us, and took off towards the ridge, where I waited for Brad to take the longest open-terrain bathroom break in my life. I thought he had broken a binding or something but no, just really, unbelievably hydrated. Unlike some of us.

Looking back at the pass we came from

We skinned along the ridge for a while, enjoying the otherworldly views, aiming for what we were calling the Sydney Opera House or the Seven Layer Cake. It was a wild formation of cornices that looked like a sea shell or a fungus, and the Portals we were originally aiming for were something like 2 miles beyond it. Dammit. Classic winter underestimation. We figured that was a long shot and we didn’t want to get back after dark or leave Surafel waiting for hours, so we decided to ski down into the valley below and head up and out on the other side of Table Mountain if we could, assuming it would be the popular Table Mountain Circumnavigation. We scouted a skin track on the opposing slope from up high and committed to the descent.

Coming back up to the opposing ridge

It might have been one of the best runs of my life. Only a couple hundred feet, but the type of powder that just makes you giggle the whole way because it’s so fluffy and beautiful and the “wshhhhhhh” surrounds your skis and i’m not a good enough skiier to deserve this. We skiied as far as we could and then started to traverse back towards Table Mountain, which took us across our first sketchy slope of the day. Shaded (new) and near tree line (new), even though it was a similar aspect to a piece of microterrain we had just skied the feel was completely different. Within a few steps we noticed the difference, but still kept going. Luckily it was short, but it was not where I wanted to end up, and I wish we had skinned back up to more mellow terrain. Good reality check that you should constantly be aware of changing conditions and new characteristics. We dropped into a river gully and popped out on the nice comfortable sunny side of the valley where I admired the shiny round white ass of someone taking a dump 50 yards away. Ah, the joys of the mountains.

Almost at Austin Pass, Baker and the clouds setting the mood

We passed doody dude and avoided eye contact, skinning uphill through trees a ways before breaking out into the Chain Lakes Basin, where we had a glorious skin across a frozen lake with Baker in the backdrop and the first evidence of an actual avalanche all trip. It was a small debris field and we were well out of the way, and took our time crossing the lake soaking in views before skinning up to Austin Pass. We caught up to a group of four, who I innocently asked “are you doing the full circumnav?” “Yeah, full Table Mountain Circumnavigation, it’s been amazing!!” via which I confirmed that we were, in fact, on the trip that we thought we were on. The snow had changed to dripping, sun-loaded slush, but we were in the trees and the skin track avoided the steeper gullies on either side. At the top of Austin Pass we admired one last glance of Baker behind us, Shuksan in the sun in front of us (Homer Simpson drooling = me) before skiing a disappointing, surprisingly crusty run back to the shady base. After lamenting the loss of my brand new snow basket (RIP lil buddy) we found Surafel at the car, who had ravaged my backup snacks like an animal and eaten all of my candy.*

We devoured burgers and beer and bottomless hot chocolate on the way home to wait out the ski resort traffic. It was amazing to be back in the mountains, and I was stoked we pulled off a pretty classic half day tour out of nowhere and stoked that Surafel was back out. He even swore he’d never touch snowshoes again after a romp around Paradise last year, but it’s like a marathon, you forget the pain eventually and want to do it all over again. Bring on the spring season. My body is so not ready.

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Surafel’s awesome photo of Baker. Good thing we left him for several hours

*Just kidding, he only ate a reese’s peanut butter cup/kit kat hybrid.

Excelsior Peak Snowshoe

Posted on January 29, 2018 by evejakubowski

Baker from halfway up Excelsior Peak. You can see two tiny people on the knoll below.

Healthy green forest!

Remember that post about demoting yourself from Plan A to Plan B to Plan C to “eff it Uber please bring me mac n cheese” a few weeks ago? Sometimes the opposite happens. You have a plan, and it’s an okay plan (doesn’t matter what level it is), and then it just completely surpasses all of the expectations you had for it. That’s how this day was. Hiked January 14th, 2018.

Trailbreaking pro

Distance: 9 miles round trip
Elevation: 3500ft gain (5700 highest point)
Weather: 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: Yes. Snowshoes and I do not mesh well. My snowshoe waddle is almost as hilarious as me trying to ski.

Surafel and I met at 5:30am, a little later than usual, and reached the trailhead around 8. We were debating how early we’d need snowshoes, and of course we get to the parking lot and there isn’t a hint of snow to be seen. Okay, so at least I’m confident in my choice to leave skis in the car. I expected crust, and if I was going to be lugging skis all the way up there just for 200ft of crusty turns, meh. We got glimpses of snow up high, but that was looking at north faces, which are shady in winter and we’d be hiking up the south side of the ridge. Crap. What if we didn’t even hit snow?! I strapped the snowshoes to my pack, he carried his in his hands, and we started up. The strikingly green forest was an interesting contrast to Hex Mountain, the previous trip, which was full of eerie black gothic needle-like trees trunks that had been left standing after last summer’s wildfire. Guess there’s a reason we’re the Evergreen state.*

But even the pros posthole. Builds character!

We delayered immediately because it was unseasonably warm and apparently I’m a sweaty person. 15min later, Surafel gave up and strapped his snowshoes to his pack. It was a good choice, because we didn’t hit snow for another solid 1,800ft of elevation gain. And when we did hit snow, being my usual stubborn self, we continued on in boots. No one had been up there yet and breaking trail is a fantastic workout and there’s just something so beautiful about laying the first set of tracks. Plus the postholing wasn’t too bad (shin to knee deep for the most part minus a few good thigh-deep-fall-on-your-face) and putting on snowshoes involves squatting for a while so it was easier to just break trail. It isn’t a real winter trip without some good postholes, it’ll just lack that feeling of struggle and accomplishment. “It feels like 2015” I remarked. “Don’t say that!” 2015 was a brutal dry year for the Cascades. Sitting here in the dark dreary misery two weeks later, I can attest that it no longer feels like 2015.

Breaking above the trees, loose wet slides in the distance

The route is very mellow and passes almost no avalanche terrain through the woods. The trail is loosely blazed with orange tape, which was helpful as well, though if you have a good trail nose you’ll be fine following it regardless. We finally broke above the trees, where we immediately encountered the nightmare that is breakable crust. You punch through thick rain crust which jabs your shins and your knees and it’s almost strong enough to stand on but not quite and we finally caved and put on snowshoes. You’re facing a true avalanche slope which had some nice loose wet point-release avalanches on it, but you can head right towards a patch of trees to avoid it entirely. The texture up here was totally cool, but I couldn’t capture it on camera. Fresh snow that immediately got rained on but hasn’t been touched by anyone so far develops very neat fine runnels, and the low sun reflecting off faraway glaciers makes everything in the background glisten.

Looking across the valley at Sefrit, Ruth, Icy, and Shuksan

Surafel coming around the trees

I cruised up to the ridge overlooking Baker and Shuksan, and backtracked towards Surafel to head up Excelsior. Surafel went up through the trees while I wrapped left around the tree patch (there’s plenty of space between you and the avy slope if you stay near or in the trees). I topped out on the shoulder below the true summit to wait and admire the views of Baker and Shuksan. What a freaking beautiful day.

Views of Church Mtn from the summit

I heard nothing but silence after a few minutes, so I started worrying. What if he was stuck in a tree well or something?! That had happened a few weeks prior, a friend fell into a tree well maybe 8ft behind me and I heard nothing despite his shouting. I yelled Surafel’s name, and heard “what?” from almost directly in front of me. He was blending in with the trees that sneaky bastard. He dropped his stuff to break out the good camera and snap pics while I ran up to tag the summit.

One more of Baker

Tomyhoi and Larrabee on point, if only Welcome Pass wasn’t in the way

The summit is listed as 5,699ft, which is annoying. Covered in snow I’m sure it’s more like 5,707ft or so, but for the sake of this post I rounded it off to a slightly less annoying 5,700ft. It ended in a massive cornice hanging off the north side, and with the lack of company I just snapped a few pics and plunge stepped back to our break spot where we enjoyed tea and cheese and salami and I had this bag of toasted coconut flakes that I had made that morning that I had been talking about for the entire hike. It was. So good. Which was a relief, because I had severely burned the first batch at 4am (it toasts so quickly!) and had frantically made a second batch to salvage my great hike snack idea. We marveled at the fact that we LIVE here, it’s only a two hour drive and a short hike to get to insane scenery like this. Scenery that most people will never see in their lives. Scenery that so many people don’t know exists. I didn’t know it existed until I moved here! Look where we are! We passed our contagious enthusiasm to a few other parties and reluctantly decided to head back down.

Looking back at Excelsior

The trail was completely hard packed. No snowshoes necessary. There weren’t that many people up there, maybe 12 or so (plus dogs, how many dogs equal one person?), and yet that was enough to basically bulldoze a sidewalk. The contrast between the way up and the way down was amazing, though it slightly ruins the adventure of being the only ones up there. I was glad we had the privilege of breaking trail and being the first ones up there. But for the way down, I didn’t even bother to put my snowshoes back on, I just booted it. There was one skiier, who I was jealous of since the sun had turned the morning’s brutal crust into nice spring corn (or slush, but still).

We were down in under two hours, much faster than I expected and I was a little sad when we got to the parking lot. It had been a long amazing day but I couldn’t help but think we should have spent more time up high and enjoyed the sun more. Those days are so few and far between in winter. There really is nothing more spectacular than a bluebird winter day, and this snowshoe had completely blown away any expectations I had set for it. Snowshoes might suck, but they can still take you to some pretty awesome places. Guys, I live here!!

The fruits of Surafel’s labor – the texture the previous day’s rain created on the snow was unreal

*If they name the NHL team “The Seattle Evergreens” I will send them a strongly worded letter. They should choose “The Seattle Firebirds.” What would our mascot be a freaking christmas tree? A spruce?!

Church Mountain Old Lookout Site (aka False Summit)

Posted on September 14, 2017 by evejakubowski

Shuksan and Baker from Church

Party behind me on the ridge

Okay before you say anything my uneducated ass didn’t realize this was a false summit. Do you research guys. It wasn’t a loss because it was still a pleasant hike but I’d have saved it for another day had I remembered. When I got there I had a “um…duh” moment, because I spent the whole hike waiting for the scramble and the scramble never came until I was on the false summit at the old lookout site looking at the true summit grumbling about the fact I didn’t think about this hard enough beforehand. But there was some cool history, nice views, and blueberries and butterflies EVERYWHERE. My camera is lousy at close ups so I didn’t get any butterfly pictures, but I got plenty of blueberries and blueberry pics and got to spend hours admiring Shuksan and Baker from afar. And the hike itself was on my “to do” list from before I started scrambling/climbing/being snobby, so it felt good to finally get around to it since that list was written in 2014. Finally hiked 9/10/2017! A last minute am-I-too-lazy-to-hike-no-wait-don’t-waste-this-beautiful-day hike. Oh, and I was so late getting moving that the ranger station was open when I arrived(!) which meant I could finally pick up a new America the Beautiful pass! Yay!

Distance: 8.5 miles (false summit)
Elevation gain: 3,750ft gain (6,100ft highest point – false summit)
Weather: 50’s and sunny!
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: No! I’m on a good streak right now.

Mellow old logging road

I got to the trailhead around 10am, I’ve been enjoying my lazy starts. The trail starts off on an old logging road through the woods where I got glimpses of fog and clouds and sun and prayed I’d have one of those hikes where you break above treeline above clouds and get to look out over valleys full of cotton candy fluff. It’s a very well maintained trail that’s actually a pretty pleasant hike despite how steep it is and it’s all soft pine needle type dirt so if you don’t mind the 8 billion switchbacks it would actually be a pretty neat run. At this point I assume all steep hikes will be rocky with knee high steps and fancy footwork, and it was nice to have one that was smooth trail.

Pleasant switchbacks

Past the estimated 8 billion switchbacks, the trail traverses into a wide open basin. I think I was a week or two early for fall foliage, because there were only patches here and there, but wow were the blueberries on point. I resisted the urge to stop and snack, saving it for the way down. It was halfway up the basin where I stopped dead in my tracks because I saw broken glass. Well that’s annoying. Who smashed a glass bottle up here? Seems rude. Whoa that looks like a shingle. Ha! Who brought that up here? Wait, sheet metal? Waaaaiiiit…. was there a lookout up here at some point? I put two and two together. Ah shit. It was going to be a false summit. That explains that peak over there that definitely looks higher than what I’m heading to.

First peek of the basin

The trail is a few looooong rolling switchbacks up to the ridge, where there’s a set cable (not the old remains I hiked past) for the “scramble” section, which is not truly a scramble. You could go straight up, which is an actual light scramble, or you can drop the metal cable as it starts to turn upwards and follow a boot path/trail straight ahead, which will wind through some trees to the top. It’s much less scrambly and isn’t exposed at all, but people tend to follow the cable which I think makes it a bit spicier.

Trail wrapping beneath Baker

The false summit is still gorgeous, it’s a bummer the lookout isn’t there anymore. I met several mice that I’m sure would love if there was still a cupola up there. The true summit stands above you to the north, and rolling ridges lead to Baker and Shuksan to the south. The lookout was built in 1928, and destroyed in the late 60’s. There were also an outhouse (I believe where the remains I saw were) and a storage shed, both gone now. Here is a nice link to the history, with a few pictures of the old lookout.

Steel cable going to the top. Stay straight around the corner instead of following the entire cable

I sat where the lookout used to be and deliberated about going to the true summit. I didn’t know anything about it. I had heard horror stories (terribly loose, class 4, microwave sized rocks tumbling down) and pleasantries (easy peasy, nothing harder than class 2, walk in the park). It was already 1pm and being solo I decided to just head down. I had no perspective on how long it’d take or what the best route was, so I’ll save it for another trip. Plus, the views wouldn’t get that much better, and that’s the reason I was up there to being with right? Also, probably should have brought a helmet given the horror stories. Just in case.

The true summit

So I turned around and started down, passing a few other groups on the way. Two were collecting blueberries, something I always think of but never accomplish because they all end up in my belly and not a container. And how do you ever collect enough to bake like a pie? That’s literally hundreds of berries picked one by one. I was bummed to hit the woods again, so I spaced out and counted switchbacks until I was back at the car. No, I don’t remember how many there were, and you probably don’t want to know, because like I estimated earlier it’s approximately 8 billion.

Blueberries!! Fill your pockets! (actually fill ziplocs or tupperware)

It was surprisingly quiet that day, I only ran into maybe 5 other parties on what is supposedly a very popular trail. It’s really an awesome hike if you don’t mind driving 5 hours for a 4 hour hike. The views of Baker and Shuksan are spectacular, and I bet with fall color it’s reminiscent of Yellow Aster Butte. Or take it slow and collect blueberries, or go to the real summit, or bring more snacks for the top, or take a nap!

Winchester Lookout

Posted on April 19, 2016 by evejakubowski

Sam returning from his snowboard session

It was a dramatic weekend with the best possible turnout, really. A complete overnight climb sandwiched by towing trucks out of snow with a spicy self arrest on Sunday morning. For a lookout, this one was a bitch. Mostly because for the first 5 miles, you get no reward. No views, no cool terrain, no morale boosts, just a forest road switchbacking up a slope. In the dark. In the night. But we’ll get to that in a minute. Winchester Mountain Lookout, hiked 4/17/2016.

Distance: 11 miles round trip (4.5 to Twin Lakes, 1-1.5ish up to the lookout)
Elevation: 4500ft gain
Weather: 30’s and clear at night, 50’s and sunny in the day
Commute from Seattle: Solid 3 hours, longer if you get stuck behind a very slow very large truck
Did I Trip: Yes. Well, slid into a tree well, but let’s count it. And then fell up a slope thanks to a posthole. Within 10 minutes. Nature sucks.
Map here thanks to Summitpost. Direct winter route is in blue. On the way down, we ignored all routes and went almost straight from the summit to the southwestern lake. We hung slightly west so the skiiers could take advantage of that gully that’s smack between the winter and summer routes on the southeast face.

Road conditions (on the way down)

We met at the trailhead around 10pm. Well I got there at 7, parked by the snow, met Sam at 7:30, and started napping when Sam took forever to pack. Eventually it turned out the others were only 30 minutes away, so we figured we’d wait. I continued my fake nap. The sun set. The others arrived, and decided they’d try to drive farther up the road. They got stuck. Dave arrived, and followed the others, and also got stuck. Quinn towed him out. I kept napping, figuring they’d get the others out too. A true team player, I know. Eventually I got impatient and started skinning, and it turned out yes, they were stuck, and they were just going to deal with it on Sunday when we got down. Which was good, because if they were going to dig and tow everything out that night, I was officially going to bed and would start up in the morning. But cool, let’s get started.

It was 10:30pm. No one believed me when I said we’d get to the lookout just before sunrise. I halfheartedly suggested camping at the lake, knowing that by the time we got to the lakes I’d be in the “pissed off” state of exhaustion where I’d say fuck it and go the rest of the way. It’s only another mile (maybe a little more) to the lookout, it’s just that… well, that mile has 1400ft of gain.

Significant road washout a mile before the Yellow Aster Butte trailhead, 6ft deep on the left

The skin up the road was probably a dramatic mental battle for everyone, but it’s all blended together in my mind. At first, Calvin was leading the charge, followed by me and Sam. Dave felt sick and turned back. Tony and Quinn caught up to us. Sam fell behind. Sam decided to turn around. Sam said “I didn’t come this fucking far for nothing!!!” and chugged a red bull and turned back towards us. I started playing mind games, the first of which was “put your poles in all of Tony’s holes” which I’d probably have laughed at had I had the capacity for humor. Tony, Calvin and I made it to Twin Lakes at 2:30, maybe 3am. I was right, I was pissed and not camping at the lakes. Onward!

About 20 vertical feet above the lakes I realized I had no chance of skinning up this. Too steep, I’m too uncoordinated on skis to be that good at edging and sidestepping up icy slopes. Maybe I could have pulled it off it I was on top of my game, but I wanted to space out and not worry about coordination, which was lacking. This was clearly demonstrated when I fell into a tree well. I strapped skis to my pack and started to hoof it. It was 3:30am. I tripped thanks to a posthole and lay face down on the crust gathering my “eff this shit” wits, and five minutes later I hear a string of derivatives of the F bomb coming from ahead of me. Calvin had dropped his crampons in a tree well, and Shea (his dog) had given up carrying her bag, so he had strapped it to his pack and it slapped him in the face when heb bent over. I’m not the only one suffering. So I carried on. Postholing through crust, which is the worst, because you have to kick hard to break through it unless you want the sudden drop when you put your weight on it and then it digs into your shin or knee and it can be utter misery. Powder is better.

Tony’s footprints! Hallelujah!

Tony had to boot up the steeper slopes, so I would come across short spurts of footprints here and there. I nearly kissed the ground the first time I met his steps. But I was worried if I squatted I wouldn’t get back up. Once one person has broken trail in conditions like that, it’s a staircase for the rest of us. Of course they ended shortly as he put his skis back on, but it was a nice relief.

We followed the winter route up the gulley southwest of Winchester Peak. It’s an avalanche gulley, yes, but at night it’s quite safe (well, don’t slip) and in the morning it stays shady, so it isn’t nearly as risky as the summer route, which follows the southeast face (don’t slip on that either). The gulley is very prominent on a map, and requires almost no squirrely bushwacking or anything like that. It’s mostly an open snow slope once you’re in it, which is where I began my second mind game. Tony was back on his skis, and that left me to break trail. I assumed the others would appreciate it. I counted steps. Take 50 steps, okay now get to 60 because you aren’t a wimp. Okay, aaaaand break. Oh, Tony waited for me! Shit, no, that’s a star, not a headlamp. Rinse and repeat. Do not check the map until you’ve done that at least four times.

The cornice Sam nearly stood on the night before this pic

Finally I heard someone behind me. “Should we be heading right?” It was Sam. I laughed. I later found out he had been asking that question for like over an hour. And we still had several hundred vertical feet to go before we could go right. I said I wasn’t even going to tell him where we were, but no, it was not time to cut right. But I did tell him to hurry his ass up so he could come talk to me and distract me.

We eventually reached the saddle, with an amazing view of Larrabee. I shouted at Sam to get back from the cornice (to which he replied “I didn’t know Winchester had a glacier or crevasses!!” we were tired, it was like 4:30am) and left him there to take some night sky photos while I cut right (finally!) to get to the lookout.

You don’t see the lookout until you’re like 10 feet away from it. I said hi to Tony, dropped my pack, set up my sleeping bag and pad. We took the two best sleeping spots. I know, we’re assholes. Hike faster next time, guys!

The lookout with Goat, Shuksan, and Baker

I almost went to bed (at one point I handed Tony my camera and said “take pics of sunrise for me” before deciding I was being lame) but decided I’d wait for the others. Sam and Calvin were next, dropping their packs and claiming ground space. Quinn comes wrapping around the corner, “NOW I see the lookout?!? And I’ve been carrying this fucking NASA moon rock anchor” to which we burst out laughing. He had taken Cheryl’s growler since she was carrying too much weight for a brutal overnight hike, and that thing was like a 12lb brick. Finally Cheryl came plodding up just as the sun broke over the ridge. I shouted “CHERYL COME STAND OVER HE- oh uhhh Tony, go stand over there so I can take a pic!!” I wanted a picture of someone at sunrise, and shortly realized that Cheryl could not be bothered to walk the remaining 20 feet past the lookout. She was going to bed.

The picture resulting from my demands that “someone go stand over there”

Looking back up at Winchester as I headed towards Larrabee

We snapped a bunch of pics and finally got to sleep around 6:30. Or I did, and I fell asleep to Tony prancing around outside singing “Here comes the sun, do do do dooo” and dancing to his own words (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened). Sam got up at 7 to get in some runs on the shoulder of Larrabee. I dozed until around 8:30 or 9, woke up, and ate half a bag of wheat things and a quarter pound of cheese. We spent the day lazing around the lookout, Tony and Calvin and Sam took some runs on skiis, everyone dozed on and off. At one point we hadn’t seen Sam in an hour or so (we had been tracking him along the ridge) and with snow softening so quickly, I started getting worried. There were two sets of tracks, both of which led straight into avalanche gullies. I grabbed some snacks and went to hike down and hopefully meet him. We knew he was probably fine, but I’m a paranoid person in the backcountry, and I’d rather be overly cautious than have the one time I don’t go look for someone be the one time they’re in trouble.

Yay, Sam!

Luckily I found him after an hour or so, and I passed along my snacks and took a bunch of pics of the terrain while I was at it. We headed back to the lookout for more food and a powernap, and despite how energetic I felt, I fell asleep for a solid hour or so and woke up to dinner. Guys, you HAVE to try the Good To Go Thai Curry meal. I couldn’t believe it. It is seriously so delicious and it actually tastes like real food. Cheryl had it at Hidden Lake Lookout and I tried some and it blew my mind, so I brought it for this trip. Plus it’s made in Maine and as a New Englander I’m partial to awesome states. Backpacker’s Pantry and Mountain House are good, but this was like something I had cooked instead of a fast food substitute. Runner up is the AlpineAire Three Cheese Chicken Pasta, which is my other favorite meal. And if you’re into Paleo, shameless plug for one of Cheryl’s PCT sponsors: Paleo Meals To Go is a startup with a few great meals. The Caldera Chicken Curry and Savory Summit Chicken have been my favorites so far.

We snapped a bunch of pictures of sunset, and a group of 4 arrived. We had been surprised no one else was up there, it’s a gorgeous location and despite our misery the previous night it’s not that bad of a hike. We made space in the lookout and hung out with their colorful lights and cooked meals chatting while Calvin flaunted his summit hat. They had brought a tiny dog named Finn with them, who was like not a real thing. He looked like a stuffed animal. Except unlike a stuffed animal, he had bodily functions that had not been attended to in far too long. He was running all over my sleeping bag and suddenly I realized it was wet – he must be covered in snow and ice from outside, poor guy! Wait. The girl carried him up in her jacket. He hasn’t touched the ground. Did he just fucking pee on my sleeping bag?

Interrupting for a nice pic of the sun setting over Tomyhoi Peak, Tomyhoi Lake, CBP, ABP, and Larrabee

Last light on Shuksan, framed by the twin peaks of Goat

Yes. Yes he did. We cleaned it up, and moments later, he returned to my sleeping bag. Was it to get cozy, because my bag is so unbelievably cozy? No, it was so he could take a shit. Let’s just get something straight. After my car, that sleeping bag is the nicest thing I own, period. It is worth more than my laptop and any piece of IKEA furniture in my apartment (but my furniture works well so stop judging me) and if The Big One ever happens, that bag is gonna be a top priority. Luckily, the Feathered Friends bags are as close to indestructible as a sleeping bag gets, so no damage done. In fact, let’s just look at it as a waterproofing test. Which my bag passed with flying colors.

Footsteps leading to the ridge

I went to sleep in my dog poo piss bag, smelling pleasantly like lavender, thanks to Finn’s owner who immediately jumped to help me clean and apologized profusely. I commented on how toasty it would be in the lookout. “Toasty and odiferous,” Tony added. Nope, just lavender. It was a great sleep. I woke up at 6:20 or so to Tony taking sunrise pics, debated getting up, and decided no way, I like sleep. I rolled over and went back to dreamland. No one else was up anyway, I wasn’t missing anything.

Around 7:30 I was barely conscious, and was rudely brought back to the realm of the living by falling off the bench. My sleeping pad had scooted a few inches too far, and I realized immediately after rolling over that the sleeping pad was no longer supported by the bench, and I was a human burrito trapped in a sleeping bag with no way of catching myself. Brace for impact! Thump. I lay there in defeat before clambering out of my bag. The guy sleeping under the table didn’t even notice. Tony did, and burst out laughing.

Tony skiing back down to Twin Lakes

I got set up back on my bench, and heard Calvin whine “noooo go back to BED TONYYYY” followed by the “whoompf” of the MSR reactor being lit. Tony was making breakfast. Dammit, Tony. Whatever, I’ve developed the ability to doze through most things, so I carried on.

The other reason I usually keep sleeping is because once I’m up, I’m up and moving and impatient and will pace around nagging everyone until everyone else moves. Which is exactly what happened. I got up, was packed within 30 minutes (which is slow), and stood outside whining. Guuuuuys. Whiiiiiiine. Finally everyone was ready, and we decided to head down the southeast face since I mean, the lakes just looked so close, right?

Tony skiing down to Twin Lakes, Calvin on his side

Quinn wiped out immediately (snowshoes are not great on steep terrain) and failed to arrest but was stopped by a patch of trees, where he discovered Tony’s feces from the previous night. Yuck. Chuck-a-dook only avoids the Leave No Trace principle, it doesn’t solve the problem. Calvin and Tony skiied down, Quinn… I don’t know what to call it. Awkwardly slid down on snowshoes? And Cheryl and I were on boots. I started plunge stepping, and at one steep section suggest that we turn to face the slope rather than going forward. It’s easier than looking down if you’re uncomfortable on steep snow, and easier to stay balanced.

As I watched her descend, Cheryl slipped, and started going the slope headfirst. I was about 50ft below her and a few feet off to the side, watching her tumble. She hit a small patch of trees that flipped her onto her stomach going feet first. “Can you arrest?! CAN YOU ARREST! ARREST! GET THE AXE AND ARREST” I could see the ice axe attached by a leash, but she wasn’t gripping it. She finally pulled it to her and managed to get it in the ground as the slope mellowed out. The scary part? The slope mellowed out for another 10 feet, and then there was a cliff band, which dropped straight down another 40ft.

Cheryl back on her feet climbing up post fall

I immediately went over to her to assess everything. She was shaken, but physically fine. Yeah, she’s tough. Carrying a 60lb pack down a steep slope is not an easy feat, and stopping yourself after you’ve fallen 50ft with that much on your back is even tougher. I climbed back up to grab the things she had lost (hat, trekking pole) and we sat and chatted about getting down. I had brought all of my climbing gear hoping to bag American Border Peak with Calvin, but we bailed when we realized just how far it was. But that meant I had a rope, harness, belay device, biners, anchors, the works. Worst case scenario, I could literally belay her down the slope.

We did have a brief moment of comic relief, or at least I did. I glanced over to see how Calvin and Tony were doing, and Calvin was making a huge snow plow with his skis, except facing uphill. Sliding downhill. With Shea, his trusty mountain dog, running back and forth above him. I couldn’t help but laugh. Even the talented skiiers have issues. Like when their on-leash dog makes them fall.

If you look closely, you can see the debris from Cheryl’s pack

Cheryl and I settled on lowering her heavy ass pack down the slope, and we’d see if she could “step-glissade” (that’s what she named it two hours later as we inched our way down the face) her way down. She leaves for the PCT in a few days, and had a bunch of her PCT gear in that pack, so we didn’t want to risk anything getting damaged by tossing the pack. After a few lowers, we decided to take the pack off the rope. It had only gone 5 meters or less with each throw, leaving me with 25+ meters of rope to deal with. So we coiled up the rope, and tossed the pack.

Enhance! A close up of the rainbow that is the contents of Cheryl’s pack

“Isn’t it a little ironic that as soon as I take the rope off, the bag falls 400ft?” I turned to Cheryl as we stared at her pack tumbling down past Calvin, Tony, and Quinn below us, shedding its contents as it went. Shovel here, pole there, beer on that side, stuff sack to the right. Tony came up to check on us after seeing the pack come crashing through a patch of trees above them. Shirtless, working on his base burn. Now that Cheryl was feeling a little more secure with the step-glissade technique (following my steps, step, step, butt scoot, repeat) I picked up the pace to go collect her stuff, and Quinn came along to help. Her stuff was spread out like a rainbow. Everything I came up to, I clipped to my pack. Growler. Half of a pole. The shovel. A jacket. A stuff sack. The other half of the pole. Another stuff sack. Another shirt. A third stuff sack. The pack took a brief break, and then kept falling as we watched helplessly. I looked ridiculous with a garage sale of random gear hanging from my pack and body.

Not taking any more chances. Pack is back on the leash

We finally caught up to it in a patch of trees, and tried to repack as best we could. We told Cheryl we’d lower the pack to the lake and meet on flat ground to go through it and assess the damage. Sure, sounds silly to put the pack back on a leash for the last 100ft or so but shit I wasn’t risking that again. If any of that gear had broken I’d have felt terrible. PCT, guys!

We got to the lake and there was one thing missing. Cheryl’s $400 waterproof OR down jacket. Crap. She kept telling us not to go back up and look for it, but I mean if I had left anything over like $100 up there I’d absolutely have gone back for it. Plus, it was right next to the last item to fall out of the pack, so we knew it had to be close. We didn’t know if we’d find it, but I still had plenty of energy. I turned to Quinn. “How’re you feeling?” I didn’t need to ask, I knew the answer. We were going back up.

We left our packs there and started climbing. I forget how easy it is without an overloaded pack. We were back where the pack had finally stopped, and I saw something in the shadow of a tree that didn’t quite look like bark. Holy shit. It had been the last thing to fall out, and there it was, sitting in a black mesh stuff sack in the shade. I lit up and grabbed it and shouted to Quinn (who was literally next to me) WE FOUND IT IT’S RIGHT HERE OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT THIS IS AMAZING we immediately took a celebration selfie and I let out a “whoop WHOOOOP” which has kind of become a routine call to these guys, so I knew they’d understand it was good news. We saw Cheryl waving below. She got it! Then we glissade raced back to the lake, light and free and clutching Cheryl’s puffy jacket. Those five minutes were the purest joy I have felt in weeks. Operation Jacket Rescue was a success.

Lazy bastards waiting for us across the lake

We skinned over to where Tony and Calvin had been waiting (so long that they decided to climb to a knoll on the east side of the lake and ski down) and had some water and snacks before starting the road slog back to the car. Road slog was uneventful, besides the fact I sunburned around my sternum strap, which is a great look. Especially when paired with a raccoon tan.

Back at the cars, we thought Tony and Calvin could just back out of their respective stuck-in-snow spots (much had melted over the previous two days). Tony succeeded, but Calvin ended up sideways. What you can’t tell from these pictures is that like three feet from Calvin’s front bumper is more or less a cliff. I’m too high strung for these things, but I was beyond thrilled to use tow straps and a manual winch, which I had never seen. Quinn and Tony totally killed it with the manual winch (taking turns having beer and working the winch), though we ended up using a very conveniently located tree as a pivot point to tow Calvin’s truck onto the road with Tony’s tastefully-colored FJ cruiser. I left my car in the safety of a snow free patch. Several road hikers passed us, one truck came up expecting to get further but after seeing our situation, turned around and bailed. Good choice, sir.

One more sunset panorama for good measure

We high tailed it (slow tailed it in my case, my car was making odd noises that I could not quite place) to Aslan Brewery in Bellingham for dinner. I had mac n cheese, a burger, and poutine. And a side of garlic aioli for the poutine fries in case the gravy was inadequate. But you’ll be relieved to know that the gravy to fries coverage was quite good.

All’s well that ends well. Cheryl will be off to her PCT in a few days which I can only imagine is far easier than the weekend we all just endured, Tony and Calvin I assume are off to the car wash, Quinn is working his night shift, and I’m sitting on my couch eating, which is what takes up 90% of the time I don’t spend climbing. Oh, and I’m going to enjoy sleeping through the night starting at like 9pm, instead of hiking. In my comfy bed, with my down comforter, which has no trace of dog poop.

Mt. Shuksan (via Fisher Chimneys)

Posted on September 24, 2015 by evejakubowski

Whose beautiful Nemo tent is that

Turns out mountaineering gear is good for many things, like snow, cold weather, and the high winds that accompany sitting in the bed of a pickup truck on the highway. Okay, now between that and the title, you can probably already extrapolate exactly what happened. But assuming you’re here for pretty pictures and entertainment, you might as well read on.

Distance: 24 miles, I think
Elevation: I don’t want to know
Weather: Mountain-forecast is a liar. Fog, fog, snow, and fog, and 30’s to 40’s
Commute from Seattle: well that depends which trailhead you’re starting at. Fisher Chimneys is about 3 hours, Sulphide is about 2:30
Did I Trip: I slow-motion sat once
GPX file: haha, no, because then you’ll see how many tries it took us just to find the damn chimneys

I’m convinced that climbers keep this route description a little convoluted just to maintain the challenge, and keep us plebs out. I’ll see if I can maintain that while giving you a bit more to chew on.

We left Seattle at 6am on Saturday. I’m usually all about trailhead camping and early starts, but this seemed like it’d be a quick route, so why not be a little more casual? We had sunny blue skies pulling up to the trailhead, and Shuksan was snow covered and stunning with fresh snow. I haven’t been so excited for a climb in a long time. Fisher Chimneys had been a route I had wanted to try for months, and here was the chance!

Bonus pic: It totally looks like a bird. Seahawk Serac. (Go Pats!)

We set off on the trail, immediately hiking down into a valley full of fog. And… that would be the last time we saw the sun pretty much for days. With the exception of a few glimpses here and there.

Fall color starting along the Lake Ann trail

The trail to Lake Ann is very well maintained and easy to follow, though there are a few offshoots to other areas as well. We passed plenty of people on their way to and from the lake, everyone hoping we’d get above the fog. Fall color was just barely beginning to show, though we couldn’t see much of our surroundings due to the mist.

We chatted with a hiker who had been up the Fisher Chimneys route before, and I almost didn’t ask but finally caved. I had heard rumors of a composting toilet somewhere on the chimneys route: was it true? He laughed. “No, but it’s a great route for chuckadook.” I giggled. Chuckadook? Is that what it sounds like? “Yep, you find a nice flat rock, drop a dookie, pick it up, and use the rock to fling it as far as you can. Beats a blue bag!” I could have cried laughing. What was even better was the young girl with them (maybe 10) trying not to giggle, and the look of horror on who I can only assume was this man’s mother. We wished them a good hike and as they walked off I heard her go “TWO MINUTES AND THAT’S ALL IT TOOK FOR YOU TO TALK ABOUT POOP” “no no it’s okay they get it they’re climbers, it’s just a normal topic of conversation” and they faded into the distance while I tried to regain composure, still giggling about “chuckadook.”

Foggy Lake Ann from near the bottom of the Chimneys

We didn’t even know we had reached the lake until we were nearly past it, because you couldn’t see it through the fog. I hear it’s beautiful, I’ve seen pictures of Shuksan looming over it, and all we had was a wall of white. We took the boot path to the left, a much more well maintained trail than I thought. It turns out the trail goes all the way to the Lower Curtis Glacier. Which we didn’t realize, until it was too late.

Hint: The standard route departs from the trail several gullies before the Lower Curtis Glacier. We were socked in by fog, and finally decided to take a snack break and check a map to see if we could get our bearings. We heard a huge rumble in the background – what was that?! a plane? Rock fall? Who knows. We definitely need to gain elevation, and might have passed the turnoff/scramble that will lead us to the Chimneys… okay, so we need to backtrack. Whatever, goldfish and kind bars first.

And the skies clear! Upper Curtis and Lower Curtis

And the skies clear! Upper Curtis (where Hell’s Highway is) and Lower Curtis

And suddenly I hear “WHOA! WHOA OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHOAAAAA!” (double rainbow word for word with an equal level of enthusiasm) and I turn around to see the clouds clearing, and we’re sitting freaking 20 feet away from the Lower Curtis, which has a stark terminus full of jagged seracs all lined up, with hell’s highway and dramatic rocky peaks suspended above it. Hoooly shit. I nearly fell over. This is what it looks like. This is where we are, and we had no idea. That rumbling had been the freakin glacier! There was still a small pool of cloud hanging just over the glacier, but Shukan is a beautiful mountain. Nothing can compare.

Well, now it was certain we had overshot. So we backtracked to where the Fisher Chimneys trail turned off, which is clearly marked by cairns, I’m apparently just blind. This led us up to a stream, which we eventually concluded needed to be crossed, following by some vague scrambling that finally dumped us onto a boot path for a while. Thank goodness, because we were not doing so hot with navigation.

Bottom of Lower Curtis – those seracs!

For the next hour or so, everything went smoothly. We had trail, we had maps, we had cairns. Finally we reached the entrance to the chimneys. “It’s a really obvious gully” we were told. Well to whoever said that: you’re full of shit. We tested several different gullies before finally finding one that didn’t involve class 5 moves along mossy rocks, and we were off.

Guys, I love this shit. Almost as much as I love technical glacier travel. Fisher Chimneys was great because the few fourth class moves you encounter are like solving puzzles. There were several very exposed parts, so I would not attempt this one until you’re pretty comfortable on rock. We did belay Ben up one section, though I think it was all in his head because as soon as John had him on belay, he scaled the wall like it was nothing. Lucky for us, despite the clouds and occasional rain, the rocks were still pretty dry.

John during part of the scramble

We hit snow a few dozen vertical feet below the White Salmon Glacier, and upon cresting the ridge, I started to relax. The chimneys had gotten stressful towards the top since it turns out not everyone enjoys exposed scrambles as much as I do, and I was happy to get to terrain that everyone in the group knew well. We roped up and aimed for winnie’s slide, which we found like 15 minutes later. It’s close.

And we were just in time, because it was dark within 20 minutes. We were originally planning to camp higher, but this would do. We found two tent sites and set up. Clouds stayed where they were, and moments after I pitched my tent, it started to snow. We cooked in the vestibule, and I heated extra water so I could sleep with a warm water bottle.

Home sweet home (Winnie’s Slide on the left)

I spent the whole night freezing. I have no idea why, but I was so cold. Just not feeling it, I guess. I need a warmer sleeping bag, I know that. Mine’s rated to 15 degrees, but the “comfort” rating is 30 degrees. It wasn’t as bad as Shuksan back in August, though, because at least all of my belongings weren’t soaked through with water. Too cold to sleep, I more or less waited for morning. I figured I could nap during the day, since we knew conditions would be lousy and planned to lie low.

Morning came eventually, and I sat up when I heard John and Ben rustling around in their tent. I opened my door, and it was snowing real snowflakes, fat, white, cold snowflakes, like Christmas! I couldn’t help being thrilled, the first snow of the year always fills me with a childish joy, and this was real snow. We crossed our fingers and hoped for it to clear up, and spent the next six or so hours eating, napping, whatever kept us happy.

Crevasses and moderate visibility (not the worst we had all trip…)

Towards early afternoon, we figured this was about as good as it was going to get, and we packed up to move to a higher camp. Winnie’s slide was in better shape than we thought. Reports had said it was entirely exposed ice, but with the recent snow, we could kick steps, and the group before us had left nice tracks. The snow was pretty solid, though conditions wouldn’t stay that good for that long.

And it was a good thing we camped below the slide, because at the top were two tents from the other group! Unoccupied, so we figured they must have gone for the summit. We passed them and got onto hell’s highway along the upper curtis glacier, which was very, very heavily crevassed. Reminiscent of the DC route crevassed. Okay, maybe not that big, but bigger than we had dealt with on Coleman Deming, and bigger than Eldorado, and bigger than the Sulphide. We even had to set up protection across a crevasse with a dicey looking snow bridge that you had to climb down a bit to reach before traversing. John belayed me first with two ice screws as an anchor, I scampered across and set up a deadman’s on the other side due to lack of ice. The snow was basically concrete on the other side. Ben was next, and once he was across, I belayed John. We cleaned up our gear and got started again. We had known there was one tough crevasse to cross, and we figured that had to be it.

I bet it’d be stunning in clear weather

For once we were right, and the rest was clear sailing. Which is great, because it turns out crevasses are a lot harder to navigate when you can only see 15-20 feet in front of you. If we walk parallel to this one, will it end and we’ll be able to just go around it, or will it keep going until it meets a cliff or a bigger crevasse? You just don’t know. Fortunately, we made it to the base of the cliffs above the Upper Curtis, and we knew to hug those until we could hop up to meet the Sulphide, which came up quickly.

The ramp up to the Sulphide was a tough section. Very steep, and by now the snow had softened enough in the warmth that there was plenty of sloughing coming down towards us. We finally saw the other group on their way down. We moved over to the side below a small rocky outcropping to avoid the pinwheels they were triggering as well as any potential larger issues we probably didn’t want to voice. We’d move quickly. As they passed us, we asked how it was, and they seemed exhausted and unhappy. Rough, I assumed. Long day, summitting in those conditions from camp just above Winnie’s Slide.

Once they had passed and were around the corner below us, it was our turn to tackle the slope, and we needed to move fast. I headed straight up the shortest section. Suddenly there was snow tumbling towards me, not a slide, but some big chunks that had sloughed off the slope. I froze. Am I in the line of fire? Yes. Can those knock me off my feet? Yes. Shit. Can I move to the side? No. Okay great, duck. And that’s what I did. I hit the ground. Had I thought faster, I might have been able to get my pack over my head, but I haven’t gotten those reflexes boiled down to instinct yet. I threw my arms over my head after the first few large chunk hit my head (it was like getting hit with a watermelon at 20mph, my neck felt it for days) and stayed like that until I heard John yell 30 seconds later. I wiggled my arms and shoulders free and got the snow off my back and kicked aside the small wall of snow that had built up around my body. Fuck you, snow. And that’s one of the many reasons why we wear helmets. I’m just lucky it was sloughing and not an actual slide. Yikes. “Hint of avalanche.”

Towards the top, it got steep enough I was wishing I had used my ice tool rather than axe, not to mention that beneath the foot of unconsolidated snow was solid ice. But that was just a few feet, so some near-front-pointing with the crampons and good balance did the trick.

No, he isn’t crawling on the ground, it’s just that steep (photo credit to John)

Over the top, we could just barely make out the area where I had seen tents the last time I was on Shuksan. Except this time, there were two nice crevasses running through the flat area. Well, shit. I told Ben and John we’d keep moving until we found a relatively flat, safe area, and set up camp there. So we started heading up the Sulphide.

The fog got thicker. We did a fine job with the crevasses, which were far more prevalent than in mid August. The difference three weeks makes is amazing. The horizon started to blend everything together. Foggy sky was impossible to differentiate from snow, and I can see how people can get disoriented so easily. The crevasses were the only things keeping me in line. I pulled out the map, and it looked like there would be a flat ish spot up to our left. I pow-wowed with John, his GPS said the same thing. That’s what we’d aim for.

We finally got there. We knew where we were on the map, but had no idea how views would be. And we left the trusty blue shovel in the car, so leveling tent platforms was up to axes and crampons. I started scraping out a spot for myself, trampling it with my crampons like a dog walking in circles before it lies down. My tent is pretty small and all things considered we had found a pretty level spot, so it wasn’t a problem. I set up my tent, deadmanned the shit out of it (seriously, it was so well anchored it took me like half an hour to dig it all up the next morning) so if conditions deteriorated further, it was going to take some serious winds to toss me around. Yeah yeah yeah, I know it’s a true mountaineering tent. I’m scared of wind, if you can’t tell. Snow, whatever, rain, meh, fog, meh, wind…. as soon as it’s dark and windy, I’m gonna be on edge.

We heard voices above us, but couldn’t see anyone. I went to go pee. Guys, if I’m not back in ten minutes, come looking for me. Terrible way to go out. But ten feet from the tent, I was out of sight. Sweet. I got back, and got ready to cook. Suddenly I felt sun on my face, and looked up. I think John and Ben saw the look of wonder on my face. “John, turn around.”

The summit pyramid was out, covered in fresh snow, the sky was blue for the first time since Friday morning (and that one glimpse of the glacier) and we could see a group of three descending! I took some sweet pics of them beneath the pyramid, and waited for them to get closer. As they passed our tent, I ran to talk to them (And mostly to ask for permission to get photos of them walking past). Because Baker was out, above the clouds, with the sun shining behind it! Koma freakin Kulshan, in all her glory.

Mountain Madness

The three climbers were two clients led by a Mountain Madness guide. They hadn’t summitted due to the central gully being a bowling alley of rock and ice. The group that had accompanied us up Fisher Chimneys had gotten stuck on the summit for hours, waiting for conditions to improve before descending. Brutal day. I chatted with the second climber, Maureen, who was an upbeat, bright person whose laugh cheered me up immediately. She was thrilled about the pictures, too, and I set myself up to snap a few more as they continued down. I think this resulted in the best picture I’ve taken in my life to date.

After they were out of sight, we made dinner and went to bed. The clouds moved back in maybe 15 minutes after we chatted with them, and we were back to whiteout. We set alarms for 3am, and figured we’d play it by ear. I slept like a baby. Warm, cozy, tired, content.

The best picture I have taken in my life

The alarm went off at 3am, and I almost didn’t even get up. I had… not a bad feeling, but a general reluctance. It was clear, stars were out, but I was uneasy. I didn’t care if we summitted. And I’m an impatient, hotheaded kid, too. I interpreted my lack of drive as a bad feeling. John was feeling the same way. We waited an hour to see if it stayed clear, and it did, but we decided to just not go. Soon enough, we were enclosed in our foggy bubble again.

I showered myself with frosh in the morning, inside and outside the tent

We got up around 8am, and after a BLELGFDKSDGKFK of frost in my face when I sat up into the wall of my tent, I was excited to see a 6 person rope approaching. That HAD to be Miyar Adventures. I knew Anthony and Sandeep were leading a group, and I know how they feel about 6 person rope teams. I sat back and patiently awaited. 1) I was excited to meet Sandeep, who I had talked to but never met, 2) I was happy to see Anthony again, and 3) at this point, it had been decided that not everyone was okay going down Fisher Chimneys given the conditions, and we were going down Sulphide. And that meant, we might need a ride back to town.

Sandeep was in the lead. “Are you with Miyar adventures?!” I shouted. He seemed surprised. “Yes!” “Sandeep!?” “Yes, how did you know?” “I’m Eve!” He laughed and we shook hands. We chatted about the route, I told him what the previous two groups had told us, and then I went to go say hi to Anthony. He saw me coming, and recognized me. Is it the orange jacket? It must be the bright orange jacket. We talked for a bit and finally I explained the situation and asked for a potential ride. The answer was yes. I had a feeling we’d beat them to the trailhead, but if we made it down around the same time (or if we were still trekking along the road when they drove past us), at least we’d have a backup ride. I felt a hundred times better knowing that.

Pretty but not too happy with that windy lenticular

We packed up after the Miyar group carried on, and headed back down. I was excited for this, because it’d be a test of how well I could follow a route I had done once before, but in far lower visibility. We had tracks, but they branched off several times, and you never know when they’d dead end in a crevasse. Besides a few more sloughing slopes that we crossed quickly, it was smooth sailing. We made it off the glacier to the rocks with the tidepools I mentioned last time, and headed for the notch. It was a much easier downclimb than the chimneys would have been, I’ll give you that.

Hobo burrito wrapper note

Back at the trailhead, I snagged the pen from the hiker registry and left a quick note for Anthony on my burrito wrapper, which I tucked beneath the windshield wipers of a car I was 90% sure belonged to someone in his group. Oh, by the way, that burrito had refrozen, and on the second night I slept snuggled up to a cold ass brick of a burrito hoping to thaw it so I could have a delicious breakfast. The note said something along the lines of “we made it down, if you see some sad hikers on the road, that’s probably us!” and I left a P.S. about how much Happy Corn I had eaten. That shit’s delicious.

**If anyone on the Miyar team is reading this, I can’t thank you enough for being willing to give us rides. Even though we didn’t need them, the peace of mind it gave me was much, much appreciated.

Figured I’d capture my “eff this shit” moment

We hiked six miles to the Baker Lake road. Ben noticed I was limping a bit – I have no idea what happened, but some tendon in my knee was not happy with the forest road. I’ll never know. I was dreading it, though. I didn’t think anyone would pick us up. I didn’t think anyone would even pass, and highway 20 was another 22 miles away or something hideous like that. I was resigned to having to tell my coworkers that the reason I didn’t come to work was because I was sleeping on the side of the road like a hobo.

We reached Baker Lake Road, and I dropped my bag and sprawled out on the ground looking as pathetic as possible. Within seconds, a pick up truck pulled up, and after chatting, offered us a ride. Oh my god. It was happening. We’d at least make it to Sedro Wooley. We threw our packs in the bed of the truck and hopped in. Into the bed of the truck. I think I did that once, as a kid. Once.

Like they’ve been doing it their entire lives

Let’s get something straight. I’m a hoity toity east coast city girl from a hoity toity rich bitch Massachusetts town where there’s a list of acceptable colleges to attend and most kids get brand new cars for their sweet 16 (I was not among those) and houses are judged by their manicured lawns and whether their owners rake in seven or eight figures a year or just a measly six. Hitchhiking was something from the 60’s, something that only bums did nowadays, or people who lived in rural bumfuck nowhere. And there I was, with my Weston-ass self plopped in the back of a pickup truck riding down a highway. And I loved it.

We got dropped off in Sedro Wooley, got sandwiches at Subway, and sat on the curb at a gas station with our gear while we ate. So I was three days of wilderness adventure with no shower, eating a foot long (6 inch sandwiches are for wimps) with a 40oz soda because AMERICA. Waiting for someone to offer us a ride. And eventually, along came another pickup truck with a man and a dog, and again we piled into the bed of the truck. I put on my puffy and my hard shell, John even put on his ski goggles. 60mph in a truck, no problem. We’re all geared up.

hoity toity east coast bitch (yours truly)

Hoity toity east coast bitch finally experiencing life (yours truly)

We finally made it back to to the Lake Ann trailhead, and I have never been so relieved in my life. The guy who picked us up was nice as can be, and lived in Acme, a tiny town between highway 20 and the Mt. Baker highway. We transferred gear to my car, thrilled to be back at the car before sunset, and took off towards Seattle.

And there you have it, folks. I hitchhiked. I put my tense, high maintenance city self aside and did it. And I swore to myself I’d pick up the next hitchhikers I see (subtext: if they look like normal people). Because as it turns out, it’s a fairly common thing to do, and normal people do it. The first two guys who picked us up had hitchhiked plenty before, and had no problem giving us a ride. The second one was the age-old-wisdom type who had picked up so many hitchhikers and had tons of stories.

Okay, hitchhiking aside, Fisher Chimneys was possibly my favorite route I’ve done up anything. I can’t wait to do it again on a clear weekend. It’s just so much freaking fun. Such a variety of challenges, and the route finding and low visibility and having to set up protection and belays a few times made it an unbelievably worthwhile experience. Shuksan’s a tease, but I’m helpless. I spent all of day 2 whining “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME LIKE I LOVE YOU” in my head, because Shuksan just doesn’t want to give it up. That’s okay, I’ll try again. Long term goal? The Price glacier. Get ready, Shuksan. We’re gonna be best buddies.

Mt. Baker via Coleman/Deming Glaciers

Posted on August 18, 2015 by evejakubowski

Snow arch!

The world didn’t want me to climb Mt. Baker. That’s right, you have to listen to my weepy self before getting to the good stuff. First of all, it took two tries. Three if you count the time we bailed because of weather. The first try was a general disaster. But even leading up to the first try, I was having some problems.

Left my keys on an airplane on the way to Chicago.
Lost my license at a bar after a wedding in Chicago (yes, you could say I was slightly inebriated, yes I flew back sans ID the next day, it is possible)
Learned that my car had been robbed while I was out of state. In my double gated, video monitored garage. On the bottom floor. Who robs the bottom floor? That shit takes a master escape plan. Anyway, my car was down a few windows. My only question when security called me: “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MOUNTAINEERING BOOTS?”
Found my keys! I’m not that much of an idiot! Woo!
Just kidding, I am an idiot. I forgot that I had left my whole climbing pack in my car, and it had been taken. $1200 worth of gear. Some Seattle hobo is sleeping in style in a nice hammock with a nice sleeping pad and waterproof pants and warm mittens glacier glasses (okay) and an ice axe (uhh) and a bunch of other stuff.
I had 24 hours until I left for Baker. Seriously, world, you couldn’t just let me oversleep on Friday or something?

Mt. Baker back in July on our first attempt

I pulled my shit together and loaded up the credit card at REI. Airline points, guys. Luckily I still worked there, and that discount went a long way. And since it was in my apartment building, there was a chance that renter’s insurance would cover it. After giving my last few paychecks right back to REI (Recycled Employee Income, have I made that joke yet?) I got in my car and headed up north to Baker.

I thought it was going to be a crevasse rescue class with Adventure Explorers. It ended up being a group of hikers looking to learn snow skills, so I got to fine-tune my knowledge by helping out with putting on crampons, knots used when roping up, things like that. If you can’t teach it, you don’t really know it. I finally got my set of prussiks straightened out thanks to our guide Chris, and grilled Heidi (the bad ass guide they somehow found on Craiglist of all places) about Orizaba, which I’m going to hopefully climb in November.

Awesome sunsets on the CD route

Our summit day attempt was a long shot, I knew from the night before that we probably wouldn’t make it but hey it’s still time logged on a glacier, which was all I needed. And when I was going crazy with the slow pace, one of the guides said words that have stuck with me since: “When you have that much gas left in the tank, instead of dwelling on being bored, think how reliable you can be if something does go wrong. The people pushing their limits mentally and physically aren’t going to be the effective ones in those scenarios.” The ones who still have the energy to run in circles around us are the ones who will make the difference. Okay, you got me. I’ll spend the time fantasizing about daring rescues. We ended up turning around on the scramble just below the Roman Wall for a myriad of reasons. Inadequate warm layers, running out of water, running out of food, exhaustion, you name it, someone probably had issues with it.

Heading on up Attempt #1

I did not take it well. Interestingly, when I confessed that to another girl on the climb, she said she was surprised to hear it. But I had to come to terms with the fact that it just wasn’t happening, I was down $450 for a class I expected to learn z pulley rigs through and out $900 for all the gear I had to re-buy and I was working part time retail and who knew when my next weekend off would be? I pulled it together, passed around my extra water and chocolate covered espresso beans and combos and eventually laughed it off. Learning experience. And it was hazy anyway, so there wouldn’t have even been views at the top. We could barely make out Twin Sisters.

The second attempt was thwarted by the snow level dropping to 7000ft for the first time since like January. We didn’t even try. But third time’s a charm, right? So here we go, folks! Climbed 8/9/2015.

Distance: I have literally no idea.
Elevation: 7000ft gain (ish), 10,781ft highest point
Weather: 40’s and rainy, 50’s and sunny(!)
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: Good question. I did not! I did stumble in pain at one point, sneakily.

My room at the airbnb. I was so comfy I didn’t even want to climb the next morning.

So we had a two day window. Head up Saturday, camp, get started for the summit early Sunday. Weather was not looking good, but the guides (Ben and Anthony with Miyar Adventures) for this trip were down to try it anyway. We got to the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead Saturday morning (after I spent a night at the most AWESOME airbnb, seriously if you need a recommendation shoot me a message this place was ridiculous – old school claw tub if you’re into bubble baths, log cabins built by the host himself, a pool, and home cooked breakfast! Ahhhh) and started up towards camp at Black Buttes.

There’s hope!

The first part of the trail goes by quickly. Heliotrope ridge is a hike in itself, with access to some great seracing at the base of the Coleman Glacier and of course access to the Coleman Deming route. The trail crossed two large rivers which were tricky enough this time of year (especially when you’re being a princess about getting your boots wet on the way up like I was) I can’t imagine how they are in the early season. After about two miles the trail splits: left takes you to a nice overlook of the glacier, and right takes you up the climber’s path. For me, the “climbing” doesn’t start until you’re on snow or a scramble, so this was still hiking, despite the steepness. It’s about a quarter mile I believe until low camp, which is where we camped on our first attempt. I recall wanting to move to high camp that time, but we didn’t have a shovel to make tent platforms, and not everyone had camping gear adequate for snow.

A hot minute of fog

This time around, we hiked straight through. We had to go very far to the right before getting on the glacier in order to avoid exposed ice and crevasses. The first time, you could essentially go straight up from the campsites, but it was much more open a month later. Everyone donned their gear, we roped up (six person rope… I had my concerns, but I’m not a guide) and started up.

Weather had been clear ish, but there were clouds above us, and we did have a few minutes of trekking through fog. Luckily it lifted just enough for camp at Black Buttes to be completely clear. We set up the mid, a floorless tent made of cuben fiber that ended up far surpassing my expectations. Ashwin had his backpacking tent, which he set up for him and Naman.

The mid! Home sweet home, working on those snow blocks

As wind picked up, we realized the mid needed some reinforcements, and I was beyond excited to get to chop snow blocks with the snow saw. Anthony made a good example of the ice layers for me too, since I had been asking about avalanche conditions and how certain snowpacks consolidated compared to others. With the snow saw, you could see the layers in the block of snow, and you could tell which were weak and where you could expect things to happen. The weak layer was crumbly ice almost, “like the bottom of italian ice!!” I exclaimed. I heard Zuzana laugh from inside the mid. She spent time on the east coast, she knew what I was talking about. No one else knew what italian ice is, I realized. When you get to the bottom of italian ice and it’s melted you can flip it over and get to the really sugary icy part on the bottom. It’s the most delicious part. That’s what the weak layer looked like, especially when the block broke free along that line and I flipped it over to stack it near the mid.

Who wants to snuggle?!

After we had secured the tent, it was bedtime. I’m all about bedtime. The mid fit four of us pretty comfortably with all of our gear, and I was pretty cozy. We got in just in time. Rain and wind picked up, and I wasn’t sure it’d clear up. I couldn’t believe I stayed dry. I had my bivvy, but still. I expected to be damn. Around 12:30am or so, the rain finally stopped, though the wind was still blustery and cold. We opened the door and peeped out, only to realize we were completely socked in by clouds. Couldn’t see the tents of the other group, or the rock wall 20ft from where we were. It was eerie. We figured we’d wait and hope for the best, so we lay there chatting for two hours. Luckily I was with a hilarious group, and it was more or less two hours of me giggling. Eventually, Anthony stuck his head outside, and I heard “Ah!! Guys! Guys I have fantastic news.” My heart fluttered. Stars?! No, that’s asking for too much. 100ft visibility? I couldn’t hold back. “STARS?!?” “Stars!” “FUCK YES!” I would have leapt out of my sleeping bag if that was possible while squished in between two other people. Instead I wriggled and started getting everything together. I knew we’d be slow getting ready, so I thought I’d make tea. Nothing beats tea on a summit morning.

Looking down the Coleman at the beginning of dawn

I sipped my earl grey with an absurd amount of sweetener and watched everyone prep. Ben and Anthony helped everyone get their bags down to a reasonable weight (I usually just take warm layers, food, water, glacier glasses, and that’s about it but we had some over-packers apparently) and just when I thought I was going to have to start doing push ups and jumping jacks for warmth, we finally got moving.

Naman “front pointing” in hiking boots and crampons – don’t do this at home kids

We traversed far to the right of the normal route to avoid some exposed glacial ice, and eventually regained the regular route after a small off-trail hiccup involving steep snow climbing. I think if it had been just me and guides, or me and friends, I’d have had a total blast, but I was too worried watching everyone else, waiting for someone to slip (sorry guys, call me paranoid). Ben and Anthony were great about setting up anchors and a running belay, but I was still on edge. Some of our group was just in hiking boots, which make front-pointing a pretty difficult feat.

Above the clouds, sun rising, I mean it’s basically haven

In the midst of that, the sun began to rise. Damn, guys, we were above the clouds, sunrise was turning everything pink and orange, and I knew I’d (hopefully) be warm soon and be able to feel my fingers and toes again. Hell yes! Sunrise is the best. Talk about gaining momentum. We found the highway (there was a pretty well traveled path up to the summit, no idea how we missed it originally – it was dark, okay?) and officially started making our way up.

Gaining the rocky ridge, Colfax in the background

We were slow, but going at a better clip than the last time we tried Baker. Conditions were great, too, which meant that even if we weren’t the fastest, we’d have a shot. I started to think we might actually make it. Ben and Anthony were great at being encouraging when people were slowing down, and I think that’s a huge reason we ended up making it. The crevasses were there, complete with snow bridges, some dicier than others. But in daylight, it was all pretty navigable even for my noob brain. We got to the point where our last group had turned around on the rocky ridge around 9500ft, and we kept going. Up to the Roman Wall, which wasn’t as steep or wall-like as I expected (though it looked like it from a distance). Here’s where views get real. Twin Sisters and Colfax behind you, the Coleman glacier to your left, the Deming glacier on your right with the north cascades in the background. You can see all the way to Glacier Peak.

Zuzana looking like a bad ass coming up the Roman Wall. Twin Sisters back left!

I started playing the “guess how many steps to that rock!” game. I’m pretty bad at it. I’d guess 250 steps, and be at around 530 when I’d announce to the group how bad I was. I never got better, either. Finally we got to the brief (icy) scramble before the summit plateau. Don’t be fooled! It’s another 20 minute walk or so from where you gain the plateau to the little nub that is the true summit. And you don’t freakin see Shuksan until you’re right there at the nub, either! I mean let’s be real, looking at Shuksan is basically why I wanted to do this climb. And it was totally worth it. Look at that peak poking through the clouds and tell me it doesn’t look awesome. It looks awesome.

Shuksan looking mighty fine

Traversing to the summit nub

I signed the summit register, took selfies, everything you need to do on a summit. Actually I might have forgotten to take a panorama. Rookie mistake, I know. I was too busy being proud of the group. What’s amazing is that we had the whole mountain to ourselves. Besides one group at Black Buttes, we were the only ones all day. And that other group was just practicing technical skills, not making a summit bid. It was just us. The forecast had scared everyone off. No complaints here, you all know I hate people. Jokes aside, the solitude was amazing. Just rocks, ice, and you. And views. Damn, Washington. I’ll never get bored here.

“Someone take a picture!” guys I already have like 40 of this spot

Going down went much faster than going up, as usual. We took one break to refuel, apply sunscreen (did I mention how swollen my lips were after Rainier? Bring your damn chapstick! And put it in a really accessible pocket! Or else you’ll spend the entire next day drooling uncontrollably) but besides that, it was one solid push to camp, where we spent some time packing everything up before heading the rest of the way out. Unfortunately, there was one casualty: Ashwin’s lightweight backpacking tent had succumbed to the wind, and the poles had broken. At least it was anchored well!

Glacier Peak beyond crevasses on the Deming glacier

Overall, I gotta say the Coleman Deming just felt like a standard slog up a glacier. It sounds mean, but it doesn’t have the dramatic seracs and crevasses of Rainier or the awesome alpine views and rock of Shuksan. I think for me it was a one-and-done thing, unless I have a free weekend and friends want to go back. I hear the North Ridge is a party, so perhaps I’ll aim for that someday. Ha, I can’t believe I’m saying all this as I look back at pictures. It’s freaking fantastic. It just goes to show what else is out there.

Obligatory crevasse pic

I just can’t believe how lucky we got with weather. I thought I’d be showing up to a group of people I didn’t know and spend some time holed up in a tent on a glacier in shitty conditions, getting experience in “how to deal with sleeping in a wet down bag in subfreezing temperatures and high winds and not be a little bitch about it.” To everyone who was on that trip, I can’t thank you enough. Ben and Anthony were fantastic guides, and dealt very well with our small off-route extravaganza and I learned a lot just watching how they encouraged the group. Going to the mountains is always the right decision, despite whatever hesitations I had beforehand.

Summit selfie with Shuksan

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

Category Archives: Mount Baker Highway