Torment Forbidden Traverse

Posted on September 17, 2016 by evejakubowski

Left to right: Eldorado, Klawatti, Austera, Primus, and Tricouni above Moraine and Primus Lakes

If you had asked me in February, “Eve, if you can only climb one peak this summer, what would it be?” the answer would the the Torment-Forbidden traverse. Because I’m a cheating bastard and that’s two peaks. I’d settle for just Forbidden, but let’s be real, the traverse was the true goal. I stood on Eldorado almost exactly a year ago (I wrote this a few weeks ago okay don’t get technical with me) staring at Forbidden asking what is that, and how do I climb it.

Torment on the left, Forbidden on the right

Well a few weeks after Eldorado, I started trad climbing. My old REI coworkers were laughing at me because until a year ago, I swore I’d never be into rock climbing. A few months after Eldorado, I started leading trad. 9 months of putting pennies aside, I got a full rack. And June came and went, and then July, and August started, and I began to think Forbidden wasn’t going to happen. I had had a decent climbing season, not as much rock as I wanted but plenty of successful trips. My shredded hands and sunburned face could attest.

I mean the forest was pleasant

Enter Connor. I had gotten to know Connor going up Olympus, and between bringing surprise cupcakes for his birthday and pitching my favorite single wall mountaineering tent (okay, my only tent) in a fucking jungle I guess I qualified as a passable climbing partner. He’s been checking off every route on the 50 Classics list he can get to, and the West Ridge of Forbidden is one of them. And the full traverse… well, that’s even better. Before I get into the more-filler-less-beta description, go check out Steph Abegg’s blog. That’s what we ran off of. She has step by step instructions that make it very hard to get off course.

Pleasant waterfall

We got a lazy start on Saturday morning (this was back in mid-August), hitting the trailhead around 10am after McDonalds gave us the wrong sandwiches on our way out (I wanted TWO sausage egg and cheese sandwiches, not one, dammit) and an awkward parking job on my part trying to fit into the trailhead lot. Nothing like a big bright yellow SUV parked diagonally on a bank out of line next to everyone else. We started hiking and I was already dragging. I don’t know if it was the heat or the sun or the dehydration or what but my legs just weren’t responding to my brain’s pleas. I’d put the approach right up there as third after Snowfield (first) and Eldorado (second) with class 3 tree roots and narrow boot path and interesting (read: filled my boots with water) river crossings. Oh, and tons of bugs that would stick to you if you were sweaty. Bastards. I also had on my fresh new Smartwool socks (take II, they did not do so hot on Formidable), hoping the compression would help with my calf issues. No luck. Or, my calf issues would have been debilitating that morning without them, who knows. Either way, I can assure you that they look great when you roll up your pant legs because it’s hot out.

Meadows and slabs and an awesome cloud

The Throne looking out at Johannesburg

We broke above tree line (finally!) and my mood picked up a bit. Not enough to get the legs back up to speed, but at least we were drifting through meadows looking at Johannesburg and Mixup and Magic and Sahale and could see the entire traverse ahead of us, a ridge of rock poking out above quickly softening glaciers. And we found the Boston Basin toilet everyone talks about! Add it to the list of Classic Craps of Washington. I haven’t made much progress towards my future as the Patron Saint of Alpine Shits lately but this was a step. I snapped a picture and we continued on, across talus that eventually gave way to the slabby sort of rock that used to be covered by glacier.

Crossing the glacier, looking up at Torment

We didn’t take many breaks, wanting to get to the rock climb ASAP. I was hoping I’d be faster on rock than I felt slogging across talus and snow. We reached the foot of the glacier and saw a group of four way ahead of us. Shit, we have to get ahead of them. Connor took off. Well, my legs are still in bed in Seattle, so you go ahead and do that and I’ll catch up. We didn’t deem it necessary to rope up, though there were a few small crevasses and snow bridges and a groan or two. Luckily when I reached the base of the gully that leads to the notch, the group of four was still getting their gear prepped. Connor hopped up to the notch, I waited until he was out of the gully (it was pretty loose) and started up myself. A few fourth class moves, a few pebbles knocked down on the guy below me (who unfortunately came up immediately behind me until he realized he’d just be peppered with small rocks) and we were in business.

Awesome pic of the team behind us

We switched into rock shoes, flaked out the rope to 30m (60m rope), and started simulclimbing. Connor led. I assumed we’d alternate leading until I realized how much faster it’d be with him leading rather than my newbie ass, plus with simulclimbing there wasn’t a blatant need to swing leads like when you’re doing things pitch by pitch. Honestly, the only move that felt harder than a 3rd class scramble was the first move up from the notch, which follows a ~15ft crack. After that, it’s basically all scrambling. For once, my navigation was on point. Connor led, and I directed. So I’m useful for some things, like beta, and boiling water, and taking photos.

Connor leading, mostly a scramble

From the top of the crack that marks the start of the route, you basically follow a series of ledges to the left until you’re dropped into another nice, loose gully, this one whiter than the first one (I don’t know why that sticks in my memory). Head up and right to another dip in the ridge (rap slings were a good cue), and drop down onto the southeast face and follow more ledges to the saddle between the two summits. I honestly think we might have been following a different route than planned, because there was very little ridge involved, mostly face traversing. But it was quick and painless, so I didn’t complain. I snapped a few pictures of the team behind us, excited about the views, forgetting how they’d consistently get better and better as we went.

Connor coming up to the summit, Forbidden on the right

THE SUMMIT ON THE LEFT IS THE TRUE SUMMIT. No one just straight up said that!! They said “the south summit” or “the higher of the summits” and bullshit like that. It’s the one on the left, okay? And you can’t tell from below. Connor ran to the one on the right, I didn’t trust it, I pulled out the topo but they’re so freaking close on the one I had that I couldn’t tell which was “the southern summit.” I figured we’d divide and conquer and stand up and see who was taller, so I went left.

Nailed it. I get up to the top and boom, there’s an old school summit register in a brass pipe. I whipped it out and signed it and got ready to head down and meet Connor, thinking he was waiting until his head popped over the ridge. Sweet, summit break! And we had made good time since hitting the rock, too. The two summits are very comparable, I honestly would not have been able to tell which was the true one without the summit register. We had some water and snacks and soaked in the views, checking out Forbidden which looked so much taller and sharper and darker in the distance.

Forbidden from the summit of Torment

The joys of rope management

Wanting to reach the only decent bivvy spot, we moved on quickly. We dropped down to the first notch, where we knew we’d have to rappel down to the glacier, and probably deal with a moat. Great, Connor can go first. Quick tip: Use the rappel sling on the far side, not the one immediately on your left when you reach the notch. We swapped to mountaineering boots. I donned my crampons as Connor rapped down, and had just finished tightening the straps when I head “you should probably get your crampons!” from below. I hear some shuffling and some kicking and I peek over the ridge, just as I see an ice tool come over the edge of the moat followed by a bare hand grasping at the snow. Like when zombies dramatically dig out of their graves one hand at a time, Connor climbed out, sans crampons. “Off rappel!”

Rapping into the moat

Great, so I’m going to be swung over the moat to the snow, like I read in Steph Abegg’s blog. Can’t say I’ve ever had to do that before. Should have read more closely. I clipped my axe to my harness and started down, scraping crampons on rock. Swinging over was awkward. You need to get a few feet below the edge of the snow or else when your partner pulls the rope you just go up and not across and you’ll hang above the gap, and need to move horizontally along the rope. I was also facing backwards, which wasn’t elegant, and had used a prussik rather than an autoblock (out of habit since that’s how I learned, yes this habit is now broken), which makes it much tougher to slide down the rope and nearly impossible to slide across. So you can imagine just about how awkward this was. Reference Figure A below if you need a visual. I finally dropped low enough to be dragged over to the snow and got a good hold with my ice axe, but couldn’t balance since I was fighting against the prussik, which was still holding me farther up the rope. Eventually I just had Connor grab me and hold me above the snow until I could undo the damn prussik. So yeah, awkward sequence, but you know what? Now I know how to do it, and it’ll be 5x faster the next time around, and I’m never using a prussik again. Another quick tip: you can avoid the moat scenario by scrambling class 4-5 ledges on the south face of the traverse, but hey, this was probably the most useful stretch of the trip for me in terms of learning new things, so I’ll give it a 7/10. Would have been a solid 8.5 with an autoblock.

Figure A

We traversed to the next moat, and alternated between moat and snow and rock for a while. Getting across the first moat had taken up a lot of time, and switching between snow, dropping into moats, and climbing back up on rock was slow going. We eventually came around a corner and saw the steep snow traverse, which would have to be nearly front pointing. I regretted leaving the pinky rest on my ice tool, since it would make plunging the shaft a pain in the ass (are we still doing phrasing?) but the snow wasn’t too steep, so I hoped it wouldn’t be an issue. Connor asked if I wanted to rope up, but on something like that, if you fall you’ll just take your partner with you unless you’re taking the time to set pro. So nah. If just I die, I’ll haunt a crampon or something instead of a house so I’ll still get to go up peaks. Watch out guys.

Traversing below some hanging snow

The snow traverse was slower going than I expected. More tedious than anything. There was one brief icy section, but most was soft enough for nicely kicked steps and the ice tool stuck well, I ended up using the pick more than the shaft. Halfway across the traverse I thought to myself ugh, please let there be a bivvy spot at this notch. Huh, I must be tired if I’m hoping for a bivvy spot. I knew the ideal bivvy spot was at the next notch, but we had used up so much time rapping across the moat that I didn’t think we were going to make it. Turned out we could have made it by dark if we had tried, but apparently I was tired, and since I didn’t know how long it would take, I was ready for dinner and bedtime.

Last light on Boston and Sahale from the bivvy

Well, we found a bivvy spot on the south side of the ridge. It wasn’t great, a little narrow and a little slanted, but it’d do. I started boiling water as Connor set up the perfect gear nest hanging from a cam. The whole rack, our helmets, no critters were getting into that shit. We flaked out the rope as a ground cover like on Formidable and I whipped out my new Nemo down quilt. It arrived at my office minutes before a meeting the day before the trip, and it was like Christmas. My face lit up, my boss started laughing, I dashed for my keys to tear open the box and unpack my new toy and told everyone all about it. My boss actually offered to get me the sleeping pad that pairs with the quilt after she saw how thrilled I was running around the office with the quilt, only to be stopped in my tracks by a meeting to sell fashion product to our friendly local online retailer (the opposite of me sleeping on a rope spread out on a rock with just a quilt). But the quilt is amazing. It’s a 30 degree quilt, so not for winter, but damn I’d have been in heaven if I had it on Formidable. And it weighs a mere 19oz, which is about the weight of the sleeping bag liner I had used on Formidable.

Dome and Glacier in the backdrop, Formidable center, Mixup and the Triplets in the foreground. Can I wake up to this every day

With my bare feet wrapped in my new favorite toy (new Smartwool socks still needed to dry and smelled worse than Connor’s dinner) I dined on Thai Curry while Connor suffered through some vegan mac n cheese. He claimed it wasn’t that bad but I took a single bite and I think I’d have rather gone hungry. Sorry vegans, it was $1 at the grocery outlet so I’m sure there’s better version of vegan mac n cheese out there. I felt like a princess with my $12 dehydrated meal. Luxuries. Should have brought myself some wine.

I had been hoping to catch the meteor shower, but I only saw one single shooting star. The moon was too bright for us to even see the milky way. At one point I swear something ran across my arm (this was after I listened to something shuffle around for a few minutes) but I never did find it. John’s twin 50’s turned into twin 47’s after they bivvied on Torment the weekend prior and woke up to a rat chewing through their gear. I’d fuck up anything that tried to munch that new down quilt. That rat would probably taste better than the vegan mac n cheese. And then I’d cry.

Rocking the new socks

The quilt was awesome. Toasty warm. The strings that turn it into half a sleeping bag were a pain in the ass, but made it easier to tighten up gaps if I realized my arm was sticking out, or felt a cool breeze on my leg. And it’s super soft. With that and the new sleeping pad, I’m pretty set for lightweight camping next summer. Now I can potentially be comfy cozy and not shiver bivvy all of the overnight climbs where I don’t feel like carrying a full overnight setup.

I finally committed to waking up around maybe 7:30 am. We made coffee, packed up our gear, and put our still slightly wet socks back on. We had to backtrack to the notch to drop down to the north face of the ridge to continue the traverse, and of course as soon as we reach the next notch, there’s a glorious bivvy spot right there that’s huge, flat, I mean shit, it looked like it had been swept. I groaned and we continued on.

More traversing

The rock sections of the traverse weren’t technically challenging, just exposed. It’s mostly a fourth class scramble, and I knew the rock was supposed to improve as we got closer to Forbidden. I never though exposure bothered me, so this was a reality check. There were definitely spots (especially downclimbing) where I was slow and cautious, and I remember three sections where I was straight up uncomfortable. It’s been a loooong time since I pushed my comfort zone on anything, but I remember standing spread out like a starfish trying to traverse a section of rock and realizing shit, this feels awkward. And then I looked down. Terrible idea, most of the traverse has hundreds of feet of exposure beneath you, and tipping backwards would unquestionably be fatal (sorry mom). Then I looked at Connor. “I’m… uncomfortable.” He looked at me and laughed and just said “okay, so go back and find another way.” Oh. Huh. Don’t mind if I do. And it really was that simple, and totally snapped my downward spiraling thoughts of “oh, I’m uncomfortable, oh, look at those hundreds of feet of air below me, oh, what if my arms and legs get tired in this position, oh god are they getting tired right now?!” Soon we reached the notch that marks the start of the Forbidden climb, where we stashed our boots, extra gear, and laid our (still wet) socks out to dry.

And more traversing

Starting up Forbidden was exciting. I mean it’s a classic after all, and there were several other parties up there, and I loved where we were and we had been making such good time and we were passing everyone and then bam. We hit my second spot of discomfort, which was likely more performance anxiety than anything. Any of you who have come to a climbing gym with me (or even rock climbed with me) know I get in my head about things, especially when others are watching. I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually. But here comes this guided group of three who step aside and let us pass. And it was the notorious Airy Step at the beginning of Forbidden. Not technically hard, but a little exposed. I stepped across, and though I logically knew it was an easy move, it’s different taking a step with a 6″ drop compared to a 600′ drop beneath you. Connor tossed in a cam, I farted around trying to figure out how to get past my mental block without using the cam and laughing at myself for being pathetic because this whole situation was so stupid, and finally decided fuck it, I can’t sit here deliberating while all four of these people stare at me and I used the damn cam.*

Connor on the sidewalk before rapping to the official start of Forbidden

After that it was mostly cruising. I think we made it notch to summit in 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Again, besides a 5.6ish crux, most of the climbing was 4th or 5th class scrambling There was a slight bouldering move where you drop down just before the summit, but it isn’t difficult, in fact it was probably one of my favorite moves of the entire climb in both directions. It just felt very fluid going in both directions, which is always the feeling I’m after. Before I knew it, we were on top, looking out at the Eldorado massif and Torment and Johannesburg and Formidable and Sahale and a world of peaks I haven’t even come close to touching yet.

Connor on the summit!

Amazingly, we had the summit all to ourselves. We took a long break to savor the scenery, we had perfect weather and ridiculous views and it’s easy to take it all for granted and I had to remind myself where we were and what we had done. Even just two years ago I had no idea any of this existed, or was accessible to the average person. Especially the weekend after Formidable, two amazing climbs in such an incredible area. I wasn’t exhausted enough on Torment/Forbidden for it to really sink in (my legs had decided to join me on Sunday at least, after a rough Saturday), but those views are some of the best I’ve ever had. Did we sign a summit register? I don’t even remember.

Summit selfie!

We started down. I was anxious about downclimbing. I think it’s similar to my issue with slabby climbs, I just don’t trust my feet. I know logically it’s better to stand up straight, but when it’s exposed I try to keep my center of gravity low, which usually results in my shoes not getting full purchase on the rock. The more of it you do the easier it gets, but I hadn’t been doing a ton of rock climbing this summer. We rapped the crux and two other sections (rap slings are abundant) and it took us longer to get back to the notch than it took to get to the summit. We collected the gear we had stashed (socks finally dry! Woo!) and decided to rap the gulley (mostly my decision, I think) rather than down climb. Rapelling is tedious, but I was mentally done with downclimbing, and there was a group below us ready to be pelted with rocks if I knocked anything down. There are rap stations the entire way, and we ended up downclimbing a few steps at the bottom to reach the glacier. I had my last awkward moment here, knowing there were steps below my foot but not being able to see them with nothing to grab with my hands. If I have a handhold, I’m happy to hang off it. If I don’t, it’s hard to trust that my foot is going to land on something. This is me downclimbing. I’m uncoordinated, what if my foot is an inch too far to the left? I laughed at myself again, rolling my eyes at the stupidity of the situation. “You have like three huge stairs right below your foot!” I heard Connor yell. Suck it up, buttercup.

Connor rappelling back down, Eldorado and Moraine Lake in the background

Dropping onto snow was a relief, since from there on out I’d know exactly where my feet were going and it’d be quick easy moving. Except for when I fell on my ass. We crossed the glacier quickly and were back on slabs. Despite my slow ass downclimbing, we had once again caught up to the group in front of us, who had a huge head start since we took so long on the summit. I gave myself a quick reminder that I only felt like a shitty climber because I was comparing myself to a guy who crushes 5.13’s before breakfast. We continued down and the other group followed us, which was amusing because we had no idea where we were going since we had come from Torment, not the standard approach. I whipped out the topo and got us back on track – you head slightly southwest on the slabs below the glacier and the wrap southeast to get back to camp, you can’t make a beeline from glacier to high camp. We cruised across talus, then meadows, crossed the same river that previously filled our boots with water, drowned our boots again, and floated down the trail that I had been dragging up the previous day. Why did I think this was so bad? It wasn’t even that steep! And the bugs had disappeared.

Sahale looking tempting, if only we had more time

The only real event on the way down was running into park rangers, who of course interrogated us to see if we had overnight permits. They asked where we were from, what cars did we have (I worried that I had gotten a ticket for my shitty conspicuous parking job in my obnoxiously awesomely colored car), did it have Washington plates? Did we have radios, did we have cell service up on the traverse (I didn’t even check! Who would check that?!). We had been snacksturbating about KFC and taco bell and hamburgers, your questions are getting in the way of my food fantasies, dammit!

Cruising through meadows in the afternoon light

The rangers finally carried on, and we hustled back to the car where my great parking job was no longer surrounded by cars and I confirmed that I did not receive a ticket for being a borderline douchebag (it wasn’t that bad really). We changed into flip flops and stuffed our stinky boots into the trunk and hopped in the car, ready to rush to KFC. Except… I am a slow driver on forest roads. Yeah, look at my car, 4wd, I know. It doesn’t matter, it has a hard time on washboard sections and skids out easily, so I go slow. Like old lady slow, even when KFC is on the line. Watch out Paul Walker, here comes granny.

Not a bad peak to stare at for a whole traverse

We made it to KFC with 8 minutes to spare. I was ready to rush in the door (“should we call ahead?!”) but Connor insisted on drive through. Okay, I dragged you into McDonalds yesterday, fine, we’ll do drive through this time. We pull up to the window. “What is the most pieces of fried chicken you could put in a bucket?” She went over to count what they had left. “We could do…. 8.” “You’ll get sick if you eat 8 pieces.” “I’ll take 8! And a famous bowl, and a large soda.” She gave me more than 8 pieces. No, I could not finish the bucket. Yes, I felt sick around piece #7. And I couldn’t help but notice the contrast between tearing apart fried chicken and devouring a famous bowl and the mellow notes of Jack Johnson playing in the background.

Cute cairn near Boston Basin high camp. Mixup, Triplets, Cascade Peak, and Johannesburg in the background

I could have gone to sleep right there. Amazing weekend. Perfect weather, successful gear test for my new quilt, plenty of new tricks learned and a crash course in downclimbing, boots that I should have hung on slings from my bathroom window so the stench didn’t permeate my entire apartment, and great company, all wrapped up with a bucket of fried American joy and a pile of failure in a sadness bowl.*

*I googled it to try and find a picture. None did the exposure justice (or I am a wimp, or both), but the first one I found was a woman who also clipped into a cam. So, there’s at least two of us.

**No one’s going to get that reference, but I cracked up immediately thinking of it when I realized what Connor had ordered. Also, the Famous Bowl is not only the top selling fast food item in the USA, it is the top selling fast food item in the world. So KFC got something right, piling all of their various meals in a ~~trough~~ bowl.

A Formidable Day (Well, Weekend)

Posted on August 16, 2016 by evejakubowski

The NE Face of Formidable, JT bottom left for scale

The southeast side of Johannesburg, Cascade Peak, and snowy Eldorado framed by the Triplets and Mixup Peak

The title is an understatement, but I had to get the peak in there somehow. This came to fruition on a Thursday night, when I had three realizations. 1) JT was back for just the weekend, 2) we had a 24ish hour weather window on Saturday 3) I was going crazy after not really doing anything for the entirety of July and JT felt similar. Oh, and I have this ridiculous list of peaks I wanted to bag that would likely be absolute sufferfests, and that’s what I usually pitch to Sam and JT. Unfortunately, Sam’s getting tan surfing and relaxing and not suffering (besides the FOMO I imagine this will give him) on the east coast, so JT and I decided to be a two man team and see just how thrashed we could get.

Mt. Formidable has a taunting (or daunting – little column A, little column B I think) face with an 5.6 line up the NE side, which you stare at as you hike the Ptamigan Traverse. Usually you look at peaks and think “shit ,that face is ridiculous, the route must be on the other side.” Well yeah, the standard route is on the other side, but we were eyeing this route. Could it be done in a day? No on had done it in a day before (spoiler alert: we also did not do it in a day). But we figured we’d give it a shot with an alpine start Saturday morning and a deep understanding and resignation that we might be in for a shiver bivvy that night. Bivvied 8/7/2016, gotta start listing dates since I’m so freaking behind in blog posts. I even skipped one to write this one! Jeez.

Distance: 24 miles? Honestly not sure
Elevation: Also not sure. Net ~5000ft gain (8325ft highest point) but you gain 3400ft to Cache Col, lose 800ft to Kool Aid Lake, gain another 1200ft to Spider/Formidable Col, drop 600ft again to heather ledges, and finally gain the last 1300ft to the summit. Sneaky elevation.
Weather: 40’s and foggy, 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 3 hours. Cascade River Road takes forever. At least JT doesn’t drive like a granny (I do).
Did I Trip: You know what? Not really. No faceplants. I did slide 15ft down some scree at 4am when we were off route though, that was a rough start.

Awkward icy sidehilling without crampons

I dragged myself out of my parking lot bivvy at 2am, admired the stars above Johannesburg and Cascade Peak and the Triplets, gave JT my extra socks (he had only brought cotton, and cotton is rotten) and we started up the Cascade Pass trail. Summitpost describes the trail as “stupidly inclined,” which is appropriate. You don’t even know you’re going up. What that means is… switchbacks! 36 of them, to be exact. Woo! But nighttime is a time warp, so suddenly the switchbacks were over and we were at the pass! Fog rolled in almost immediately and I started to get discouraged. We followed our GPS track up another 1,000ft or so, and then started to traverse the scree and snowfields over to what we thought was Cache Col.

Forbidden, Sahale, and Buckner with clouds spilling over Cascade Pass

Well, we had two realizations as the fog cleared and the sun rose. 1) we were several hundred feet above the standard route, which has a nice pleasant bootpath. When you hit Cascade Pass, go right, and near the toilet sign, go left. That’ll take you on a rising traverse to the col, instead of the mediocre sidehilling we got to enjoy. 2) Snowfields are icy at 4am. 3) Scree sucks. We struggled through it, wasting maybe an hour crossing frozen snow while the two runners below us probably laughed (or worried, depending on how nice they were and how clumsy we looked).

The real Cache Col. Suckers!

We eventually made it to the gap, only to look ahead at what was actually Cache Col, across a glacier hidden by the terrain. Good start. The glacier is quite mellow though, and we were able to make quick work of it after losing a few hundred feet of elevation and regaining even more. Behind us were clouds spilling over Cascade Pass, with occasional peeks of Eldorado, Boston, and Sahale. From Cache Col you get your first glimpse looking south at Formidable (yes!) and it’s a line of sight path to Kool Aid Lake. Which requires you to drop another 700ft, and drops you onto endless fields of unpleasant talus. RIP my ankles.

Formidable over Kool Aid Lake

At Kool Aid Lake we saw the only other group we’d see for the rest of the trip. Well kind of, we saw their tents but they were asleep. Ah, to sleep in on a climb. What a dream. We kept moving, eager to get to Red Ledges since it would mark our turn off to drop onto the Formidable Glacier. Plus, Kool Aid Lake had been unimpressive. We crossed heather benches, more talus fields, more snow patches. The red ledges are very obvious, a scar of red rock cutting through the cliffs. It looks ridiculous from afar, but as you get closer, there’s basically a trail along them. We dropped down into a moat, pulled off some nifty third class scramble moves to get to the ledge, and scampered over to the other side where the trail continued.

Red Ledges

Carrying on to Spider/Formidable col (obvious notch)

About a quarter mile past the ledges, you can drop down onto the glacier. But JT and I weren’t very fortunate here. We couldn’t see a decent line up to the glacier. The previous reports all had far more snow coverage than we did, we’d be dealing with nearly a thousand feet of steep scree with terrible runout and a serac waiting to collapse above us. As if on cue, a huge chunk of ice fell from the glacier and started a domino effect of tumbling ice. Yeah, maybe we should pass. Slow start, late in the morning, it’d only get warmer as the day went. Would my mother yell at me for trying this? Yes (that almost always applies though). Would WH&C shit all over the article about my death because I should have known better? Probably yes. Would mother nature flip me off and deny me from mountain heaven post mortem because I was an idiot who didn’t earn it? Maybe. Okay, standard route anyone? (You’re welcome, mom).

JT laughs as I hang stuck by my pack in a moat between snow and a rock

We hung out for a few more minutes scouting out potential lines for a return trip. Many of these remote peaks have fairly simple lines waiting to be climbed, it’s just that no one ever goes out there to do them. My feet were already killing me, covered in raw wet hot spots. JT had brought his cotton socks, so I made him give me back my Darn Toughs and he donned his cotton socks. Sorry JT. We eventually got moving again, and met the side of the Middle Cascade Glacier. The bottom half of this glacier is an awesome ice fall, but the upper half is pretty mellow. We did some painful sidehilling to avoid crevasses, I bitched about my boots killing my ankles, and soon enough we gained the Spider-Formidable Col. From here we could see that our route to the glacier on the NE face wasn’t as steep as we thought, and might have been doable. Dammit. But we were committed to the standard route at this point, since we had spend an hour or two getting up to the Spider-Formidable Col and backtracking would likely take just as long.

First views of Le Conte Lake and Gunsight, Old Guard and Sentinel Peaks

The col on the right has two small bivvy spots, the narrow col on the left is where you’ll want to drop down to the next section of the Ptarmigan Traverse. I lost my breath at the top col seeing the view on the other side – Old Guard and Sentinel are one huge glaciated massif with glacial turquoise Le Conte Lake below them, with Gunsight (an obsession of mine, the twin spired peak behind Old Guard). Spectacular, especially against the red rock we were standing on. I have one complaint. Le Conte Glacier is on Old Guard Peak. It drains into Le Conte Lake. That makes sense. But Le Conte Peak is to the west. Why isn’t the Le Conte Glacier on Le Conte Peak?!

Checking out the bivvy col

We dropped down quickly to the snowfield below, and headed along the Ptarmigan Traverse path to the fourth notch in our journey. The Traverse continues to Yang Yang Lakes which you can see from the S/F col, but we veered off right to the notch that would drop us onto the final face of Formidable. So many cols. This snow traverse was nice and easy, and we gained the notch I later named Heather Ledges. This is because you have two options to drop down onto the final traverse. A “nefarious gully,” which gets its namesake from the absurd amount of scree that managed to conglomerate on this third class scramble, or some heather ledges, which are steep but pleasant enough in crampons, which we were too lazy to drop off. The ledges do eventually dump you into the nefarious gully, which we battled down to another snow field.

Looking across to our notch on the ridge, Yang Yang lakes center left, Le Conte back left

Atop Heather Ledges looking at the final section of the climb. Gain the grassy rib on the left, head up and left from there.

After the nefarious gully you have a few more snowfields to cross, more talus, fantastic views of a jagged ridge that amazingly has no name, and Buckindy in the background. And of course, Dome and Old Guard still loom over the far horizon as you gain a grassy rib and scramble up to the base of the gully that leads you to the summit.

Quick break to soak in views

Except it’s never that simple. We missed the nice grassy rib, and ended up in a low fifth class gully. Luckily we had lugged a 60m rope and a light alpine rack thinking we were doing the NE face, so what the hell, let’s put it to use. One pitch of easy climbing later (ignoring the hollow flakes that broke off as we climbed) and we were up by the gullys, which were supposedly marked by cairns. There are two routes up, one that follows a series of ledges with an airy traverse and one that follows a loose fourth to fifth class gully. We were aiming for the ledges.

Part of the airy traverse

We managed to find the airy traverse, which was quite airy, and marked by a single cairn at the end. From there, it was a choose your own adventure, supposedly to the top of another gully marked with a cairn which is where the ledges route meets the gully route.

Just kidding! No cairns for you, not out here. Just that one at the end of the airy ledge. Choose your own adventure. We started working our way up through the path of least resistance. A few wrong turns, a few backtracks, a few definitely-not-third-class-moves. We almost ended up on the wrong summit, but I noticed that the one to the right looked taller and made JT backtrack. He was just ready to get the false summit but hell no, I wasn’t letting that happen. “I’ll carry the rope! I’ll carry the rack! I’ll carry your bivvy!” “Joke’s on you, I didn’t bring a bivvy!” Dammit JT! So you’re just gonna huddle in your clothes and shiver for a few hours? We had come this far, we were committed to bivvying. Yep, guess that’s the answer. We downclimbed to a nice gully with what’s that? A cairn? Two cairns?!? Yes!! On track!

Summit shot!

Cloud deck to the west on the way down

I quickly moved up the gully until boom, summit. The views were stunning. Cloud cover below us to the west, sunshine up above, Old Guard (yeah I’m not over it) and Sentinel in the distance. And some other peaks, like Boston and Sahale but I’m obsessed. And a brilliant turquoise lake beneath the jagged, no name ridge. Eve Ridge. We could see the trail of the Ptarmigan Traverse below us, and had a brief “shit, we’re far away” moment. Oh well. Like JT said, “those are problems for tired JT.” Deal with it later. Heather Ledges looked pretty steep and shitty from where we were too. Well, tired Eve problems. No point in worrying now. We took a quick break, snapped photos, and headed down immediately. We wanted to at least be back at Heather Ledges by dark.

Time to head down

We made it down the gully quickly, and back across the airy ledges. We rapped down our low 5th class gully rather than trying to find the standard route, which was a great plan, and we were making great time, until… the rope got stuck as we pulled it down. Fuck. I looked out across the valley. I snapped a picture of sunset. Similar to Cutthroat peak, I had a simultaneous “wow, pretty” and “oh, shit” moment. JT climbed back up to free it and luckily we got it loose. At this point, the sun was down. We had maybe an hour of dusk before it would be dark, so we started walking.

Dome Peak teasing me

JT and Glacier

We got back to the base of the even-more-nefarious-in-the-dark gully, and scrambled up to the ledges. I destroyed so much heather this weekend. My headlamp was dying, despite having new batteries. Bulb issue? Shut up Calvin, if you’re reading this I don’t want to hear it. At the top of Heather Ledges we took a break and contemplated bivvying there. “We could just…..keep going” “bivvy here!” we said simultaneously. Shit. Suck it up, we’re gonna keep moving. At this point my feet were lovely swollen painful pruny shredded stubs. I missed my hiking poles. I’d have been limping if it was one foot, but it was both, so I just hobbled. And I couldn’t turn my ankles, since the boots had left huge gashes on my ankle bones. They’d just buckle any time I put pressure on the sides. So that was great. But we weren’t camping at Heather Ledges. We needed to at least get back to the col.

No Name Ridge (Eve Ridge!) in the foreground above that turquoise lake, Buckindy back left

We agreed on the suffer stretch and started off. It was an eternity. Pitch black, thousands of stars, tiny sliver of a moon, entire Milky Way scattered above us. I was exhausted. JT laughed in front of me. “My mind’s playing tricks already.” Eyesight gets funky when you’re exhausted. “I thought that stick was a boa constrictor!” Great, it hasn’t started for me yet but I was sure I wasn’t far behind. For me it’s rocks that look like tents, dead trees that look like zombie creatures, wind that sounds like voices next to the trail. Luckily we were above treeline so no creepy shit. We took breaks every 20 minutes or so, maybe more often and just every stretch felt so long. At one point I flopped down on my pack. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m thoroughly enjoying this.” I cracked up. That’s JT. You push it all day just to savor the point of exhaustion when you’re lying on a glacier dozens of miles from civilization looking at the entire galaxy wondering how you ended up here and why you think it’s fun.

Another break on the way back to Heather Ledges

The struggle back up to the col was tough, but singular. Even though you’re tired, it’s kicking steps in steep snow, and you sure as hell don’t want to slip. It was warm enough that it was soft which made kicking steps easy. It was Andrea who pointed it out on Cutthroat Peak a few weeks ago. Climbing is so singular. You need to focus and you need to focus on this one thing and nothing else and that’s how the short climb to the col was. Just me, and a snow slope, and my tool and my boots and the stars and the shine of JT’s headlamp above me.

“Oh how pretty!” “Oh, shit.”

Our bivvy spot was phenomenal. I felt like a princess with my bivvy and sleeping bag liner. I put in my headphones (11th essential: ipod shuffle) and dozed on and off, snuggling my pack for warmth and using the rope as a ground cover with visions of Excel spreadsheets and emails in front of my eyes. My feet and socks were still wet, I debated between warm wet wool and cold dry feet. Ugh. Everything kind of sucked, but you know you’ll be fine so you just wait it out. I only know I slept because I have vague memories of spreadsheets, which means I dreamed about work. I dreamed about work, sleeping at 7,000ft in a bivvy in the most beautiful section of Washington. I obviously wasn’t uncomfortable enough.

Waking up at our bivvy spot, Yang Yang Lakes and Heather Ledges covered in fog

Alarms went off at 5am. JT was ready to go. Absolutely not, I said. I was finally warm ish and I knew I could get back to sleep and I was going to savor my hour. Sunrise was gorgeous, clouds were spilling over the notches into the basins around us, and we were on top of it all. I dozed for another hour or so until the sun hit us, and finally got moving. We were above the clouds, and descended into whiteout.

I was relieved we had made it to the col. Waking up at Heather Meadows in the fog would have been demoralizing, cold, wet, brutal. Instead we woke up dry and above the clouds, enough for me to mentally rally. I stuffed my feet back in my boots. Ouch. JT didn’t even take off his boots because he was worried his feet were too swollen to get them back on. Why do we do this? JT had peach rings for breakfast and I had Whole Foods chocolate truffles and a fresh baked Whole Foods peanut butter cookie and a few bites of a Sledgehammer sandwich which was also from Whole Foods. JT had the breakfast of champions. All I needed was a girly Starbucks drink to complete my Basic Bitch Breakfast.

View from the bivvy spot the previous day

We roped up and started across the glacier. Up and over the crevasses this time, no sidehilling, give my poor ankles a break. Glaciers are annoying to navigate in fog, but we got a few glimpses since we were at the top of the clouds. We met the rocks, and we went back across the endless talus fields, back across red ledges, more talus fields, finally to Kool Aid Lake. We got off track many times between the lake and Cache Col. Endless talus fields in fog all look the same. At Cache Col we vaguely knew the route back to the notch that would drop us onto the slopes above Cascade Pass.

We were too high at first, sticking to the cliffs along the side for easy navigation. But the route itself was a few hundred feet lower. There were minimal crevasses for us to use as landmarks. There were only two places where we could gain the notch, and the rest would cliff out.

JT on the Cache Glacier. Phenomenal views. Bet you’re glad you can see the full version of the pic so you can see all the details.

We took out the GPS. We looked up photos we had taken on the way up. We only had a few dozen feet of visibility, so we tried to match waterfalls, red streaks in rock, interesting shaped patches of snow stuck in the rocks, just to figure out where we were. I tend to get analysis paralysis when there are too many options, where I take forever to make a decision and second guess everything. We tried to just keep making decisions as efficiently as possible. It started to rain. I put on my Goretex layer. “I really want to be off this glacier by dark,” JT said. Shit, has the bar dropped that low? Knowing you have a bivvy in moderate weather is great. Surprise night #2 bivvy in rain and fog… that would suck. Finally I went out on a limb and crossed to a new patch of snow, where we found what looked like very old footprints. They led me to a few nice steps of heather ledges, which dropped me off at one of the two notches. Not the one we had come up, but one that would go nonetheless. We dropped down to the talus and snowfields, and the fog blew through for a hot minute. Cascade Pass! So close yet so far.

Quick reminder of why we do this. Gunsight and Old Guard anyone??

We continued down below the snowfields to try and follow the bootpath that we had seen the two runners take the previous morning. It still wasn’t pleasant, but it was a hell of a lot easier than steep sidehilling on snow, especially with my bloody bruised ankles. Shitty. We saw the huge rocks and hikers below at the pass, so far beneath us. Getting back to the pass was amazing. I was drenched from fighting through wet rainy shrubs with clumps of goat hair stuck to my legs. Luckily, the hikers had left the pass, so no one was there to laugh at how ridiculous I looked as I limped like a 90 year old down the trail. Great, all we have left is 4 miles and 36 switchbacks.

Halfway!

The trail down was exactly what you’d expect. Tedious, endless, tiring. Stupidly inclined. I joked with JT that we should count all the switchbacks. Except I was totally serious. I needed something to focus on. JT got ahead of me. At one point someone started writing the number of the switchback at each corner. I thought it was JT and I was thrilled when I saw the first one. It gave me something to look forward to. Switchback #14, that’s 7/18ths of the way there, which is 38.9% of the way there, and switchback 15 is next. Switchback 15, that shares the common denominators 3 and 5 and no wait just 3 with the total 36 so 15/36 can be reduced to 5/12 which is 42% of the way there. And 18 will be halfway and then you can check the GPS and see how much mileage you have left! Woohoo, a treat!

Yeah, I was tired. At the second to last switchback you get a great view of the parking lot. Why didn’t anyone put fucking stairs there?! I was pissed. Seriously just make it like Paradise and put in some steps it isn’t that hard. I yelled whoop WHOOOP to JT who didn’t hear me and then speed hobbled the rest of the way to the car where I stepped out of the woods laughing at what we had just done and how shattered I was. Without good reason! The terrain was annoying but nothing too difficult, just lots of ups and down and long days and mental strain getting back through whiteout. I think it was just the wet feet that had screwed me over, which was an issue only a few miles in so I had no escape.

Yay!! I swear I felt more triumphant than I look. I was disappointed by my summit cookie.

I had left three bites of a sandwich in the car and it was amazing. My feet were almost too swollen for my flip flops. I was glad JT drove because my granny driving would not have made it down Cascade River Road. We went back to Calvin’s where he and Quinn and Haley were enjoying his hot tub. 1) I was far too offensively disgusting for a hot tub 2) A hot tub probably would have been brutally painful on my stubby torn feet. But it was a nice thought. Rain check?

Mt. Shuksan via the Sulphide Glacier

Posted on July 31, 2016 by evejakubowski

Baker and part of the ridge above the clouds

The forecast called for Mostly Sunny. Every forecast showed sunshine. You know how that goes, usually it turns out to be mostly sunny. Psych! Not this trip. A last minute plan for Shuksan as a day trip came to fruition when I realized it was Angie’s last weekend in the PNW and we had to do something. We had not yet gone on a glaciated climb since she always had to be back in Seattle by a reasonable hour on Sundays to drive back to Ashford. We had always been limited to shorter trips. Here was our chance, and with Haley and Angie I knew we’d have a kick ass girls team. And with a forecast of mostly sunny, what could go wrong? I was in the mood for some incredible sweeping views of the North Cascades. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about Shuksan. Sulphide is huge bang for your buck, Fisher Chimneys is the most enjoyable route I’ve climbed up anything out here (small sample size, to be fair), Price Glacier and North Face will hopefully happen sometime in the next year. So many routes, such great views, very alpine feel. But Shuksan’s a tease, and doesn’t return my unrequited love. Just strings me along with false promises and narrow weather windows and glimpses of mind blowing views.

Distance: 14.4 miles round trip
Elevation: 6500ft gain (9127ft highest point)
Weather: Foggy and 40’s, sunny and 60’s
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: A majestic, foot-caught-on-branch-land-face-down-in-mud-and-skid-a-few-feet beauty. So you could say yes.

A well camouflaged toad on the trail

We camped at the trailhead, where Angie and Haley ended up sleeping in my car while I bivvied on the ground. Three people in the car is a lot of people, and I could not be bothered to share. “Does not play well with others,” I snarkily announced as my head hit the pillow I had made from rolled-up extra sleeping bag. At one point it started drizzling and I laughed and rolled my eyes. The proud owner of the car had been relegated to the gravel parking lot, while the plebs slept inside it. Luckily the rain didn’t last, and my bivvy was wonderfully cozy.

Foxglove!

I woke up to my alarm at 3am. Usually I’m up before it, but I was completely unconscious. The best night (okay, the best two hours) of sleep I’ve ever had. But I dragged myself out of my bivvy and packed. No stars in the sky, just thick fog everywhere. Whatever, mostly sunny forecast, it’ll burn off when the sun rises. I was excited to see how my camelback bladder did in my pack. I always just carried water bottles, but I was experimenting. I reached for the bladder I had filled up at home and – wait a sec, where the fuck is the water? The bag was empty. My trunk was dry. The bag was dry. I definitely filled it up, Angie had watched me. It was a total mystery. Ghost water. I though of Kacie, who I teased relentlessly when she forgot her water on Baring. Now I understand. She had the ghost water. Well, I refilled it with the water I had in my trunk and we started out.

The bright green crampons look great with my blue & pink runners

I was wearing my brand new trail runners, finally getting the update to my trusty old Saucony Peregrines, which (I am almost ashamed to admit) are nearly 3 years old with well over a thousand miles on them through the Cascades, through Wisconsin, through Montana, through Moab, and I’m sure some extra epic trails I’m forgetting. There were toads everywhere, and huge flowers (foxglove?) and salmonberries!! So many salmonberries. But we figured we’d get them on the way down. We hit the ridge and broke out of the trees. Baker was completely obscured, but clouds seemed to be clearing up since there were patches of blue sky. Snow started at the notch (around 5200ft), and Angie and Haley switched to boots. I went to take a drink from my water hose for the first time and – wait, where the fuck is the water?? AGAIN?! It had disappeared. My pack wasn’t wet. My back wasn’t wet. If it had all leaked out of the hose (which was resting against my leg) my side would be soaked. This shit made no sense. Sneaky ass ghost water, dehydrating unsuspecting climbers all across America.

We came up upon the first campsite we had seen all morning, which we thought was IMG. Angie works for IMG, and we were going to say hi until we realized duh, everyone’s asleep, it’s 6:30am. We carried on our merry way, and stopped to refill water (or in my case, see if I could fight the magical disappearing qualities of my bladder). I made Angie and Haley top theirs off too since there was a chance I’d need some if my bladder kept emptying its damn ghost water.

“Mostly Sunny” my ass

We found low camp next, which housed a Mountain Madness team and I believe a group with the Mountaineers. Again, we didn’t chat much, as everyone was asleep besides two people having coffee. And we had work to do. I took a sip of my water. Which was still there.

At this point, visibility was around 30ft, and with a mellow, mostly featureless glacier (very few open crevasses), navigation is like 30% difficult and 70% boring. We aimed for high camp, only to find… nothing. There’s a toilet up there somewhere, but we didn’t exactly miss out on the views from that lovely throne with all of the fog. Remind me to mark a waypoint there next time. We roped up and stayed left near the ridge since that was the route we were familiar with from last year, and ridges make for easy navigation. It meant a few unnecessary steep slopes, but they were short. Kicking steps in trail runners turned out to be difficult, but I was anchoring the rope, so I had Angie and Haley both kicking steps in front of me. Staircases, woohoo!

Holy shit! Mostly sunny!

Soon enough we were on a ridge that I remembered from Labor Day weekend last year, when we had to descend Sulphide in similar conditions. We took a quick break there for snacks, and as we stood up, the clouds started to clear. I couldn’t form words. “GO! GO go KEEP GOING” I was waving my arms until Haley and Angie turned around and realized what was happening. We caught glimpses of the summit pyramid and Baker, and as we got higher and higher it got clearer and clearer until we were officially above the clouds surrounded by sunshine and blue skies. Blue skies are nice. Partly cloudy is better. Above the clouds is second best. And best, is being above the cotton candy clouds, but below those high, wispy cirrus clouds. Well after all that fog, I’ll settle for second best. Now if only a few other peaks would poke up above the sea of clouds.

Baker and part of the ridge above the clouds

Clouds playing along the arm

We were quick getting to the summit pyramid, despite my fifteen micro stops. “Guys wait I need sunscreen.” “Guys wait can I borrow someone’s chapstick with SPF?” “Guys wait my shoe is untied.” “Guys hold up a sec I need to delayer.” “GUYSIDROPPEDMYGLOVESSORRYWAIT” “Hahaha… guys… sorry but one more stop I dropped a coil.” I’m usually more organized, I swear. At least I still had my water, which was a record for the day. It hadn’t disappeared yet.

Angie coming up the scramble

We unroped at the patch of rocks at the base of the scramble. We kept crampons and ice axes for the next 50 or so vertical feet until we were officially on rock only, and stashed them at the base of the central gully. We followed the gully fairly well (a few hesitations, a few sketchy off route moves while scouting) until the top, where we went too far to the right. A big part of scrambling and rock climbing in general is trusting your feet, and I did not trust my feet in those trail runners. Which isn’t the shoes’ fault, I just had to get used to them. I mean shit I watched my friend climb a pillar at Ruby Beach in flip flops. You can’t always blame footwear, sometimes it’s just in your head.

Angie on the ridge

Anyway, we ended up on the SE ridge for the last maybe 50 vertical feet, but at that point there are no technical moves left (the rest of the ridge is 5.6ish). One slabby move sketched me out until Angie pointed out that it’s way easier than downclimbing, and she was totally right. As soon as I realized my shoes would in fact stick to the rock it was quick moving, and before I knew it, we were standing on the summit.

Summit quilt!

We snapped pictures, destroyed Haley’s like 5lbs of M&Ms (she did most of the work), I took 50 pictures of my trail runners (should have left the crampons on) and eventually we started down as the clouds were rising. Downclimbing the gully was a painstaking affair. We took a slightly different route down, which was easier than our route up but downclimbing 4th class is a bitch. Summitpost claims it’s 3rd class, I don’t think that’s true. Unless we missed a blatant gully that would have been way easier.

Haley on the downclimb

I can see why everyone prefers to rappel. Step by step, we inched down. The cap came off my sunscreen, spattering the rocks with lotion. I tried to carry it down balancing it in my hand but eventually had to give up, my hands were too necessary on some of those moves. I basically needed handholds any time I had to face inward to downclimb, which again is really more mental than anything. Those trail runners did fine. Sure it was tough edging on footholds whereas the Nepal Evos can edge on anything, but they still stuck to all of the slabby moves, and I didn’t actually lose footing once (which could have been because I was being ultra conservative with every single move).

We grabbed our axes and crampons, roped up, and descended back into the clouds. So much for “mostly sunny.” We saw another party coming up just below the summit pyramid. I yelled to Haley and Angie, “Don’t trip now!” We pass the group, say our hellos and good lucks, and Haley immediately wiped out. Day = made.

Back at low camp we unroped, didn’t recognize anyone, and carried on to what we assumed was the IMG camp (the Eureka tents are kind of a giveaway). Angie said hi to her coworker, we told everyone it was sunny and glorious above 7200ft, and made our way back to the notch.

Back into the fog

We took a more extended break along the ridge, and pounded downhill where we each had a muddy wipeout (or in my case, two). We devoured salmonberries left and right, leaving none for the parties behind us or the parties coming up or the local bear population. Suckers. I always thought the yellow salmonberries were unripe, but it turns out they’re just a different species! They’re edible too, and taste even better than the red ones.

We were back at the car by 6pm, where my feet were thrilled to be relieved of trail runner duty and assigned to flip flops. I forgot that glacier travel means snow, which will make your feet cold and wet, and that means blisters and pruning and general discomfort (and stink). Yuck. And the crampons had rubbed my ankles raw, which was less than pleasing. Though interestingly, the aches and pains and blisters and wounds on my ankles and feet were no different from what mountaineering boots give them. So maybe my feet are the problem, not the footwear. And my water was still in my pack. No more ghosts.

Baker again

We piled back into the car. Angie fell asleep right away, snoring like a train. I was jealous, but not too tired just yet. Too busy daydreaming about mac n cheese and the chicken bacon ranch sandwich I had in the car. Delicious. We dropped Haley off, and Angie and I headed back to Seattle, where she somehow dragged herself off the couch at 3am AGAIN to get back to Ashford. I did not leave my bed. But in case you’re curious, yes, the water in my camelback had disappeared again when I woke up. 2L of water in plastic doesn’t just evaporate. Bastards, those H2O molecules.

Fresh new kicks. Should have left the crampons on for the picture.

Cutthroat Peak: Why the 10 Essentials are a Thing

Posted on June 22, 2016 by evejakubowski

Tony, Calvin, Andrea, and Quinn

Yeah, I often cut corners with the essentials, you all know that. But here’s a trip that slapped me in the face and called me an idiot in the most pleasant, enjoyable way possible. My Polish heritage shone bright and strong on this one. From the beginning (for me, at least) it was already a struggle. Saturday morning arrived, and I was crabby. I know, I know, that’s how most of my favorite climbs start. But this was more of a frantic, active crabby than a resigned-to-my-fate crabby. My flight back from San Diego had landed late Friday night. I was not packed. I had done no research besides knowing we were taking te West Ridge, which at its best is a 5.7. I did not know where my slings were, where my quick draws were, where my cams were. How many slings were in my closet? Were most of them in the trunk? Do I need to poach from my pickets? How many biners do you still have? WHY AREN’T ANY OF THESE COLOR COORDINATED? I was a disaster. I considered bailing. No don’t be a flake. I left late, despite waking up at 5am. I hit traffic. I considered bailing again. Traffic cleared. Woo! I hit more traffic. Everyone else was at a bakery in Concrete and I was stuck behind a semi in Marysville. I was definitely bailing. I had forgotten my camera. I messaged Calvin asking how much I’d fuck up rope teams if I bailed. The answer? “A lot.” Suck it up, buttercup.

Cutthroat Peak from the highway

Well, despite the entire world yelling at me not to go, I made it to the bakery, had an amazing scramble for breakfast/lunch (….brunch), grabbed a cinnamon roll for the road, hopped in Tony’s car, and we were on our way after a brief stop at the ranger station. Which you should stop at, because the rangers are super chill with tons of knowledge and they have this really cool 3d topo map you can geek out over for hours, if you aren’t shoo-ed out by your friends.

Crux of the approach – building a bridge

We get to the trailhead and who’d have guessed, the peaks were all out in full view! And the weather was only supposed to get better. We were in luck. We started up the approach. I almost asked how the approach would be on the way there, and then I remembered Calvin abhors approaches (“hate” doesn’t cut it) so the approach must be short and awesome. And it was! We were at camp in what felt like an hour. It was more like 90 minutes, but after the past few trips, it passed in the blink of an eye.

Here’s where we’re going to start checking our 10 essentials off the list. We’ll be using REI’s updated 10 essentials since the original list is a bit archaic. Let’s see what Team Cutthroat brought.

Andrea not sharing her Shepherd’s pie

We set up our tents on what flat ground we could find, and started dinner. I had nearly brought a bivvy because it was so clear out and weather was supposed to improve (it was mid June!), but had forgotten mine when I hopped into Tony’s car. Andrea refused to share her shepherd’s pie. JT had sour patch watermelons for dinner. I, shockingly, was not hungry, so I made hot chocolate and sipped that while soaking in the views and the roiling clouds. The ignition on Tony’s stove wouldn’t work, and I was so excited to save the day with my lighter when someone else stole my thunder and offered their lighter. Essential #1: firestarter. Stove doesn’t count.

Snow sticking? Time for bed! (Photo credit: Andrea)

Within an hour, the views we had were gone, it was windy, and it was snowing in various directions. Essential #2: Shelter. Bivvy would have been okay, but damn was I happy to have a four season tent. In mid June. I bailed on the group and went to hang out in my sleeping bag. After maybe an hour I heard JT say “hey is anyone bored enough to go for a hike?” Yes, I was probably bored enough, but I had also just regained circulation in my toes and fingers and was not about to head back into the snow after getting dry and cozy. Can we just talk about hiking instead of actually hiking? Sorry guys, I’m gonna be a princess on this one.

Marmot scouting out the tasty snacks in my tent (photo credit Tony)

I dozed on and off for 12 hours, wondering whether the wind and snow would stop. I eventually got up around 7am and unzipped my tent to reveal blue skies, sunshine, and several inches of fresh (did I mention it was mid-June) snow. And Tony, impatiently running around camp.

We made a quick breakfast. I tried Andrea’s dehydrated scramble and nearly vomited, devoured my cinnamon bun instead, and still spent the next 20 minutes fighting off nausea because it was way too much straight sugar at 7am. We weren’t sure how conditions would be, so over coffee and tea we debated whether we’d need crampons, gloves, would it be half snow half rock, will it be wet from snowmelt. I’ve never led a climb in less than stellar conditions, so I was anxious about potentially having to wear gloves and deal with wet rock. But I need practice, and I figured we’d be back down by early afternoon, so it wouldn’t be that long to be uncomfortable. And we had a solid 8 hours of leeway to fuck up before the sun set. Yeah, I drastically underestimated that.

Views across the highway

Cutthroat over our tents

We started up towards the ridge, warming up with some nice 3rd class scrambling. And a move that was supposedly 5th class, but honestly everything from 3rd class to like 5.6ish feels the same to me. If I tell you what a scramble is rated it’s because I read it somewhere. I’m not good at climbing, just oblivious. We stashed our gear at the base of the first pitch, only bringing bare necessities. Andrea and I were one rope team, and she carried the bag. Water, food…. is that all we brought? That might be all we brought. That and our glowing personalities.

JT heading up the first pitch

Everyone switched to rock shoes. Except me, because ~~I am dumb~~ I had never done an alpine climb in rock shoes before, and it literally did not occur to me to use anything besides my Nepal Evos. So that’s what I had. Calvin lent his rock shoes to Tony and wore mountaineering boots himself, so at least there were two of us. I spent the next 18 hours (that’s not a typo, 18 hours) hearing how much better rock shoes are.

JT and Bish started up the first pitch. Calvin was managing two ropes and bringing Tony and Quinn up behind him and went up a slightly different way. I started up JT’s route so we could climb at the same time. Choss city, baby. I always find the first pitch awkward. It’s like warming up swimming, I never remember how it’s supposed to feel and I’m uncoordinated and slow. I got a mediocre cam in followed by another mediocre cam, and grabbed a large handhold only to hear the entire thing creak as I put my weight on it, so I immediately bailed and went to climb a corner crack instead. Yuck. I don’t care how easy rock shoes might be, those Evos can edge on anything.

My turn to head up (photo credit Tony)

I clipped into Calvin’s anchor and belayed Andrea up, who kind of alternated with Quinn and Tony. Andrea floated up to me (Andrea I’m gonna tell you right now I do proofread but I keep accidentally typing “Andrew” so if you see that anywhere I AM SO SORRY) and we waited for Quinn and Tony to reach us. JT and Bish were already on the next pitch. My nose was already getting sunburned. Essential #3: sun protection. Don’t be Rudolph.

Tony, Andrea, and Quinn, with my rope and Calvin’s two ropes

This continued for the next few pitches until we decided to just go ahead of Calvin’s group, because hauling two people up on two individual ropes is not very efficient and I’m impatient. Andrea and I quickly caught up to JT after an easy pitch to the ridge and a light ridge scramble. We protected the ridge, though I will admit I had one or two half assed anchors (I doubt Andrea was reassured by the shrub tiny tree I tossed a sling around like 15ft from where I set up my belay station). The main reason we caught up to JT and Bish was that they were stumped by the fifth or so pitch. We weren’t sure where to go. We had an idea, but figured it was best to wait for Calvin & co, so we sat around for an hour or so while they made their way over to us. Essential #4: Map and Navigation tools. Did we know where we were, and could we get down safely? Yeah, but I mean, I’m impatient and I wanted to go up. Going up requires navigation too.

Starting up the milk jugs (photo credit Tony)

I usually do so much research before climbs, but I had done zero for this one, and route finding was getting less obvious off the ridge. Calvin had a photo of the exact section. We eventually found our way to the next pitch, which JT stared at for 10 minutes, with every minute letting my mind question my abilities more and more. And then Calvin caught up. Do we climb the juggy part (eventually dubbed “milk jug”) on the left, or the crack on the right? Calvin and JT discussed it while I sat there staring into the distance losing confidence by the second. Finally JT got started up. He and Bish didn’t totally make it look easy, and I was sitting there like okay if their muscles were shaking on these moves, I’m fucked. This was only my second climb of the season, and Dorado Needle barely counts. But we’re here, so fuck it, let’s see what happens. Essential #4.5: ~~A huge pair of balls~~ Confidence and/or Ignorance.

Bish belaying JT up the chimney

JT left his gear so I wouldn’t have to waste time bothering with placement. Besides the stopper that had slid out of its place once he got above it. I placed another stopper, hesitated before the move, heard Calvin saying something behind me, and finally said fuck it and started up. And turned around at the top to see my stopper had popped out just like JT’s. Great. Luckily the moves weren’t nearly as bad as I had thought they’d be. I anchored to a less than stellar horn along the ledge that JT had slung, and Calvin came up next, making some comment about placing a better stopper. Yeah, his fell out two minutes later too. That sneaky crack.

Calvin made it up to me, and I belayed Andrea up. JT was halfway up the chimney, and I could hear him. A series of grunts and scraping, followed by “I hate chimneys.” But he did well, and soon enough Bish was on his way up behind JT. Once Bish was out of sight, I started up with Andrea belaying me and Calvin peeking around the corner. Which was helpful, because eventually I got stumped hanging beneath a chockstone until Calvin gave away the secret – put your foot against the wall behind you. Duh.

Tony enjoying the views

Up and over the chockstone and onto some gravelly scree, where I finally slipped and started sliding. I managed to catch myself before the rope did (I got complacent, don’t get complacent) but unfortunately I kicked a football size rock onto Andrea. Who took it like a champ and sacrificed her wrist to keep me on belay! I felt terrible about it but couldn’t help but think that if I had kept sliding and hadn’t caught myself before the chimney, that belay would have been pretty damn important. We duct taped her wrist for stability, luckily no blood to worry about. Essential #5: First aid.

The next two pitches were straightforward but trickier than I expected. My amateur opinion is that there were one or two more 5.6ish moves between the chimney and the top. And so, so much rope drag. Extend your protection, guys. Hauling rope is brutal with that much rope drag. I had to get creative with pro, since JT had some of my gear and much had been left behind for Calvin’s team. I had Andrea clean the second to last pitch so I’d have some left for the final pitch.

Summit!

We finally got to the step below the summit. Which I was told was a scramble, but looking at it (maybe I took a bad route), I wasn’t positive I could make the move without falling backwards (which would be unpleasant when leading), and I had JT throw me a loop of his rope. It was probably all mental because naturally as soon as I was on his rope the move was a piece of cake. Again, Essential #4.5. I whipped out my phone to take a summit pic, aaaaaand… my phone died.

I cried a little on the inside and belayed Andrea up. She enjoyed a hilarious summit pee (sorry Bish and JT) and we had summit chocolate and took summit photos. I took like 11 selfies on JT’s camera. Eventually it got cold and I realized how late it was. 7pm. Also I was out of snacks. Essential #6: Extra food. Well it shouldn’t take more than 2 hours to rap down right? JT started setting up his rappel as Calvin & co made it up to the summit. I was getting impatient and briefly celebrated them before getting annoyed. Blatantly annoyed. Poor Tony. He’s seen me snap a few times now. No I don’t want to take 20 more photos, it’s time to go down. I suggested stacking rappels on one rope to be faster, and everyone agreed. JT dropped down the first rap, followed by Bish. I was ready to get Andrea all set up when Calvin decided he’d teach Tony, Quinn, and Andrea how to rappel, and I could just go off with JT and Bish, which was music to my cranky impatient ears. We’d go down and figure out the route, which would make it easy for the other four to follow us.

One of my favorite pics of me ever taken. (Photo credit Andrea)

My other favorite picture. Rappelling always makes bad ass pictures. Sunset just helps. (Photo credit Tony)

Tony snapped a sweet picture of me rappelling which made me a little happier. I dropped down to join Bish and JT and we pulled the rope and set up the next rappel. It was a race to see how far we could get before the sun set. It was already tough enough to figure out where to go. I’m convinced we did not take the best rap route, but we were following obvious slings and rap stations for the first few, so it had clearly been done.

Bish and JT only had fleece sweaters over t shirts. I at least had a puffy. None of us had headlamps. Andrea had my water, Bish and JT were out and Bish’s extra water bottle was at our gear stash below. I recall looking at the sun setting over the peaks and seeing it halfway below the horizon and thinking wow, it’s gorgeous, but we might be fucked. Essential #7: Hydration.

First I thought “It’s gorgeous!” Then I thought “shit.” (photo credit Tony)

The first hour after sunset is still light, and we carried on our merry way, getting colder every minute. Eventually it was dark, and we couldn’t see rap stations below us. We got down to a gulley, scrambled a little further, followed a broad ledge around a corner that I was hoping would lead us to where we had left our gear. Nope, still a few hundred feet up. Shit. But wait is that a rap station?? By that tree? I couldn’t tell until I was like five feet away. Yes!! Old slings! YES! JT caught up to me and we took stock of the situation. Was there another ledge below us? Two ledges? Could we even cross the snow if we got down to it? “I’m waiting for headlamps” JT declared. “You wanna lead that?” I laughed, or tried to. “Nah, looks like we’re waiting!” “Well, I’m going to go huddle with Bish to stay warm, wanna join?” It’s 1am, it’s pitch black, we’re fucking freezing, and we have no headlamps. Or water, or snacks, or layers. Yeah, I’ll come snuggle with you guys. And you know what? To everyone who told me how much better rock shoes would be, ask me how warm my feet were. Well, not warm. Ask me how not freezing cold my feet were. Essential #8: Illumination. We wouldn’t have had to wait over an hour if we had brought headlamps, and we’d have been moving a hell of a lot faster.

Group huddle. Damn close to a shiver bivvy (photo credit Andrea)

That’s when I realized just how fucking cold JT and Bish must be. Essential #9: Insulation. We were all shivering, but they had basically no layers, I at least had a light puffy I had worn all day and mountaineering boots. So we huddled. For ages. And ages. It actually helped. Every time we turned around it looked like the other four had made zero progress. We watched their headlamps slowly descend. Finally they were on the broad scree ledge, and made their way to us. We got Tony involved in the group huddle and I felt tolerably warm for the first time in a while. I have no idea who said what, but I remember someone making me laugh (more of a soft giggle because laughing was hard and loud and would make me breath more cold air) as we sat there shivering. I knew we had to head down but damn I was enjoying sitting there. The other benefit of illumination? You can pretend it’s the sun and feel warmer.

Calvin led the first rap down, and the rest of us followed. My harness was killing my hips. It took my breath away when I started each of those last two rappels, it hurt so badly. I debated not backing up the rappel because it’d be faster, but realized that being so tired, this was absolutely the time to keep using that prussik to be safe. There was one more rap to get down to snow below, where we could traverse over to the saddle where we had left our stuff that morning. Oh wait, I mean where we had left our stuff the previous day.

#tbt that one time it was light out. Hardy, Golden Horn, and Tower mountains.

Calvin rapped down first again. “FUCK!!!!” is the first thing we hear drifting up over the wall. Followed by several sentences comprised of 90% F bombs and 10% various incarnations of shit. Some of our group laughed. I looked at JT and said “that sounded like a real fuck, not like Calvin complaining about approaches.”That snow we were looking at? Our concerns had come true. The snow was firm and icy, and no one had brought crampons.

JT went down next. He and Calvin put their heads together. I was third. “Bring the ice tools!” “What tools? You mean the nut tools?” “Tonight, they’re ice tools!” I rapped down with our MVT (Most Valuable Tools) and met up with them. Kicking steps was actually feasible with mountaineering boots. JT holed up in a moat to belay Calvin, who started across the snow slope with a double belay because I totally misunderstood directions. I was told to tie a knot in the rope between JT and Calvin to be like an anchor, which I assumed meant belay. So I tossed a munter on my locker (I had dropped my ATC in the moat RIP ATC) and started belaying Calvin.

Here’s where the nut tools came in. Calvin was cutting handholds in the snow! Ha! It’s all about improvisation. The steps were solid enough for me, but the nut-tool-cracks were good for balance, and I can only imagine how this would have been in rock shoes. Like using your bare feet to walk across a steep icy slope. Even I’m not that masochistic. I think.

Remind me why we do this (photo credit Andrea)

Turns out JT meant knots to use as handholds. Whoops. Oh well. Calvin made it to the rocks on the other side and set up an anchor and I clipped into our little hand line (which ended up being easier than knots and holding it would have been) and repeated his steps, kicking them deeper and more frequent for the plebs in rock shoes behind us. I got to the other side and unclipped and waited with Calvin. Why the hell didn’t I bring a headlamp. I hate relying on other people and here I was waiting for light. Until I got impatient and said fuck it, I’m just going. I headed up to where our stuff was, whooped, and waited there for everyone. I tried to figure out what stuff belonged to everyone, but that’s tough in the dark.

The scramble down was easier than the scramble up. We dropped down quickly, and finally made it to scree that you could just plunge step down. We reached the snow, also icy, and Calvin and I slid down on our hips half-self-arresting at the same time. I was ecstatic, so close to camp and enjoying the slide down ice, until we heard “ROCK!!!!” from above us, and looked up to see a few football sized rocks tumbling towards us. Calvin miraculously ran to the side of the slope. I’m uncoordinated and awkwardly bear-crawled-with-an-axe to the side. Rocks dodged. And yes, between the harness misery and the arrest-slide I did wake up covered in bruises the next morning. As in Tuesday morning. Because the sun was rising, and it was Monday.

Sunrise on Monday (photo credit Tony)

I went to grab water from the stream. Nectar of the Gods. Tony said he was going to make coffee. I said fuck no, you will not make coffee, I have to get to work and you are my ride. JT and Bish packed up and left in like 10 minutes, while I paced around bitching about it until everyone else was packed up. If I turn bitchy just put all the group shit on my pack when I’m like that and I’ll a) be slower and b) probably stop bitching because I’ll be too busy being proud of what I’m carrying.

Andrea took off on the way down. I kept stopping for water and layer adjustments. Calvin and Quinn and Tony were somewhere above us. We got to the forest and did a pretty good job of crossing a questionable stream on an even more questionable log. We lost the trail in snow but found it five minutes later and soon enough we were back at the road waiting for the boys. You might notice I never used the 10th essential, which is a repair kit. The only thing that needed repairing was my pride.

We changed into fresh ish clothes (new pair of underwear = whole new day) and got water from the stream across the road. I apologized again for kicking that rock down on Andrea’s arm and she once again lit up with pride that she had held the belay. We definitely heard an f bomb float out of the woods, and laughed. They must be getting close.

Black Peak in the center

The four of them finally popped out of the woods and we straightened out all of our gear. Back to civilization and straight to work! 18 hours of straight hiking and climbing. A blizzard, a bluebird day, killer trad lead practice for yours truly, a summit, a moonrise, a sunset, a moonset, a time warp because that’s what happens when it’s pitch black and you’re moving, and a sunrise. And you know what? There’s something to be said for watching the sun set from the top of a mountain, moving through the dark, and then seeing it rise as if no time had passed. I was totally into it.

Except you should always bring your 10 essentials.

Oh, did I mention this was Quinn and Tony’s first rock climb?

*My boss was less into it. I showed up to a chorus of “holy shit, why are you a zombie, what happened, is everyone okay” as I blindly attempted to get work done while on-and-off dozing in my chair and hallucinating doing something in Excel only to jerk awake and realize I was in fact clicking blank space on my desktop or running reports in one of our programs. The exception was my coworker Roger, who said “Damn you look beat, must have been an awesome weekend!!!” Now that’s the attitude to have. There’s no such thing as failure.

Eldorado Peak & Dorado Needle

Posted on June 14, 2016 by evejakubowski

Tiny skiiers traversing below Mix Up Peak

It was 3:05am. “Guys. We’re fifteen minutes in and so far I’ve used a slug as a belay and I dropped my oatmeal in the river.” That was Kacie, grumbling already after we had schwacked across the maze of logs that drops you off at the beginning of the Eldorado approach. I didn’t drop my oatmeal or utilize the local slug population, but I was already wondering if lugging these stupid skis would be worth it. I had pictured the trip being “light and fast” and instead here I was with probably 50lbs on my back if you include the rope, skis, and ski boots. The only “light and fast” aspect was that eventually the skis might be on my feet,and I brought a bivvy instead of a tent, which saved me 2lbs. Except then I filled those 2lbs with crackers and a variety of cheeses and chocolates that I never got around to eating. So “light and fast” ended up being “slow and heavy and uncoordinated and slightly off kilter,” but I mean whatever, we’d make it work. Climbed 6/4-6/5, 2016.

Rob’s team above Moraine Lake

Distance: I do not know
Elevation: 6668 to the top of Eldorado (8868ft), then lose 1600ft and regain 1200 more going up Dorado Needle (8440ft)
Weather: 40’s in the night, 80’s and sunny in the day. Brutal.
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: Shit, I don’t remember! Probably yes.

First light on Johannesburg

Like I said, we got started around 2:30am. That meant a 3 hour nap between arriving at the trailhead and moving, which you’d think I’d be used to by now. I don’t think you get good at it, you just get better at resigning yourself to discomfort and a lack of sleep. I whined and hoped for a 3am wake up, but these guys are relentless. 2:30 it is. John didn’t even sleep. Freakin’ animal.

The first river crossing is exactly what you’d expect to get from walking across slippery wet logs in the dark lit by KC’s spare headlamp because your batteries were assholes and decided to explode sometime in the night. We made it to the trailhead sign on the other side of the river, featuring directions to the trailhead from the highway (especially helpful when you’re already on the hike), a few more bushes, an overrun river sweeping away the hints of trail, and KC’s aptitude for early morning snarkiness. I’m convinced we never go the right way during the first quarter mile. I also never go the right way on the way back either, so maybe it’s just always more bushy than I expect. Regardless, after that quarter mile, the bushwack is over and you’re on a pretty well-traveled trail.

One of the many Logs of Sorrow (photo credit: Tony)

Rob dwarfed by Johannesburg

Well-traveled doesn’t mean pleasant. And pleasant depends what you’re into. It’s still a climber’s trail, featuring Logs of Sorrow (downed trees to crawl under) among other smaller obstacles such as roots, rocks, branches to snag your skis, trees to scoot (or fall) over. Then you reach the boulder field, and you think oh hell yes we’re out of the trees! Except the boulder field goes on forever. It’s honestly not so bad on the way up, it’s on the way down with the screeeeee of skis dragging along stone that really gets you. You think yes, I got off that rock perfectly, and then you pivot and thunk SKRIIIITCH there are the skis, not clear of the rock like you thought. But on the way up, it’s a nice break from forest. Johannesburg rose tall in the background, the sun came up, our speed picked up.

Johannesburg and Glacier Peak, three little climbers in the shade

We hit snow around 4500ft. John and I took the Scenic Route (a la Orizaba) once beyond the boulders and threw in some huge switchbacks up the basin trying to kill time letting the others catch up and finally said fuck it and went over to the notch. Rob was about 10 minutes behind us so we relaxed until he caught up and then dropped down the notch where we once again started the waiting game. Do we rope up with Rob (on foot) and leave Tony (skis) to rope up with Kacie and Steve? Do we leave Rob behind to be on a four person rope? Are we saintly enough to wait for everyone? Just as we were about to make a probably-not-saintly decision, Rob went over to check out the notch, and thank god, the rest of the group was coming. We got Tony on his skis and John led the way while I anchored our rope team and we left the foot team behind to figure out their own team.

Skinning across to Eldorado

We made decent time to the ice cliffs, which weren’t even recognizable compared to last summer. We skinned over them and quickly across the glacier, where Tony started to slow down as my energy practically exploded because I love everything and everyone and everything is great as soon as I’m on a glacier on a sunny day. Tony’s feet were bugging him and he wanted to switch socks, so we dropped him a few hundred feet from high camp. We got to camp, took off the ski boots, lounged around in the sun, and awaited everyone’s arrival. I grabbed John’s shovel ready to fulfill my destiny as the Patron Saint of Alpine Shits and dig out the composting toilet, only to discover… it was already melted out! Woohoo! No blue bags necessary, baby! That’s a luxurious glacier. The Four Seasons of glaciers.

the 5 star accomodations

Starting up to the summit

John fell asleep for the first time in what, 30 hours? I tanned and napped. We chatted with a few other climbing groups. We debated whether the rest of the group would want to summit today or would be tired and would want to wait for Sunday. The other three arrived. Tony said something to Kacie, who responded “You don’t know beef,” to which Tony, looking perplexed, said “what’s beef?” I jumped in with “Do you know what beef is?” and Kacie’s face lit up – “Beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep!” The Biggie quotes continued and we extended our break, Tony looking confused while Kacie and I cracked up and the climbing team next to us tried not to laugh out loud. We eventually settled on an afternoon summit of Eldorado. Awesome.

John and Tony on the ridge

The route from high camp is straightforward, especially so because there were like 40000000 people up there. Okay, not actually, I exaggerated by a factor of 100,000. It was more like 40. But 40 is more than that area should ever see in a 24 hours span, holy shit. Don’t tell any of them about the toilet. We’ve established I’m not a saint.

The route was clear up until the bergschrund which is opening up already. It was easy to pass on the left and the rocks were a simple route to avoid all potential obstacles, which were still mostly buried in snow. I was, of course, carrying my skis. I knew the top pitch would be too steep, and I knew I wasn’t good enough at skiing to dodge crevasses or bergschrunds. But Tony laughed and said “well you’ve brought them up every peak already, it’s kind of a thing now…” which was exactly the right thing to say. Okay fine, I’ll bring em, and just carry them down until it’s mellow enough to ski, as usual. Like I said, training weight.

Summit! (Photo Credit: Tony)

John led once again, which was great. Because breaking trail in slush sucks, and with him carrying a split board and Tony carrying skis ahead of me, almost none of my steps collapsed. We reached the knife ridge and started up it, and let me just say I am so glad we went in the afternoon and didn’t have to deal with the 40 other people on the ridge. It would have been a pain. We took turns heading up to the cornice which was the highest point thanks to snow. I didn’t actually stand on it – regardless of how stable it was, my chances of balancing on a cornice, tied into a rope, with skis on my back, were not convincing enough for me to risk it. So I settled for standing a foot or two below it and tapping it. You do you, folks, that was my choice.

Tony ripping turns off the cornice

We turned around and let Rob’s team go past us. I took the rope, and Tony and John set up their skis and split board (but not until they had urinated off the knife edge). I started to boot down to mellow terrain, and hear whooping and turn around to see John sawing off the stretch of cornice below them and knocking it down the slope. A dream come true. I whipped out the camera. Game time baby!

John after they quickly passed me

They quickly caught up to me and Tony agreed to take the rope so I’d have a chance of skiing (I can’t ski well with too much weight in my pack. I mean, I can’t ski well with a day pack, I basically can’t ski period with more than that). I snapped a few pictures of the two of them and carried on my merry way to below the bergschrund where I switched to ski boots and clicked into my skis. Let the pizza party begin.

Pizza party baby! (Photo Credit: Tony)

Team heading up at sunrise

So I hadn’t skied since Snowfield, which was an awesome, awesome day. I thought I’d be anxious getting back on them, but it was just the same old back seat skiing as usual, with scattered crevasses. Not many, luckily, so I was able to do a slow easy traversing pizza while (I can only imagine) the four or five bad ass skiiers on their way up chuckled and said “oh honey” as I laughed at myself, so happy to be skiing in front of Moraine Lake… if you can call what I was doing “skiing.”

John skinning at sunrise

Back at camp, I lay out the bivvy and cooked dinner. We were blatantly separate from the OSAT and Mountaineers and NOLS groups, who all had nicely pitched tents and organized kitchens and we had body bags that we tossed on the ground wherever we felt like sitting with bottles of whiskey. Tony decided they were ODAT, “One Drink at a Time.” Rob tested out a flat rock below me. “It’s not fit to my contours,” he muttered. I went to sleep giggling.

I was asleep before sunset, which is easy to do when sunset is at 9pm. I woke up for a few minutes to snap photos, and then periodically woke up throughout the night to see if we could see the northern lights, which we could not. Those forecasts are lies.

Me skinning up at sunrise (photo credit: John)

Some well-cut side stepping

At 4am, John and I woke up to hit Dorado Needle. We took our time getting moving, making tea and coffee, joking with the others who for some reason woke up as well. Even Kacie! We roped up on our skis and set off into sunrise towards the campsite I wish we had used on the col between McAllister and Inspiration glaciers.

There were a few short downhills that we skied, roped up. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Two not-so-great skiers, roped up, skiing downhill. What could go wrong?” John said on the first one. Luckily, nothing. I wish someone had been there to video it.

Looking at Dorado Needle from the col, you can see the two climbers breaking trail

At the col, after John wiped out 3 times and I could barely stop with my pizza while roped-up-skiing we decided it was too icy to drop to the glacier below. John put his board on his pack, and I planted my skis right where we stood. We joked about glissading down but continued to walk, which was a great choice because the slope dropped off into a crevasse/schrund ish feature that would have left us with very sore asses at best.

John ascending snow, Eldorado on the right

There was a team of two who had broken trail all the way up to the base of the rock climb, which was awesome for us. It meant quick, easy going. I led the charge this time with John anchoring, except the snow was softening and me with like a 15 lb pack didn’t pack down great steps for John carrying his split board, and as temperatures rose, our pace slowed as more and more steps collapsed. We reached the base of the summit block, and decided instead of following the first team’s route, we’d head up the snowy face.

Me leading the pitch past John’s spicy belay (Photo credit: John)

With a few small crevasses around us, John set up a belay just below the first feature and I led a pitch up to a patch of rocks. Except our twin 50 (aka 25m doubled over) wasn’t long enough to get there, so shit, I set up a deadman in the middle of the slope and belayed John up. John continued past, made it to the rocks, and hesitated. “How much rope do I have?” “Uhh.. 8 feet.” He had like 20 feet, I just suck at judging length (take note, boys). “Okay, how much do I have now?” “….. still 8 feet, but actually 8 feet this time! How does it look up there?” I couldn’t see him. “Not…. great…” was the response. Finding a solid anchor and belay spot was tricky. “What about now? Rope?” “5 feet!” followed by “That’s me! You are all out of rope!” and John set up what I could only imagine was a dicey anchor in a precarious position.

John nearing the ridge

I reached John quickly and laughed at the belay spot. “Climb like you aren’t roped at all, and get a sling around anything as soon as possible” was John’s advice. If we had had another 10 meters of rope, he’d have had a killer spot. I climbed on a nice combination of snow, jagged easy-to-grab rock, and ice, found a great thread, and started an upward traverse to the ridge where there was one random horn sticking up that I happily threw a sling around. Once on the ridge, set up a deadman and brought John up from his less than ideal belay spot.

Fun easy climbing, John leading the first rock pitch

The ridge was a piece of cake compared to the climb up the face. Very clear anchors, easy rock, and the views were absolutely incredible. John led the first pitch of rock up to the well l known finger traverse which was more exposed than it looks in photos. Don’t look down. The idea of au cheval-ing it freaked me out, so I led with the finger traverse on the way over, while John (climbing in snowboard boots!) went for the au-cheval move. He snuck past me and led the final pitch to the summit, and belayed me over to join. We snapped a few photos and turned around after just a few minutes, knowing the rest of the team was waiting for us.

Au cheval!

I’m an idiot, and after our first rappel down I realized my ice axe was still on the ridge. Mother fucker. There was another team going up after us, and I asked if they’d grab it. They said yes, but were so chill about everything I honestly couldn’t tell if they were serious. We waited down below while they simulclimbed, and they remembered my axe! Yay! So I only felt like a dumbass for 30 minutes instead of 8 hours.

Yours truly leading the finger traverse (Photo Credit: John)

John boarded down as I once again booted it. We met at the bottom of the slope for the climb back up to the col, which went by quickly. We strapped on our skins at the col, and started the traverse back. I was hoping to legitimately ski it, but there wasn’t enough downhill on the route I took, and I eventually gave up and put the skis back in walk mode. Bummer, man. We debated whether the rest of our group was still there. Would they wait? It was like 2pm. I laughed. I’d have left, but I’ve seen them concerned about other climbers before, so who knows maybe they waited. And if they did head down, we’d probably catch up to them.

The answer? They left. Tony left us a note saying he went down with the other “bassturds,” claiming it was less offensive spelling, but I prefer to think he just spelled it wrong. We took a quick break, packed up, and started down from camp.

Summit shot! Eldorado and a joke-glasses face in the clouds. I know you see it. (Photo credit: John)

John snowboarding the lower glacier

I pizza-ed the lower glacier as well, but had to take the skis off for an awkward stretch that gave you maybe 2ft between rocks on the right and a crevasse on the left that I had no doubt I’d miss (and even if I hit it, my huge fucking pizza wouldn’t fit). I’m also not great on uneven snow, and the slope was torn up by the mobs that had headed down before us. Either way, we got back to the notch which I’m sure I ascended in similar style to a beached whale.

From the notch, it felt like quick progress back down. The boulder field was a bitch, but that was to be expected. Maneuvering skis down that is a core and back workout. You need to turn around to downclimb things you could just hop off of, my boot was once again shredding my ankle, the heat was brutal, and I was almost out of water. But I get a little better at that boulder field every damn time I go through it. Fuck you, boulder field. Some day you’ll be covered in snow and I’ll just ski down you and laugh and flip you off (and probably immediately wipe out).

Baker, Shuksan, and the Pickets from Eldorado

Back in the forest, I hit my usual “this will never end” wall. But the forest is the last stretch and I was relieved to be in the shade, so I just zoned out and awaited what I call “Sam’s Tree.” Sam’s Tree is definitely not the halfway point, in the forest but I have mentally convinced myself that it is and I do not want to hear otherwise. It’s a downed tree that I tried to jump onto the first time we did Eldorado last summer, but I started falling backwards and Sam literally caught me and pushed me the rest of the way over so I didn’t fall flat on my back off a 3ft tree.

I think the Colonial group and Snowfield from Eldorado

Shortly after Sam’s Tree, I suddenly hear a variation of Tony’s rooster call combined with my “whoop WHOOP” response. That’s gotta be the other half of our group!! Wooo! We hustled down to them and I was laughing and went right up to Kacie, who said she knew I’d recognize the call! It’s official, Tony’s rooster sound and my whoop WHOOP have become a standard call and response.

Rob had hurt his knee, so Kacie was carrying much of his shit. Steve lifted my pack and looked impressed. Flattered but I didn’t want to think about it because lifting it up sucks ass. I finally shouldered it and we started the last haul to the cars.

The camp I wish we had made (from the McAllister Glacier)

We didn’t totally fuck up the last quarter mile. Part of the trail was beneath a river, but we managed to schwack over to the logs. Except the logs were nearly underwater too! Ahh! I was carrying 50 fucking lbs with skis and already have terrible balance before you factor in any of that. I used my poles and looked like a foal learning how to walk except suspended on a log across a raging river. But at least we were surrounded by delicious salmonberries. I saw the Most Perfect Salmonberry a few feet off one of the logs but couldn’t get to it. I told Kacie to have a look when she got to it. That’s why it was so perfect, because no one could reach it.

Another view of the camp I wish we had made (from the Inspiration Glacier)

But of course, as soon as we get across the last log, Kacie comes running up and opens her hand. “Look what I got for you! I kept it protected over the logs!!! Didn’t crush it!” It was truly the Most Perfect Salmonberry. I laughed and devoured it and we went into the bushes to get more handfuls and eventually made our way over to the cars, where Tony and Shawna (who had been leading an OSAT group) had a hammock set up between our bright yellow cars. That’s awesome.

We sorted out our gear, sorta. Someone ended up with John’s rope, I have Kacie’s headlamp, I probably have some of John’s carabiners, Surafel’s picket is in my trunk even though he ended up doing Sahale instead of Eldorado. But hopefully I’ll see them all again for another killer weekend. I left pretty quickly – my bra straps had cut bloody 2.5” long wounds into both of my shoulders, my face was leathery with sunburn, I had had a consistent nosebleed for the entire fucking day, carrying rope coils had chafed my neck until I figured out how to use my buff as a block, my lower back was bruised from my pack, my ankles were bleeding from my boots, and I had to meet my friend that night and try to not smell like shit and sweat and flake dried blood all over the place. My coworkers saw my feet in flip flops the next morning and were horrified, to my amusement, because my feet were actually pretty good ignoring the ankle wounds. Cause hey, it’s the price you pay for those views, right? Worth it every time.

Okay, our camp wasn’t so bad.

Trappers Peak

Posted on June 2, 2016 by evejakubowski

The mother effing Pickets

I’m convinced there should be an apostrophe in there somewhere (on some side of the S, I mean come on) but I can’t find a source even suggesting that it’s possessive, so “Trappers” it is.* Well, after I could not convince anyone to swap our Eldorado plans from Saturday to Monday (do I sound bitter?), I found myself on a snowy foggy gross slope at 5am Saturday followed by a gloriously mellow sunny hike on Monday. You can’t win em all but you can come damn close. Here’s a quick writeup for a quick hike!

Distance: 10 miles round trip
Elevation: 3900ft (highest point 5966ft)
Weather: 40’s and foggy, 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 (Road rough but passable – potholes and washboard but any car should be fine)
Did I Trip: I postholed and slid into a tree well but did this bad ass spin to make sure I landed feet first instead of letting my face meet a tree trunk (apparently it didn’t look as cool as it felt because no one was impressed)

Pyramid, Pinnacle, Bunyan’s Stump, Neve on the left, Snowfield on the right (hey we were just there a few weeks ago!)

So much green!

Trappers Peak is a hike that’s been on my list since I moved here, a list that rarely garners my attention now that I’m turning into a snobby climber. But since Angie needed to be back in Ashford by dinnertime, we needed a short easy hike, and that meant Trappers! Five star views with nothing technical. And since we weren’t doing anything Sunday evening when I tossed out this suggestion, we rounded up Kacie and Tony within a half hour and met at the trailhead for a fire, non alcoholic beer, hot pockets, and some hot wings cooked over the fire. You can guess who ate all the hot pockets (it was me) and most of the wings (also me) and a bag of oreos (me) and a whole roll of TimTams (you guessed it… NOPE it was Angie).

We woke up around 5:30am and started moving. I had a nightmare that the cloud level was just above our heads. I think I’ve established that I have boring dreams. Some people dream about flying or being heroes or climbing mountains and I dream about eating a sandwich, or washing the dishes and doing laundry, or going for a jog, or trying to complete excel spreadsheets except I’m drunk and all the formulas are wrong and oh god will my boss know I’m drunk at work?! That’s about as good as it gets. Well, to get to the point, I woke up, and my dream had come true. It was foggy. Dammit.

Bridge over (not very) troubled waters

We started up anyway. Kacie had the motors on and she and Angie took off while Tony and I hung back. The trail is obvious but a bit brushy right now thanks to spring growth. I believe it follows an old logging road for the first few miles. Flat, even, and straightforward. Finally it turns off the road, gets a little steeper, and you’re on a slightly more wild trail. For the record (because I’m fascinated by this shit), according to google maps, the road actually used to go all the way to the lakes. The trail takes a more direct route, but the road’s still on the map. I’ve been searching for an old map of logging & mining roads from the first half of the 20th century – haven’t found one yet, but it must exist somewhere.

Kacie’s hot Tinder date

Kacie’s single. I’d say get at her boys, but you have some stiff competition. The local Trappers Peak grouse has already staked out his claim. There’s a pecker joke in there somewhere. We heard some honking in the bushes, and it ran across the trail. Besides looking like it’d make a tasty dinner, this guy was a stunner. All fluffed up flaunting his stuff, with feathers that change color over his eyes (okay I swear they were red and then LATER THEY WERE ORANGE). We stood there snapping pics, and we all agreed the feathers changed color so I’m not crazy. We finally continued to hike, but this guy wouldn’t let Kacie go. Love at first sight, he tagged along beside her following us for a solid ten or fifteen minutes. Kacie fell behind, enamored with her new grouse friend. I mean she’s a Grice, and that’s basically the plural of grouse, right? So it kind of works.

First view of Trappers Peak

We hit snow around 4500ft and I swapped from trail runners to mountaineering boots (can you say overkill) and waited for Kacie. The trail was still easy to follow in the snow, and we made a great boot path. Soon enough we were at the split from the trail to the lakes and the trail to Trappers, and the fog was getting brighter. My hopes were up but I didn’t want to announce them and jinx it. We started off along the ridge to Trappers, and soon enough, we were suddenly out of the clouds. I ran through the trees to look out over the lakes and squealed, and called everyone else over. Tony was excited, Kacie was okay, and Angie was unimpressed. She’s been all over the world these past few months, so she’s a tougher sell than we are.

Short scramble section

The ridge was gorgeous. In and out of snow, some cornices left but some boot path totally melted out. Some small veggie belays, one or two scramble moves. I took photos in every direction. The Pickets were covered in fresh snow. Snowfield looked incredible. We got to the summit and Angie and KC set up on the rocks but I ran over to the true summit, knowing the Pickets were hanging out over there, wanting a better view of Triumph, desperately seeking the “top of the world” feeling I love so much but that’s tough when you’re on a 5966ft peak.

“Take one for my mom!”

The cool thing about being on a short peak with views is that you feel dwarfed. Triumph looked stunning, and the views of the glacier are awesome, especially if you go over to X peak. We took a solid hour break, maybe more, just soaking in the sun and the views and eating goldfish and chocolate-dipped brownies and laughing at how awake Kacie was even though it wasn’t even noon.

Tony on a beast of a cornice (don’t try this at home) with Mt. Triumph back right

Not a bad place for some snacks

Eventually we knew we had to turn around. The trip down went quickly. We made quick work of the ridge, and were soon back at the trail split. I wiped out due to a posthole and ended up in a tree well (to which Tony announced “DID YOU TRIP?!” but made a bad ass spin and landed on my feet rather than on my face, which had been the potential outcome when I first fell. Tony jogged down a snow slope, postholed, and fell flat on his face. One of the two behind me fell and yelped and I laughed.

Back along the ridge, more careful cornice navigation

Once we hit bare trail, we jogged most of the way down. I periodically stopped to wait for Kacie who is apparently not the biggest fan of running. I fucking love running, and as soon as the skis are off I’m going to be in trail running mode. Summer means speed and not slog!

Seriously, if you’re looking for a quick day with unbelievable views, Trappers Peak is the one. Camping up there would be insane! Night sky pics of the Pickets with stars in the background, I’m drooling.

If you look closely, you can see the three lakes (well, you can tell where they are)

*Well, it turns out the US Board of Geographic Names has an apostrophe eradication policy (WSJ). There are only five exceptions. They also transliterate freely, including shortening Bangkok’s traditional 189-character name to the 7 letter name we have now. I guess I’ll sacrifice the occasional possessive apostrophe if it means we can keep full names. Thank you for the info, Craig Romano!

Snowfield Peak in a Day

Posted on May 21, 2016 by evejakubowski

Traverse to Colonial Basin, Colonial on the left, Neve on the right

Colonial from low on the ridge

Snowfield in a Day, AKA RIP my Knee, Hat and Other Less Important But Equally Beloved Objects. Why one day? Because I’m impatient, and why not. What else did I lose? Read on to find out.

So the real reason is I had to be back in town Sunday to see a friend who was visiting. And Sunday’s weather was questionable. I have no idea why Sam suggested we do this in a day, but believe me, I was thrilled. If they had decided two days, I’d have been out, but one day? Hmm. JT as usual was “down for whatever,” and I was hesitant. Eventually Sam said “You and JT are two of the most fit people I know, if there’s a group that can do it, it’s us.” Well shit. You just brought my pride and fitness into the equation, and according to the Jakubowski clan commandments, that means I have to say yes. Anyone who knows me knows how much pride I take in being fit, even when I’m relatively out of shape (now). Almost to the point of fault. So I replied. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

Distance: 15 miles
Elevation gain: 7200ft, not including the ups and downs
Weather: 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: I wiped out quite grandly as a matter of fact. On skis. Did not trip in boots. I’m good at walking.

Finally, consistent snow

At the last minute we added Jim onto the group, a guy training for Denali who none of us had actually met but he seemed to know what he was getting into. Like many of our other trips, we all arrived individually at the trailhead. We thought we’d start at 10pm, then 11pm, then midnight, then Jim arrived at 12:15 and we decided he deserved a nap. Okay, 2am start. Sweet. 5/7/2016.

The trail to Pyramid Lake went smoothly. It had been cleared since the last time I was there, so no blow downs to negotiate while carrying skis, and no snow to impede our progress. The three guys took off at a decent pace. I wasn’t positive I could make this trip, and I was dreading the steep sections, so I went for the slow and steady approach. I also was about as overdressed as you could be, and shed my first three layers one at a time within the first hour. Why did I wear two pairs of pants?! Why did I need the expedition weight long underwear?! Because I am dumb and I enjoy suffering.

But not quite enough for skinning

We took a break at the lake, where I lost item #1: my Julbo Explorers. I had them around my neck so I wouldn’t have to dig for them at sunrise, but removed them to fix something, placed them on the ground, and never picked them up. Being a fashionista (ha! jokes) I actually had a second pair of sunglasses with me, my sweet new Sunskis that I was planning to test out! They’re the opposite of my Julbos. The Julbo Explorer is not polarized, not cheap, indestructible, and not very fashionable. My new Sunskis are polarized, and cheap, probably pretty destructible (TBD), and quite fashionable. We’ll come back to that when the sun rises.

Plus we had this shit to deal with

We found the boot path skirting the right side of the lake, and off we went. The boot path heads southeast up to the base of the broad ridge, and follows that ridge to the glacier. It was not marked, but easy enough to follow for the majority of the time, save a few 90 second pauses where every direction looks like a potential path but no direction quite looks like the path you should take and you stand there in the dark deliberating. We went up and up, with some solid 3rd class scramble sections in the forest. Funny how that can happen, I forget there can be scrambles in the trees. As the sun rose, we reached 4,000ft (just below the shoulder of the ridge) and we hit consistent snow. Boot path covered, we were on our own. Not even tracks to follow. It had been a while since anyone was up there, and that’s how we like it.

The traverse to Colonial Basin

We traversed along the ridge side of most of the ridge, not wanting to waste elevation gain and loss over the ups and downs. That isn’t to say we had an easy time of it. There were some veggie belays (useful), some postholing (I dodged them), some moat struggles (I did not dodge these), some falling over backwards off rocks downhill because veggie belays are finnicky (Sam), some bitch-slapping by trees and branches and slide alder (to my face), some “who can choose the best route” “your route looks mediocre I’ll go this way instead” “haha, suckers!” “oh wait all of our routes are shit” debates. But eventually we made it to the traverse beneath Pyramid Peak to Colonial Basin. And that meant we were done with vegetation, at least for a while. Goodbye greenery, onwards to the kingdom of snow and ice!

Sam admiring the basin, glacier nicely covered by snow

JT and Jim took a long break and put their skis together while Sam and I started to boot across the traverse. The snow was shitty, the runout was bad, I saw no point in switching boots and stressing myself out trying to skin this when Sam was gonna walk. JT and Jim figured they’d catch up to us when they started skinning. Psych! The snow was that lousy collapsey backslidey type snow. We saw them start, and then split up. One sat down below the skin tracks after a small slip. For what seemed like forever. We kept walking. Eventually we realized they were taking their skis off. Ha! If they couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have stood a chance, so I sat there basking in my correct choice. Sam and I popped out by the base of the glacial lake (frozen over, which is okay because I hear it is brown and not glacial blue), dropped our packs, and hit the snacks while we waited for the dejected skiers to catch up.

The only giveaway that it was a glacier. You can see it beneath this year’s snowpack.

We gazed up at the peaks around us, beyond pumped to be there. Like kids on Christmas, except the feeling is even better than Christmas morning. I get Christmas blues, I get stressed and sad that morning. There’s none of that up in the mountains. Just the joy of knowing you’re somewhere most people will never even know exists, staring at the beauty around you, without any sort of tracks to follow or any signs of other people. An entire swath of mountains just for you. Ditching the crowds and being surrounded by nothing is an incredible feeling.

Sam ascending Colonial Glacier with Paul Bunyan’s Stump, Pinnacle Peak, and Pyramid Peak in the background

JT and Jim finally caught up and had quick snacks themselves. They put on their skis for real, and started skinning up the Colonial glacier to the notch between Colonial and Neve glaciers, just to climber’s right of Neve peak. Sam and I continued with boots, knowing he was faster without skins. And I just wasn’t sure if I could ski whatever was on the other side of the notch, so why switch to skis and ski boots if I need to switch back to mountaineering boots at the top? Not worth it.

JT and Jim left us in the dust. We took turns breaking trail. I’m useful, sometimes. I played this trip way too conservatively. But Sam and JT seriously might be two of the most fit people I know, and I didn’t want to run out of steam halfway up Snowfield trying to be cool and break trail and push the pace. We made it to the notch, and I was afraid everyone would have an “oh shit, look how far away it is” moment like at Black Peak. Nope! JT came running back to see how close we were, all excited about it, Sam’s face lit up as soon as he saw it, and I could have run in circles with joy. We stomped through some ice to get running water, filled our bottles with fresh mountain runoff, I had a 5-star pee looking out at Snowfield, and soon enough, we were on our way down the Neve glacier.

Looking back on our rest spot from the meltwater

Jim and JT ready to ski down to the Neve glacier

JT and Jim skiied down, Sam and I booted and then skinned over to meet them. We roped up (my first time roping up on skis). The glacier looked mellow and the route generally avoids crevasses, but better safe than sorry. Some steeper sections of the glacier were already exposed, and we could see a few cracks and some dips in snow that could be weakening snow bridges. I am usually not too concerned about which side of my body the rope is on (uphill or downhill) since I’ve heard arguments for both sides, but JT pointed out that on skis it might be way more awkward being swept off your feet by someone falling than with boots. Okay, can’t argue that. I awkwardly stepped over the rope in skis. Best thing about Snowfield? No switchbacks! Which is good, because stepping over a rope in skis is awkward.

Sam nearly at the base of the summit pyramid

Sam led the group since we knew he’d be slowest on his fantastic (not) skins that never gripped and always fell off, and that way he’d set the pace. I was happy to go second, JT came in third, and Jim anchored. Skinning went by quickly, drifting across the top of the world.

Jim perfecting JT’s steps

We reached the base of the summit pyramid, already marveling at how short the peaks around us suddenly looked. The route technically takes the west ridge, but we’re an impatient group. And it was snowy. So we chose the North Face Direct. Which isn’t a real name for a real route, it just means we said fuck it and ditched the skis and started climbing the 55ish degree snow on the northwest face instead of scrambling the ridge. JT led the way, Jim perfected his steps, and I walked up their staircase with Sam close behind. Close to the top Jim and I thanked JT for breaking trail, and JT said “No problem! Actually if you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to finish it myself…” Like he had to ask for permission. If you’re in the zone, go for it. You aren’t going to hear it from me. At this point I knew I’d be fine energywise, but hey, if he’s feeling it, sweet. Get it dude. I felt a little guilty for never breaking trail, but let’s be real I’m the slowest here, if I’m breaking trail we probably aren’t moving too efficiently.

JT and Jim on the good trail!

JT brought us up to the final scramble, which was…. not great. We ditched the ice axes, made a few 3rd-possibly-4th-class moves, and JT and I stopped and looked at each other. It wasn’t looking great. Jim went to check out a snowy route sans axe. We debated. JT said he wouldn’t be bummed if we turned around here. I announced my obvious summit fever. JT pointed out we had a rope, one of us could belay the other up, set up anchors with a few slings, and then belay the rest up. I contemplated the idea and peeked around the other side of the ridge, where HOLY SHIT THERE’S A TRAIL! I turned to JT. It was Christmas morning again!!!

I (for once) have no idea what these are. Eldorado is in there somewhere, with Klawatti and Primus and Austera. Maybe Teebone Right on the right? Or maybe that’s too far right and out of frame. Any ideas?

Paul Bunyan’s Stump, Pinnacle, and Pyramid looking like tiny spikes, Neve and Colonial on the right

We took off. Jim found us soon enough as he had bailed on his steep snow sans axe route. The scramble was mostly 2nd class with a few 3rd class moves. I hopped up onto the summit, not ready to believe it was the true summit until I was standing on it. Too similar to Cashmere, or Black Peak, what if I get up there and there’s another hundred vertical feet, or we’re 50 feet to the left?! But it was, and it was a nice broad rocky summit, and I looked around and almost cried because this was the most awesome thing I had done in a long time and it was so damn pretty and no one else was there.

Baker and Shuksan, Pickets on the right

I snapped pictures of the others gaining the summit. I snapped a hundred photos of the surrounding peaks. Looking south it felt like winter, with snow covering the northern faces of all of the peaks and ridges. Looking north felt like spring, with more trees and a quickly receding snow level. It looked like snow had already melted compared to Black Peak the previous weekend. We all high fived, and had our snacks, and I donned both puffy jackets I had brought. We wrapped up the summit with a summit selfie, and soon enough were on our way back down.

Sam steps up to the summit

I had been worried about one of the tougher scramble moves, but they were all totally fine. We painstakingly downclimbed the steps we had made after debating a few new routes, and it wasn’t as terrible as I thought. It went by quickly, and once we were past the rocks, it was a killer glissade that took us perfectly back to the skis.

Jim, master of summit selfies

Since we hadn’t seen much to worry about on the way up, we figured we were safe to follow our tracks and ski down. I (surprise!) was last. But you know what? I made it all the way back to where we had roped up without wiping out. I was going 2mph maybe, with a pizza, but I made some huge awkward newbie turns and loved every single second of it. It was like Black Peak again, where the skiing felt like flying and not like crashing. I was getting better at controlling speed and turning. Not good, but progress.

Sam coming back up the notch, arm of Snowfield in the back (true summit out of frame on the left)

We met back up below the Colonial-Neve col. I skinned up this time, following Jim and JT’s tracks with some quality kick turns (can you tell I’m proud?). I handed my camera over to JT before skiing down the Colonial glacier so he could document that my skis do in fact occasionally attach to my feet, and I started my pizza slice descent.

I mean I basically dreamed of skiing with this background from the moment I started looking at skis

This slope was a stretch. I didn’t think it would be, it looked easy enough, but I had to basically traverse with my huge pizza to keep my speed in check. I had one small wipeout, had to happen eventually right? I was still on one piece so I jumped up and got right back to it. Finally I was at the point where I thought I could just bomb down the rest of the slope.

Pizza makes dreams come true

Nope. I hit a large bump of snow that sent me flying. I managed to land, but couldn’t get back in control and wiped out instead. Skis flying, bindings off, tumbling with my glacier gear clanking all around me (guys, at least put your ice screws away before you ski). I sat up and took inventory. Arms? Check. Leg? Check. Other leg? Yup. Does everything bend? Yes. Do I have all my shit on my pack? Yes. Stabbed by an ice screw? No. Okay, stand up, retrieve skis. Joints? Elbows and knees? 3 of 4 were feeling good. 1 of the 4 was a little crabby with me. I popped the skis back on and did the slowest descent ever, stopping at every turn waiting for adrenaline to die down. And everything had been going so well! Come on man!

PIZZA

At the base of the Colonial Glacier, Sam and I decided to boot across to the ridge again. Jim and JT started out on skis as Sam and I trekked behind them. Eventually they yet again gave up, and joined our old bootpath. The knee was achy but not an impediment at all, so I figured I’d deal with it once we were down.

Back at the ridge I finally caved and downed a caffeinated gu. Everyone else had already destroyed a few 5 hour energies, gu, caffeinated shot blocks, and I had held out for so long. But I hate the descent. And within 15 minutes, that gu had me jogging to keep up with JT and Jim who were half running, half walking the descent. I felt awesome. It was gonna be a quick hike back to the car.

Last light hits the basin

Here’s the sad part. We lost track of our old footprints. My phone was dead, so we had no gps of where we were relative to the route. We had maps and compass, so we weren’t in bad shape. But we dropped too much elevation far too soon rather than meeting the bootpath on the broad ridge, and ended up in a classic North Cascades bushwack. You can’t win out here. You might have a killer summit day, but you won’t be that lucky. We turned it into a game of Marco Polo. Can’t see Jim up ahead? Someone shouted “Marco!” and we’d wait. “Polo!” Okay, he’s that way! Scurry that way, catch a glimpse of him, shit I lost Sam, is JT still behind me? “Marco!” “Polo!” “Polo!” Okay, Jim’s to the right and Sam’s directly below. “Polo?” And JT is above me wondering if he was included in my plea for vocal directions.

Comfortable break spot in the morning

We endured a few hours of Bushwacking Marco Polo before I started to get crabby about it. We schwacked, and battled slide alder and pine trees and at one point I put on my winter gloves so I could use the only vegetation around me, Devil’s Club, as a veggie belay crossing a gully. Brutal. I dropped my gloves, picked them up, and realized my hat was gone. No!!!! Not my hat! I almost cried again, this time in sadness rather than summit joy. That hat was my favorite thing that I owned. It isn’t even that great for climbing but it’s great for sleeping and I like the colors and I like the pompom and it makes my forehead look less like a five head and more like a three head. I looked up at everyone like a lost kid. “I dropped my hat!”

Jogging back down the ridge

Well, you’re on the side of a mountain, and it’s getting dark, and you know you have zero chance of finding it. So you get over it, and you carry on. But in that moment, where I was already exhausted and frustrated with the bushwack and the fact we hadn’t found the bootpath and still had so far to go (you can see the damn highway, yet you’re still 3000ft above it) that hat was a person that I was leaving stranded on a mountain, alone, without purpose, without friends, exposed to the brutality of the North Cascades. I felt terrible. Yeah, my pride is up there somewhere with my abandoned hat.

Remember that one time the sun rose and now you’re bushwacking in the dark with no hat

As I was pulling the pieces of my recently shattered mental state together, we came across a downed tree. Sam was with me. JT was hidden behind us, Jim was ahead of us scouting out the way. I stared blankly at the tree. “This tree is my Mt. Everest,” I said lamely. There was no easy way around it. Have you ever bushwacked with skis sticking off your pack? It sucks. “Here!” Sam almost sounded excited about the fact he had found a way to step over the tree that didn’t involve skis getting caught on anything. Okay Eve, you had your low point, time to move the fuck on.

Paul Bunyan’s Stump and Pinnacle from Colonial Glacier

We turned on headlamps shortly after my Everest. Still no boothpath. We knew if we kept heading north/northwest we’d eventually run into either the lake or the bootpath, and that was the game plan in the dark. Finally we ran into a flag that Sam had mocked on the way up. “Who’s laughing now?!” the flag said. Shut up, flag, you win, thank you for being so glorious. Sam plucked it from the ground and triumphantly carried it. Soon we were at the lake. You know what wasn’t at the lake? My Julbos. So those were gone too. Lost on the mountain with my meniscus, my MCL, my hat, and the majority of my pride as I stood there in the dark.

Hozomeen (far background) is a sneaky peak

The trail back to the cars never ended. JT’s knees were bugging him. My body hurt, but nothing seemed worse than anything else, and I had forgotten about my bum knee. Crossing the creek was like an oasis in a desert. It was so dry on that trail, Sam washed his face and I drank a bunch of water (I had been running low) and used what little willpower remained to not lie down and nap in the shallow stream. I mean, it would have felt amazing.

Mind over matter, guys. You kind of space out and just keep moving. That’s the point I was at for the last 30 or so minutes. It wasn’t the worst I’ve been, but it was damn close. As soon as you start to think again, you notice the aches and pains. The skin was sloughing off the bottoms of my feet, my bony ankle was swollen in my boots which had started around noon, it wasn’t gonna be pretty. JT stopped and offered to let me go ahead of him, and I stood there staring into the distance leaning on my poles telepathically saying NO! and I think he got the message. Yeah sure that was 30% because I didn’t want to leave him, but it was also 20% because I was tired, 20% because I get spooked easily in the dark alone, 15% because I knew if I was hiking alone in the dark I’d convince myself I was going in circles in Twilight Zone fashion, and 15% because as soon as I thought of the Twilight Zone circles I creeped myself out. Woods are scary.

Sam coming up to the Notch with Snowfield in the back

We could hear cars, and see the lights from the dam, and yet we never seemed to reach the end of the trail. It’s two freaking miles from the lake. TWO MILES. And the end just never seemed to get closer. We finally saw the sign near the beginning of the trail, and five minutes later, were at the cars. Sam delivered me gatorade. I downed half of the bottle immediately. I grabbed my bivvy and sleeping bag and dumped my gear in the car. I was in the bivvy within minutes. I got a Mountain House meal to cook on Sam’s stove and instead fell asleep curled up to it and the gatorade in my sleeping bag. I woke up periodically to the wind blowing, and deliriously got scared various things would blow away. I woke up at 5am in a bag full of flip flops, socks, mountaineering boots (the wind wasn’t that strong), my mountain house meal, gatorade, my car keys, my cell phone, a plethora of snacks, and some rocks. I imagine I had plans for all of those before I was unconscious.

So tiny

Looking up at Snowfield, you can see our tracks center

Around 5am I wiggled out of my sleeping bag and stood up. Shit. My left knee was so fucked. I couldn’t bend it, it was swollen, and I could barely walk. It was 5am on a Sunday. I started driving, and could barely use the clutch. So I’d hang out in 5th gear, hoping no one slowed down when the speed limit dropped to 30, rolling through most stop signs, and generally being a terrible driver. I frantically texted coworkers. How does our insurance work? Who’s your primary? Do we need a referral to an orthopedic surgeon or can I just go? Who’s your orthopedic surgeon?! I have awesome coworkers who all responded, despite it being 7:30am on a Sunday.

Day packs are amazing

I got home and mourned the loss of one of my most important joints. There goes my summer. I hobbled to dinner with my friend, incapable of stepping off curbs or going down stairs. I mean, it was mostly fine after the skiing wipeout. I must have just pissed it off with that brutal bushwack right? We did lose like 5500ft of elevation in just over 2 miles. That’s already a knee banger when you aren’t bushwacking off route. But of course as soon as you mention skiing, everyone thinks you tore your ACL. The pain wasn’t right for ACL, so I figured I had torn my MCL or meniscus, but I was freaked out. Last time I went to a doctor I thought I had a cold and I had pneumonia and a partially collapsed lung, so I decided to avoid fucking it up further and actually went to see a doctor. the logical side of me flipped between either extreme. “It’s nothing, you’re just being paranoid, you’ve never been injured or had your lifestyle at stake so you’re freaking out” vs “IT’S BEEN A WHOLE DAMN WEEK AND YOU CAN’T STRAIGHTEN YOUR LEG YOUR LIFE IS DEFINITELY OVER LET’S STRESS EAT EVERYTHING IN THE OFFICE” (probably to my coworkers’ dismay).

I was going to explain it in words but this top notch MS Paint job is easier

We’ll skip the dramatic week of waiting for MRI results. The doc thought torn meniscus and MCL sprain. Best case was a few weeks of PT, worst case was surgery. And the answer was… just sprains! A bunch of obvious fluid and swelling, but everything was intact. Sprains are kind of bullshit, it’s like saying “well there’s swelling and this thing is unhappy but nothing technically needs repairing so.. good luck!” But it’s been getting progressively better almost every day, so I think I’ll be back soon. But for a few days there, I thought I was out for the season.

Watching the peaks around us get smaller and smaller

This trip was a perfect reminder that you can always be better. You can always be faster and stronger and there will always be people out there who can kick your ass without trying. Which is a feeling I love to have. I like being the newbie, the little kid, the weak link. Because it means I’m with ridiculously awesome people.

It was also a reminder that we’re not immortal. I didn’t realize just how many people I know who have had surgeries or long recoveries from mountain related injuries, be it a rock climbing accident, skiing, or just tripping on a strenuous hike or trail run. Nearly ever person I look up to in the Washington hiking and climbing community seems to have dealt with injuries and recoveries, Appreciate what you have, every day. We’re so lucky to be able to do things like this. And if you don’t have it, you aren’t alone.* This was just the beginning of the end for me. I have another 20 years to destroy my knees, and by then we’ll be damn good at knee surgery.

*And I’ll come hang out with you at Picture Lake. ADA accessible, killer view of Shuksan, hell yeah!

ADA accessible via helicopter

Black Peak: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Posted on May 3, 2016 by evejakubowski

Chelsea, JT, and Sam above Wing Lake

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

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

Skiing down!

Black Peak over Wing Lake

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

JT skinning just past Lewis Lake

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

Great visibility. Can I blame my navigation on that?

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

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

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

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

Phone pic of Chelsea while the clouds finally dissipate

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

Sam’s pic of Lake Ann as he caught up to me and Chelsea

Chelsea and I had a fairly easy time of the snow below, minus some ass deep postholes. I carried my skis and we took turns breaking trail, trying not to lose too much elevation so we’d hopefully pop out right at Heather Pass. We heard JT yelling for Sam, but it stopped before we could figure out what he was saying. Maybe 30 minutes later I hear “EVE!” And I look around wildly, “where are you?!” and it turns out Sam is maybe 200 yards behind us! He had hit a spot where he couldn’t scramble any farther, and had to find a different route down to drop on to the snow, where he followed our prints. We started yelling for JT, who we saw above us on the rocks, still scrambling along with skis on his back. There was an obvious easy gully for him to scramble down to meet us, so we kept walking, assuming he’d catch up quickly.

Black Peak from Heather Pass

Well apparently the gulley wasn’t as obvious from JT’s perspective. He did not catch up, and we reached Heather Pass and deliberated how long to wait before we should go look for him. Sam and I skinned back towards the rocks to see if we could shout and hear him, and after 15 minutes of looking I finally heard a response. “JT!” “Hey!” “JT?!?” “What’s up!” “YAY!” I couldn’t see him, but he was just below me somewhere and that meant he was off the rocks and close to Heather Pass. I went back to where Chelsea was resting and had a snack while we waited.

Chelsea coming up from Lewis Lake, Heather Pass is the saddle on the left behind the tree

And waited, and waited. Finally JT came popping around the trees, and we told him to stay there and we’d come to him. Which I think he appreciated, because he immediately flopped on the ground and took off his skis. After a quick bite to eat, he was ready to go on. Chelsea decided she was ready to turn around, but we all said fuck that and started off towards Black Peak.

JT skinning past a cool boulder

It turns out I’m not as terrible at skiing as I thought. For the first time, I was carrying a day pack, maybe 20lbs tops. Probably more like 15. And it was a blast! I was excited for every downhill rather than dreading it. I had no trouble balancing or turning, and my quads weren’t on fire every 50ft like they are going downhill with an overnight pack stuffed with a rope and screws and all that junk. Suddenly speed was fun and exciting and more like flying and less like “oh god I’m gonna crash with this heavy ass pack and not be able to sit up and I’ll have to take it off and untangle myself from pack and skis and PIZZA and why do I do this PIZZA EVE MAKE A BIGGER PIZZA OH no oh NO fuck.”

Sam and Chelsea trudging along

Chelsea was on snowshoes, but she was still ahead of Sam, who has the crappiest skins known to man. They kept falling off, they didn’t grip anything, it looked brutal. We took a few short breaks for sunscreen, snacks, and letting everyone catch up. My camera miraculously started again near Lewis Lake, so the photo saga continues! The terrain was a perfectly mellow mix of up and down and rolling hills (it’s all a boulder field in summer, far more enjoyable covered in snow) from Heather Pass to Lewis Lake and on to Wing Lake. Between the pass and Lewis Lake there are some very steep avvy slopes to your left which had strewn old debris all over our path, which almost had Chelsea bailing for the second time. She made a very good point that when you’re new, you’re 100% trusting whatever the people you’re with say, and it’s scary not knowing anything. But we were out of avvy terrain by Lewis Lake. I do wish the two lakes had been a little more melted out, since their colors are part of what make the approach to Black Peak so cool. I have a few pictures from my last trip (not blogged) that I will add so you can see how it looks in summer.

JT rests in the shade beneath a snow boulder

Almost at the ridge

We continued above Wing Lake, and JT chose a shady patch beneath a snow boulder to wait for Sam and Chelsea. Chelsea looked like she was about to stop at the rocks below. “Chelsea! No!” I yelled. “What?” “KEEP COMING!” “No, I think I’m going to stop and wait here… my ankle hurts, it’s steep snow, I don’t know…” JT and I started yelling jokes and encouragement. “That’s what ibuprofen is for!” “Army candy!” “At least come up to us and see the views from here!” You can’t stay at Wing Lake. The views get better and better as you go up. Heather Pass is pleasant, but then you get to Lewis Lake and it’s better. And the you get to Wing Lake and it’s pretty. And then you start stomping up to the ridge, and it goes from pretty to awesome to breathtaking to fucking unreal and it’s like a panorama from some IMAX movie except you ARE the center. And we figured if we got Chelsea up to us, we’d be able to convince her to keep going at least to the ridge. We’re good at dragging people along.

Chelsea on the last few steps

We agreed to all boot up to the ridge, though it could have been skinned. Sam and JT carried skis and snowboard, I left the skis below figuring I’d keep Chelsea company so she wasn’t booting down alone watching us all play in the distance. Plus, I could not have skiied the top 30ish feet. JT broke trail most of the way, including a very steep step over a cornice (we avoided the badly overhanging parts). Chelsea followed (“I can’t tell what he did with his feet!” so many of his steps had collapsed as he burrowed up), I scurried over it next, and Sam brought up the rear. We took a quick break. There had been two groups in front of us, one solo skier who stopped at the ridge, and three skiiers who blew by us on the way up, but also appeared to have stopped at the ridge.

Sam on the ridge with Goode in the background

We scrambled up the ridge with Chelsea leading the charge until we were forced to drop into a gully to the left. Now I got stumped by this last summer as someone had told me to NOT to take the first gully, and it took me a few tries to realize that the first gully is, in fact the correct gully, just to the left of the ridge. But there were footprints leading over to the second gully. Who do we trust?? Is it the gully I think it is, or is it the one where the footprints go? The second gully had recently had a small slab avalanche, so that was unappealing, and meant the first gully might be about ready to go as well. JT and I went to go investigate and see which looked like a safer, easier option.

April 2016

July 2015

Finally!

Turns out it didn’t matter. Sam shouted up to us that it was getting late. It was almost 4:30 and that was past our turnaround time. I had no idea it was that late. I hadn’t been checking, the sun was high in the sky, I was feeling great, spirits were high. We knew we’d be much faster on the way down since we knew skiing down to Lake Ann and following tracks back would be much better than retracing our “adventure route.” Sam offered to just chill and wait for us if we wanted to keep going. We had discussed coming down in the dark earlier that day, but for Sam to call turnaround he must be pretty done, and Chelsea had already pushed through several instances of “I’m going to turn around” and I wasn’t sure how many she had left, plus I wanted everyone to be sharp for those first few steps off the ridge. JT and I agreed that if one person turned around here, we’d all turn around, and so we started the trek down.

Chelsea coming down the staircase

Back at the saddle, I started downclimbing with Chelsea. This was Chelsea’s first “real mountaineering” trip (depending on your definition of mountaineering) and some of that snow was steep. Steep, and very crusty. Steep enough that if here had been a crappy runout below us, I would have offered to belay her the first 30ft or so. But there was just snow, and so I turned to face the slope and kicked steps into the crust so she’d have a staircase to take one step at a time. I stopped at one point to get pics of Sam and JT coming down on their skis and snowboard while I still had cool views. Sam passed me with maybe 3ft between us, resulting in an awesome picture. Once the slope mellowed out and was a bit softer from the afternoon sun, I turned around and started plunge stepping.

On the way down just above Wing Lake

And here comes the snowshoer

We met JT back at the snow boulder were I switched back to skis and Chelsea strapped on her snowshoes. Sam was ahead of us, knowing as soon as he was back on his miserable skins we’d all catch up. I finally got to click into my skis and enjoy the next 30 minutes or so of mellow skiing, stopping to wait for Chelsea at the bottom of every slope and laughing at the misery I could only imagine Sam was enduring. At one point Sam stopped and seemingly stared into space. “I think he just hit that point,” JT said. I was there a few weeks ago on Winchester at 3am (though I think we all were). I chucked, thinking of our train of misery. Well, I was doing fine. I think JT was too. Sam was cursing the world for his skins, and Chelsea was patting down steps in the side of the slope with her poles so she could take snowshoe more easily. Finally Sam gave up and strapped the splitboard to his pack, and Chelsea’s face lit up as she slowly realized she could ditch the snowshoes and take turns breaking trail with Sam.

How much fun are we having?! So much!

Okay now show everyone how you really feel

Back at the pass, Sam and JT skied/snowboarded directly to the lake, and I let Chelsea pick the route down. She went for the gradual downhill traverse, until she realized how long it was taking. Luckily we found a direct path to the lake “you’re going to walk across a frozen lake?!? People DO that?!!!” She sounded horrified. Maybe it’s because I grew up skating on ponds every winter of my life. I made sure to get plenty of pictures of her on her first frozen lake crossing.

Chelsea bravely standing on Lake Ann

And of course, there was a nice, well traveled path from the lake back to the trailhead. I don’t think we lost that much time on our adventure route, but it sure as hell would have been easier. And our friend Sammy followed our terrible tracks, though he says he had a similar GPX track so I’m not 100% to blame (sorry Sammy). It was pretty funny looking up at our tracks on the slope while we stood below on the easy trail, laughing at how hilariously off we had been. I should have taken a picture.

We made it back to the cars by dark, and headed back to Seattle. We had all driven separately. JT stopped for food. Chelsea made it home in one push. I nearly nodded off 15 miles from home, but put on some live Avenged Sevenfold and made sure to sing at the top of my lungs. Sam slept in a Winco parking lot somewhere in Everett. Wait, remind me why I like this?

(so I can sit somewhere like this)

Hidden Lake Lookout

Posted on April 5, 2016 by evejakubowski

Hidden Lake just after sunset. True summit on left, Sahale and Boston center, Johannesburg on the right

“I just broke my collarbone. Again.” That’s the text I received from Sam at 8am on Friday, 12 hours before we were supposed to be skinning our way up to the Enchantments. Well, I guess that’s out. I waited a few hours to confirm that there was definitely no way he was going to be able to pull off a “who-needs-a-damn-collarbone-anyway” miracle, and around 4pm we admitted defeat and I settled on joining Tony, Kacie, Cheryl, Dave, and Quinn at Hidden Lake Lookout.

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Clouds moving in and out along the ridge (Photo credit: Kacie)

Distance: 11 miles
Elevation: 4200ft gain to the true summit
Weather: 40’s and cloudy, teens overnight, 40’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: I postholed, I slipped, nothing epic unfortunately. Dave had a full body posthole. The joys of snow covered boulder fields. Tony wiped out on his skis but no one saw. We only know because he lost his ski crampons. Sneaky bastard.
GPX files here (summer trail to ridge and true summit and lookout) and here (direct ridge from road to lookout). Both are dropbox, let me know if you’d like an old school map of if the link gives you issues.

I got to the trailhead around 11pm. Well, to where the road became impassable due to snow, at least, which was about 2 miles from the trailhead. Tony’s bright yellow FJ was parked and so was Dave’s truck, so I pulled over, pitched the tent, and got cozy. I didn’t sleep, because I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Quinn and Kacie. The other three had left for the lookout Friday morning, and were already up there.

Hiking up the road to the trailhead

Quinn and Kacie got to the trailhead at 3am, because who needs sleep. They napped (or tried to) for two hours, and we got up and had a snack and were moving by 6am. We had a feeling that the other group might have just gone straight into the forest from the cars (at the switchback on the dirt road around ~3000ft) since I had sent them a map detailing such but frankly it looked like a pain in the ass and I’m lazy, so I figured we’d take the winter route I knew.We headed a quarter mile or so up the summer trail (which was a brutal, postholing, snow-bridge-collapsing endeavor) and left the trail at 4000ft to head south-southeast-ish (that’s an intercardinal direction, I swear). The snow in the forest was patchy, and the undergrowth slippery. I stared at a three foot tall mossy rock for a solid five minutes, knowing if I slipped with this pack on my back I’d be crabby about it. Kacie had a more in depth stare down with a tall log. I was happy to hit snow solid enough to kick steps, and Quinn broke trail for much of the way as Kacie lagged behind fighting a sleepy mental battle with herself (Tony nicknamed her “Night Rider” because her travel seems most efficient at night) and I tried to mediate between the two of them so we wouldn’t get too far apart. Prints are easy to follow in snow, but better safe than sorry.

Forest opening up

The most sustained steep section of the climb was in the forest. There was still avvy danger, but we lucked out with snow conditions. It got flat enough around 4400ft that I switched to skis and Kacie and Quinn strapped on their snowshoes. I took off on the skis, floating across powder and zigzagging through trees and around slopes. Sunrise was a mental boost (Kacie proclaimed so herself), and as usual I started to flip out when we started to get views. “Look at that RIDGE” “Look at that avalanche debris across the valley!!!” “GUYS turn around and look behind you when you get to this spot!” I’m surprised they didn’t want to punch me in the face as I pranced around them on skis. Tripping over half of my kick turns probably made them feel better.

LOOK at that RIDGE GUYS

As we got higher the blue sky got lower and lower and I knew it wasn’t the ridge – do I crush their hopes now, or later? Finally Quinn caved and asked. “Is that the ridge?” I laughed. “Nope!” But I knew we’d be reaching a flat section, so I told them to hang tight and we’d take a break there. I dropped my pack, slathered my white-Seattle-winter face in sunscreen (living in Seattle in winter is like being a mushroom in a forest), and grabbed one of my few snacks. Honey Stinger Waffle and chicken salad leftover from lunch, yeah baby. Not together, jeez. Who do you think I am? I have standards.

“don’t sit no go stand over there”

Quinn caught up first, and before he could sit I told him to “go stand over there so I can get a pic.” He obliged. The pics I took the rest of the day were better. Sorry Quinn. He was low on water, but I had 3 liters and as usual had only drank like half a liter (I’m in a perpetual state of dehydration) so I tossed him a liter. My other waterbottle was full of a combo of salty Watermelon Gu tabs and Peach Iced Tea by Crystal Light. Disgusting until I was thirsty and needed salt, and then it was glorious. Quinn didn’t want to try it. I offered him sunscreen as well, but he insisted on working on his base burn. I get it, I get it. Any color is better than pasty. Even lobster red.Kacie caught up next, and soon enough we saw a skiier! “It’s Tony!” Kacie said. “TONY!!!” I yelled. “No wait, it’s Dave?” Kacie said. “DAVE!!!” I yelled. “Wait, no it’s Tony.” “Dav- TONY?!? TONY!” Followed shortly by Cheryl rocking her snowshoes. I honestly didn’t think we’d see them until the lookout since we had taken a different route. Yay, friends!

The Traverse

I followed Tony skinning up a shortcut to the saddle while Quinn and Kacie followed Cheryl along the tracks they had made the previous day. I snapped pictures in every direction. Getting close to the saddle, Tony laughed quietly and said “wait until you see the traverse. Kacie’s gonna hate it.” Okay, I mean how bad can it be? “Cheryl did it right? So Kacie will be fine, it can’t be that bad.” “Cheryl hated it.” We crested the ridge and bam, a classic flat steep 45 degree face sloughing off its snow in the afternoon sun. Oh, good. Well, everyone would get a taste of mountaineering at least.

Cheryl, Kacie, Quinn coming up the final ridge

We waited for the others to catch up and I debated whether to ditch the skis and put on boots and crampons or push the comfort zone and see if skis did the trick. Who am I kidding, I’m trying the skis. I have to know if I can do it. Tony went first with his skinny skis, and I followed with my fat ass powder skis. I could fit like one ski in both of his tracks. So it was one tiny baby step at a time, while laughing at myself because this whole situation was ridiculous. I did slip once, but miraculously caught myself and managed to balance well enough to get back on track. I met Tony and Dave at the other side of the ridge, and we snapped a few pics of the three snowshoers behind us.

Cheryl on the traverse the next morning

Quick tip, you generally want to spread out on slopes like that in case something does go wrong. 1% chance something happens, but if that 1% comes to fruition, you don’t want it taking out your entire team at once. Tiny chance, huge consequences. That’s how I look at mountaineering hazards. But I figured now wasn’t the time to tell anyone that, and chances of an avalanche were low. As for falling, at least there were no rocks below the traverse. Well there was one, so just aim your fall well. Tony will ski down to you while I tumble and curse behind him.

Talk about pushing your comfort zone. Cheryl cried off all of her sunscreen (no, not actually) and Kacie glared at the snow with lasers and disdain I didn’t know human eyes could convey. Quinn didn’t even notice he was on a slope. Once we were above the cornice on the other side, we scurried up to the lookout, dropped our gear, and devoured snacks. Kacie asked me if we had just crossed what I would call “a zone of danger.” I mean, I guess so. But how would you phrase that? A slightly more than risky zone? Dare I say… the danger zone?

We’d be good slave laborers, digging toilets

Dave eventually mentioned the pit toilet. There’s a pit toilet? With a five-star view? Did you know about the 50 Classic Craps of Washington? Why aren’t we digging it out right now?! Somehow everyone either rallied to humor me (I love digging and I think secret toilets are hilarious) or they were legitimately excited about it. Or maybe they saw the practicality in not needing to use blue bags. We all grabbed our shovels and ran down the slope, using a picture on Cheryl’s camera from summer to triangulate the location of the toilet. We got to the spot and everyone started digging. “I GOT THE EDGE!!” Dave shouted. We surrounded him and frantically dug and two feet later there was a toilet. It had been maybe 5 minutes. We all look at each other as if to say “what now?” Tony started hurling snowballs from above. Back to the lookout!

Is it a posthole if both your legs punch through?

Hidden Lake Peak on the left, Eldorado on the right

Cue another few hours sitting on rocks in the sun, snacking, sunburning, postholing in the snow, whining about Eldorado. Come on, Eldorado. Get your head out of the clouds. We met Gabe, a lone splitboarder who came up to the lookout only to find he had to share it with 6 barbarians. He boarded down to the lake to escape us. We timed how long it took him to get back up. He left at 3:17. No one checked the time when he got back. Crap. (Gabe turned out to have a ton of alpine experience in incredible places, Peru being one of his favorites. Ecuador and Bolivia are overrated. Take note, anyone who likes beautiful fluted peaks with steep snow and ice, I wish I had written down his peak suggestions).

Ask me how many pictures I took of my tent

I pitched my tent, freaked out by the swarm of mice in the lookout. I hadn’t seen them or heard them, but supposedly they had kept everyone awake Friday night. I panic when I hear mice around my camping stuff, because obviously they must be chewing through my bag or my tent or my food or the foot of my sleeping bag and shitting inside of whatever they just destroyed with their tiny mouse teeth. I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I stayed in the lookout. Also, I like putting my tent in awesome places. i tucked it next to a rock hoping to help block some wind.

Probably too many

We ate dinner and waited for sunset. I had some Mountain House Chili Mac which I highly recommend (I mean it’s hard to screw up chili mac). Kacie and Cheryl fell asleep. Cheryl let out maybe three snores, which was enough for a not-quite-awake Kacie to mumble a not-quite-coherent “who why snoring ugh god so LOUD” which she claimed to not remember saying when we told her. Of course once sunset came, we all burst out of the lookout for a photo spree. There is nothing like sunset or sunrise in a place like that. I took over 200 photos. 5% are cool pictures of people, 10% are identical photos of the lake, 25% are my tent, and 60% are Eldorado in various stages of cloudiness.

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The lookout at night
(Photo Credit: Quinn)

After sunset we hung out in the lookout, boiled water so everyone could sleep with hot water bottles, Quinn took some night pics, and I was in bed soon after. Not as cozy as I thought. Should have brought my sleeping bag liner. I have generally lost any motivation to keep my toes warm in my sleeping bag. You eventually get to the point where you realize okay, they’re uncomfortably cold, but they aren’t going to get hurt, so I’ll just doze. And so I dozed, and had stress dreams about work. Who dreams about Bogs fucking up Nordstrom POs in the mountains?! Can’t my subconscious do better than that?

Admiring sunrise

I had set my alarm for 6:30am, which was supposed to be 20 minutes before sunrise. Public Enemy woke me up, and it looked light outside so I frantically unzipped my tent and started snapping photos. Gabe (eventually renamed “The Gabe”) was standing on a rock overlooking the lake right there and I’m sure was less than pleased to see my bleary face squinting out at the light. I didn’t have contacts in, I put my boots on and ran around outside tripping and slipping all over the snow and ice in and out of postholes and obstacles I couldn’t see. But I got some cool pics and finally calmed down enough to put in contacts.

The fateful sunrise pic, featuring Eldoardo far left and Johannesburg far right

I had a healthy breakfast of Clif banana maple oatmeal (it’s actually delicious) and a double espresso clif shot. Breakfast of champions. I’m a morning person, and the last thing I need is caffeine. I ran up to stand on the big rock to get a good picture of the lake, finally nailed it (got Eldorado AND Johannesburg in one shot), and promptly dropped my camera off of the cliff.

Yeah. A ~200ish foot cliff. And I stood there, watching it descend, listening to it tap off each rock, getting farther and farther away, “clink…. clink……clink…….tap……….well…fuck.” I walked back to the lookout with a deadpan expression on my face. I brought this upon myself. Why didn’t I zip my pocket. Why did I stuff my pocket with socks, not leaving enough space for the camera. You always zip your pocket. You never have socks in your pocket. I’d rather have dropped my phone. I thought I could see it laying down below in the snow at the bottom of the slope, so I figured I’d go on a rescue mission once everyone was moving. I packed up all my stuff and paced in circles while everyone else patiently had breakfast.

Looking across the traverse at the true summit (phone pic)

I somehow convinced most of the group to check out the true summit with me. Quinn had boundless energy, I knew he’d be in. Tony would want to ski down from it, so I figured he’d be in too. Cheryl and Dave I wasn’t sure, but they were in, and as soon as Kacie heard she’d have the lookout to herself, she declared she was opting out of the true summit and was going to enjoy having time to just be.

I decided on boots and crampons for the traverse on the way down. It was much more icy in the morning, and I’m very comfortable on almost anything in boots and crampons at this point. Skis, I’m like an awkward duck. Quack quack. Quinn and I headed across the traverse first, and went on Operation Camera Rescue while we waited for the others. I walked across in crampons and turned around to front point to drop down lower towards what I thought was the camera. When I turned around to front point, I realized Quinn was wearing microspikes. On a 60 degree snow slope. In light hiking boots. “Do you know how to self arrest?” “Well.. maybe, sorta.” I stopped where I was and laughed. What else can you do? We were just on snow, no rocks, so I mean… it wasn’t the WORST place to learn how to self arrest. I showed him the basic position and he kind of backwards hopped down the slope self arresting on his stomach. Hey, it worked.

Well what I thought was my camera turned out to be a stick. You’ve got to be kidding me. I was pissed. All I needed was the memory stick! I debated going lower to check out a small black patch, but it was probably just another branch, maybe I should climb up and check the rocks above us. As I was traversing back to our starting point, I saw a shiny square. Something metal. Something metal, labeled with bright red letters. “SONY” it said. Sony! Yes! Battery!!! Ahh! I snagged the battery and looked directly below it at the black patch. That HAS to be the camera. Or pieces of the camera. Shattered dreams. I front pointed extra quick to drop down to the camera (too icy to glissade, I prefer my tailbone intact) and there it was! Scraped, dented, but memory card intact, and the craziest part is I put the battery in and turned that fucker ON AND IT WORKED. I was like soccer announcers celebrating a goal. In my head I was running around with both hands in the air “GOOOOOOOOALLLLLL” but all I could was awkwardly front point and stumble over to where it was mellow enough to run back to everyone.

To the true summit!

Dave and Cheryl were down from the lookout and ready to go. Tony realized he left his ski crampons at the lookout and we waited another 20 minutes while he went back up to get them. I debated between leaving my stuff at the saddle, or bringing everything and skiing down. I thought I saw some easy slopes, and again, who was I kidding I had to try it. I hadn’t used these skis downhill at all yet, they’d been training weight and glorified snowshoes for the past few months. It was time.

We skinned almost the entire way, but had to take the skis off for the last few feet below the summit. I stuck them back on my pack because we had some steep ice. Too lazy to don my crampons, I kicked myself a staircase through the crust. It was an exhausting 15 vertical feet. Balancing with 55lbs on your back kicking steps thrice with each foot because one kick isn’t hard enough to make a full step and you don’t have your axe out to arrest with so if you slip you’re just toast. But we pulled ourselves up onto the summit and spent probably two hours taking pictures and relaxing. Everyone needs a pleasant summit once in a while.

The lake from the true summit. Johannesburg, Hurry Up, Spider, Formidable, Old Guard, Sentinel, Dome, Glacier, and I’m forgetting a few in between

PEANUT

The snowshoers headed back first, and Tony and I hung out with two skiers and their adorable dog Peanut, who was in doggie heaven. When he dies he’ll go right back to that spot. He was flopped over in his owner’s arms while she scratched his belly and his tongue lolling out one side of his mouth. She’d stop and he’d just lazily nudge her with his paw, half asleep, “why’d you stop??” They had set up camp at the base of an avvy slope in the Sibley Creek drainage we had avoided when they saw a huge avalanche on a slope that they thought was done sliding. Be careful no matter how it looks, folks. We spent a while chatting with them and schmoozing with Peanut before deciding it was time to head down ourselves.

I booted it down those first 15 feet to where the slopes were easy. Green circle slopes, get at me. I kept the skins on like training wheels. The first two or three turns were about as awkward as you’d expect. I had a slow motion fall, and once that was out of the way, it was all better. I actually made a few decent turns. Big, slow, snow-plow turns. Hey, you gotta start somewhere. My quads were on FIRE. Which this morning I realized probably wasn’t me being “out of shape” as much as it was the 45lbs on my back. I’d make a turn or two and have to stop and move my legs to relieve my quads. Skiing muscles are a thing, apparently. A thing I really need to develop. I’ll start doing squats and wall sits at my standing desk.

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Coming down the bunny hills with a sun halo (Photo Credit: Tony)

Tony showed me a video of myself at dinner after the hike. I burst out laughing. In my head, I was going so fast and turns were crazy because I’d go even faster for a split second as I pointed directly downhill briefly until I completed the turn and dug in my edges. And Tony’s video was like watching a slow motion skier showing how to do the pizza. One inch a minute, perfect snowplow, cautious timid turn. But you know what? It’s still faster and way more fun than snowshoeing or hoofing it. And there’s nowhere to go but up(down?)! Huge, huge thanks to Tony for waiting for me three or four times while I inched my way down the slope. It was freaking awesome and I can’t wait to do it again. I’ve got the skiing fever.

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One more because I’m proud (thanks Tony!)

We beat the snowshoers to our meeting point by a few minutes. We thought they might be ahead of us since we spent so much extra time on the summit, but the tracks were old so we knew they hadn’t come through yet. We hung out there for a bit once the whole group joined, giving Tony enough time to build a snowman. I swapped skis for boots since I wasn’t sure I could handle the forested section (I think I could have done the beginning up high where it was still wide enough) and started the postholing journey down.

Postholing isn’t bad once you’re in a rhythm of postholing. It builds character. The worst is when one foot sinks two feet and the other only sinks a few inches. Or when there’s a crust that occasionally holds but most of the time fails. If it’s all evenly deep powder, it’s doable. I trailed the snowshoers, giggling when they slipped or fell, embracing the misery of postholing. Tony had disappeared into the trees on his skis. I just plunge-stepped slowly down the slopes. It’s awkward to fall when you have skis on your back. Don’t risk it.

One more of Eldorado

We were down in a little over four hours. Back at our cars I had a half lb of cheddar cheese, Tony had pretzels, and Quinn donated some beef jerky. Perfect smorgasboard of post-hiking snacks. Oh, and Rainier beer. Yes.

On the way out, we stopped at Train Wreck in Burlington for dinner. It’s not quite on the way back to Seattle if you take rt 9, but it works if you take i5. And it’s worth the extra few minutes. I recommend ordering several plates of cheese curds and whatever burger has the pico on it. Or the regular burger and add avocado and cheddar. Just make sure you get lots of cheese curds, because they were the best curds I’ve had since I moved here from the Midwest. We also discovered that Kaliber is a great non alcoholic beer (made by Guinness, apparently) – Dave had been talking about it for the whole trip and the waitress totally lowballed the delivery. “We only have Kaliber, sorry…” as our faces all lit up “Yes!! That’s what we were hoping!” and did I mention the cheese curds? Next time I go I’ll just get three plates of curds for myself and nothing else. Maybe five plates of cheese curds. And a Kaliber.

One last look at the lake

Drove home, hit traffic at exit 190 because you can’t drive around the greater Seattle area without it even at 9pm on a Sunday, and eventually pulled into my parking garage, surprisingly wiped. Showered, straight to bed. I had a pound of buffalo chicken at 9am the next morning because I was ravenously hungry at work. That’s recovery right there. Gorgeous, successful weekend with good company, and I think everyone got to expand their mountain horizons whether it be the dicey traverse, learning to self arrest, or showing off their recently perfected pizza slice on their new favorite toys.

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New favorite toys (Photo credit: Quinn)

Tower Mountain and Golden Horn

Posted on October 6, 2015 by evejakubowski

Rob and Simon at the beginning of the scramble

Edit: Happy one year anniversary to the blog! Woo! Here’s a link to my first ever post… it’s come a long way, as have my photography skills (or lack thereof) and tendency to keep talking.

With much of the Cascades getting a solid amount of fresh snow on Friday, we figured we’d avoid potential avalanchey situations and check out the dry, east side. A forecast of “Sunny, 0% precipitation” turned into “Mostly cloudy, snow, and freezing temperatures,” but when has that stopped us? We met at the trailhead parking lot Friday night and got started Saturday morning for what I thought was a 7 mile approach. Hiked 9/26/2015-9/27/2015!

Distance: 24ish miles round trip (surprise! 10 mile approach!)
Elevation gain: ~7000ish?
Weather: high 20’s and snowing to 50’s and sunny. Yay, mountain weather!
Commute from Seattle: Just over 3 hours
Did I Trip: I fell on my ass twice and struggled like a beached whale to get over the final summit block if that counts
GPX file here (summitpost also has one for just Golden Horn)

Awesome topography in every direction

So there was one potential issue with this trip from the beginning that I neglected to tell my teammates: I was sick. For those of you who don’t know me, I almost never get sick. So when I do, I’m a victim of the man cold. It’s all over, I must be dying, what do I do? Do I eat soup and wash my hands a lot? I have no idea. Actually, you know what might cure me? 48+ hours of physical exertion, little sleep, no showers, and sleeping (trying) in a germ cocoon. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Kacie in fall colors

I knew John and Rob from Rainier back in August, but had just met Kacie and Simon. Simon pulled up in a manual transmission off-roading jeep and immediately offered me hot chocolate, so he had to be cool. Kacie made herself crack up all alone by changing the color of her inflatable tent lamp, so she had passed the test too. After a soggy night that staunchly defied the “0% precipitation” forecast, we got started.

From the beginning, the hike was gorgeous, even in the fog. The approach is entirely along the PCT, meaning mellow, well groomed, soft flat trails. Almost no elevation gain. We made good time. I had been worried about keeping up due to my abject lack of energy, but I did okay. Green trees and dirt gave way to white granite and larches, and soon enough we were all in a constant state of wonder. Everywhere you turned was beauty, it didn’t matter where you looked.

A few miles into the trail, I turned around and saw Simon talking on a banana phone, and Kacie exclaimed “You have service up here!? Do you have A Tree&Tree?!” and in that moment, I knew we had an awesome group.

Flat, well groomed PCT

We continued along the PCT with occasional glimpses of Tower and Golden Horn through the clouds, but it didn’t seem like weather was clearing up. The trail is very straightforward, since you’re on one of the most well-maintained trails in the state. The offshoot for Snowy Lakes is maybe a quarter mile after you pass beneath Tower Mountain, directly across from an open field with a few campsites (and in our case, four far ass marmots lying on a rock). The trail turns from beautiful flat highway to steep and rocky, but not too steep and rocky. We were just spoiled by the PCT, and being back on a less maintained trail was hard.

Snowy Lakes were stunning as soon as we came around the corner. We set up camp on a ledge sheltered from the wind at the lower lake, in a nook away from the mobs of people (all relative, it was like 20 people total). Luckily, there were rocks. I had been worried about setting up my tent. I hadn’t camped on a non-glacier in… well… a long time. Did I need stakes? What if there weren’t rocks? How do you keep it from flying off in wind if you can’t deadman anything!? Oh wait, there won’t be as much wind. It was pretty out of place, but damn if that orange didn’t look great against the yellow larches and bright blue water.

It’s a little out of place

Looking back at Mt. Hardy

We waited a bit longer before aiming for Tower, hoping for weather to clear up, but since it wasn’t improving, we got moving. Onward! We went off trail a bit to get to the talus slope, and from there you just work your way to a cave that’s very visible from Snowy Lakes. Cross to the right in front of the cave, and you will find yourself in the main gully. As you gain elevation, views open up, and the ridgeline that grows into Hardy was a very neat topographical feature. If only it had been clearer.

We made it to the cave, and someone said “Rave cave! We even have hula hoops!” I laughed and said “really?!” before realizing what a gullible idiot I was. There are no hula hoops in the wild. Except five minutes later, crossing the cave entrance, there were hula hoops! Holy shit, I didn’t think you were serious! Okay, perk for the way back. We were watching clouds drop lower and lower on Tower as some low hanging dark clouds came towards us from Black Peak, so we wanted to move fast. I announced that I didn’t think we’d get dumped on, we just wouldn’t have views.

Snow in the gully (Photo credit: John)

Well, I’d be a shitty forecaster, because within 15 minutes, it was snowing. I’ll work on that. We made it to the gully (continue east past the cave and you’ll see the gully on your left) where we ran into a four person team that had turned around and had been waiting a long time for the other half of their group to get back. Much of the rock was frozen over, icicles included, not to mention the gully was a bowling alley of rocks to begin with. We let them pass us since they were turning around, and decided we’d still give it a shot. The left side is smoother with more exposure, the right side is more jagged with more prominent footholds and handholds, and that’s the way I’d suggest going.

It didn’t matter, we didn’t make it very far. We turned around maybe 200 vertical feet from the summit. It just wasn’t worth it. Cold fingers, low visibility, snow, rock fall, icicles, the potential for the entire fourth class scramble to be a sheet of ice on our way down… meh. We turned back, knocking down a microwave sized rock in the process. The other group was long gone, but it’s still a little unnerving.

Why would you stay at home when you can hula hoop in a cave on the side of a mountain?! (Photo credit: John)

Nearly back at the cave, Rob turned to me and just said “we should hula hoop!” I thought he was joking, but to hell with it, we got to the cave and picked up those damn hula hoops and went for it! There is nothing more hilarious than John and Rob hula hooping in a cave in the snow at 8,000ft. Well maybe the human ladder that happened 24 hours later, but we’ll get to that. We hula hooped, we broke into bouts of Beach Boys songs and dancing. I had Surfin Safari in my head (why? it’s the furthest topic from what we’re doing) and had shamelessly sung the opening verse a few times, which eventually triggered a spontaneous performance of Barbara Ann since we had a perfect division of bass voices and sopranos (if I try to be shrill enough). Barbara Ann became the song of the trip, much like Come and Get Your Love back on Eldoardo. It’s just hilarious and makes me smile every time. Anyway, imagine hiking up to a cave and there’s a bunch of people hula hooping in snow singing that. That would have happened, except that no one else was up there, because it was gross out.

Rave cave! (There was a bivvy spot in the back if you’re ever stuck)

Jesus brings out the sun back at the lakes

Energy renewed and spirits lifted, we set out back down the loose talus to head back to camp. Simon had turned around earlier, and we wondered what he might have in store for us. More hot chocolate? A fire? No, that’s a lot to ask. We stopped to take pictures of the snowy larches, lament how the weather wasn’t doing us any favors, and joke about how it was so foggy there WAS no peak to summit, I mean if you turn around there’s just nothing there! At Rob’s suggestion, we considered pathetically yelling “Simon!” in the fog close to camp, hoping he’d get the Touching the Void reference. But it wasn’t foggy enough, and we were so excited by what Simon had for us back at camp that we forgot anyway.

Not only was there hot chocolate, there was a fire! In the snow! Woo! We had our hot drinks and crowded around it warming up, until someone turned around and saw the sun breaking through the clouds across upper Snowy Lake. We dropped everything except cameras (and in Simon’s case, his precious fifth of vodka) and ran to the upper lake to take pictures. A group of unhappy looking campers was making dinner as we excitedly ran past to see the sun on the lake, and the next hour was spent running everywhere like overexcited chickens snapping pictures, talking to other pictures, doing karate, walking on water, skipping rocks (or trying to learn how, for me – “did you even have a childhood?!”) and enjoying the situation to its fullest.

Sun sneaking beneath the clouds

“I’m a blackbelt what’d you expect?”

We finally figured we had overstayed our welcome at the upper lake. We were loud, and I proclaimed it was time to go back to our corner. We invited everyone to come to our fire, where we had plenty of food and drinks. Alcoholic or just cozy, take your choice. No one took us up on our offer besides a camper across Lower Snowy Lake from us, who couldn’t resist the offer of fire and warm drinks and hilarious jokes. We crowded around it again as night fell, and thoroughly enjoyed our Backpacker’s Pantry meals, tabasco hot chocolate (sorry Kacie, I’m not sold on it), spiked hot chocolate, various kinda of tea, and finally, an apple crumble dessert. From Mountain House. Dehydrated. It was delicious, and would make a great breakfast too. Take note.

My body finally caught up to me, and I retired to my tent. My germ cocoon. Friday night I had felt iffy, Saturday night was doomsday. Doomsnight. I snuggled in my sleeping bag, freezing cold, and waited out the misery. Come on, body. Get over yourself, you have shit to do tomorrow. I finally gave up around 6am and left the tent to explore the outdoors since sleep was clearly a hopeless endeavor.

Golden Horn reflected in Lower Snowy Lake

Mt. Hardy reflected in Upper Snowy Lake

I got to watch sunrise light up Golden Horn, and snap pictures of reflections in the lakes. I hit up the lower ridgelines to look out over the clouds at the ridge across the valley. Eventually everyone else woke up and we made tea and hot chocolate. Guys, I’m used to being up and moving within an hour of waking up. Sitting around for three hours drove me insane. I don’t work well with casual starts, apparently.

We finally got moving a little after 9am. There was a group ahead of us on Golden Horn that I had run into before the rest of my team woke up, so I knew we’d have company. I was a little worried about keeping up with everyone given how I was feeling, but eh, I’d play it by ear. We were in such a beautiful place, it wouldn’t even matter if I missed out on the peaks.

Looking back at Tower over Snowy Lakes

The hike to Golden Horn is almost entirely line of sight – walk across scree fields until you’re nearly at the base of the summit block, and then do a little class three scrambling to wrap around to the southwest side of the peak. A short gully will bring you to the final few steps. Here, stay on the southwest side of the peak, don’t try to go for the north side. The other group had been staring at the northwest side for a long time, and was about to give up when we showed up and scouted out the southern side. We all joined up, and Joe offered to lead it.

He used two cams, 1 and .75 I think. There was a great horizontal crack in the second slab, and the second crack he utilized was between a flat boulder and the cube of granite that made up the final move to the summit. An elegant muscle up/shimmy combination, and he was on top! We let their team wrap up before sending John up to top rope our group.

Rob on the shimmy move

I couldn’t figure out what the hell was taking John so long to get a good anchor set up. He finally got it worked out, and I got Kacie roped up and ready to go on her first rock climb. Go big or go home! Rob was up next after Kacie tapped the summit, and he made the muscle up/shimmy move look easy. John lowered him, and it was my turn. Getting up to that top move was a breeze, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I hopped up, got my elbows over the edge, and immediately realized it wouldn’t be so easy. For anyone who knew me in high school and college, my eight-straight-pull-up days are long over, and it was a pitiful fall from glory. My shoulders and lats forgot how to exist. I told John to drop me back to the flat ledge. I was gonna give it one more try before admitting defeat. Come on body, one push, just one push. With a shot of luck and a bit of a jump, I managed to drag my ass over the edge, only slightly resembling a beached whale. Hell. Yes. (note: how are there no pics or videos of people getting stuck trying to get out of a pool?! That’s what it was like)

Kacie got a solid 10 pics of the struggle

Got there eventually! (Photo credit: John)

I snapped a few pictures, laughed at John’s anchor (which was amazing but impressively precarious to set up, which is why it had taken so long), and had him lower me back down. Naturally I had wanted to rappel, but he was reluctant, and I realized I was in no condition to argue given how shitty I was feeling, and probably not in the best state for any major decisions either. Great, I’ll downclimb.

We finally went to regroup with Simon, who had patiently waited at the notch while we figured out the technical pitch. There was a tricky ledge we had to get across. I scuttled down it just fine (I think my state of mind took away the “look what’s below you, or isn’t” fear) but Simon announced that the previous group had used him as a human ladder, and when Kacie wasn’t sure about getting across, he grabbed a rock at the end, hung his body along the ledge and said “Okay, go, climb me!”

Simon sacrifices his body for the greater good

Simon coming back down the scramble

I think I cried laughing. Kacie’s face says it all. John was up next, and finally we were all across the ridge. At one point, I think Rob had told Simon he didn’t have to wait for us, and Simon had said “No, you need me to get down!” We had no idea what that meant until the human ladder happened. Simon for MVP!

From there, we made quick work of the hike back to camp. Plunge-stepping down scree is much easier than hiking up it, and before I knew it we were back at camp. Which was great, because I was losing hearing in my right ear (it still hasn’t returned three days later) and was on my way towards becoming a very useless group member. We took a break by the lake while everyone packed up tents (I can pack up that tent in like 10 minutes now). We finally had the lakes to ourselves, since everyone else had left. I ate about 1500 calories in one sitting. A beef and cheese burrito, a full thing of maple butter, a bag of m&ms, a kind bar, the combos that had spilled all over the brain of my bag. “Cheese flavored filling,” not even cheese. Whatever, they’re delicious.

The way the light reflected off the lake was ridiculous. That’s Rob in the bottom left corner for scale

The hike back out was the perfect end to a trip. Sunny, smooth, greeting PCT through-hikers, golden hour, and (we had hoped) the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, we didn’t catch a glimpse of the moon. We knew it was a supermoon, so when we saw tons of stars, we knew the moon had to be eclipsed. On the drive back, the moon was so bright it kept startling me when it flashed through the windows, and I stopped while crossing a bridge to get a good look.

I got back to Seattle a little after midnight, and succumbed to another miserable night. Turned out my bed wasn’t much better than the sleeping bag/tent/germ cocoon combo. And I probably hadn’t done myself any favors by going on that trip. But you know what? 100% worth it. Gorgeous area, awesome company, and one (and a half) stunning, enjoyable peaks. I think next year I’d like to turn it into a trail run if I don’t have time to take up a full weekend, and maybe take another shot at Tower. Or Hardy, which I’ll have to research, but I chatted with Dave at the top of Golden Horn and we thought it looked pretty doable. And I can only hope my next trip involves people as hilarious as the four I was with. Hula hoops and human ladders for all.

Fall foliage at golden hour

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

Category Archives: North Cascades Highway