The Worst Gear You’ve Ever Forgotten

Posted on March 26, 2022 by evejakubowski

One of us doesn’t have a sleeping bag. Doesn’t matter who

Yes please shine your head lamp on my dumb lampless ass

All of us have forgotten something crucial at some point going on a trip, and I’m going to highlight my favorites. Anonymously, kind of, unless someone wants to own their spaciness. Some of these are things I forgot. Some I was just present for. Some were by friends whose stories had me laughing so hard I got a core workout or had to stop climbing and prioritize breathing. Every anecdote here is from very experienced climbers, and everything turned out fine so we’ve been granted permission to learn from their mistakes. And laugh.

Roughly in escalating order of importance and ease of forgetting (debatable):

1. Headlamp(s). On multiple occasions. So often that you develop a reputation, and friends start carrying 2-4 headlamps knowing you will forget one or the one you have will break, resulting in multiple overdue trips like rapping the wrong way down Cutthroat and getting lost in the dark while off route or embarrassing yourself on a SAR mission when the batteries explode covering your headlamp in battery acid and leaving you lampless (gift received months later to take on future missions)

2. Boots for a winter scramble up Ruth Mountain. We’ve already driven like 2hrs out of town and I hear a long sigh followed by an f bomb from the back seat. “What did you forget?” “My boots…” “Well, what are you wearing?” “Um.. chacos. With socks.” He tried on all the spare trail shoes I had in the car, of course none fit. At the trailhead we met another group of climbers, one of whom had men’s trail runners to lend our chaco-bound friend. Not enough to summit but enough to accompany us halfway!

3. A belay device on the Ice Cliffs Glacier route up Stuart. My climbing partner is about to work his way through an overhanging cornice as I slowly say “now um is probably not the best time to tell you I’ll be belaying you off a munter on a carabiner but really you got this you’ll crush it.” He proceeded to crush it. I thought I was going to have to leave the picket he placed there because throwing all my body weight at it wasn’t making it budge. A few hours later we found ourselves bailing off ice screws down the sherpa glacier. With more munter hitches. Sorry rope.

4. Skins. For skis. And one time actually the skis themselves, entirely. You have three options:
1) Drive the 2-3hrs way back to town to retrieve your gear, 2-3hrs back to the trailhead, and get a 1hr nap instead of a night of sleep, pretty much a necessity if it’s the skis you forgot (and a sure sign you are tougher than I am nowadays, because I think at this point I’d just go to bed when I got home)
2) In the case of skins, use ski straps to strap branches to the bottoms of your skis. Reasonable alternatives might be spare clothing, multiple ski straps if you have many, or the microspikes you found buried at the bottom of your pack. The fir/spruce used had directionally appropriate needles but was too voluminous to be practical. A hemlock may have been better. Branches selected from an already dead/soon to be dying tree.
3) A reliable but unpleasant fallback that defeats the point of the trip, boot as far as you can and see how long you (and your partner) can tolerate it. Pros: REALLY good workout, physically and mentally. Cons: Pendulum between amusement and anger, high likelihood of bailing/not meeting your goal, postholing.

Nice climbers packing up camp gave us stove gas

5. Sleeping bag on the Ptarmigan Traverse. Well, it was June, and we both had a bivvy, an extra puffy or two, and worst case, a down quilt we could share, and the alternative was driving 5hrs round trip to civilization and then back to the trailhead so uh… we still went. Besides nearly being abducted by aliens, we were fine.

6. Water and gas for the group stove going up Emmons on Rainier. We bartered a fancy locking carabiner for another party’s leftover gas at Camp Schurman, and split 2L of water between the two of us on summit day. “I’ve never felt the altitude like this before” my friend groans “well you’ve probably also never been this massively dehydrated on the way up.” They still crushed it though and no one knew because my friend is freaking superhuman.

“imagine watching someone break in or siphon your gas from here” [5 hours later] “…that’s an empty tank”

8. Car keys on a car-to-different-car-very-far-away-from-the-first-car traverse that has been deemed the Blumberhagadeen Traverse. Imagine being thousands of feet of elevation gain up a class 5 bushwhack postholing through fresh snow many many long miles from the original car and having your climbing partner sheepishly whisper “i left my car key in your car.” I don’t have the coping skills developed to process the ensuing emotions. Full story here with OUTRAGEOUSLY beautiful scenery.

New pack has NO side straps for skis but.. we can fit ski straps around the entire pack AND skis and then tie the top together to A frame

9. Actually starting the gas pump when you put gas in your car. Yes, that’s right, visual confirmation that the nozzle was in the tank, but someone forgot to actually get the gas flowing. My car’s gas gauge is broken, so I rely on the odometer to determine when I need gas. We drove off thinking we had a full tank.

We did not have a full tank. The car sputtered to a halt. The tank was clearly empty. We thought someone siphoned gas out, but nope, turns out we just never filled it. Never got charged for gas, and no gas station is giving away free gas so… In case anyone’s wondering it’s >$500 to get towed to a gas station from WA pass with AAA, or you can coast downhill after some good samaritans get you gas with the spare change you have lying around your car/pack/etc and hope to miraculously average 50% more mpg than usual otherwise you’re about to run out again. Which is what happened. 26mpg in a car that usually gets 18mpg. And then we put 21 gallons of gas into a 20gal tank.

10. An entire pack. This has happened to at least three friends, believe it or not. Skis, skins, boots, poles all present, but picture your stoke stopped in its tracks as you open the trunk of your car at the trailhead and realize your pack is still sitting in your apartment.

Or maybe it’s still sitting in the street in Seattle with your rope, shoes, and harness, and you’re already at Vantage with 5 people and only one set of climbing gear. Don’t worry, the neighbor saw it 6hrs later(!) and took it inside.*

Hiking snacks waiting patiently for my return from Camp Muir

Or the crowning achievement: how about being so nervous about proposing to your girlfriend on top of Rainier that you manage to leave your entire overnight pack, including the ring, at home? And your soon-to-be-fiancee is pissed because you both left work early, you’ve already been sitting in traffic for 3hrs and now you have to turn around, still in traffic, and drive alllll the way home? In traffic? And then all the way back to Rainier, and get a super late start, and now you have lower chances of summitting, and who forgets a whole pack?! Don’t worry, she still said yes!

Honorable mentions to:

Empty camelbacks where you packed the bladder but didn’t actually fill it with water
Snacks left in the car, especially the hot pocket that was lost under the driver’s seat and found 2yrs later when the decomp gas made the plastic package start to crackle
$5 gas station sunglasses because you forgot yours (x20)
Putting black jeans in your pack instead of black long underwear for a 160mi backpacking trip
Sunscreen (forgotten, or you know dropped off a 1000ft cliff to be found in 2200 when the glaciers are gone but the spray can is still there)
Blue bags (easily replaced by used dehydrated meal bags)
Ski straps (classic)
A pack that can actually carry skis
Ski pole(s)
Dropped/lost keys mid trail, later found by a good samaritan who left them on the car tire w/ a note

*this is a miracle – I’ve left my car locked w/ climbing gear inside it for 15-20min TWICE and it’s been broken into within those 20 minutes and $2k+ of gear evaporated into the abyss of petty theft. Once in a double gated/locked + video monitored garage in Capitol Hill, once in Ballard outside of Second Ascent when we ran in to get snacks.

An Anthology of Half Day, Half Assed Ski Tours

Posted on February 5, 2021 by evejakubowski

And some three-quarter ass trips for good measure. And yes, most of these can be snowshoed too! But snowshoeing anything is a full ass endeavor unless you’re just popping up to like Glacier Vista or Skyline Lake on pre-trampled trails and making hot chocolate and ramen in the sun. It’s freaking hard and you don’t get to go “wheee!!” all the way to the bottom.

Sometimes you want to get out and ski, but you don’t want to spend 4hrs thrashing in the brush in the dark going uphill and 4 more hours slogging to the top and 2hrs skiing ice/being bitch slapped by trees and crying back to your car. That used to be my definition of a ski trip. Yeah, it’s more rewarding maybe, but it’s not realistic, especially as responsibilities start creeping up. Turns out I can’t actually only do chores/errands/adulting just on weeknights. Actually sometimes I need a weekend day for chores, which sounds SO old and SO boring and SO domesticated. And growing up I was told only boring people get bored, so I am now a boring person. SO. We need to mitigate that. And I’ll do anything to avoid using PTO on a weekday for chores. Oh god. Stage an intervention if I ever do that.

Oh, and usually when these days happen my mind is already fighting off baseline choring anxiety (for example right now: “oh shit, I forgot to respond to that” “oh shit, I didn’t pick up those screws” “oh shit, i need to get olive oil” “god dammit, I was supposed to ship that” “you still don’t know how to get new blinds for your window, they’re gonna be entirely broken aka see through any day now you cannot keep avoiding this” “you NEED to sell that dress, dude” and “fuck, I need to figure out what to do with the (full) trash can that some asshole added to my trash cans”) so the capacity for additional challenges is low.

And thus, half day half ass tours are born. You might still feel like a poser, but at least those $700 skis are on your feet and not gathering dust in your basement while you sign refinancing papers and weep over tea remembering when you used to actually be cool and found adventure in untouched wilderness and powder and views instead of finding vague glimmers of grandeur in newly lowered interest rates.

1) Okay, we’ll start with the obvious: Paradise. What’s great about this? The road is usually well maintained and you can go as slow as you want, just pull over for the braver souls with bigger balls (and maybe smaller brains). The gate doesn’t even open until 9 so if you live in Seattle like me, you don’t have to get moving until like 7am. The most used skin trails are quite mellow, but there is a GREAT mix of terrain from open slopes to treed slopes and basically flat to avalanche territory and cliff jumps. And you can bring your snowshoe friends! If you are really nice to your snowshoe friends, they might agree to take your keys and pick you up at the Nisqually Bridge after you ski all the way down the Nisqually instead of just going back to Paradise. Oh, and if it’s clear, you can stare at Rainier or the Tatoosh all day, obviously. And when there isn’t a pandemic, you can stop at Elbe Bar & Grill and get a Boingo Burger on your way home. Copper creek is also great, but it can be packed. Also, despite Rainier looking grand, this is a great option when it’s socked in by clouds, because it’s less distracting and you can find treed slopes for contrast so you don’t get flat light vertigo.

1.5) Castle/Pinnacle Saddle. This is like Paradise, but closer to the Longmire gate with a more specific objective and feels a bit more alpine. It’s only something like 4 miles round trip, and not that much elevation gain. Also, if you camp up there in shit weather, you can line every aspect of the bowl with your own tracks before anyone else gets there the next day since the gate doesn’t open until 9. BOOM. You’ll feel like a boss until you wipe out hitting a patch of scoured ice skiing down with your overnight pack in front of another party. Not that’s ever happened, to me, at least. A friend. Obviously.

The views!! And tons of terrain to play on

2) Artist Point. Similar to Paradise, usually well maintained road, lots of varied terrain though main skin tracks are quite mellow. Great for snowshoe friends too. In fact, you can just walk some of the trampled trails with no snowshoes, just be ready to posthole and faceplant if you step 12″ too far off track. And you can stare at Baker and Shuksan if you go to the right areas! And you can pay for a lift ticket and ride the chairs if you get lazy, or have a beer at the lodge and just stare at Shuksan. Downsides? It’s far. You’re probably leaving home at 6am. The lot will be packed. You might wait in line for parking. Snowshoers are traffic cones you’ll probably be dodging all day, including your friends, who you’ll wait for because you’re nice. Avy classes everywhere. People doing dope jumps make you feel like a nerdy wuss pretending to know how to ski. Also great for cloudy/socked in days, despite the ridiculous views on clear days.

3) Yodelin. Slightly more adventurous and not great for snowshoers. Not sure about views because I’ve never been there on a nice day. So I choose to believe that this has no views ever, and therefore is perfect for socked in days with flat light (woo, trees!). Usually space for parking, but Stevens Pass can be messy with a train of cars going slowly turning into the ski resort next to assholes still trying to do 60 mph to pass everyone on compact snow and ice with the occasional un-chained prius. You do actually skin to the top of a thing, which is cool. Two things, actually, since there are two minor peaks to check out. You do have to consistently head skiier’s left as opposed to true line of fall (or line of fall and then flat traversing for what feels like forever), though supposedly there’s a more direct line I haven’t found yet. There is also some neat history – this used to be a ski resort (with cabins/lodges/chair lifts) until the cabins were wiped out by a MASSIVE avalanche in 1971, killing four people. Interestingly, Yodelin is now known as a good place to go tour on high-avy-risk days due to its (mostly) mellow slopes and consistent tree coverage. Still looking for a map of where those cabins were, but the old concrete base of one of the cabins is still easy to find. Oh, one more downside: beware of sledding kids on your way out.

You have a LOT of this before getting to the skiing part if you go left at the “trailhead”

4) Kendall Fun Zone – yeah…… uh… fun…. I mean… it… has… skiing? It’s at Snoqualmie. Views are meh. You can listen to the highway the whole time. Park at the first lot on the right at exit 52, walk under the highway carrying your skis, and hop onto the snow just north of the highway. But Snoqualmie is low. It’s often wet. It’s often heavy. It’s often full of the other 500 people who woke up that morning and decided they wanted a short tour, so the bottom is a luge track and the top is already all chewed up by other people’s turns and “damn snowboarders scoured this” but turns out it was just skiiers survival slipping around other parties/trees/ice/backcountry moguls/dogs/children/lost snowshoers/rogue branches. You’ll also have to scout every corner on the way out or you’ll take down an innocent person on their way up while you battle ice. If you just got a dump of fresh powder and get there at 6:30am to beat everyone up? Sure, the trees are great, just knock out a few laps real quick and gtfo before the hoards come. Dru Bru opens at 11 so apres-ski can start early.

5) Hyak – not fun per se, but if you just want to rip some laps and get some vert then I guess this is your solution. Views? Who needs views when you’re pushing for laps. No views unless you like looking at ski resorts or highways. Expect people. This is like the Vantage of skiing, except it’s a $1000 fine or something like that if you’re caught while the lifts are open. But if you do the Hidden Valley area, you can choose between black diamond runs, blue runs, or a green cat track alll the day back to the parking lot, and that’s just the front side! There’s a world of groomed cat tracks on the backside too!. But don’t try to pee in the bushes, you might get rudely called out by ski patrol, including a surprising “I’m so sick of you people.” You people. Backcountry skiers? I assume the contrast between yuppie ski resort patrons and dirtbag backcountry skiers peeing on trees just highlights those of us that don’t like waiting in line with 100 people for an indoor 2 stall bathroom during a pandemic.

Honorable Mention:
Skyline Lake: The stuff on the back is fun, and you can get to Tye, but Skyline itself is underwhelming and shorter than Yodelin and highly trafficked (so you’d be lucky to get fresh tracks). Parking is also a nightmare now that everyone and their mom skis/snowshoes/snow camps/sleds/splitboards/swims in snow so let them have their space to learn and try just a liiiiittle harder to find something better for yourself.

Amabilis: I had high expectations for this one and have wanted to do it for a while, but all I’m hearing right now is nightmare parking stories, a very groomed road (sometimes groomed all the way to the top!), and we weird mix of xc skiiers, snowshoers, and the occasional AT skier who decides skinning up a groomed road with 200 of their best friends will be fun. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll try it someday because anything is better than sitting at home wondering if you should have tried skiing, but I’ll save it for a day with a snowshoer friend or a cross country skiier. I hear rumors of small views along the top ridge but nothing jaw dropping.

Okay, here are some not-full-day-but-more-like-three-quarter-ass trips. And these come with blog posts, because they were great and didn’t all blend together like a sloppy slope of pacific northwest concrete transitioning to mashed potatoes. And you should save them for clear days because VIEWS. Except maybe Jim Hill and Lane. Lane looks at Rainier like the rest of the tatoosh, and you don’t want to sacrifice powder for sun.

6) Rock Mountain. This one was a surprise. Yeah, you’ll be pushing up some steep treed areas to start, but it mellows out above treeline and turns into another planet. Totally worth the steep grade coming right off the highway, and we only ran into one other party. There’s a traverse up here if you want more, but even just Rock Mountain for the was pretty damn good. And on the way home, Mountain View Diner. Food if necessary, but really, you just want the pie. Any of the pies. All of the pies.

Looking at this hurts a little. I’m jealous of myself

7) Jim Hill. Wow. This was another just phenomenal day, and another route that’s mostly skiiers and not snowshoers. I’d recommend the Henry Creek approach over the Lanham Lake approach. Lanham Lake had significantly fewer people, but some very tedious and icy sidehilling and a lot of elevation gain in a short time. We gypped ourselves because we thought it would take longer to get down than it actually took, and the Henry Creek approach was way less annoying (though it did resemble a luge trail). Either way, north facing cold powder when we were there, with minimal effort as far as ski touring goes and surprisingly few crowds (despite being a Saturday morning). It’s amazing we have something like this as a half day tour, and you can knock out several laps of ~500ft of vert pretty quickly once the skin track is in. Also pie.

Who doesn’t love cold fluffy low angle glade skiing

8) Arrowhead. Okay, I’m taking a unique stance on this one – you basically get the “ski route” experience of Arrowhead on Jim Hill, and both are amazing. But if you follow the snowshoer route up Arrowhead (east slopes through trees, not starting at Henry Creek and traversing), you might find some of the BEST low angle tree skiing in the Stevens Pass area. North facing aspect, stays cold and light, and NO ONE is there because everyone takes the main skin route that traverses from Henry Creek. There’s no luge track! Just the sweet “whshhhhhh” of powder on your skis making fresh tracks because the mobscene is to the west. And the ridge ski is fun too and you have consistent views of the Chiwaukums once you hit the ridge which are just outrageous. And you can take snowshoer friends with you, and you don’t have to worry about etiquette or splitting trails because there’s no one there to bitch about your inter-activity friendship! Just make sure you find the right turn off or you’ll be bushwhacking through dense steep brush and… not skiing. And the aforementioned pie.

9) Table Mountain Circumnav. More than a half day I guess, but less than a full day, and very easy/obvious navigation if it is clear and you have line of sight. Haven’t seen a snowshoer, but I guess it’s possible if you are determined? Pretty good skiing. despite being a circumnavigation, and spectacular views the whole way. Rare to get a high quality traverse in a day, but this sure felt like it, except for the ice couloir I tried to ski down from Herman Saddle.

10) Lane Peak. Also basically like Paradise or Castle/Pinnacle, but with more vert and more technical skiing. Just make sure you don’t need to rope up on the way up. If you do, wait til you’re more comfortable on steep snow. Also, this sucks when it’s icy, or when you break a ski boot at the top of one of the couloirs. But overall, it’s a phenomenal ski, and you can choose between three sweet couloirs. The zipper is the classic, be comfortable with jump turns. The fly is the easiest one, you can pull it off without jump turns and still get in some sweet steep powder (or ice, if another party beat you to it and scoured all the good snow off). And Lover’s Lane exists too, but I don’t know much about how that one compares to the other two. the best part of this is probably how those couloirs look when you’re driving the road to/from Paradise – “Yeah, I skiied that” “NO WAAAAY THAT’S RAD” and secretly it’s far more mellow than it looks from the road. Also, see #1 re: boingo burger.

Another honorable mention: Union & Jove peaks (easy duo) or McCausland, also at Stevens Pass. Yes, you’ll skin up a road. Yeah, it’s probably chewed up and icy. But it’s worth it, especially if you hit the right conditions and know how to ski (I did not). If you’re ambitious you could probably combine all three of these, maybe even add Lichtenberg. But that wouldn’t be a half day, or a half ass.

Jove Peak, honorable mention for the three-quarter-ass trips

So there you have it. Want to sleep in? Lacking motivation? Dog/child/SO/your feelings can only handle a few hours of ski touring? I got a go to list you can knock out so you don’t feel like you’ve totally lost all sense of adventure/fitness/ski capabilities. And really, only some are like that. The three-quarter days are actually pretty dope, and you’ll have actually earned food afterwards, unlike kendall trees and hyak where you pretend like you had fun and then cancel everything you just did out with beer.

The Argument for Half Assing It

Posted on June 8, 2019 by evejakubowski

Sage Hills, the best wildflowers I think I’ve ever seen

The view skiing from Castle

Three months ago, I stumbled upon a Reddit headline that just said “half-assed is better than no ass at all.” Funny, because about two weeks prior I had come to the same conclusion. My work life balance was in the toilet, I was unhappy with my team, my team’s direction, my daily duties, and mostly the fact I had to be available to monitor shit on weekends. I was not important enough to the company to be full time and yet I was important enough to manage this test day in day out. And yes, it’s only ~two hours of work on Saturday, but an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening means any overnight climbing trip is shot. I have always been very good about drawing lines between work and personal life, and somehow everything I had always worked to fight against was suddenly happening and I was just sitting there and taking it.

Sage Hills. It’s like quenching thirst.

And then after a day doing the Table Mountain Circumnav, I decided that you know what, a half day trip was better than nothing. Maybe I didn’t get my winter Rainier ascent, Chiwaukums traverse, Baker ski. Maybe I wouldn’t be fit enough to leave town to do a last minute ultramarathon for my birthday like last year. Maybe I wouldn’t get to trailhead camp Friday nights and do long day trips from 3am to 10pm and stay in lookouts and ski in the middle of nowhere two days in a row but that doesn’t mean I should spend the entire weekend in town ignoring everything I love to do. And so, the short trips started.

Here’s where I got lucky. I actually had a few friends in similar situations. They could only get out one day a weekend. Or they wanted to just go to the ski resort. Or they were new to backcountry skiing and just wanted a couple hours playing around on their new setups. The Rainier National Park gates helped me out too, they don’t open until 9 so if I found someone to go to Paradise or the Tatoosh then suddenly we didn’t have to leave until 7am anyway because it was pointless to leave earlier. And I started a streak of half day trips.

Near the top of Sauk Mtn with Sauk Lake below

Let’s be straight, it’s not better yet. I’m nowhere near the fitness level I was last year. I was doing job applications from 5am-7am instead of the gym, I had late nights at the office, I had nights where I was too drained by 7pm to want to do anything beyond shower and sleep by the time I get home. My coworkers are all impressed when I run commute to the office and I sit there bitterly thinking this isn’t how I want it to be, this is a sorry excuse for the reason I live in Seattle, everyone has forgotten who I am and what I do and why I get out of bed in the morning (hint: it’s not my job) because I’ve turned into a work slave instead of a free willed human being. Yeah, a lot of this is self inflicted because I take pride in being good at my job and I don’t want to tell everyone to go fuck themselves and do my thing on weekends regardless. And it’s a downward spiral. The less you climb, the worse shape you’re in, the less you can do, the harder everything is, the less you want to do, and getting the ramp-up started from square one is brutally humbling.

But as it turns out, there are actually some pretty decent half day trips out there.

Brad ready to ski at Hurricane Ridge

1) Hurricane Ridge. Wow, this place is beautiful, and you drive right up to it and can walk as far (or not far) as you wish. And you get the ferry experience. It’s like the Paradise/Artist Point of the Olympics. They also have an adorable mini ski resort. This was a series of unfortunate events for Amber, who froze a binding that Brad expertly repaired with a random sling I had, wiped out many times, and booted all the way back to the car only to break a boot buckle while taking her boots off in the parking lot. Brutal. If I wrote a full post about this, it’d be called the Misadventures of Amber Yun.

Calvin gets some air below Castle

2) Castle Peak (ish). This is a great ski!! Short approach mostly along a road, but the Castle-Pinnacle Saddle is just a really fun, mellow ski run. Like maybe 3 miles round trip. Perfect for anyone new to backcountry skiing. I did this two days straight because it was fluffy and amazing and the gate doesn’t open until 9 so hypothetically if you have to work from 6-7am it’s not a problem. And you can do multiple laps without too much effort, especially if your friends wipe out multiple times on the way down and you have time to sneak another one in while they remember how to ski. I might not have earned that blue cheese steak at Copper Creek Inn with just this, but you bet your ass I’m still gonna eat it.

Big Greider Lake

3) Greider Lakes. 8 miles, runnable for the first few miles, power hike the rest (or run if your’e more ambitious than me). The larger of the lakes is beautiful. Even Spada lakes (the reservoir for a lot of Snohomish county) is a beautiful shade of green with the snowy backdrop of Vesper looming above. Lots of great campsites (with toilets!) for an easy overnight. You do have to drive through a bunch of shooting ranges, which still makes me feel weird. The road was just long enough that I started to doubt whether I had the right directions.

Very beginning of the Sauk Mtn trail

4) Sauk Mtn. 4 miles round trip for some fantastic views and steep switchbacks. It’s not quite melted out yet, most parties turned around at a short but steep snow traverse. I brought an ice axe and crampons because I was originally going to do Huckleberry Mountain, but bailed because I was lazy and there were too many spiderwebs. I thought I’d look like a total tool with mountaineering gear, but it actually came in handy. I made it to one of the ridgeline bumps, don’t think it was the old lookout site though.

Amber basically being a disney princess

5) Sage Hills. Holy crap. This is like a whole ass with the effort of a half ass, assuming you’re okay with a 3hr drive for 3-9 miles of hiking depending on how far you want to go (the wildflowers start immediately). Best wildflowers I have seen maybe in my life. And it’s basically in someone’s back yard. It’s a system of multi-recreation trails outside of Wenatchee, I literally parked next to someone’s driveway and had my mind blown for the next two hours of vibrant yellows and purples. This might get its own post eventually because the flowers are INSANE and it was like sitting in a disney movie. It’s like larch season. Chugging cold water when you’re hot and thirsty. Blankets and tea after a day of skiing. Oversaturated colors after a greyscale Seattle winter. You get it.

Surafel on the ridge to Hannegan

6) Hannegan Pass/Peak (okay fine this might get its own post when I make time). We had both already done Ruth, so we decided to go for Hannegan, and also that way I didn’t have to pass all of the skiiers and cry with jealousy (spoiler alert, we ran into them anyway. waahhh). ~8-10 miles, still lots of snow when we were there and I definitely should have brought skis.

And eventually I realized that half day trips are still pretty jaw-dropping. Especially on a sunny day, any hike is better than sitting in the city. Especially when you have people to join. Especially when you feel like you’re going crazy and don’t know what to think about anything anymore. I used to joke that the overnight trips kept me sane, and at this point I think there’s actually some truth to that. Something needs to remind me that I’m more than just my job, and the Cascades have provided that, so long as I can get to them.

So these might not have been the full ass trips I wanted, but they kept the hunger and excitement alive, and gave me something to still look forward to every weekend. I’ve also planted a garden (well, my visiting family did most of the work but I’ve been watering it), rediscovered my passion for cooking, read more books in the past 4 months than in the prior year, went kayaking on Lake Union, visited San Francisco, and the cilantro I planted is thigh high and I can’t eat it fast enough. And the Bruins are playing in the Stanley Cup Finals, which actually takes priority over almost everything else. Brooke, Forrest, Amber and I joked that everyone was domesticating. Forrest insisted it wasn’t domesticating, it’s more like renaissancing. This has been my late 20’s Renaissance. God forbid I should have a balance between mountains and housekeeping.

This weekend, I’m about to head out on my first mini overnight in months. The only other two I’ve had were a 12hr camp on Granite (which was technically overnight albeit straightforward) and that fateful ski trip where I ate a piece of candy that I found on the ground and it didn’t go so well (and the work issue over those days solidified the fact that yes, someone did have to monitor what we were doing, and my small act of rebellion was in vain). Wish me luck, guys, feels like I need to relearn how to camp and climb. At least I remember how to belay. I think.

One more from Sauk Mtn

Tis the Season…

Posted on January 13, 2018 by evejakubowski

I mean… how is this a Plan C?

Okay, it’s gross, but still pretty I guess

…of turnaround trips, and halfway trips, and downgrading from Plan A to Plan B to Plan C and eventually surrendering to Plan E, which stands for “Eating on my Couch.” It’s been a quiet season so far for me, but I’ve managed to rack up a few turnarounds and a few bails and and a few successful Plan C’s. And one weekend’s Plan C might be another weekend’s Plan A. Or maybe I burned out and Plan E is my dream weekend. But now it’s 2018, and it’s a clean slate ready to be filled with more turnarounds, and hopefully some summits and some carving turns and some technical pitches and a generally unreasonable consumption of alpine cider.

Plan A’s tend to be climbs. Awesome, ambitious climbs. I mean what else can you suggest when conditions are good and you only have so many good weekends in winter? The best way to get in shape is to bite off more than you can chew and see how far you get (safely). And carry those skis. See Spring Training for tips.

At least it was a powder day

Plan B’s are less committing climbs. Maybe avalanche conditions aren’t great, maybe the weather isn’t worth a two day trip, maybe you’re feeling sick and noncommittal, maybe you took too long to figure out plans and now you’re stuck alone. Or maybe it’s resort skiing, because I like to hemorrhage money during the winter pretending to be a yuppie.

Plan C’s are classes (for me, plus the letters match). Last minute avalanche class? Sweet. Learning to dig huge luxurious snow caves? Sounds lovely. Help instructing ESAR Course I? Awesome, I’ll bring sides for the burgers we’re going to destroy in front of the trainees. And peanut butter, because I ate the whole thing last time. Sorry, sort of.

Big dreams on the way up

Plan D is whatever I whine about but eventually go on, or me texting everyone I know looking for people getting outside, and Plan E (short for “eating on my couch”) involves no effort from anyone whatsoever unless I actually walk 2 blocks to Markettime to get food, in which case I supposed I’m asking some favors of the cashiers and my digestive tract.

So let’s go through a few sample weekends. Weekend Zero is a good example of the quintessential weekend, with Plan C varying from ESAR training to SMR training to me taking classes I want to take. Weekends one through four are what I’ve been up to since early December, with a break for lots and lots of Plan E’s over the holidays.

Ready baby! Plan C is a go!

Weekend Zero:

Plan A: Backcountry skiing (couldn’t get organized soon enough)

Plan B: Resort skiing (not worth paying for such lousy conditions)

Plan C: Help instruct Course I (awesome Saturday)

Plan D: go home and hope to rally people for a Sunday trip (fail)

Plan E: in full swing Sunday

Rough start to winter. I ended up on Plan C, which was actually a blast, followed by Plans D&E, though I certainly did not earn the luxury of my couch that weekend. And hopefully the freezing level will eventually be low enough that Plan B can be what I usually land on.

Looking back at Robert and Amber after leading the first pitch

Weekend One:

Plan A (Saturday): Three O’Clock Rock, Silent Running (bail)

Plan A (Sunday): Baker via Coleman Deming (bail – straight to Plan E)

On a weekend with surprisingly pleasant weather, I somehow could not convince anyone to come on a North Cascades snow slog with me. So I hopped onto Forrest’s trip, which involved a nice 5.9ish slab climb of Silent Running on Three O’Clock Rock out by Darrington. I wasn’t convinced we’d reach the trailhead, or that the rock was dry, or that we wouldn’t be pummeled by ice/snow/waterfalls, but everyone was pretty gung ho so I schlepped myself along.

We made it to the trailhead without issue, and the approach to Three O’Clock Rock is an awesomely short hike along a nice trail. Supposedly it’s unmaintained, but it’s not that bad at all, and it continues on to Squire Creek Pass, which is a nice winter/spring hike when Three Fingers is dusted in snow and you can watch skiiers doing borderline impossible ascents and descents of the north face. We took our turnoff, the only people interested in rock climbing, and started getting set up in the snow. The rock was a mix of dry and wet, but at least the first pitch was mostly dry. And the sun was coming around the corner, which should help with the rest of it.

Three Fingers from Squire Creek Pass

Forrest led the first two pitches with Brooke, and then I led the same two with Amber and Robert. Slab is my nemesis, I just picture slipping and cheese-gratering my face all over it. Until Forrest actually told me how to climb it. It’s almost like squatting. Get your feet under your chest and you can pretty much just walk right up it. I was standing up, but I was standing up with like a 15 degree angle between me and the rock, which meant a high chance of my feet slipping. If you can get your body weight as close to perpendicular as possible, you’ll have way more traction. And suddenly I was more comfortable. And the first two pitches are an easy lead with solid pro and a few bolts, and soon enough I was at the bolted anchors.

Robert getting to the watery sections in the cold shade

Belaying two people at once is a pain in the ass and my rope nest went to shit immediately, but hey the ledge was sunny and it was warm and that was nice. Robert and Amber cruised up and joined me on the icy belay ledge, waiting for our fingers and feet to freeze. Standing on snow in rock shoes sucks, so we tried to dance around it with little to no success. Oh, and then the sun went away. We had enjoyed it for like 15 minutes and now it was gone, never to be seen again.

Robert led the next pitches. With the warming temperatures, chunks of ice were starting to cascade down on us. I took a nice chunk to the wrist. Robert took a football chunk to the ribs and had a speed-clip mid-lead when he was 10ft above his last piece and the ice came, clipping just in time to be showered with golf balls. You’d hear the F bombs come down with the ice. “ICE!!!” “fuck” “oh shit AH” “ah jesus christ” “fuck OUCH” “fucking hell” and then you knew it was your turn. Helmets are good. I couldn’t help but wonder what the group walking below us thought. “Morons.”

Robert crushed the next two pitches, until it turned out that the last 20ft were flat, featureless slab with basically a small waterfall running down the entire thing. Forrest had traversed left and back right to get to the anchor, but Robert tried to go straight up and just ended up soaking wet. Can’t win that one. But he settled in at the belay ledge, and after a few minutes Forrest started setting up a rappel. Guess we’re bailing. “It’s too wet! The entire next pitch is soaked!” Yeah, like we couldn’t see that from the beginning. They rapped down as I climbed up. We’re here, I’m getting my money’s worth. As Brooke pointed out while I was being grumpy the day prior, “yeah we might not finish it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.” She wins that argument. It was still a freaking blast.

Everything looks better after you’ve bailed on it. Bring on Plan E!

I drove straight to the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead, where I met Shawna hoping to do a one push ascent of Baker. I was set up in bed by 9pm and we figured we’d get moving around 3am. I was recovering from a cold, so not feeling fantastic but not feeling awful either, and I slept surprisingly well. Unfortunately, Christie woke up sick (I know you can’t get someone sick in 6hrs but I still feel bad), so our group of 5 was down to 4. We skinned up the road to the trailhead (road is blocked around 1.5 miles from the actual trailhead) and started up, alternating skis and boots. Naomi decided her heart wasn’t in it, so she turned back too. We pushed on to low camp at the top of the hogsback, and decided we were turning around too. I have a three strike rule I like to keep, and having two people turn back was basically two strikes. Plus, I realized that we were a group of two skiers and one snowshoer, and a) I wasn’t sure I was comfortable skiing the glacier with as little snow cover as there was and b) we were slower than expected, likely due to me insisting on skinning un-skinnable terrain and c) what were we going to do, have the snowshoer walk down unroped? So we pitched a tent, shiver-napped and laughed at how we had forgotten how winter trips worked, and then skied down. Except I had forgotten how to ski. Shit. And my skis need to be waxed, desperately. I couldn’t even get them to slide at first. Ah, tis the season. The season of turnarounds, being slower than expected, fighting to skin or posthole, and remembering that you have no idea how to ski.

Snow caves!!

Weekend Two:

Plan A: Skiing in the rain (bail)

Plan B: Assist with a Peaks of Life avalanche class (yay!)

This was a quickie. We were planning on resort skiing so I could re-learn how to ski, but it was supposed to be raining at Snoqualmie Pass and Forrest needed a last minute assistant for a Peaks of Life avalanche class, so I opted to help out. This involved a few hours of classroom education (basically plan E with some perks) followed by a short skin up to Mazama Ridge, where we built snow caves. And of course, evaluated terrain, worked on routefinding and snowpack observations, practiced companion rescue, and I got to get in a few mini turns while my muscles remembered how skis work. And it reinforced everything I had learned in AIARE 1, which was awesome. You can never stop learning this stuff. There will always be more to know, new research, better ways to do what you’ve been doing, new gear to be utilized. Never stop learning.

…I mean it’s almost offensive to call this Plan C

Brooke toasting us in snowshoes

Weekend Three:

Plan A: Shuksan via Sulphide (didn’t even start)

Plan B: Epic Nisqually ice climb (bail)

Plan C: Less epic Nisqually seracing (yay!)

This has been the highlight of winter so far, even if we ended up on Plan C. I bailed on Shuksan because I woke up on Saturday feeling sick, weak and pathetic. Sunday I woke up feeling slightly less pathetic, and we headed to Paradise to set up snow caves on the Nisqually and do some ice climbing in the area. I don’t like spending NYE in the city, so I was just happy to be getting out, especially on such a beautiful weekend.

I bet this is better than your plan C

You know the book “The Things They Carried?” Yeah, well this was like a non-metaphorical version called “The Things They Didn’t Carry.” I forgot technical crampons. Amber didn’t bring sunglasses or a stove or a spoon (sound familiar? I bring two spoons now). Brooke didn’t bring sunglasses or poles. “Everyone forgot something except Forrest! And even if he did he’ll never tell us.” A few hours later, Forrest announced he didn’t bring a goretex jacket, just bibs. Ha! But between the four of us, we had enough to share. We skinned through the forest and then along a beautiful ridge to our campsite, and spent the next hour (three hours in my case because I have no idea what I’m doing) digging out snow caves. I don’t have the art of snow caving perfected yet, like Forrest and Brooke do. And we welcomed the new year with a fantastic sunset, dehydrated mountain meals, and battery powered christmas lights in snow caves. By which I mean we pretended it was midnight at 8pm because I wanted to go to sleep.

But this was Plan B

In the morning, we roped up for the Nisqually to be safe, but it’s nicely covered. Forrest gave the first two ice falls a good shot, but route A was too soft and route B was too thin. So on to the next idea, and we headed up to the seracs to get in a few laps. Forrest led two routes and the rest of us top roped. Ice climbing was like slab climbing. I’ve done it a few times, but no one has ever watched me and actually told me how to do it. Within a single pitch Forrest had given me three crucial tips. 1) Triangle. You want your ice pics almost in a vertical line, and your feet in a wide stance so your points of contact make a triangle. You can also yell “TRIANGLE!” at someone on their whole climb, just like skiing behind them yelling “PIZZA!” 2) On plasticy alpine ice, it’s possible (even ideal) to have more than just the front two teeth of your crampons in contact with the ice. And 3) You want to stick one tool as high as you can reach, then move your feet 3+ times, then stick your next tool as high as you can get it, move feet a bunch, rinse and repeat. Like rock climbing. And once I had those 3 things on my mind, everything was suddenly easier. It’s amazing how much having someone watch you even for just a few minutes can help.

Brooke belaying Forrest leading a nice WI3 pitch

We wrapped it up after a few laps, ripped the skins from our skis, and carved our way back down the Nisqually with Brooke dusting us in her snowshoes. She took advantages of our transitions to get a head start, but damn I have never met anyone that fast on snowshoes. We knew we were getting back to civilization when we heard kids and saw people sledding, and we skied all the way back to the parking lot, where all four of us ate it almost immediately on the black ice.

Weekend Four:

Plan A: Lookout Mountain Lookout and Little Devil Peak! (forecast got worse every day)

Plan B: Just Lookout Mountain! (forecast got even worse)

Plan C: Resort skiing! (forecast changed to rain everywhere)

Plan D: Amabilis Mountain cross country ski! (avalanche conditions worsened, Kacie had a dream I died in an avalanche)

Plan D-2? Can’t be E because E is my couch: Hex Mountain

Clouds reflecting my grumpy bland mood

And you know what? Hex Mountain was fantastic. Super sweet low angle snowshoe out by Roslyn, which is often far enough east to get sunshine even when the pass is getting pounded by rain or snow. Kacie had to be back by 5pm so we needed something short and close, and this fit the bill. We crashed two meetups with had several mutual connections (one guardian angel on my Stuart trip last spring, Ashwin who came up Baker with me years ago, and some friends of SAR folks), I skiied (well, skinned) the worst snow I have skiied in my life, and we got to check out the remains of an area covered in wildfires this summer.

Okay, Hex isn’t so bad

It was pretty wild seeing the eerie, gothic needle trees leftover from the fire, or how the fire consumed one tree but the tree next to it was left unscathed. So stop whining, you still got out, got a workout, and got some awesome photos. And you can go back in a few years and admire the changes as the forest recovers.

Weekend Five:

Plan A: Oakes Peak (too ambitious)

Plan B: Lookout Mountain Lookout

Problems I expected to run into: Slushy snowpack, moving slower than expected, loose wet avalanches, sunburns

Problems we actually ran into: Jackson being scared of going downhill on snow or bridges, ghost water stealthily draining from bladders, bloody dog paws, and excessive dog shitting

Rippley coming back to help us coax Jackson across

We started up the trail and finally strapped on snowshoes just below 4,000ft. You could have left them on for longer. I had been told Jackson was scared of steep snow but I didn’t know how scared until we reached the first snow bridge, where it turned out he’s also scared of snow-covered bridges even if the drop to the creek is like two feet. Shawna wrangled him across that, and then two more bridges, but when it came time to cross the steeper final slope, Jackson’s face said “absolutely not.” I was stomping a path across when I noticed Rippley’s paws were bloody, and announced that the pups were calling the trip for us. Back to the car! But hey, it’s sunshine, and a workout, and the smell of crisp pine trees in the middle of January, so it’s hard to complain. And Jackson actually slept in the car on the way home, imagine that.

Still a gorgeous day in the woods

So Plan C can be good. And so can Plan B, even if Plan A is the best. After all, getting out in winter is an accomplishment in itself. And the best way to stay in shape is to carry skis and wallow a bit. It’s not a true backcountry trip if there isn’t some postholing, or some booting, or even a tree well or two.* Bring it on, 2018, we’re ready!

*Brooke found that for us, during the only 10 minutes of the trip where she wasn’t leaving us in the dust.

Working Our Way Through the Grieving Process: Rainier via DC

Posted on July 17, 2017 by evejakubowski

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

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

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

John and Rippley coming up Vesper

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skin up, rap down, climb back up!

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

“Look it’s the perfect beer shelf!”

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

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

Tsunami Wave on the way down

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

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

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

Scattering ashes over every peak in the Cascades

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

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

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

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

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

Au cheval baby! “Ride the pony!”

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

John and the Mountain Bastards

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

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

The summit that started it all!

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

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