Glacier Peak ski (and a surprise on the summit)

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Last weekend was busy...right after work Becky and I were off to Lake Union for a friend's wedding, and then at 9pm we piled into the Subaru and were off to the Mountain Loop Highway...we had a long hike ahead of us on Saturday, so we figured sleeping at the trailhead made sense. Becky was a trooper and drove the whole way while I did my best to remain awake. A cramped night snoozing in the back of the car and then we were up at first light, guzzling coffee and eating Twinkies (well, I was...Becky had a much healthier breakfast).
Glacier Peak has never been particularly easy to access, but since the floods a few years ago wiped out the Kennedy Hotsprings trail, the most reasonable way to get to the mountain has been 10 miles of trail hiking, then three miles of cross country skiing just to get to camp, then another three miles the following day to reach the top, with a total of about 9000 vertical feet of gain. We skimped on gear as much as possible...no tent, minimal glacier gear, and our lightweight summer sleeping bags...we hoped that a 40 degree down bag with all our clothes on would be warm enough.
Fortunately the high clouds stuck around Saturday morning as we made quick work of the first five miles of flat trail and then chipped away at all the switchbacks that got us to White Pass by lunchtime. The weather was starting to clear, and our packs got a little lighter when we could finally switch from running shoes to skis and boots. A quick slide down into Whitechuck basin, and we put the skins on and shuffled the remaining miles to Glacier Gap. We rolled into camp at 4:30pm and found one spot that had some wind protection and a small rock wall.
The marine layer clouds came and went, billowed up and then faded...I think mother nature was toying with us as we'd opted to skip bringing a tent and we were both a little nervous about how damp our night could be in our thin down bags and flimsy bivy sacks should the weather not cooperate.
We both slept poorly, I think we've gotten used to sleeping in tents, vs out in the open, and a glimpse of a curious chipmunk earlier in the evening has us on our toes for critters that might come to nibble our food or backpack straps.
Just as we were starting to get cold, the alarm went off and it was time to rise and shine. After a cold breakfast and a few caffeinated gu's to get us awake we were off again, hiking the last three miles to the top. We opted to crampon cause the snow has frozen rather firmly overnight, but a pair of skiers who camped near us did just fine with skins and ski crampons. 
Up Gerdine Ridge and out across the Gerdine glacier, the views of the Dakobed range started to open up....we were both feeling the effects of the fourteen mile day Saturday and weren't breaking any speed records. Slow and steady progress up the Cool Glacier, past a few small crevasses and then we were on the pumice ridge just a thousand feet below the summit. It was plenty warm, but the western aspect of the Sitkum glacier side kept the top few hundred feet of the mountain rather icey. We figured by the time we slowly dawdled our way to the top and had a break, the top would be soft enough for a pleasant ski.
Mark and Andy, two guys who'd camped near us the day before and were the only other folks on the mountain today, had beaten us to the top by a good half-hour and were on their way down as we topped out. Becky and I were rather surprised that on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, there was no one else on the summit. The view was great, the weather warm, the snow was softening....it was perfect. Becky noted that once Glacier Peak was in the bag, we'd skied all the Washington volcanoes together.
The day before while hiking through a huge meadow of yellow flowers, I picked one and put it in my camera bag...just in case....there was something I had been planning to ask Becky while we were backpacking later this summer in the Sierras, but having the summit of Glacier all to ourselves seemed like a good place to....ask her to marry me. I took the wildflower I had in my camera bag, tied it into a ring, got down on one knee, and asked Becky to marry me. And fortunately she said yes.
The ski down off the summit was wonderful, good snow, and we were both in high spirits. I've never seen Becky so happily tackle such a long day in the mountains before...I guess she must've been in a good mood :)
We quickly skied down the Cool and Gerdine glaciers and rolled into camp...our damp sleeping bags dried quickly in the sun and by noon we were packed up and skiing back out the Whitechuck basin towards White Pass. Once at White Pass, we shotgunned more caffeinated gu, donned the running shoes and just tried to pound out the miles to the car. Shortly after 8pm we were back at the car and on our way home...sunburned, tired, and happily engaged :)

Escaping the rainy 4th of July weekend...Middle and South Sister ski

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Our plans were originally to spend four days skiing Glacier Peak, but as is often the case, the Washington Cascades forecast sucked....so we pointed the car south to central Oregon to see if the better weather would show.
Driving over the Oregon Cascades we had overcast skies and the occasional rain shower, but by the time we got to Sisters, the weather was improving...cool and cloudy, but not bad. We had brief glimpses of the Sisters, but they were mired in clouds. After a big lunch of bbq, we decided to give it a go and started the hike in. We camped below treeline that night out of the rain clouds just above us and we crossed our fingers for better weather the next day.
In the morning the sun was out and we were off to higher ground. We dumped our tents at Camp Lake between Middle and South Sisters, and started skinning up the south face of Middle Sister. The cloud ceiling was just below the summit, and when we reached the last bit of the summit ridge, we saw the top 500 vertical feet socked in clouds, so after trying to wait for better weather, we clicked in to our skis and had a great run back to camp. The weather improved later that afternoon and we kind of kicked ourselves for not getting the summit...but we had plans for South Sister the next day.
Up early again and perfect weather....back up past the Chamber Lakes, up towards the Lost Creek glacier and around to the west ridge. It was a bit of a navigational challenge, finding the most direct line up that would keep us from having to scramble over crumbling moraine debris below the glaciers. We made our way up to the west ridge around 9100ft, where the slope got too steep and icy to skin, so skis went on our backs, and we donned our crampons. A fairly quick boot up the west ridge got us to the crater rim and on over to the crowds who'd come up the usual south climb route.
Not wanting to waste a 1000ft of elevation to bad snow, we began our decent down the south face enjoying perfect corn snow and then wrapped around the Clark glacier to regain the west ridge. Once over the west ridge, we began linking the Lost Creek glacier and snowfields back to the Chambers Lakes. A few hundred vertical feet of elevation gain got us back over the divide between Middle and South Sister and then we scooted back to camp.
Monday morning we packed up and began shuffling back to the car....more nice weather and fortunately we were back at the trailhead before the afternoon heat really kicked in. Another big bbq lunch and a stop at the Sisters bakery and we were on the road to Seattle... a successful mission of finding sun and snow amidst a bad Pacific Northwest forecast.

The Forbidden Tour

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Chair Peak circumnav & Kaleetan ski

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The usual mid-winter Chair Peak ski circumnavigation but with a climb/ski of Kaleetan thrown in for giggles.

Dragontail Peak ski

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mid-winter trip into the Enchantments to climb/ski Dragontail

Big Sur and a V-Strom

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Ptarmigan Traverse, July 2-6, 2006

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Becky and I hiked the Ptarmigan this past week. It was tough for me to leave skis behind as I always thought my first time doing the traverse would be on skis, but after the previous week of hot temperatures we figured the on again off again routine with skis would make walking the traverse a little more practical. And especially after seeing Bachelor Creek in all its slide-aldery glory, I was kinda happy to not have boards with me this time around.
Anyways...current conditions on the traverse:Traverse to Cache Col is mostly snow and getting over cache col is an easy scramble on the left side of the cornice.Descent to Kool-aid lake is on rotten snow with plenty of hollows near rocks and the traverse towards the Red Ledges is alternating snow and heather.
There is a hanging snow patch and a moat at the entrance to the ledges. Of the four parties we saw doing the traverse at the same time, only one successfully pulled off the scramble on the right side of the moat to gain the ledges (they also brought some nuts to protect it, none of us did).
We opted to descend a bit and climb a straightforward snow gully that gained the ridge and although we hiked further, we topped out right around the same time the Red Ledges party topped out. Probably still in shape for a couple weeks or so.
The traverse towards the Middle Cascade glacier is alternating gravel ribs and snow, and the walk up the glacier is fine, no nearby crevasses or saggy snowbridges.The snow tounge off the back side of Spider Col was an easy glissade.
Among the parties also doing the traverse this week was a group of four with skis, and from Spider Col to Yang Yang lakes was one of the few times that Becky and I were truly jealous of their boards as the flew past us heading for camp. Only a couple short heather patches between Spider col and Yang Yang lakes, but the snow is very thin lower down and won't last long at all.
About 5am Tuesday morning at the lakes it started to thunder and pour rain but it was short-lived and by noon we were all dried out and packed up. The goat path to pass through the cliffs just south of Yang Yang lakes is still covered in snow and was a steep, but straightforward climb to the ridge below Le Conte.
The Le Conte glacier is well filled in and we didn't have any troubles getting up to the col towards the South Cascade glacier.The long descending traverse towards White Rocks Lakes was another spot where Becky and I were envious of the four skiers as the scooted past us and beat us to camp by about an hour.
White Rocks Lakes has to be one of the most beautiful campsites I've ever been to....what a dramatic view of Dome and the Chickamin glacier!Wednesday morning we headed for campsite either on Itswoot Ridge or the Dana glacier so we'd be in position for a climb of Dome on Thursday, but upon reaching Spire Col we had a view to the south of the incoming storm...a large thunderhead and grey clouds marching up from Glacier Peak. Not wanting to be in the alpine when the thunderstorm hit we bagged our Dome Peak plans and headed for Cub Lake.A party up there a week and a half earlier reported continuous snow to Cub Lake, now its melted out significantly and we were off the snow after 1300ft of descending from Spire Col.
Within about fifteen minutes of us setting up the tent at Cub Lake the thunder, rain, and hail started up and we were consumed by clouds. After a very dreary evening surrounded by slowly damper and damper gear in our little single-wall tent we packed up Thursday morning and headed for the car.
From the ridge above Cub Lake the main trail appears to veer into the massive avy slide path. Taking the advice from a friend who'd been in to climb Dome the week before we headed down on the south side of the slide path through mature forest and quickly found the climbers path at around 4700ft without ever setting foot amongst the slide debris.Once we hit the trail we just put our heads down, tried to ignore our saturated rain gear, soaked-through boots, and just chug our way out to the car.
Very happy to have finally seen all the terrain around the Ptarmigan, maybe one of these days I'll feel up for bringing skis along.