Muir Snowfield - first skiing of the season

Just two weeks ago, Becky and I were hiking up the Muir Snowfield on our way to Camp Muir and the summit of Rainier the following day.    At the time, the snowfield was a melty mess of dirty exposed ice, runnels, and sun-cupped neve- more or less unskiable, or a the the very least a really unpleasant ski.   Its always amazing how one good storm can cover up the late summer mess and make slopes skiable again. 
Over the week, we eagerly watched the weather telemetry and webcams as the early season storms started covering the mountain with its first blanket of snow.  We figured by the weekend it should be time to get the skis out. The new snow won't last...a few days of sunny weather will cook it off again, but for the short-term, one could pretend that winter had arrived.
The weather was overcast and cool as we shouldered our packs and headed up the trail.  There was a dusting of snow as low as the Paradise parking lot.   The hike up to the toe of the Muir Snowfield at 7,500ft went quickly and we'd occasionally catch glimpses of the upper mountain through the clouds.
We broke out into the sunshine as we switched from our sneakers to skis and boots...the weather was warm enough we were in short-sleeved shirts. The skin up the snowfield went quickly, we'd occasionally cross paths with parties of climbers and we saw the first couple skiers heading down- the snow looked great.
As the morning wore on, the clouds started to climb up the mountain and we were occasionally enveloped in a whiteout, but with the cattle-path of boot prints running up to Camp Muir, it was easy to tell where to go.
We were a little disappointed upon arriving at Camp Muir that the clouds limited our view to about fifty feet...not ideal for skiing.  We took a long break and waited to see if things would improve, but it didn't seem likely, so we started our slow ski down in wonderful, almost powdery snow with limited visibility.   Fortunately, we got a few breaks in the clouds and could ski full-speed.   At 8,500ft, we put the skins back on and climbed for another lap...the snow was too good and it had been too long to just limited ourselves to one lap on the snowfield.   Back up about 1,000ft to the top of the best slope and then down again.   By this time, there was a steady stream of day-trippers and other skiers on the snowfield too.
As we descended, the clouds got thicker, it started snowing in earnest and we had to don our rain jackets.    At 7,500ft  it was time to rack the skis and start the hike down. Heavy wet flakes were falling and it was far from the mostly sunny forecast that was slated for today.
Nice to get the skis back on the snow and run around in some stormy weather after so many weekends of dry, hot weather.  

Mt.Rainier - Disappointment Cleaver

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It had been two years since I’d last climbed and skied Rainier and it was gnawing at me that during the relatively short window this spring to climb and ski it I had missed out.   As Becky and I worked our way through our summertime ‘to-do’ list, we were starting to run out of destinations on our list. Somehow, amazingly, we had a 100% success rate on every climbing/skiing trip this summer…that’s never happened before. I guess when Washington is having its driest summer in ages, one doesn't have to worry about getting weathered off a mountain.  So, with our list getting rather short due to all the successful trips, and a couple of the destinations being areas that were currently burning up north- we decided somewhat at the last minute to go take a shot at Rainier.

This time of year, the mountain is a lumpy, bumpy mess of sun-cupped snow, waist-high nieve penitente snow formations, bare rock (of varying quality), and lots of open crevasses.   While its virtually impossible to ski from the summit this time of year, its still a fairly straightforward climb so long as you stick to the Disappointment Cleaver route, which is constantly rerouted around new obstacles and has a handful of ladder crossings that the guiding companies temporarily use for those spots where obstacles cannot be end-ran.

We drove to Rainier Saturday morning and picked up our permit-  we’d hoped to camp at 11,000ft at Ingraham Flats to get away from the day trippers and noise of Camp Muir, but it was already all booked up, so we’d join the masses at Camp Muir (10,000ft) for the night.

We took our time, and reached camp around 2pm, and spent the rest of the afternoon rehydrating and napping.   Two friends of ours, Amar and Khanh, arrived that afternoon...they're a fair bit faster than us so they'd be leaving camp at 6am while Becky and I were opting for the more traditional middle-of-the-night start time.  

I got about three hours of sleep, Becky only got about one, but we were up at midnight having our morning coffee and pop-tarts.   

We hopped into the bootpack and joined a string of headlamps slowly chugging up the mountain.  It had been over a decade since I'd climbed the Disappointment Cleaver route and Becky had never even seen it before, so ascending the 1000ft of scree and friable rock was mildly nerve-wracking as our view was limited to the throw of our headlamps.   

We took a short break at the top of the DC and had some food.  Sunrise was about two hours away and we were both feeling the affects of sleep deprivation, but we snacked on some caffeinated gu's and kept on going.  

As the route wrapped around from the upper Ingraham glacier to the upper Nisqually, we climbed up and walked across several ladders spanning crevasses that would otherwise require a lot of work to get around or be flat out impassible.  The guiding companies do a ton of work to maintain the route so their guided climbs have as straightforward a route as possible all summer.

As the sun began to rise, we could make out Point Success off to the west, one of the lower sub-summits of Rainier, and the altimeter showed he had about 1,000ft to go.

The wind picked up, our jackets went on and we ate a bit more food and just kept chugging along.  Eventually the crater rim came in to view and we knew we'd made it.   Up over the crater rim and we could see the true summit on the far side.  We dumped the packs and rope and made the quick out and back hike to the top to take a few pictures, then ran the stove to refill our water bottles.

On the way up, we hadn't hit a single slowdown on the route where large guided parties or groups of less experienced climbers were taking a long time crossing crevasses, but on the way down we started hitting the traffic jams.  Fortunately, several large parties let us scoot by in so we weren't held up.   Becky was already talking about her after climb meal...she wanted to hit Katsu Burger and they closed at 9pm, so we had a schedule to keep.

Descending the Disappointment Cleaver during daylight was far more straightforward than the trip up in the night.  Now that we could see, it was obvious that the route was very straightforward, mostly on low angle scree...nothing to worry about.  It was around noon when we arrived at Ingraham Flats, 11,000ft, and we stopped for a lunch break.  It was very warm by now and we were both back to just our polypro shirts..no need for a windproof layer or puffy jackets. 

Back down across Cathedral Gap and the Cowlitz Glacier brought us to our tent, where we refilled our water bottles one more time and packed up our camp.    The goal was to get to Paradise by 5pm.   The Muir snowfield was a mess of open meltwater creeks and exposed ice, but in the mid-afternoon heat we were able to skip wearing crampons and shuffle, slide, and boot-ski as much of it as possible.  We were glad we hadn't tried to ski it- there were two folks attempting to ski the dirty, lumpy old snow and we actually got down on foot faster than the skiers.

Another long break at the end of the snowfield for a few more snacks and the last of our water and then it was off to the car.   We got back right around 5pm, and pointed the car for Seattle.   The weekend ended with successfully making it to the Georgetown neighborhood in Seattle by 8pm where we had our triumphant Katsu burger dinner (Katsu burger being a deep-fried, Japanese inspired, cheeseburger....so good....so unhealthy that one needs a special occasion for it). 

Mt. Shuksan day trip via the Sulphide Glacier route

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Yet another weekend of warm, sunny weather in the North Cascades, so Becky and I were off to climb Mt.Shuksan. It had been about fifteen years since I’d climbed Shuksan and Becky had been up there before to ski the Sulphide Glacier, but hadn’t climbed the summit pinnacle before. 

Mt.Shuksan is in the North Cascades National Park and given the weather, and popularity of the easiest route up it, the Sulphide Glacier route, we didn’t even try to get a camping permit knowing that they were probably long gone before the weekend started.   

Since we’d easily done Sahale in a day (14 miles, 5,100ft of gain) a couple weeks earlier, we figured the stats for Shuksan (16 miles, 6,600ft) made it reasonable for us as a day trip.

We got to the trailhead and met a fellow who’d turned back on a Shuksan day trip earlier when he couldn’t keep up with the rest of his climbing partners. He’d said they’d started at midnight, yet at 8pm his friends were nowhere to be seen. We decided to move up our wake-up time to midnight just to make sure we didn’t get benighted on the hike out. We barely slept a wink, as around 10pm, his buddies started arriving…loud music, air mattresses being blown up by air compressors, angry bickering amongst their party…sounded like they’d had quite the epic. At midnight, Becky and I finally got out of our Subaru bivy-mobile and as the other party was winding down from their 23 hour day, we grabbed our gear and without a word to them we started up the trail. 

A full moon, warm weather, and a fairly easy to follow trail got us to the toe of the Sulphide glacier before dawn and we were halfway up the glacier before we turned our headlamps off. We felt we were making good time and both were a little groggy, so we tossed on the down jackets and took a 15-minute power nap shortly before arriving at the summit scramble - about 500ft of 3^rd class climbing with maybe a 4^th class move mixed in. When we got to the summit gully at 7:45, there were quite a few parties already moving up and down the route, but everyone seemed to be moving well and was courteous not to knock any loose rocks down.   

We got to the top at 8:45 and actually had it all to ourselves for a few minutes. As a party of four was getting ready to start rappelling down, we weighed our options of whether to do some short rappels using our single strand of 30m or just down-climb it. Fortunately, the friendly guys that were getting ready to rappel had a great idea - they’d send their first couple guys down with our rope, they’d set up the next rap station and rap on our 30m rope as a single strand, and the rest of us would follow on their ropes.  It worked out really well having two rappelling stations running at the same time. They got down faster because they had our rope to use, and we had the ease of rappelling instead of down-climbing.  

The whole round trip on the summit pinnacle took longer than expected…three hours total, and it was nearly 11am before we were trudging back down the glacier. Even though the glacier was a sun-cupped, lumpy mess, we were both wishing we’d had our skis to turn the two hour hike into a fifteen minute slide.  

On the way down, we picked up a single crampon lying in the boot-pack….maybe we’d find the owner later in the day. We were also passed by a single climber moving quite fast, only to see him again about twenty minutes later coming back up. He’d ascended the Fischer Chimneys route that morning and had failed to realize he missed the turn and was now 1500ft down the Sulphide Glacier on the wrong side of the mountain.  

Finally off the glacier, we refilled our water bottles, stowed our gear, and found the owner of the orphaned crampon. The rest of the hike was sunny and warm. Occasionally we’d pass by a particularly lovely patch of wildflowers or a patch of huckleberries to eat

Eventually we hit treeline, and then just tried to pound out the miles and ignore the various hot spots on our feet.

Back the car at 4:00…earlier than we expected and we were happy to do the drive home in daylight.  As usual, the discussion on the drive home centered around dinner. After considering many options, we decided that cheeseburgers and onion rings from Red Mill was an appropriate treat for our thirteen hour day trip.

Sahale Peak climb

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As the summer of ridiculously stable, sunny weather continues, Becky and I decided to do a quick trip up to the North Cascades.   We had originally thought about climbing Rainier this weekend, but we had family in town visting, so we couldn't be gone the whole weekend.
A Friday night drive up the Cascade River Rd and a five hour snooze in the back of the Subaru, and it was time to hit the trail. Headlamps on and up the trail we went at 4:30am.  There were other hikers/climbers car-camping nearby but no one was on the move yet.
The weather was cool and overcast for most of the ascent, it made the hike up seem pretty quick and relatively easy work.
No other hikers around so early in the morning, just birds, marmots, and a young male deer who appeared to prefer walking along the trail than bushwacking it.
As we neared the toe of the Sahale glacier, we saw a few groups of climbers milling about their tents, but still no one in front of us on the glacier or behind us on the trail...we were starting to think we were home-free to have zero traffic jams on the summit pinnacle.    As we got closer to the top of the glacier though, we spotted a big group...eight folks...all heading towards to the top.
By the time we caught up to them, they had one person just about ready to start leading the last bit to the top, so Becky and I pulled up a chunk of rock and sat down to wait for them.   After about an hour, their last climber was on the way up and Becky could finally get moving.  When the group opted to stop, pull up their rope and lead another pitch to the top, we finally asked if we could just sneak past...they were very friendly and let Becky zip on by and then reel me in.    Before even half of the big group of Mazamas were on the summit, we had our rappel rope tossed and were sliding back down the south side to the snow below.
After a little lunch break and stowing our climbing gear, we hit the trail back down Sahale Arm towards Cascade Pass and the parking lot.

Mt.Olympus - Blue glacier route

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Earlier in the year, Andy had tossed out the idea of climbing Mt.Olympus over July 4^th weekend.  Making plans months in advance, especially for an objective in the extremely wet Olympic Range rarely pans out, but we all penciled it in.   Fast forward to June and the disappointing ski season had basically wrapped up and the continued high pressure and perfect weather is making an Olympus climb look like a pretty likely destination for the Fourth. 

We put in a camping reservation form, so we wouldn’t have to deal with risking the long drive to Port Angeles only to find that all the campsites were booked already.   Mica, Andy, Andrew, Matt, Becky and I were all on different schedules, but we eventually made it to the Hoh rainforest trailhead.  

The approach to Olympus is just as much a challenge as the climb itself.  The trailhead is at 570 ft elevation and the approach to our camp at Glacier Meadows is 17.5 miles and 3,500 ft of climbing, the next day we’d have a 8-10 mile 4,000 ft day to reach the summit, and then Sunday we’d have that 17.5 hike out to look forward to.   Fortunately the forecast looked so ridiculously warm and dry we really didn’t need to bring much in the way of insulation or foul weather gear.

The hike in took about ten hours, but was mostly in the shade of massive old growth.  The only wildlife we saw was right out of the gate, just a half mile or so from the trailhead. Just off the trail we saw a black bear and her cub toodling along.  We kept our distance, but it was tough not to try and get closer to the cub that looked like moving stuffed animal.
 On the hike in and out Andy, Mica, Becky, and I had the wonderful distraction of listening to the same audiobook on our ipods.   Normally, I’d poo-poo the idea of separating myself from the sounds of nature by having headphones on, but when covering that many miles, it was great to have an entire book read to me through my headphones on the hike to camp.

We got to camp late in the afternoon, quickly ate dinner and guzzled tons of water.  Alarms set for 2am- from what we heard around the various campsites, most folks were getting a very early start due to the heat, the crowds, and the likelihood of a bottleneck of climbers at the short rock climb to the top of Olympus.

It was so warm that Becky and I used our sleeping bags as pillows- long underwear was more than enough to sleep in, but we all got a few hours of sleep before we were up.   A dark climb up past treeline got us to the lateral moraine of the Blue Glacier just as daylight started to arrive on the horizon.  

The Blue glacier has virtually no rockfall overlaying the ice on the lower reaches of the glacier and hardly any crevasses, which is fairly unique in the Northwest- most of the big glaciers turn into jumbled masses of cracks of dive below mounds of boulders lower on mountains.  On Olympus, you have a nearly mile-long walk across an undulating mass of bare ice enroute to the upper mountain. 

A short easy rock scramble/walk brought us from the lower glacier to the upper, snowy slopes of the Blue glacier.  Easy travel across the glacier, through Crystal Pass, and on up to the false summit, a few big crevasses and some moat issues to deal along the way.  Fortunately we got in front of a some big parties on the last bit of the climb and didn’t have too large of a queue waiting for the summit pinnacle.

Andy lead the short 5.3 pitch up the summit and Becky, Mica, and I followed along behind.   Andrew and Matt opted for the 4^th class scramble route to avoid the wait for the 5^th class option.   Unfortunately the masses on the summit and those behind us clogged up the descent route, so we waiting on top for about an hour and a half till we could drop our ropes and rappel back to the glacier. 

The descent went quickly, though the lower glacier was starting to get a little tiresome on our knees and feet…heavier-duty boots and steel crampons probably would’ve made for more comfortable walking, but our lightweight boots and aluminum crampons worked well enough.   We took a long break at a small tarn just above the meadows and soaked our feet.   Originally we thought we’d be back at camp by mid-afternoon but it was nearly 6pm by the time we were back at camp.

Another ridiculously warm night of sleeping with the rainfly off the tent and barely using our sleeping bags.   We were all up a couple hours before dawn and started the hike out by headlamp.   With our headphones continuing to distract us from the 17 miles and sore legs, we made pretty good time and were back to the parking lot by 1pm.     Nice to finally get Olympus, I imagine it’ll be a while before we do that long hike up the Hoh again any time soon. 

Mt.Baker... last ski of the season?

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For the past four years now, Becky and I have done a summer ski of Mt.Baker...usually as our last ski tour of the season.   Given how fast the snowpack is disappearing this season, we figured it was time to get Baker instead of waiting till mid-July like most years.
We've climbed Baker plenty of times as a day trip, but as our camping gear as become lighter and lighter, its pretty easy to toss the sleeping bag and tent into the pack and turn the jaunt into a leisurely overnighter.  We left Seattle in the early afternoon and were hiking up the Scott Paul trail around 4pm Saturday.   Lots of day hikers out and tons of cars in the parking lot, yet when we got to our favorite camping spot just below the Squak Glacier, there was no one there.   We assumed the masses must be one ridge over camping next to the Easton Glacier or just above us, but either way it was great to have peace and quiet.
After dinner, we stayed up till well after 10 watching the sunset, then set the alarm for 4am.  It was a very warm night... no need to even wear a hat in my tiny 1-lb 45 degree bag.    The snow on the lower Squak hadn't refroze overnight which made for easy skinning up the glacier in the morning.    It was breezier than expected, but with the warm temps it kept the ski up from feeling like being in an oven.   Quite a few more open crevasses than usual this time of year, I guess even the upper reaches of Baker had had a rough go of it this past winter. 
As we neared a bottleneck of climbers heading down near Sherman Crater, we figured out that one of the huge groups climbing the Easton glacier route was the Washington Alpine Club climbing class on their graduation climb.   We haven't done much with the WAC in ages, so we didn't expect to see many familiar faces, but we figured Pat was in the mix somewhere.   Sure enough, as we waited for some parties to cross a snowbridge, we spotted Pat....who introduced us as 'Becky and Pete are WAC members too....and I married them!'.   
After chatting with Pat for a bit and letting the traffic clear, we continued on up.   About halfway up the Roman Wall, the last slope to the summit, we switched from skis to crampons just to speed things up.    Lots of huge crevasses below the Roman Wall this year, but the route steered well clear of all but a couple.
As we reached the top, there were only two other skis and they were on their way down.  We didn't spend too much time on the summit as the snow didn't need any more softening to ski.
A quick uneventful ski back to camp through increasingly sticky and heavy snow and then we grabbed our camping gear and headed down.  A gully to the west of Crag View got us to within about 50 yards of the trail, and then it was time to rack the skis and don the sneakers.
 Might try one more ski on the north slopes of Rainier in a couple weeks or this might be it...hopefully next years ski season will be a bit longer.