JOJILAND

Powder in the North Cascades

2012-01-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

Prior to starting my new job (tomorrow morning, as I type this), Ava and I got away for a long weekend. We were planning to road trip to somewhere like Montana or Wyoming, but the complete lack of snow throughout the lower 48 made this unreasonable. Conveniently, the only place with a decent snow pack as well as a promising weather forecast was the Mt. Baker area in northern Washington.

We ended up spending three nights in the town of Sumas (seven blocks from Canada), skiing at the resort on Thursday and hitting up the backcountry on Friday and Saturday. When we returned home on Sunday, we read that there was 19 inches of fresh snow over the three days that we were out. All we knew at the time was that the skiing was incredible!

Ava shredding the gnar

Yahoo pow pow!!!

Late Season Archery Elk

2011-12-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

While researching the late season elk hunting opportunities in Washington, I generally found two types of opinions: 1) It's great! I usually get my elk during the late season, and 2) It's nearly impossible to kill an elk with a bow during the late season - a total waste of time. I hate to be a pessimist, but after 4.5 days of hard hunting I'm siding with the latter.

I hunted Sunday evening through Thursday morning this week near Yakima in the Cowiche unit. I found my first animals mid day on Monday, which included five deer. On Tuesday morning I spotted some elk! I saw three or four though a narrow gap in the trees, but figured there were more. They were about 1,000 feet above me, near the top of a ridge. I knew they would move before I got there, but I had to make an attempt. When I got close I found lots of sign, including tracks, fresh scat, and the smell of elk urine. I followed their tracks and spotted them about 1.5 miles later at a much lower elevation. I now counted between 20 and 30 altogether. They were moving as if they were spooked, which was understandable given the amount of hunters around. My goal was to figure out where they would spook to and get there before they did. I ended up guessing about 100 yards off the mark as they crossed below me. One cow got separated and was maybe 50 yards away, based on the sound of her call as I never saw her. I attempted to get closer only to find her gone when I could finally see where I thought she was.

Wednesday was filled with furry animals, starting with jumping a black bear at 30 yards. He stood up and slowly lumbered away. Next I spotted a coyote with my binoculars. After walking another hundred yards, I spotted another coyote. A few miles later I jumped a deer at close range in thick forest. A half mile after that I jumped a herd of elk, which crashed through the forest at close range but I never managed to see them. After following their tracks for about a mile, I saw them trotting across an open area about 800 yards away. When they disappeared over the ridge, I attempted to close the distance but never found them again. By this point I was probably 6 miles from my camp. On the way back, I spotted yet another coyote.

Thursday morning was entirely uneventful. I think I walked between 50 and 60 miles this trip, all off-trail over hilly terrain. While this effort didn't put any meat in my freezer, it effectively removed any Thanksgiving pounds I might have put on. Kris and I will be heading out again this weekend to the same area. I know there are elk there, they're just extremely good at hiding and extra wary after being shot at by rifle hunters for two weeks last month.

Ruttin' Rams and Raftin' Rivers

2011-11-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

Like the previous 19 years, Jake once again put in for the lottery drawing to hunt Oregon Bighorn Sheep last year. The odds of drawing are somewhere in the 1/100 to 1/200 range, so there is a good chance that he could have put in for this hunt for the rest of his life and never drawn. However, in true Jake-luck fashion, he won the lottery. The hard part was over.

Wanting to make the most of his luck, Jake put a ton of time into researching the unit for which he had drawn (West John Day). This included talking with private landowners, people who had drawn the tag in recent years and local sheep hunting guides as well as studying maps and making a few scouting trips. Prior to opening day, he accumulated 21 days of scouting via a series of multi-day float trips down the John Day River.

I received constant updates regarding his progress during this scouting process, including photos of named rams like Flair and Warrior. Being the savvy hunter that Jake is, while he was scouting he was also trying to put together a strong team of support hunters for the actual hunt. I knew Jake wanted me to join him, but until the last minute I wasn't sure if I would be able.

About a week and a half before Jake's planned departure date, things fell into place. On November 7th we started floating down the John Day river in search of the largest ram in Oregon's West John Day unit.

Put-in on the John Day River

The Plan
All of Jake's research and scouting resulted in the following plan. Jake and I would start floating down the river five days before opening day of the 9-day season. We would float almost 40 miles in three days, passing several rams in the process, before arriving at Deep Canyon, which we would turn into basecamp. Once here, we would begin our search for the larger rams Jake had seen on his scouting trip, including a ram he hadn't seen that was rumored to be the largest in the area (Rumor Ram). Ideally, we would locate Rumor Ram before the season and shoot him on opening day. One day before opening day, we would be joined by Jake's long-time hunting partner (Kyle) and Kyle's step dad (Loren).

The Team
Jake - As Jake drew the tag, his primary responsibility was to shoot the ram. He also acted like the CEO, planning the hunt, building his team and organizing everything.
Kyle - With lots of hunting experience, Kyle would serve as a strong set of eyes to help spot the sheep as well as help with devising strategies for finding and shooting a giant ram.
Loren - Loren drew this exact tag in 2009. Through a similar scouting/research process two years earlier, Loren learned the terrain and habits of the sheep well. His knowledge and experience would make him a valuable member of the team, as well as his eyes.
Me - With less hunting experience than the other three, I would serve as an additional set of eyes, a rower, a pack mule, a calming agent during exciting times, and round out the team for convenient travel in pairs.

Air guitar? Contrived and unnecessary. We have a shovel.

Pre-Season
On the float down to Deep Canyon, we spotted 100's of sheep including many mature rams. Jake had ambitions of shooting an Oregon state record ram with a bow, so we passed right on by many rams that most sane people would consider a trophy. We stopped a couple of times to hike up side canyons, exhibiting due diligence so as not to blindly pass by any giant rams that may have eluded Jake on his scouting trips.

Sheep Everywhere

On our third day, we set up a luxurious camp at the base of Deep Canyon which would provide good access to the herd of sheep known to reside primarily between there and Willow Springs Canyon. Unlike other animals I have hunted, the sheep here don't seem to travel more than a few miles, living their entire lives in a relatively confined area.

On November 10th we began the real leg work, with our primary goal of locating Rumor Ram as well as finding and keeping tabs on other large rams in the area. In order to see lots of terrain, Jake floated the river in a packable kayak while I hiked to the top of the canyon and looked down at the same terrain Jake was looking up at. While floating Jake located about 80 sheep, most of them in a single herd very near the river. In this group was a ram that looked a lot like Flair (aka Ram-a-lamb-a-ding-dong), but appeared bigger! We would later name this ram Elvis (The King), but I think he might have been the same ram as Flair. It's also very possible that Rumor Ram = Elvis = Flair, but these are things we will never know for sure. At any rate, Elvis was big enough that we would want to keep track of his whereabouts as he might very well be the largest ram in the area.

Jake hiking back to camp at sunset

On the 11th Jake and I both hiked to the top of the canyon and searched several miles of the adjacent Willow Springs Canyon (WSC) on our way to pay Elvis and the herd of 50 sheep a visit. We saw two lone rams in WSC before finding the big herd in the same location as the previous day. Only this time, Elvis was not with them. We got within 200 yards of the herd to get a closer look, but Elvis wasn't there. One ram wandered away from the herd and got within 100 yards of us before spooking and running back.

John Benet 'Ram'sy

We had perfect weather up to this point, but part way though the day the wind picked up. On the hike back to camp we experienced gusts that we estimated at 70-80 miles an hour. When we returned to camp, Jake's raft had blown about 100 feet up into camp and our kitchen was in shambles. Our one saving grace was that Kyle and Loren showed up while we were out and rounded up many of the pieces of our kitchen.

Opening Day
On opening day Loren and I went back to watch the big herd and see if Elvis returned. We saw five rams on the way there, and once again found the big herd right where we left them the previous evening. Shortly after finding the herd, a ram we named Chip the previous day wandered by at close range.

Chip

Meanwhile, Jake and Kyle hiked upriver to ensure that we covered all areas that we thought might hold sheep. They found none and by afternoon had hiked all the way to where Loren and I were. We had just left the herd after watching them for a couple hours. Jake and Kyle were tired of not seeing sheep, so they went out to the vantage point where Loren and I had been. As soon as they got in view of the herd, they saw Elvis moving toward the herd form a ways off, coming in to see if any of the ewes were in heat. When they radioed to say that they saw him, I immediately doubled back to join them and get a look at The King.

Elvis

At this point, we had about two hours of daylight left. Jake thought this was enough time to put a stock on Elvis and try to get within bow range. After Jake descended 1,000 feet and started to circle around, Kyle and I watched Elvis through the spotting scope turn his head and stare unflinchingly at Jake, 600 yards away. Jake continued to circle around and come back up to join Kyle and me. In the process, Elvis went back to join the herd and at one point Jake passed within about 250 yards of the big ram.

When all four of us went back to find Elvis and the big herd the following day, the herd was back but we never saw Elvis. The wind that started the day before opening day had still not let up.

Day Three
The hike from camp to where the big herd was hanging out took about two hours of brisk hiking, more if you glassed for sheep along the way. Jake was growing fed up with the wasted hours of daylight as we hiked back and forth, so we devised a plan for Jake to bivy at the top of the canyon above the herd for as many days as it took for him to kill the big ram. Consequently, Jake and I got up at 3:00 am and hiked with full packs out to the point above the big herd before first light. As the sun rose, we were disheartened to see no sheep where we had seen 40 to 50 each of the previous 4 days.

We spent a couple hours glassing the adjacent hillsides. Jake spotted chip and several ewes way over on the other side of WSC as well as a few other small groups that we thought could very likely be splintered from the big herd. It appeared the big herd had broken up, which would make it harder to relocate Elvis as the herd acted as a beacon that would draw him in a couple times a day to check on the ewes.

While Jake and I were out looking for the herd, Loren and Kyle had rowed across the river and were glassing the steep cliffs between camp and the last known location of the herd. At around 9:30 am, Jake and I got in touch with Kyle and Loren on the radio. They said they saw a "big, big ram" with several other rams that were also big, but at the distances they were looking they couldn't accurately identify him. Even if it wasn't Elvis, Kyle's description involving two uses of the word "big" was enough to get Jake going in that direction. We left Jake's pack and bivy stuff at the point and began working our way back along the ridge to where Kyle and Loren had seen the rams.

All of a sudden sheep were everywhere. Some had crested the ridge and were heading down into WSC. We saw about 10 sheep in WSC and expected to see the group of big rams there too. When we didn't, we continued along the ridge. As I followed directly behind Jake, he stopped suddenly. He saw several sheep off the other side of the ridge (the John Day River side). As I stayed back, Jake snuck in closer for a better look at what appeared to be about 30 sheep.

Due to the persistent winds as well as the terrain that Elvis was sticking to, Jake opted to put down his bow hunt with his rifle.

I knew they were close and was hoping that Jake was waiting for a clear shot at Elvis. I thought I would hear a gun shot at any moment, followed by news on the radio that Elvis was down. A few minutes later, Jake came crawling back through the grass. He said it was definitely Elvis along with a ram he had previously named Warrior and several other rams and ewes. He circled around to get in a better position as the sheep were sidehilling near the top of the canyon in the direction of camp.

Jake putting the sneak on Elvis

I remained out of site and once again hoped I would soon hear a gunshot. Minutes later, I did! I was convinced that Elvis's time was up. Thirty seconds after the shot I saw Jake running back up the hill and circling around to get in better position for a follow up shot. Then . . . nothing. I turn on my radio to ask Kyle and Loren if they have any idea what's going on. They said they were watching Elvis sidehilling back towards Deep Canyon, moving like he hadn't been hit. When Jake and I finally reconnected we moved quickly back towards deep canyon in hopes of cutting Elvis off as made his way to wherever he was going.

Kyle and Loren did a good job of tracking his progress from the other side of the river and managed to guide us to his location as he ascended the hill and crossed into the plains at the top of the canyon. So good, in fact, that Jake saw a flash of Elvis about 100 yards away as he leaped a fence, landed on private property, and continued sprinting out of site and perhaps out of the state. We searched Deep Canyon for a while, but it seemed that Elvis stayed up on the plateau and didn't drop into it.

Bear in mind that there was a lot of confusion during this chase. Was Elvis hit? Were Kyle and Loren following the ram that Jake shot at or a different ram? After things calmed down, Jake and I went back to where the ram was when he originally shot at it. We found the exact location, followed his exit path for a few hundred yards, and found no blood. It was a clean miss.

With all the stirring up we did, we decided there wasn't much reason for Jake to bivy, so we started back toward the point to retrieve his pack and head back toward camp. On the way to our cache, Kyle, still on the other side of the river, got back on the radio and said, "This hunt isn't over yet. That other big ram is still hanging out and I'm watching him." After a minute or two of deliberation, Jake decided to go after Warrior, who we decided was the second biggest ram in the unit (maybe even the first since Elvis had left the building). I would continue out to the point, grab Jake's pack, and head back toward camp, intersecting Jake and Warrior along the way.

As I was nearing the place on the ridge where I thought Jake would be directly below me, I began hearing radio chatter. I spoke with Kyle to learn that several shots had been fired, none of which I could hear due to the wind. As I waited for another update, two more shots were fired only a few hundred yards from me, and I didn't hear these either. Then I hear on the radio from Kyle that Jake has a ram down and they're crossing the river to join in the photo session and butchering. I immediately grabbed my pack, Jake's pack, and Jake's bow and started down the hill to the location of Jake and his ram.

Left to Right: Back Row - Kyle, Loren, Jake, Josh Front Row - Warrior

I arrived shortly before Kyle and Loren and helped Jake pull the ram out of the ravine that it fell into. Kyle and Loren then arrived and we managed to get a metric shit tonne of photos just before it got dark.

Trophy Photo #1

Trophy Photo #2

After caping, butchering, and packing the ram out about 1.5 miles, we got back to camp around 8:30. With our 3:00 am start, this made for a long day. It felt great to have such hard work result in an edible reward.

All packed up and ready to leave base camp

Reflections

Overall, the trip was extremely enjoyable. I feel very honored that Jake wanted me to be a part of this special, once in a lifetime hunt (he can never draw this tag again). It also conjured up sentimental memories of Jake's late father and my dad, who both drew a Steens Mountain Oregon sheep tag in the same year about 25 years ago. A year or two after their hunt, Jake and I went back to the Steens with them. I have fond memories of being about 10 years old, glassing for sheep, fishing for trout, and porcupine hunting. Whereas our fathers both hired guides and killed nice rams, Jake put this hunt together on his own, avoided paying landowners for access by floating the river, put the hunt together very inexpensively, and managed to kill one of the largest California Bighorns in the state. Also, I can't say enough about how great it was to combine a multi-day rafting trip with a hunting trip.

On the more constructive side, this trip highlighted two things for me: the difference between bow hunting and rifle hunting, and the difference between trophy hunting and meat hunting. Jake had the option to use a bow or a rifle on this hunt. While he could have killed a ram with a bow, it would have been much more difficult and he would have had to lower his standards and be much more opportunistic. As it was, he opted to maintain his ambitious goals and switch to a more powerful weapon. We may have had to wait days just for the wind to die down enough to accurately shoot an arrow. The sporting nature of the bow and arrow remains as appealing as ever to me, but at the same time I recognize that the "boom stick" is a more effective way to fill the freezer.

While Jake's goal to kill the largest ram in the unit created an excellent challenge, and I love a good challenge, I still lean toward my Darwinian hunting style. For example, the big herd contained a good ram with an obvious limp. My instincts told me that this was the ram to pursue, even if there was one with larger horns right next to him. To select the largest, most fit ram and eliminate him from the gene pool seems contradictory to the natural order. With that said, I understand that trophy hunting brings a ton of money to state fish and wildlife departments. This money has a lot to do with why those animals are even there in the first place, so there is a positive side to trophy hunting too. It's just not for me. As a side, bighorn sheep were a native species in Oregon. Humans impacted their numbers with uncontrolled hunting, but disease brought in by domestic sheep is what did them in. They have since been reintroduced (form British Colombia, I think) and with careful separation with domestic sheep their numbers are coming back.

Congratulations to Jake for taking an impressive ram and putting together a great hunt!

Overdue Update and Pumpkins!

2011-10-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've been out on two outdoor trips with The Overlake School. The first of these was a 4-day backpacking trip in the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness near Glacier Peak. We ended up snow camping for two of our three night out and the students seemed to have a good time.

The second trip was last weekend, when I got to dabble in raft guiding. We did a day trip on the Skagit River, approximately between the towns of Newhalem and Marblemount. My co-instructor and I took seven students and two faculty members down the river in a paddle boat and an oar rig. We saw salmon, eagles, hawks, ducks, deer, a bear, and multitudes of dead humpback salmon lining the sides of the river. I really enjoy working these trips as the students are always great, and it allows me to continue working in outdoor education without the commitment involved with 28-day NOLS courses.

This weekend Ava and I got together with Kris and Mel to hack away at some pumpkins. I think all holidays should include traditions that involve artwork performed on fruit. I actually carved two pumpkins as Ava was busy and graciously granted me her pumpkin.

Ava's pumpkin (Lucy), and my pumpkin (Cheshire)

Kris's skull and Mel's ridiculously happy face

Back to Climbing

2011-09-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

We had but one nice day this weekend, so Ava and I decided climb the famous/infamous Improbable Traverse on Guye Peak. Guye (pronounced "guy", but I like to say "goo-yay") is situated immediately adjacent to I-90 at the top of Snoqualmie Pass. As such, I had been eyeing this route for pretty much as long as I've lived in Seattle.

Guye is notoriously chossy with the namesake traverse being of much higher quality rock than the rest of the route. Nonetheless, the easy access and striking nature of the face make the Improbable Traverse a much sought after and frequently climbed route.

Guye Peak and the Improbable Traverse Route

For the most part, the route follows a series of zigzagging ledges. While on the ledges, most of the route is class 3/4 with a few short steps of easy 5th class climbing.

After ascending the talus field at the bottom of the face, a short dirty gully leads to a large left leaning ledge. We followed this ledge most of the way across before roping up and climbing two short, easy 5th class pitches up and right to Lunch Ledge, the start of the traverse that is so improbable looking. Shortly before reaching lunch ledge, Ava dropped a climbing shoe. Luckily it stopped, and the party behind us was able to retrieve it and bring it up to us.

The traverse is the one difficult section as it takes you from one left-leaning ledge, across a nearly vertical face, to another left-leaning ledge. I led this part and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of pro I was able to place in the reasonably solid rock. I set a belay about 3/4 of the way across the traverse and ended up leading it in two short pitches. There were some really fun balancy moves in a couple places to skirt across the steep face with great exposure below. After the traverse, a large choss-ledge scramble to the left led to more choss-ledge scrambling . . . right, left, right, left. Near the top, we came to one final pitch of climbing. We roped up and Ava took the lead, ascending rock that didn't suck for about 50 meters until an easy scramble to the top revealed itself.

Ava had been to the top previously via a different route, so she knew how to attack the less-than-straightforward descent. I can see how friends of mine couldn't figure it out in the dark and ended up spending the night up there. There are basically three summits. We topped out on the south summit and a nice trail leads down from the north summit. To get from the south to the north summit, you have to scramble to the middle summit, descend a short way toward the north summit, rappel from a tree into a steep gully (about 30 meters), and ascend back out of the gully directly toward the north summit.

We descended the steep but obvious trail down to the Guye-Snoqualmie saddle and then down to the Alpental parking lot before walking the roads back to where we started at the base of the talus field. I thought this was a super fun day out despite the substandard rock quality that exists for most of the route. There's definitely something to be said for alpine climbing next to the freeway with almost no approach.

Elk Hunting, Phase II

2011-09-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

My second trip out for the final five days of the season was less eventful, but still plenty exciting. It turns out the elk are smart and know that they are being hunted and that bugling gives away their location. After a few days of the season they virtually stopped communicating, rendering them much more difficult to find. The weather changed dramatically from my previous trip, with highs dropping from about 80 to 60 degrees F.

Some mornings I would hear bulls bugling before the sun came up, followed by silence as soon as it became the least bit light. Most evenings I would see either a lone cow, or a cow with a calf or two feeding shortly before dark. I made hurried stalks on three of these cows on separate occasions, with swirling winds putting an end to two of these attempts and a location miscalculation ending the other. I also spooked up a small heard from about 30 yards, watching a cow ass quickly appear and then disappear while listening to the thunder of hooves gradually growing fainter. Kris joined me for the last two days, bringing rainy, miserable weather with him.

The way things work in Washington, we still have another chance to harvest an elk during the late archery season, which lasts from November 23 until December 8. I'm sure I'll be out again then, trying to get luck and skill to align for a fruitful (meatful?) harvest. Only next time I'll have a bit more skill and require a bit less luck.

Elk Hunting, Phase I

2011-09-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

I returned last night from 4.5 days of chasing elk around in the woods east of Mt. Rainier, primarily in the Norse Peak Wilderness. This marked the start of my second year bow hunting for elk, and my first year hunting without the guidance of the accomplished Jake Adams. As it turns out, the area I'm hunting in Washington is so dramatically different than that which Jake and I hunted last year, I'm having to learn a lot by trial and error.

My scouting efforts paid off! I saw and/or heard elk every day. The one similar aspect to my hunting experience with Jake in NE Oregon is that the elk are extremely difficult to get close enough to to spear with an arrow. I chased many bugles over the past few days, putting lots of off-trail miles on my hiking boots. I failed to draw a bull tag, but I have a license to shoot a cow or spike bull. Here is an overly detailed chronological replay.

Day 1: I hiked into the wilderness in the afternoon to a location where I had seen a smaller 6-point bull on a scouting trip. Glassing into the basin to the west (where I had seen the bull a few weeks earlier) that evening turned up nothing. Shortly before dark, I moved locations to look into the valley to the east. As soon as I put my binoculars to my eyes, I saw a cow elk about 700 yards away. With only 20 minutes of daylight left, I didn't have time to pursue them so I stayed there and watched with my binoculars. The elk were in pretty dense trees with occasional openings, so I would occasionally see one or two elk (all cows) but I heard bugling so I knew there was a bull with them. As the light was fading, the bull walked into the open. It was huge, every bit as big to my untrained eye as the 350 and 360+ bulls that I saw with Jake. After watching him bugle in my binoculars, I decided to try my bugle out which I had previously been hesitant to use due to inexperience. I bugled. To my surprise, I convinced the big, mature bull that I was another elk and he bugled back, warning me to stay away from his cows.

Classic Antler Rub - I saw a ton of these, many of them very fresh

Day 2: In the morning I chased a bull that was bugling like crazy (screaming his head off as Jake would say). It was interesting trying to sneak up on a group of animals that you cannot see and can only hear. My previous hunting experience utilized almost all eyes, this new experience is 100 percent ears until you get inside about 80 yards. Anyway, I closed the gap to about a hundred yards. I never saw them, but heard them spook and run away shortly before I got within eyesight. That evening I heard almost nothing. On my way back to my bivy site in the dark, I spooked up another heard that was apparently about 80 yards below my camp. I went to bed that night humbled and reminded of how difficult it is to sneak up on an animal who make a living (literally) by not letting you sneak up on it.

Day 3: With one day of "ear" hunting under my belt, I was beginning to figure things out. Early in the morning I began hearing bugles. I followed the sound of the nearest one, down the hill for about 700 yards before hearing their footsteps as they broke sticks. I moved very slowly and quietly toward the sound, and then I saw fur through the trees about 60 yards away. I could tell the heard was large by the sounds coming from all around me, sounds including the bull bugling from somewhere very close by. I hoped that some of the elk would pass by closer to me than the first couple that I saw. While watching the elk I could see 60 yards off, I took about one step every 30 seconds to avoid making too much noise while walking on dry sticks. Then I noticed a cow elk 30 yards away, staring right at me. I held motionless until my camouflage convinced her that I was nothing to fear. As she looked away, I drew my bow. I could only see part of her face and a leg at this point due to the trees. I had limited shooting alleys, but if she took about three steps I'd have a broadside shot at her lungs. She took one step. Now I could see her head and neck. I held my 30 yard sight pin on the center of her neck, wondering if I should take the ethically questionable shot. I decided not to. Soon I could no longer hold the draw on my bow, and had to let it down. This made the cow nervous and it trotted off, back into the heart of the heard which was out of view. Excited but composed, I was planning to wait for the cow to be out of site before I made another stalk and attempt to get close again. Just then, I heard another elk coming through the woods. At about 50 yards I spotted it, a young 6-point satellite bull heading right at me. A large tree 10 yards from me prevented me from seeing him well, but I could tell he was heading directly at me. Again I went to full draw, primarily for the practice of drawing without spooking the animal. I didn't know which side of the tree he would go, but either way he'd come real close to me. As he approached the tree he went to my left and stopped. I had a clear broadside shot from about 18 yards . . . if only I had drawn that bull tag! After he cleared out, I could no longer hear the heard and figured I spooked them. I got out my cow call and mewed to see if the lead bull would respond. Seconds later, the lead bull bellowed from was seemed to be about 70 yards up the hill from me. I slowly and as quietly as possible took a few steps in that direction before hearing the heard stampede off like so many times before. With a little luck, maybe this whole elk hunting with a bow thing is possible! While producing no meat for my freezer, this experience helped me gain confidence in my bugle, mew, camo, and stalking abilities.

Trying to look like a hunter

That evening, hunted my way back down and out of the wilderness to meet up with Kris, who would be hunting with me for the weekend. I chased a bugle early in the evening, spooking the heard before I could see them. I soon picked up another bugle on the other side of the steep ridge as I was descending. I followed it, spooking a deer in the process. I eventually found myself looking over the edge of a 50 yard cliff down on top of a lone bull, about the size of the satellite bull I saw that morning. It was mildly upsetting that I descended such a long steep hill only to be duped by the bull that had no cows. I decided to practice my calling with the bull as he wandered around below me. I bugled, and he bugled back. I cow called, and he responded with a chuckle, typical of the final notes of a textbook bugle. I did this multiple times before he wandered off. While briskly hiking back to car so as not to do too much off-trail hiking in the dark, I looked downhill to my right and saw a cow elk standing broadside at about 90 yards, staring at me. I held motionless, and soon she lost interest and resumed feeding. One second later, she bolted as the wind was blowing down hill, straight into her and it had taking several seconds for my now pungent odors to reach her highly sensitive nostrils.

Day 4: I met up with Kris (aka: Haskins the Deadly) Friday night. Kris had never been hunting before and now had the privilege of being taught by a novice (at best). I decided to take him hunting in an area of National Forest that looked promising from a scouting trip. Early in the morning, we heard a bugle less than 5 minutes after we finished breakfast and started hunting. We chased it down the hill, and each time it bugled it sounded about twice as far away as before. We figured it was running away from us as the wind was not in our favor (we had hoped the elk we would find that day wouldn't be directly below us). We neither heard nor saw any other elk that day, which was disappointing because I really wanted Kris to have an exciting first experience. Afterwards, it was pretty clear that the place we chose to hunt was a good place except for the fact that it had been hunted real hard during the first few days of the season and all the elk in that area had been pushed out.

Kris, looking rather hunteresque himself

Day 5: Determined to get into some elk, we went to a different spot that we thought would have been less heavily hunted. We heard multiple bugles in the morning. The first one we chased ended up spooking at about 100 yards because we got closer to them faster than we anticipated, and failed to enter super stealth mode soon enough. Not much later, we picked up a different bugle. We followed it up the hill, determine not to make the same mistake again. Unfortunately, it was getting late enough that the elk stopped "talking" and were making their way up the hill to bed down for the heat of the day. We followed their tracks for quite a while before stopping to have a conversation about how the best case scenario would be that we follow them far enough up the hill that we spook them out of their beds before we ever see them. After deciding to go up just a little further, we didn't take 10 steps before the forest erupted with the sound of scattering elk. We never saw them, but went up to where the sound came from and realized we had gotten within about 30 yards of some of them before they ran off.

That evening we moved yet again to a new spot, ending up on the opposite side of the wilderness that I had been hunting a few days earlier. We heard no bugling, which didn't make sense to us given all that we had learned. I knew there should be elk in that area, and I desperately wanted Kris to at least see some fur before we went home that night. About an hour into the evening hunt we were quietly traversing a valley slope, slowly making our way back to where we parked the truck. Suddenly, I saw and heard an elk about 120 yards in front of us, heading straight down the slope. We kept watching that area, and eventually saw several more elk head down through the same viewing window through the trees. We tried to back off, parallel the elk, and move back in below them so that they would eventually walk right into us. We either spooked them at some point or they randomly took a route that avoided our arrows. Either way, we never saw them again.

To summarize this now superbly long blog post, I had a fantastic time and cannot believe how much I learned. I chased elk every day, got really close once and managed to accomplish my goals of getting Kris close to elk and getting his eyes on some fur. Please pardon my concluding baseball analogy.

1st Base: Hiking through beautiful forest (arguably fun in its own right)
2nd Base: Hiking through beautiful forest while chasing elk
3rd Base: Hiking through beautiful forest while chasing elk and getting really close to them

Home Run: Hiking through beautiful forest while chasing elk, getting really close to them, and ending up with meat in the freezer

I hit a triple this trip, and I've got my fingers crossed for a home run next weekend.

Closing Trundle

Scouting Report

2011-08-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my first elk scouting trip, and things were promising. On a two-day backpacking trip, Ava and I saw 7 deer, 9 elk, and an incredible amount of sign. I was caught a little off guard by how dense the trees were in the area we went. I'd never been there before, but it was on the east side of the Cascade divide and in Oregon that means thin stands of pine with little understory. This made glassing with binoculars difficult, so we largely resorted to sneaking around in the woods and peering into meadows whenever the trees opened up a bit.

Oh, deer!

The one mature bull we saw (and one of the few open meadows)

To summarize my thoughts after this first scouting trip, I was happy with the amount of animals and sign in the area, but at the same time reminded of how difficult it will be to get close enough to stick one with an arrow. I'm not sure if we'll hunt this exact area, but it's a decent option if Kris and I don't find anything we like better.

. . . and the wildflowers were in full bloom

I ordered a new camera, so hopefully my next scouting trip will result in some better wildlife photography!

Keith's Bachelor Party

2011-08-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

The theme for my friends' bachelor parties is an excellent one: go on super fun outdoorsy adventures with a now geographically dispersed group of close friends (mostly from Oregon State). Since this was Keith's celebration, we opted for rafting the Main Tuolumne River near Yosemite National Park.

Five brave participants started a day early and boated Lower Cherry Creek, a burly 5th class run that ends on the Main Tuolumne. Phil kayaked this while Keith orchestrated a paddle boat with Garrett, Graham, and Graham. Since I wasn't on this trip, it's all heresy, but evidence suggests that the following story is true. As the boat went over the drop on the very first rapid on Cherry Creek, the back end kicked a little more than expected. As the paddle guide, Keith was in the back. He was bucked forward violently enough that his face hit a paddle, breaking off the lower half of one of his front teeth.

The rest of the Cherry Creek run was not without excitement. There were a few swimmers, a temporarily wrapped boat, and more faces hitting paddles. In the end, they all made it down (safely?) to the Main Tuolumne put in just below Lumsden Falls.

Lewis Falls (make sure to watch Keith in the back of the boat toward the end of this one)

Meanwhile, a group of five from the Pacific Northwest was driving south, packed into my Honda Fit. To be fair, Dane and I drove from Seattle to Corvallis where we spent Thursday night before adding Jason and Deverton to the car and driving to Sacramento, where we added Ian. Three hours after picking up Ian, we arrived at Buck Meadows. From Buck Meadows, it was a 1 hour hike down into a big canyon to the put-in for the Main Tuolumne run. Normally one can drive to this point, but the winter wreaked havoc on the road, rendering it impassable. We met up with the rest of the group that night, including Greg who ran shuttle for the Cherry Creek group, and 11 of us proceeded to drink 2.75 bottles of whiskey (and several beers to ensure that we didn't get dehydrated).

Over the following two days, we rafted about 20 miles of river with lots of Class 4 rapids and one class 5-. I rowed our gear boat most of the way and found the water to be a perfect challenge for me: a great next step after rowing a couple of big water rivers. I botched a couple lines, but styled many more.

Clavey Falls, the Class V-

We camped across the river, and above the class 5-, from a tree that looked to be ripe for a rope swing. A large portion of our group ferried across the river to set up a swing with the throw rope and managed to get the bag stuck in the tree. After failing to get it back down, they proceeded to swing on it, never knowing if it pop. When the swinging fun was over, they realized they still needed to get it down. Various attempts were made, including Graham M. putting on his wet suit in attempt to climb the tree like a bear (and he actually looked like a black bear). Eventually, the successful attempt was made by Phil, who ascended the rope via prussiks attached to his rescue PFD. All the while, Dane and I were drinking maté and being entertained from across the river.

That night, a couple of female raft guides came over from their camp across the river to entertain us in a very PG way.

Yes, that's a bowling ball and chain (we figured Keith could use some practice)

Late on the last day we found a great jumping rock!

Great trip, good times, but it's sad to be loosing Keith to the married world in three weeks time.

Corn Harvest: Shuking on Shuksan

2011-07-26T12:17:00.001-07:00

After giving ourselves a day of rest following the arduous rafting trip, Ava and I decided ski season wasn't over and pointed the car north towards Mt. Shuksan. We hoped to find remnants of epic spring (summer?) corn snow, and that's exactly what we found.

We approached to about 4,600 feet on the Sulfide Glacier route on Saturday evening, which put us at the lower extent of the good skiing. We had just enough time to cook dinner and make water before going to bed at 8pm.

We got a 0330 start on Sunday morning and made good time skinning up the route. We stopped for a hearty breakfast of cheese sandwich at the site of our camp three weeks earlier.

0430 breakfast at the site of our camp on our previous attempt

Shortly after breakfast, as we continued on our way, we were fortunate to watch a shuking awesome sunrise that seemed to last for an hour. For once, it seemed that Earl, the God of Weather, would smile upon us.

Sulfide Glacier and the Summit Pyramid at Sunrise

We roped up upon reaching the glacier, which hardly seemed necessary given the complete lack of visible crevasses along the west edge of the glacier. The route, as anticipated, was very mellow allowing us to ski all the way from camp to the base of the summit pyramid.

Ava skinning up the Sulfide

The upper 400ish feet, known as the summit pyramid, is a steep block of rock and snow. The easiest way up is via a 45 degree couloir on the south side. By any other route on Shuksan, the summit pyramid is the last obstacle to reaching the summit. Via the Sulfide Glacier route, it is the only one. Staring at this couloir for a few hours while skiing toward it filled me with anticipation.

Two groups started before us, both of which camped higher on the mountain. We passed the last of them as we reached the summit pyramid, so we were fortunate to be the first to the top that day and not have people kicking rocks and snow down on top of us as we ascended. We were somewhat less fortunate on the way down.

Looking down, partway up the pyramid (Ava's down there somewhere below my boot and looks a little rockish)

The final 50 feet required that we get on a rocky ridge as the snow had melted out. This was exciting in ski boots with a complete lack of rock pro, but the several rappel anchors that we passed and a clever use of an ice axe jammed in a crack was sufficient. We reached the 9,131 foot summit at 0830 and had it to ourselves for a few minutes.

Mt. Baker from the summit of Mt. Shuksan (the views were spectacular all the way up, but those from the top were hard to beat)

Hooray for summit shots! (not inspired by Craig W.)

We spent some time at the top and took our time down climbing the pyramid. By the time we reached our skis at the base of it the snow had softened perfectly. Turns out 1030 at 8,700 feet on Mt. Shuksan was equivalent to Corn O'Clock that day.

Oh, hey. It's wild corn.

The first 1,500 vertical feet of skiing was perfect, smooth corn snow. After that, the ride got a little bumpier as sun cups developed and the snow got softer and stickier. Even so, the skiing was super fun! I felt sorry for most everyone else on the mountain that day, as they did not have skis and would have to slog down several miles of perfectly good corn snow.

Weeeeee!!!

We made it back to the tent around 1300 and spent some time there eating and drinking before packing up and hiking the last few miles down to the car.

The Sulfide Glacier route has a reputation for a being a boring slog. Without skis, I suppose this is mostly deserved. However, the way we did it made for a fantastic ski mountaineering adventure involving a pleasant ski approach to the summit pyramid, glacier travel, 400 feet of fun and moderately technical terrain at the top, 4,000+ vertical feet of skiing, and beautiful weather all day long. Shukcess!

Floatin' the Snake

2011-07-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Several months ago Jake drew a permit to raft the Snake River in Hell's Canyon. Over the ensuing months he put together a great crew of 12 brave people willing to tackle the mild whitewater and endure the almost tropical weather while lazing around drinking beer. The crew included many familiar faces from previous posts, including Molly and Phil, Kris and Mel, Jake and Al, and Ava and me among others.

Over the course of six days we floated about 80 miles from the Hell's Canyon Dam to Heller Bar. With flows hovering around 20,000 cfs, the river was at its prime.

We had many key players with important roles. Molly put together an amazing menu and grocery shopping list. Al was instrumental in acquiring said food, knowing where things were packed in the boat, and generally making sure people didn't starve. Phil manhandled the task of providing a music system as well as being our safety kayaker. Jake performed countless necessary tasks including obtaining the permit and acquiring floating vessels and gear. Most everyone else helped out by cooking and consuming all the edible and drinkable things we brought. I lucked out by having my primary responsibility be to rig, row, and derig the gear boat every day.

We encountered the two biggest rapids of the trip on the first day. After scouting the first one (Wild Sheep), our procession of vessels (kayak, 16' gear boat, kataraft, inflatable kayak (IK), and paddle boat) all went down in fine style. Even the IK captained by Ava and Al managed to make it most of the way down before flipping. During the scout, I picked out the biggest wave and managed to hit it straight on. Not surprisingly, it was bigger than it looked from the bank and felt like we crashed the gear boat into a 12-foot wall of water - good fun, no carnage.

Boat ahead of us hitting the big wave in Wild Sheep Rapids

The second big rapid was more of a shitshow. During the scout, we watched a couple of other rafts go down and it looked pretty straight forward. Then we watched another raft go down without anyone in it. After a triple take, I could no longer ignore the fact that it was my gear boat. Apparently the half-assed job of tying it up was insufficient to defend against the wake created by the passing jet boats. Phil and I ran down the trail back to our boats. He hopped in his kayak and I on the kataraft as we raced after the gear boat which flipped upon entering Granite Rapid. About a mile downstream we caught up with it. Phil tied it to the kat and I struggled to drag the up-side-down beast to an eddy. After it was all said and done, we only lost a bottle of rum and a table.

Camp life - really roughing it

Bumble Bee Ava

After that, everything went much smoother. The remaining days were filled with floating, eating, drinking, swimming, and generally just having a grand and relaxing time, often in costume. We saw lots of Oregon bighorn sheep, several osprey, a few deer and some turkeys. Kris tried kayaking for the first time and discovered that learning to roll would be a good idea before he tries it again.

Thirsty Ram

This trip served only to increase my desire to own a gear boat and partake in trips like this on a regular basis. Boating is a great change of pace from the more physical nature of backpacking, climbing, and mountaineering. I'll just have to be careful no to get fat and lazy if I start doing this more frequently.

Mel and Ava working hard to get the boat down river

Oops, I Failed Again

2011-07-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

After failing to climb at Exfoliation Dome two weekends ago and failing to climb/ski Mt. Shuksan last weekend, I promptly failed to climb Mt. Rainier this weekend. Oddly enough, each of these trips turned out to be quite enjoyable despite the fail trend. I won't know what to do with myself if I actually manage to climb something one of these days. I'll elaborate on my most recent failure since it is very fresh in my mind.

Dane and I have been planning to attempt a climb of Liberty Ridge on Mt. Rainier for a while, and we finally found a weekend where we were both free and the weather appeared like it was going to cooperate. We left Seattle on Saturday morning with plans of approaching to Thumb Rock (10,800') about 1/3 of the way up the ridge that day and completing the climb on Sunday. We both fully recognized the ambitious nature of this plan upon its inception.

Dane on St. Elmo's Pass

Beginning at the White River Campground at 7:45am Saturday, we made good time up to the Inter Glacier, over St. Elmo's Pass, across the Winthrop Glacier, and over to Curtis Ridge, where we arrived at 12:15pm. From here our daily route plan entailed crossing the Carbon Glacier to the base of Liberty Ridge, and ascending Liberty Ridge for 1,800 feet to Thumb Rock.

The North Face of Mt. Rainier and the Carbon Glacier - Liberty Ridge cuts straight down the middle

From our vantage point on Curtis Ridge, a typical camping spot for a 3-day ascent, we could see that the lower part of the ridge was very melted out. We ruled out trying to scramble up steep, rotten rock, which made the most reasonable option to ascend the snow slopes on the climber's right side of the ridge directly to Thumb Rock. With heavy rockfall guarding the base of the ridge during the heat of the day, we decided to wait until early the following day and alter our plans to summit from lower down.

Close up of Liberty Ridge, all 5,000 vertical feet of it

Before going to bed that night, we heard the Liberty Cap glacier calve twice. This is essentially an 500-foot wall of ice breaking off in pieces and cascading down several thousand feet to the Carbon Glacier. The route we would need to take to reach the snow slope leading to Thumb Rock, as we both knew all too well, would cause us to travel precariously close to the run-out zone of said ice fall. We decided to get up early and give it a go.

We started crossing the Carbon Glacier at 12:45am. About two hours later, aided by footprints from another party, we reached the area near the base of the snow slope we were aiming for. As we predicted, large crevasses barred access from the glacier to the ridge. The only option was for us to traverse far to the right, around the crevasse and over obvious debris from the glacier calving activities observed the previous night. We were already slightly exposed to this danger and moving right would just make it worse. The odds of the glacier calving while we were under it were low, but the consequences were of the highest degree. Not wanting to spend time deliberating while exposed to this threat, Dane, who was in the lead at that point, made an executive to decision to initiate a hasty retreat.

At 3:30am we were back at our previous campsite, having had a nice midnight jaunt across the Carbon Glacier and back. I don't think I've ever been on a large glacier in the middle of the night before, and found this experience quite fun/eerie/surreal. We considered traversing back to the Emmons Glacier and summiting via this easier and less committing route, but ultimately decided that this would make for a very long day with disproportionate rewards. So we re-set-up camp and went back to bed. Starting about 9am we retraced our route from the previous day back to the trailhead.

Despite reaching a high point a vertical mile below the summit, we still obtained fantastic views, got lots of exercise (ascended about 5,000 vertical feet with full packs and covered about 14 miles), and came back safely. It sure beat watching TV all weekend. I'm excited to try this again next season, earlier in the year when the lower ridge is snow covered and the objective hazards significantly reduced.

Still in the Game

2011-06-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

I spent the previous two weeks teaching a rock climbing course in Leavenworth, WA! It was great being able to continue working for The NOLS even though I have a full time engineering job. I totally felt like I was getting paid to take a vacation. Nothing super exciting to report from the course; students were great, weather was almost perfect. Things went so smoothly it was actually pretty uneventful. I did get to learn the climbing out there much better, so next time I go back it won't seem like such a mystery. A highlight for me was climbing Condorphamine Addiction, a 7-pitch 5.10b sport climb. I highly recommend it due to it's well-bolted nature and varied climbing (steeper face, lots of slab, and even an occasional crack). Most of the climbing is in the 5.8-5.9 range, with a couple of harder moves that are both on well-bolted slabby sections.

The weather here is finally starting to get better, so hopefully I'll have some first class adventuring to report soon!

Leavenworth Classic

2011-05-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Ava held the annual spring campout for the UW Climbing Club. She enticed me to tag along by proposing that we climb Outer Space on the Snow Creek Wall on Saturday (followed by cragging with the big group on Sunday). After the 1.5 hour approach, we geared up and were just about ready to begin the first pitch when it started to drizzle. We proceeded to spend the next hour in the presence of goats trying to reach a mutual decision on if we should climb or not. Meanwhile, the overcast skies stopped drizzling but remained menacing. We finally decided to go for it.

Snow Creek Wall in the rain: Outer Space begins near the lower right of this photo and finishes in the top center.

Goat intently watching the party in front of us

We got off to a bad start as I somehow managed to turn Pitch 1 (easy 5th class) into a 5.10+ wanderfest. Pitch 2 (easy 5th class traverse) went much more smoothly, and then the business end of the climb began. Pitch 3 (the traverse pitch, and my favorite pitch of the climb) involved interesting and sustained 5.8 - 5.9 moves in an exposed and well-protected environment. Pitch 4 (the dihedral pitch) takes you left from the top of Pitch 3 over to the bottom of the famous 300' hand crack. This was an enjoyable pitch in its own right, yet overshadowed by what lie ahead. A tricky start to Pitch 5 (the money pitch) finds you at the beginning of a splitter hand crack on an 80 degree face littered with chicken heads. Simply enjoyable climbing in a sporadic and light drizzle.

Ava working her way up the money pitch

Pitch 6 (the final pitch) again starts with some tricky moves. It's supposedly 5.9, but I found this to be the most difficult part of the climb and I'm not ashamed to admit that I pulled on a piece of gear to get through an obnoxiously thin section 15 feet up from the belay. After that it was a crack and chicken head romp for 65 meters to the top. As I was belaying Ava up the final pitch, the drizzle returned and intensified. As she reached the top, the drizzle turned to rain. Perfect timing? I'd say it could have been worse, but the fact that we now had to descend the 4th class descent route in the rain was less than desirable. The following video summarizes the difficulties of our descent.

We eventually made it down safely and had a fantastic day rock climbing in the rain. We did some cragging at Playground Point the following day before heading back to the cluster of traffic known as Seattle.

Mountains and Skiers and Bears (oh my)

2011-05-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Last week we had spring for a couple days and Ava and I managed to capitalize on it. (Side Note: the forecast for this Wednesday calls for another foot of snow in the mountains). We took Thursday off and left Wednesday night to go camp as far up as we could drive on the Cascade River Road. On the drive up, we saw a black bear wandering across the road, the first I'd ever seen in Washington.

The next day we got up early in attempt to climb and ski Sahale Peak. We encountered numerous obstacles on our way up the road to where you can normally park this time of year. The first obstacle was the second bear of the trip. Then there was ample avalanche carnage.

Road covered in avy debris from a heinous avy cycle this winter

It took us far longer to walk up the last three miles of road than we expected, then we were yet again bogged down in avalanche chunder as we ascended to Cascade Pass.

Cascade Pass

We managed to gain about 4,000 of the 6,000 ambitious feet we hoped to gain to reach Sahale's summit. We had fantastic weather and views and a great ski down!

J-Burg and the beautiful North Cascades

Sahale Peak

As we were retracing our route back down the road, over and under the multitude of trees, we saw yet another bear! Apparently they're just out of hibernation and, hence, very active right now.

Bear #3

Fish

2011-05-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Molly, Phil, Ava, and I went down to Portland to visit our dad and try our luck at fishing for spring Chinook salmon. Between the ages of about 8 and 15 I did this a lot, but it had now been years since I had been fishing with my dad and I decided this was too long.

Molly, Ava, and I went out on Saturday with a medium early start (fishing by about 6:45). We met up with Dad's fishing buddy, Jared, so we had five of us in two boats. Ten minutes after getting our lines in the water, we had doubles on. Ava and I each reeled one in. Half way through the process, the reel separated from the rod that Ava was using, which happened to be Jared's. The end result was that Jared took over after the kerfuffle and we got the fish. We didn't see any more action for a couple hours, until we hooked another fish, which Molly reeled in. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a native salmon so we couldn't eat it and had to let it go. After a few more hours we hooked another one, and it was Ava's turn to reel it in. After a minute of reeling, it spit the hook so we didn't get to eat that one either.

Ava wasn't planning to go out the next day, so I really wanted her to have a chance to reel in and land a salmon. As the day was coming to an end, we hooked one last fish. We experienced no equipment malfunctions and Ava landed the biggest fish of the day.

Saturday's Loot

The following day, after a salmon dinner and a night spent in Portland at a Joe Pug show, we traded Ava for Phil and went out to get some more. The weather was positively nasty, with cool temperatures joining forces with a stiff breeze and steady rain for the entire morning. We fished from 7am to 11am and didn't get a bite. At this point, Phil (who didn't bring any rain pants and was wearing jeans) and Molly rationalized that the misery was not being matched with reward, so we dropped them off at shore. Dad and I were determined to get something to show for our efforts, so we decided to keep at it for another hour. By noon, we still hadn't gotten a bite. We began packing things up and getting ready to pull the anchor, with the last part of this process being to reel our lines in. As Dad worked his way to the front of the boat to deal with the anchor rope, my rod bent down in that unmistakable, "fish on" kind of way. I lifted it out of the rod holder with a gentle tug to set the hook. At this point, Dad was facing into the rain (coming down at about a 45 degree angle) and working his way to the the bow of the boat, so he didn't even see what was going on 2.5 feet away. Using an artfully combined tone of casualness and surprise, I said, "I got one!", at which point Dad turned around to see me fighting what turned out to be the biggest fish we landed that weekend.

Sunday's hard-earned catch

Phase Next

2011-04-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

I started a new job yesterday! After a few months of searching, I finally found an engineering company to take me in. I'm working as a Senior Staff Engineer for Icicle Creek Engineers. It's a small company (less than 10 employees) and is owned and run by a married couple. My office is currently in the basement of their house in Carnation, WA, so it's a bit of a commute but seems manageable so far. The work we do is centered around geology, geologic engineering, hydrogeology, and geotechnical engineering. The projects I will be working on are much smaller than I'm used to and have nothing to do with mining! Okay, some projects might be mining reclamation related, but that's cleaning up the mess rather than making it. I'm still hoping to teach the occasional NOLS course, and my new employers seem like they'll be willing to work with on that when the time comes.

Lots of Little Stuffs

2011-04-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

Nothing crazy or super fun to report, but I've decided that several slightly important things have happened that cumulatively warrant a blog post.

I sold Quatra, my 4-Runner, over a month ago. I'm now trying to bike as much as possible and share Ava's car only when it's absolutely necessary. It's going well so far. Time will tell how long I can last without a vehicle, but it really doesn't make sense for us to have two cars when we seldom use one.

I went on another mission with Seattle Mountain Rescue to help two skiers down the mountain who were injured in an avalanche. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/119359894.html?tab=video This mission was more technical in nature than the previous one and, consequently, more fun.

A few days later, when avalanche conditions were lower, I went up to the same area with Dane as he passed through town on his way to Conway, WA. At about the same elevation the skiers triggered the avalanche, we encountered increasingly unstable conditions. We turned around here and got some decent powder turns in.

I went climbing with a bunch of friends at Vantage on Saturday. I'll be teaching a weekend climbing course there for The Overlake School in about a month, so it was good for me to learn the area a bit since I'd never climbed there before. A few weeks ago I taught my first course for Overlake, taking six students snow camping for a weekend up on Stevens Pass with one other instructor. This was my first non-NOLS outdoor education experience, and although quite different, it was equally fun and fantastically short.

I'm still in the job market for an engineering job, but in the meantime I will be an employee at Recreational Equipment, Inc., selling gear to people out of the Alderwood Mall location. I start training on Saturday.
It's 15.5 miles each way, mostly on the Interurban Trail, so it's a pretty good ride considering it's through the city. So, starting on Saturday, I'll technically have three employers: NOLS, The Overlake School, and REI. We'll see how the juggling act goes.

Seattle Mountain Rescue

2011-04-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I joined Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR), the King County search and rescue organization specializing in high angle and other technical rescues. Until last weekend, I had been quite inactive in SMR. This was largely due to the fact that I didn't live in Washington for most of that time as well as having some motivational challenges.

I spent last weekend (Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday) participating in SMR's rigging for rescue training. It seems that most SMR training is focused on technical rigging systems for high angle rescue, yet most missions that we respond to are of a non-technical nature. On Sunday, after training in the field from 0730 to 1700, we were notified of a mission nearby. Someone had reportedly sustained a knee injury on top of Mt. Si, the trailhead for which was only about a mile away from where about 30 SMR members had just finished training.

We regrouped, shuttled over to the trailhead, and began heading up the trail in groups of 3-5 as soon as rescuers were ready. A few minutes after getting the initial call, I found myself hiking up the Mt. Si tail in the second group of SMR responders on my first mission. An hour and a half after that, we had hiked 4 miles and gained almost 4,000 vertical feet to our patient. The first group arrived at the subject's location a few minutes earlier and was well on their way to getting the patient packaged in the litter we had carried up.

After the subject was packaged, the real work began. We started by sledding the litter down the snowy/icy trail with a series of belays. Once we got below the snow, we added a wheel to the litter and continued down the trail with four people attending to the litter and about as many tending to the tag line (break) attached to the uphill side of the litter. As we descended, additional groups (some from SMR, and some from other King County search and rescue organizations) joined us. Eventually we had upwards of 35 rescuers switching out regularly as we transported the subject back to the trailhead, which we eventually reached at 2315.

I was super impressed with the SMR response as well as the blistering pace at which most of them walk, especially considering the long day we had already put in! I'm looking forward to joining more missions as the summer and "mission season" approaches.

Deep Pow

2011-02-25T18:49:00.000-08:00

This is what I remember winter in the Pacific Northwest being like. Jake came up to visit for a good part of this week. Avy danger was high the whole time but we did get out on Wednesday for some mellow turns up on Snoqualmie Pass.

Jake is in there somewhere

New Stuffs

2011-02-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

I officially now live in Seattle (the north part of the University District, to be more precise). Ava and I are renting the lower level of a giant, old house. The owners, who bought the place only a few months ago, live upstairs and are remodeling the entire house. Luckily for us, they remodeled the basement first so we essentially live in a brand new apartment. It feels great to have all my stuff in one place. The efficient design makes the scant 570 square feet seem much bigger. Add efficient appliances and radiant heating to the efficient space, and this is about as "green" as its location is awesome. Much thanks to Ava's parents for helping us furnish the new place!

We had a great ski day up on Snoqualmie Pass a couple days ago. The snow was about as good as it gets in Washington, and we miraculously had an entire backcountry slope all to ourselves. We skied three laps on a north facing slope about two miles from I-90 and never saw another person or another set of tracks.

Yay for soft snow to land in!

In other news, I cleaned up Quatra yesterday and posted her on Craigslist, asking Kelley Blue Book value. People are now fighting over my 4Runner, so I'm guessing I won't have a car by the end of the week. The plan is to see how long I can handle getting around on a bike before getting another oil guzzler.

NOLS in Winter with R2D2

2011-02-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

Bleep bleep bloop blap!

I spent the later half of January and a few days of February in an intensive NOLS training seminar. And by intensive, I mean skiing powder in the Tetons most every day for three weeks. The first week was a professional level 1 avalanche training which I found extremely useful and learned a lot from. The final two weeks was spent ski touring a loop in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) where we were provided ample time to practice what we had learned during the previous week.

During the avy 1, we skied every day. Most days were good, but one day was great! We spent most days skiing on and around Teton Pass as the NOLS base is in Driggs, ID. One day we went to GTNP, which happened to be the day it snowed about 14 inches. My group skied a popular route known as Maverick and had some of the best snow I've ever skied.

Skiing Maverick in GTNP. Three cheers for Teton cold smoke!

Oh yeah, we learned a lot too. The instruction was focused around how to assess terrain and assess and document the snow conditions found in the backcountry. In only five days, I feel like I went from a beginner/intermediate to advanced/expert in my ability to assess snowpack stability. In the words of Borat, "Great success!"

In preparing for the next section (the WIS, or winter instructor seminar), we decided that our team name would be the Rocketships. With two groups of four and a group of three comprising the Rocketships, we naturally needed names for all the groups. I ended up in the Millennium Falcon, after the famous Star Wars ship. Coincidentally, Ava and I had just finished watching all six Star Wars episodes shortly before I left. This started a theme for the trip that would pervade the remaining 12 days.

The first day of the next section was spent at Grand Targee Ski Resort, where we spent the first half of the day learning how to teach both alpine and telemark skiing progressions and spent the second half of the day learning how to make ourselves better skiers/teach more advanced telemark students. The day was beautiful and I was pretty impressed with the 'Gee, as some locals call it.

Grand Teton from Grand Targee

The following 11 days were spent on a backcountry trip through the national park. We spent a total of three nights in tents and seven nights in snow shelters as we traveled up Berry Creek and down Owl Creek in a ~24 mile loop. After two days of travel we built our first snow shelter, which we spent three nights in. There were 4 people in my group, so the snow cave/quinzee ended up being quite sizable. A quinzee, for those who don't know, is basically a snow cave dug out of snow that has been piled up and allowed to harden. This is quite useful in areas with shallow snowpacks. A snow cave is simply a hole dug into the existing snowpack, so we did a little of both to build this one.

Inside our first quinzee/cave

We had beautiful weather the entire time at this first dig-in spot and skied every day. It hadn't snowed since the epic day at Maverick, but it remained cold enough that the powder from that last storm was well preserved on some aspects.

Sledding loads from our first base camp to our second

We moved and dug in a second and final time on a broad ridge separating Berry Creek from Owl Creek. This time the snowpack was about three meters deep, so we simply dug a snowcave. That night, the temperature started to plummet. I think it bottomed out at a chilly -30 degrees Celsius. This was good experience because as an instructor on a winter course, you not only have to keep yourself warm in such conditions, but must also deal with students. It wasn't a big deal, and a few of us went on an all-day ski tour when the high for the day was -22.

On the last day of the trip before heading out, we skied enjoyable powder on northern aspects, which was quite amazing considering it hadn't snowed measurably in two weeks.

Sweet north facing lines in 2-week old powder (mine are the furthest right :)

Continuing with the Star Wars theme:
On January 28th, after several days of overdoing the whole theme (my name was Chewie and the other three members in my group were Leia, Han, and Luke), we all woke up inside the snow cave to the sound of the Star Wars theme song. After several seconds of thinking we were crazy, I realized that the sound was coming from my bag of papers/notes/etc. Turns out the birthday card Ava had me bring along got set off inside of its envelope and happened to be a musical Star Wars card with a light up light saber on the front. Best and most unlikely coincidence of my life. After opening the card on my birthday the following morning, it was played nearly constantly as well as used to light up the inside of the snow cave in a beautiful shade of light saber green.

Prior to leaving our final dig-in location, several models were created including a death star, star destroyer, millennium falcon, and a life-size R2D2. I can proudly claim the R2D2 as my own. Hopefully the first picture now makes since to all who managed to read this far.

We skied out without incident, completing a riotous time in the backcountry with a fantastic group of people. I'm now cleared to teach winter courses for NOLS, but perhaps more importantly, I feel compelled to spend at least one winter in the Tetons at some point in the future.

Winter

2010-12-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

Upon exiting the Grand Canyon and returning to the Pacific Northwest after Thanksgiving, it dawned on me that it is now winter for all intents and purposes. So, naturally, on my first weekend back in Seattle Ava and I went ice climbing on Saturday and skiing on Sunday.

We weren't sure if the ice was in up at Snoqualmie Falls, but since it is only about an hour away we decided to go check it out.

We ended up finding lots of thin ice covered in snow. I'd say it was climbable, but not exactly "in". We climbed 30 meters up the ice before deciding to rappel before committing to a second pitch of thin ice. The crux of this trip was post-holing up the approach. It turned out to be easier to increase your surface area by crawling rather than sink balls deep when trying to walk. Ava thought I looked a bit ridiculous, so she took a short video.

We made it back to Seattle on Saturday just after kickoff of the Civil War, surprised to find the Beavers off to an early 7-0 lead. That didn't last long, as expected, but I was happy to see the Beavs try to make a game out of it. If it wasn't for the turnovers verging on double digits, it would have been quite interesting. Congrats to Nike, oops, I mean the Ducks for making it to the National Championship! I hope they decide to play 4 quarters against Auburn.

On Sunday we got up early, rounded up 8 people in 2 cars, and drove to Mt. Baker for some backcountry skiing. We ended up skiing three laps in quite good but skied out snow on Table Mountain. I was impressed by the magnitude of the backcountry scene up at Baker. It was pretty ridiculous how many people were out skinning up the hill, refusing to buy a lift ticket at the adjacent resort.

Ava skinning up the hill, followed by a sliver of Adam

Even with good snow, great weather, and even better company, I was most impressed by the views! Previously, I had only been up to Baker once before when it was raining with no visibility. This time I got to be wowed by the proximity of Mt. Shuksan (not to mention Mt. Baker and the rest of the North Cascades).

Mt. Shuksan from the Mt. Baker ski area (which isn't really on Mt. Baker)

To summarize my life right now, I'm spending most of each weekday searching and applying for engineering and teaching (community college) jobs. I'm slowly moving in to an extra room at a friends place, and playing hard on the weekends when everyone I know up here has free time.

More Grand Canyon Pics

2010-12-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

Molly posted a bunch of her pictures on Flickr that do an excellent job of capturing the general mood and scenery of the trip.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyelliott/sets/72157625511526986/show/

Grand Canyon 2010 - A Moderately Functional Shitshow

2010-12-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

On Halloween, fifteen of my best friends and I launched our boats at Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River as we set off on a 21-day raft trip down the Grand Canyon. Our water craft consisted of five 18-foot gear boats, one kat boat, and 4 kayaks. We were outfitted by Moenkopi Riverworks for a very reasonable price, and they did a wonderful job. Thanks to their planning and organization, our trip went very smoothly despite our level of functionality.

The crew and their boating responsibilities are listed below:
Gear Boat Captains: Jake, Garrett, Lane, Lou, and Josh
Kat Boat: Keith
Kayakers: Kyle, Turin, Phil, Becca
Extra rowers and passengers: Molly, Jasmine, Paco, Dane, Logan, Pete

A year and a half prior to the trip, we all put into the National Park Service (NPS) lottery for a chance to float down the river. Dane ended up being the lucky one, drawing the launch date of Halloween. As the designated trip leader, Keith chose Moenkopi as our outfitter and coordinated all the logistics with them. When we showed up at the put-in on October 30, they had all our gear, food, and beverages there waiting for us and the boats mostly rigged. After a 1-hour meeting with a couple of NPS Rangers the following morning, we set off down the river.

Provisions

For the following 21 days, we rafted, hiked, and partied in about equal doses. Many of the gear boat captains (myself included) had very little experience at the oars. However, the rapids are set up perfectly so as to teach a novice boater the skills necessary to row the more difficult rapids towards the middle and end of the trip. This is analogous to video games, in how they teach you skills in the early levels and gradually build on them to the end. I remember the first Class 7 of the trip getting my attention by nearly flipping my gear boat. By the time we got to the first Class 8, I felt super solid and confident. Everyone more or less styled the entire river with only a couple of exceptions.

Boating Mishaps

Mishap 1 is credited to Louie for putting an 18-inch slice in the side of his gear boat on Day 10. Three patch attempts and one layover day later, it was like it never happened. Kudos to Logan for his amazing sewing of the gash prior to the third patch attempt.

Mishap 2 is credited to Jake for being the sole cause of our only flipped gear boat. We encountered the most difficult rapid of the trip, Lava Falls, on Day 18. He flipped in the very last hole in the rapid, effectively forcing himself and his two passengers to swim. Also swimming were two oars and an upside-down gear boat. The two oars were never recovered, but everything else turned out great! I was actually glad Jake bumbled this rapid because I wanted to experience the righting of a fully laden gear boat. It was surprisingly easy and I ended up learning a lot from this experience. Thanks Jake!

Me rowing one of the rapids earlier in the trip with Molly and Paco in the front

Pretty much all the pictures in this post are courtesy of Kyle Dickman, who writes and shoots for Outside Magazine. He did an incredible job throughout the trip of getting in position and taking some great shots! However, Becca gets credit for the following video of me rowing through Lava Falls with Jasmine, Molly, and Paco in the bow.

As a group, we did an excellent job of being functional when we needed to be. Lucky for us, this only constituted about 4 hours over the course of the trip. The weather was fantastic with highs in the 70's and lows at night around 40. We had two minor sprinkles until the last night, when it rained constantly from sundown to sunup. As it turned out, this was way more pleasant than the summer time temperatures ranging from 85 to 130 degrees.

Typical beautiful flatwater section (90% of the river is like this)

Garrett dabbling in the anti-flatwater. Somewhere underneath him is an 18' gear boat.

We ran Lava Falls in small groups so we could watch each other row the gnar. Kyle ended up taking a metric shit-ton of photos, getting a great sequence of stills of pretty much all the rafts going through the first two big holes. I posted my favorite below, but the whole sequence of my run is posted on Picassa.

You can barely make out the three heads in the front of the boat of Molly, Paco, and Jasmine.

Enough about the rafting. The side hikes were at least as memorable. Unfortunately, my first camera battery failed and I lost my second one (found it three days before the end of the trip), so I didn't take any photos of the cool places I hiked to. We typically hiked in small groups and sometimes solo, so relying on Kyle for amazing photos didn't work out for me. Let's go ahead and call that "Hiking Mishap #1, courtesy of me". Every hike I did was worth doing. For my own future reference, the two hikes I did not go on that I feel I need to do next time (provided there is one) are Kanab Creek and Olo Canyon. My "favorite spot of the trip" award goes to a place 5.5 miles up Havasu Creek, where a clear side stream cascades about 25 feet into the turquoise main stream, about 200 yards below the impressive Mooney Falls, where the entirety of Havasu Creek flows over a 210-foot drop.

Picture stolen from the internet. The waterfall is cool by itself, but the double waterfall view just downstream is exquisite. I almost had a "Rainbow Guy" moment.

Nominated for "Picture of the Trip" was this shot Kyle took at the base of Havasu Creek.

On the last night of the trip, on a recommendation from our outfitter, we ate an early Thanksgiving dinner before launching just before dark. We proceeded to float the last 40 miles in the dark with all the boats tied together. An hour later it started to rain, at which point we set up a total of 6 tents on the 5 boats. If it wasn't for the occasional rock bump on the edge of the river, you couldn't tell you were floating from inside the tent. A half hour after daylight, we pulled over at the take out, 40 miles below our last camp. This gave us just enough time to de-rig the boats before our shuttle arrived. Four hours later, we were organizing our personal gear in Flagstaff where there was an inch of snow on the ground.

My personal goals for the trip were to become proficient at rigging and rowing rafts. I met these goals to the extent that I now feel I need to buy my own raft, which I'm not sure is a good thing when viewed from a financial perspective.

Rumor has it that drawing Grand Canyon raft permits will become easier now that lottery preference is not given to people who used to be on the wait list. Consequently, I predict this trip or something very similar will occur on about 5-year intervals. Personal trips down the river become quite manageable and easy to organize when a good outfitter is employed.

Denali V3.0 - 12 Days at 14K

2010-10-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Day 5
We spent our fifth day on the mountain and first day at 14K actively acclimating. And by actively acclimating, I mean sitting around, eating, drinking, and sleeping. We did go on a short, flat ski over to the Edge of the World and back. The Edge of the World is simply the abrupt transition from the flat basin that contains Basin Camp to the steep ruggedness that is most of the mountain.

The Edge of the World

After enjoying the views for a while, we realized we could see Camp I down at 7,800 feet, 6,300 feet almost directly beneath us.

View of Foraker and the Kahiltna Glacier from The Edge of the World

We also spent part of this day familiarizing ourselves with Basin Camp. There were close to 150 people here for the entirety of our stay at 14K, including a simi-permanent National Park Service ranger camp. As far as I could tell, the purpose of the ranger presence is to help ensure that climbers are following the rules (mainly waste disposal related), maintain the shitters, and coordinate rescues. They also post a weather report every day, which is highly unreliable at best, but nonetheless nice to have.

Weather Board

One of two shitters (note that there's a high traffic trail right about where this picture is taken from). Modesty has no place here.

Our plan for the next day was to head up the West Rib a ways and scout the route we hoped to take to the summit. Fresh snow and a little weather changed our plans.

Day 6
Instead of heading right out of camp toward the West Rib, we opted to ski left toward the fixed lines that mark the standard route up the mountain, the West Buttress. We went up the fixed lines to 16,200 feet where the ridge of the West Buttress is officially gained, then hiked along the ridge to 17,200 feet where most parties climbing the West Buttress route set up their final camp before making a summit attempt. From here, the Rescue Gully leads straight down to Basin Camp in a short, steep, 3,000 foot drop. We figured this would be a good trial run for the lines of the Messner Couloir and the Oreint Express that we hoped to ski down from near the summit later in the trip.

Skinning up to the base of the fixed lines on the West Buttress route

Looking at 14K from the base of the fixed lines, Mt. Hunter in the background

Dane leading the ridge from 16,2 to 17,2

The ridge from 16,200' to 17,200' is by far the neatest part of the West Buttress route. It's the only stretch that feels more like climbing than hiking and the feeling of walking on a sidewalk dissipates. The guided parties have placed and left protection along this stretch, which was nice to clip into on the way up but not entirely necessary.

Looking down the ridge at about 16,800'

We learned a lot by skiing the Rescue Gully. First, the steepness at the top emphasized the seriousness of skiing the bigger lines above 14K. Second, the spots that looked like blue ice from Basin Camp really were blue ice and impossible to hold an edge on. We received good reports from parties who had recently climbed the gully regarding a lack of blue ice that was so prevalent on the rest of the visible aspects from 14K. This turned out to be mostly true, with a couple of exceptions.

The top of Rescue Gully (picture taken on day 14)

Long story short, our experience on a 3,000' descent with very little blue ice caused us to reevaluate our ambitions for skiing either of the two main lines off the summit plateau, which would be 5,000' descents with substantially more blue ice. Overall, it was a fun acclimatization day with some exciting skiing that I don't regret doing.

Day 7
Our seventh day on the mountain consisted of a scouting/acclimatization trip to 16,200 feet on the West Rib and setting up our cook tent. Clouds moved in when we were about half way up to the rib, making the scouting trip almost useless. Once we gained the rib, the visibility ranged from none to mediocre. During one of the mediocre times we were able to make out the first part of the climb on the ridge proper, which we decided was good enough for our scouting purposes. We proceeded to ski down most of the way to camp in a whiteout, which we referred to as braille skiing since we were forced to feel our way down via our skin track because everything else was equally white. Finally, about 700 vertical feet before reaching camp, the clouds lifted to provide us with several turns of amazing powder!

Route from 14K to the Upper West Rib on the skyline

Upon returning to camp, all the clouds lifted, revealing our pathetic ski tracks. It was obvious looking at our tracks where we became able to see. We spent the remainder of the day setting up our cook tent and building protective walls with snow blocks around it. For the rest of our stay at 14K we would have a relatively warm and windless place to cook our meals.

Setting up the cook tent

Day 8
We'd yet to have a full rest day where we didn't do anything active, and Dane was fairly insistent that we do this. Thinking we might make a summit attempt the following day, we rested, ate, drank, and did a little work fortifying the walls for out cook tent.

Rest Day

We had heard conflicting weather reports from two equally unreliable sources about the next couple of days. We were trying to remain optimistic about the weather, but the lenticular cloud sitting on top of the mountain that evening made this difficult. We felt that we were now acclimated well enough to reach the summit, but we would also need some cooperation from the weather gods.

Day 9
When our alarm went off at 3:00 am, we looked outside our tent to find clouds engulfing the Upper West Rib. We opted to sleep in as we had many days of food left to wait for a more ideal weather window. We skied halfway up to the West Rib to get our legs moving once again and had yet another braille ski down for about 1,200 vertical feet.

Switching into downhill mode in the whiteout

That evening, the updated weather forecast for the following day looked much more promising.

Day 10
Similar to the day before, we set our alarms for 4:00 am. Upon looking out of the tent, we saw clear skies in most directions with the exception of the West Rib, our intended summit route. I convinced Dane that this was similar to the weather the previous day where it just got nicer all day long, so we started preparing to make our move. By 5:45 we were kicking steps in ankle to shin deep snow towards the West Rib. We didn't bring skis as we had previously decided not to attempt a summit ski descent, and we would be descending the West Buttress, thereby not passing by our stashed skis had we chosen to approach with them.

Looking toward the West Rib from camp in the early morning of Day 10

The farther we went, the deeper the snow got. Wallowing our way up to the West Rib made us appreciate how much easier all our traveling on skis had been. We took turns breaking trail / kicking steps in about 1 hour cycles for the majority of the day. The ridge was breezy when we reached it, and the sun had not yet hit so things got cold fast. For the first time all trip, I put on my super warm mittens, which I found to be extremely warm and extremely difficult to function in. After adding some layers, Dane took the lead as we began up the most technical (only technical) part of the climb from about 16,200' to 17,000'. The views during this section were beautiful and often airy.

Dane leading up after gaining the West Rib

Looking down after climbing a couple hundred feet up the ridge

After this fun bit, we proceeded to wallow another 2,500' to gain the summit plateau, the top of the Upper West Rib route, where we joined the West Buttress route at an area known as the football field. Wallowing from 17,000' to 19,500' up 40 to 45 degree snow was exhausting to say the least. It took us just over 13 hours to reach this point, making it 7:00 pm.

We spent an hour huddling in the inescapable wind and cold on the football field, trying to eat and drink enough to recover from our previous 13 hour ascent. We weren't sure when we reached the football field if we would continue to the summit or immediately descend the standard route 5,300' back to camp. After eating, drinking, and assessing the route and our situation, I decided I felt good enough to make the summit, 800' above us, and still have enough reserves to make it back to our camp at 14K. Dane, having less of a peak bagging drive than me, decided he'd rather go down. Since we were now on the main route, traveling solo seemed prudent enough, so I went up while Dane went down, with the intentions of stopping when he got out of the wind so we could continue the descent together once I caught up to him.

Classic arms length summit shot

At 9:15 pm on May 30th, I stood on the summit of Denali at 20,320'. I was all alone and for probably the first and only time on the entire trip, I couldn't see a single other person. I took a few pictures but didn't waste too much time as it was already late and I knew Dane was huddled in the cold somewhere waiting for me.

View from the top of North America

Proof that I really was there

I had taken three Advil after gaining the West Rib at about 16,500', which seemed to keep altitude sickness at bay. This is not to say that I didn't feel any effects of altitude, or perhaps altitude combined with exhaustion. As I neared the summit, my level of apparent tiredness receded. I was stoked to finally be at the summit, knowing that it was all downhill from here.

This next bit will sound overly dramatic and cliche, but I'll try to explain what I was feeling anyway. On the way down, I remember feeling like there was a separation between my mind and body. Like my mind knew exactly what I needed to do (get down the mountain to my sleeping bag), and it forced my body to comply with its wishes. Like my body cared that I was really tired but my mind was unsympathetic. I'm not sure how else to better describe it, but after descending about 1,000 feet from the summit, as my summit "high" wore off, this is how I felt the rest of the way down.

I met up with Dane at Denali Pass (18,200') on the West Buttress route. The route was very well wanded, easy to follow, and non-technical. When I found him, he was wearing all of his clothes and curled in a ball like an Alaskan sled dog, sound asleep. Unable to escape the wind, he had just curled up behind a small rock and let the spindrift blow in around him. When I woke him, he cleared the snow that had accumulated between his eyes and his glacier glasses and we descended together.

We made good time on the way down until we got to the base of the fixed lines, only about 1,200 feet above camp. At this point, I was so tired I could only walk for a few minutes before needing to rest. I remember counting 100 steps, resting, and repeating. Dane wasn't moving a whole lot faster. We ended up reaching Basin Camp at 1:30 am, just under 20 hours after leaving. Although we experienced nice weather the whole time we were gone, we found the tent covered in 8 inches of snow when we returned. I'd never before experienced fatigue like this. I needed food, water, and sleep. Sleep won, as I promptly crawled into my sleeping bag and passed out. I think Dane managed to eat something before joining me.

Day 11
So excited for a rest day! Dane could not resist the urge to ski the fresh powder that accumulated during the previous day, so he went up toward the West Rib and got a few turns in. I was still too tired to join him and my legs too sore.

Celebratory whiskey and cards - what rest days are all about

Day 12
The last rest day felt so good, we decided to have another to celebrate the first day of June. It snowed off and on all day, but we still went out for a short ski toward the fixed lines. It was good to get the legs moving again, and I felt better than I thought I would.

Day 13
Best powder day of the trip! We skied two laps for a total of about 3,000 feet up toward the fixed lines and my legs felt great. The morning was noticeably colder than previous mornings, which probably just made the powder that much better. Dane is feeling good and has decided he might regret returning home without tagging the summit. The weather looks good for tomorrow, so we set the alarm for another early start.

Good morning Dane. Your cheesy fried bagel with sausage fried in bacon grease is ready.

Yes, we ate well. In true NOLS fashion, we alternated cooking on a dinner-breakfast schedule so we always cooked two meals in a row but never two in the same day. The bacon grease made everyone downwind from us jealous.

Dane shredding the gnar

Me, almost needing a snorkel

Day 14
I got up around 7:00 to make Dane a hearty breakfast before he made a solo summit bid from our 14K camp. By 8:30, he was off at a brisk pace, beating the hoards of people to the base of the fixed lines on the West Buttress route. Since we had descended the entire route the previous day, we knew it was safe enough and within Dane's ability to solo to the summit and back.

Dane looks like a little spec as he races toward the fixed lines.

As Dane moved rapidly up the West Buttress, I went back to sleep. A few hours later, I got up and began ascending to 17,200', where I planned to meet up with Dane on his way down. It was a real nice day until about 3:30, when the anvil shaped clouds that had been threatening all day finally engulfed me in fog and light snow. Up higher, as Dane later reported, the weather was still clear. I waited at the 17,200' camp where a few dozen climbers were camped for 3.5 hours before Dane showed up at 6:15 pm.

Clouds chasing me up the ridge from 16,2 to 17,2

Dane's summit shot!

Looking down the summit ridge

After refueling at 17,200' we descended back to 14K, arriving at 8:00 pm, giving Dane an official and respectable round trip time of 11.5 hours to summit from 14K.

When we returned to camp, we noticed that the Lou Dawson crew had moved in next door. Lou is a well known ski mountaineer in Colorado. He had been to Denali once before and failed to reach the summit. This time he was back with his son and a slew of great young skiers from the Aspen area in attempt to ski off the summit. I knew they were going to be up there, so it was great to meet them all before we left. Several days after we left, most/all of them climbed and skied down all the skiable parts of the West Buttress route. Even with some additional snow, the more coveted lines off the summit plateau were still out of condition for them.

Day 15
It was looking like the mediocre weather that moved in yesterday was around to stay for a while, so we decided to spend one final day at 14K before descending back to the landing strip. We spent a bunch of time in the Dawson party's big cook tent, sharing stories, listening to music, and drinking the rest of our whiskey. We ended up giving most of our extra food and fuel to them as well to avoid carrying it down the mountain.

Day 16
We woke up to find Dawson's party tent flattened by about a foot of fresh snow. Later, this new snow would fuel and avalanche starting in the Messner Couloir and running straight towards the crowded Basin Camp, stopping plenty early but creating a bit of a scare nonetheless. We spent the morning packing up and getting rid of the last of our extra food. Dane was not looking forward to snowboarding down with a sled, so he strapped everything to his pack in epic junkshow fashion. I stacked his sled in mine and skied down using the "bad dog" technique, which worked wonderfully.

Junkshow

In a couple hours we descended from 14,200 feet to Camp I at 7,800 feet. Shortly before reaching Camp I, we ran into a NOLS group heading up the mountain. Dane knew one (or perhaps both) of the instructors who were taking about 8 members of the Indian Air Force up the West Buttress route. The route from Camp I to Kahiltna International Airport was back on the massive/flat expanse of the Kahiltna Glacier, which had been actively melting for the last 16 days. This made traveling on the glacier much more suspect with large, sagging areas in the snow that indicated enormous (100' wide) snow bridges. Observing this, we roped up and put our skins on, which slowed us down considerably. We encountered people heading up who were not roped up nor wearing skis, and we thought they had a death wish. We confirmed with the base camp rangers that several people had been "popping through" these snow bridges, some of them with skis on, so we're confident we made the right decision.

After charging up Heartbreak Hill, the section of the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier that is uphill on the way back, I think we were looking at a 6 to 7 hour descent from 14K. I once again began to feel bad for the poor people on snowshoes, but then reminded myself that it was their own fault for not skiing.

Back at KIA

We inquired with the climbing rangers at KIA about conditions on Mt. Hunter, which we hoped to climb if both the weather and climbing conditions looked good. After hearing about all the avalanches coming down our intended route due to the recent warm temperatures and getting a strong recommendation not to climb, we went to talk to the base camp manager about getting a ride back to Talkeetna.

Due to the weather, climbers had been stacked up waiting for a flight out for the last three days. This was the first day of flyable weather, so there was a whole slew of flights earlier in the day. By the time we got there at about 7:00 pm, everyone was cleared out and we were on a plane in less than an hour.

Day 17 and Beyond
With several extra days before our scheduled flight back to Denver, we decided to hitchhike around Alaska after spending a day in Talkeetna taking care of our gear. First, we went up to Fairbanks to visit a friend of mine from Boulder who grew up there and happened to be home visiting his parents. We then made it down to Homer, where we spent a bunch of time relaxing and met up with the Fry's at their Bear Creek Winery. Several logistical complexities later, we were at the airport in Anchorage with all of our gear, ready to fly back to the lower 48.

Summit Shot, courtesy of Nancy Holliday

Denali V2.0 - Getting to High Camp (14,200')

2010-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Kahiltna International Airport (KIA) on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier is a small landing strip next to a small and temporary tent city. Staffed by NPS rangers and a basecamp manager during the climbing season, the airport runs smoothly with knowledgeable people to answer questions from the ill-prepared, of which there are many. TAT works with the basecamp manager to avoid flying fuel and sleds in on every flight. Consequently, upon arrival we were issued the fuel and sleds that we had ordered and paid for through TAT.

Many parties choose to spend their first day and night on the mountain at KIA in order to begin acclimating to the altitude. Since Dane and I had spent the previous month in Colorado at over 9,000 feet, there was no reason for us to waste perfectly good weather. So, as soon as we got our sleds, we loaded them up and began our slog toward the summit of the highest point in North America.

Due to the latitude and the phenomenon of atmospheric squish, altitudes on Denali are effectively about 2,000 feet higher than the equivalent elevation closer to the equator. The landing strip is at 7,200', so in effect, our trip began with the same level of oxygen in the air that we had accustomed ourselves to for the last month.

Feeling quite awkward with the sled

After caching three days worth of food (in case we had to wait to fly out due to weather) and some technical gear (for a possible ascent of Mt. Hunter) near the landing strip, our loads were down to about 120 pounds each. With food and fuel in the sleds and the rest of our gear on our backs, this divided pretty evenly. So, as we began our march down the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna and then up the main Kahiltna, we both carried 60 pound packs while pulling 60 pound sleds.

The sleds were quite awkward at first (going slightly downhill), until I figured out how to employ the "Bad Dog" technique described to us by a stoner guide who was on a personal trip. This technique basically entails short leashing your sled with your hand so that it has no choice but to stay right at your side, nestled against your ski boot as you slide. Add to this the fact that both Dane and I had to go the same pace (we were roped together) and the slight rolling nature of the terrain, and we quickly discovered why people tell such horror stories about dragging sleds around Denali. Even so, it beat making two trips and carrying everything on your back. By the time we finished the downhill portion of the trip to our first camp, the sleds became more of an asset than a liability.

Denali!

Shortly after turning the corner and beginning our gradual ascent up the main Kahiltna Glacier, we got our first views of Denali from the ground. Five and a half miles of glacier slogging later, we found ourselves at the base of Ski Hill (7,800'), the first of three camps we would set up. There were around 75 people camped here, very few of them speaking English.

Approaching Camp I

We set up camp and ate dinner before deciding that we should continue taking advantage of the fantastic weather. So we carried a load of food, fuel, and extra clothes up to about 9,000' before burying it, marking it well with wands, and skiing back down to camp. We finished this by 10:00 pm and it was still plenty light out. As it turns out, the sun goes behind the mountain for a good portion of the day, but it barely drops below the horizon, so it never gets dark. Knowing this ahead of time, we opted not to bring headlamps and never regretted that decision.

Camp I at 9,800', Bottom of Ski Hill

Clouds were building that evening, and we'd heard rumors of a mild storm coming the next day. However, advice I had received from numerous Denali veterans was that you'd never make it to the top if you refused to move camp in a little weather, so we planned to get up the next morning and more camp as high as 11,000 feet.

Leaving Camp I on the morning of Day 2

The morning of our second day on the mountain arrived to reveal another day of good weather, so we packed up camp and started up Ski Hill for the second time. We made good time up to our Cache at 9,000', unburied our sleds full of gear, and continued up the mountain with them in tow. Thin cloud layers came and went along with a little wind throughout the day as we skied through Kahiltna Pass on our way to Camp II. At 3:00 pm, 6 hours after leaving Camp I, we had gained 3,200 feet in elevation and arrived at the base of Motorcycle Hill (11,000') with all of our food and gear.

Dane on his way through Kahiltna Pass with Denali's West Buttress proper in the background

Camp II at the base of Motorcycle Hill (11,000')

We had been going pretty hard since we landed on the mountain 28 hours prior to arriving at 11,000', so we decided to set up camp and rest. I remember feeling the altitude for the first time at Camp II, but only in the form of slightly labored breathing.

The route above 11,000' gets a little steeper, so we decided to call and end to our liberal use of the single carry method. On day three, during yet another beautiful day, we carried a load of extra food, fuel, and clothes to 13,500', a place known as Around Windy Corner since it's just past the notorious Windy Corner. About half way there, we encountered the first section of the sidewalk-like trail that we couldn't ski up. This was due to the combination of steepness and iciness, requiring us to don our crampons for the first time of the trip. After gaining about 300' in crampons, we were able to switch back to skis and continue up, through, and around Windy Corner. This was by far the windiest section of the route thus far, but we knew the 30 mph winds we encountered were nothing compared to the 60-100 mph winds that are frequently reported there.

Windy Corner

We skied the entire way back after caching our load at 13,500 feet. Most of it was icy and/or crusty, but the final pitch down Motorcycle Hill back to our camp was covered with a few inches of amazing powder! I felt really bad for all the people doing what we were doing who didn't have skis. While we played our way back down to camp in a matter of minutes, they endured a nice three-hour march.

Motorcycle Hill from 11,000' Camp. The farthest right (skiers left) tracks are ours.

We spent a second night at Camp II. I remember noting the extreme difference between being in the sun and shade at this camp, a phenomenon that would only get more dramatic as we went higher. While a t-shirt would be sufficient while hanging out in camp in the sun, someone 10 feet away in the shade would be comfortable in a down suit.

Our fourth day on the mountain, we moved camp from 11,000 feet to 14,200 feet (aka Camp III, aka Basin Camp) in wonderful weather yet again. As it turned out, this is the third and final location we would set up our tent. This time, with ski crampons, we were able to leave our skis on for the entire ascent up to and past Windy Corner.

Looking down at Camp II from high up on Motorcycle Hill

Taking a break at Windy Corner with Mt. Foraker in the background

After setting up camp, eating a hot meal, and drinking hot drinks, I convinced Dane to head back down to 13,500' to retrieve our cache from the day before. We had a fun 700 vertical foot ski back down and a necessary 700 foot slog back up. I was glad we did it though, because it felt really good to go to sleep knowing that we had all of our gear up at the camp we would call home for the next 12 days. Getting from Kahiltna International Airport to 14,200' in 3.5 days would not have been possible without our pre-trip acclimatization, nor without the amazing weather cooperation!

Camp III, Basin Camp, 14,200'

Denali V1.0 - Traveling to the Mountain

2010-10-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have no more excuses. This daunting task is now at hand. To give myself the illusion that this is a manageable task, I've decided to break the trip into three sections:

1) V1.0 Traveling to the Mountain

2) V2.0 Getting to High Camp (14,200')

3) V3.0 12 Days at 14K

I make no promises, but I hope I get these all done before leaving for the Grand Canyon!

After making some final preparations in Boulder on May 19, we began our journey to the mountain by taking the bus to the Denver airport. We arrived at the Anchorage airport at 1:30 am on May 20 and slept for a few hours next to a giant stuffed brown bear, presumably designed to deter tourists from wandering too far into the bush before they ever get a chance to leave the confines of the airport. At 6:00 am we took a taxi to the Railroad Station in downtown Anchorage in order to meet up with a NOLS shuttle that was transporting a group of students from there to the NOLS branch in Palmer, AK, about two hours away.

It's always fun to visit new branch offices, and since neither Dane nor I had never been to Palmer, we took a branch tour before getting down to business. The business we had planned was to procure the last of our needed supplies (free rental for instructors) and collect our rations for 23 days on the mountain. We took some cooking gear and wands before bagging the food that we had predetermined, separated into three ration periods. This all went pretty smoothly, and we managed to acquire all the food we would need for the trip for about $120 per person.

We had prearranged to meet a van from Denali Overland for a ride from Wasilla to Talkeetna, and we managed to finish up in Palmer in plenty of time to have the wonderful people at the branch drive us 20 miles in to Wasilla to meet up with this next leg of transportation. In Wasilla we joined a group of four climbers from Seattle (Boeing employees) who were heading up on a private trip to climb the West Buttress route. After about three hours in the van, we arrived in Talkeetna, the jumping off point for nearly all climbs in the Alaska Range.

Once in Talkeetna, we checked in with Talkeetna Air Taxi (TAT), which is a multi-functional company that caters to climbers while also running sight seeing flights for tourists. TAT would eventually help us with in town logistics, supply us with a bunkhouse for the nights immediately before and after our stay on the mountain, as well as fly us to and from the Kahiltna International Airport on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier at the base of Denali.

Gearing up in Talkeetna

The flight to the glacier is notorious for stranding people in Talkeetna for several days before the weather is good enough to fly. However, we had beautiful weather on our journey to Talkeetna and a terrific forecast for the next few days. So, we spent that evening exploding and organizing gear for the glacier flight and bumped our mandatory meeting with the Park Rangers up to first thing in the morning.

When we felt sufficiently organized, we ate dinner at the Denali Brewery (average and overpriced), then bought a couple beers which we drank at the park while talking with a bad ass Polish guy who had just come off the mountain. Once in Talkeetna, everything is within walking distance which made our brief stay there very convenient.

The next morning we met at 8:00 with a ranger for the national park service. While we chatted with Ranger Kevin and watched a slideshow, a woman from the local radio station sat in on our conversation. She was apparently working on a series of short radio programs to inform non-climbers of what goes on during the climbing season on Denali. The report from our briefing is about 4 minutes long and can be heard here. Immediately after the briefing, we went to the TAT office and got ready to fly out.

Our plane in Talkeetna, ready to fly to the glacier

Although you get on the plane in Talkeetna, you get off on a glacier at 7,000', so we flew wearing our climbing gear and ski boots. Our official gear weight (which is taken seriously with these small planes) was 275 pounds, or just over 135 pounds per person. We ended up flying in with the Boeing group and left Talkeetna around 10:30 am. With beautiful, cloudless weather, views of the Alaska Range during the flight in were most spectacular.

The amazing Alaska Range

Vertical granite of the Ruth Gorge

Mt. Huntington

We landed on the glacier at 11:00 on May 21 in perfect weather, about 40 hours after leaving Colorado. This rapid transportation time helped us make the most of our pre-trip acclimation by spending less than two days below 7,000'.

The plane and all our gear, landed on the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier

Elk Huntin'

2010-10-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

After my last NOLS course, I managed to catch the last 3.5 days of the month long archery season for elk in Oregon. Jake already got his elk this year, so he was more than happy to take me into the Snake River Unit in the northeast corner of the state and show me the ropes.

Jake had been to this area once before while bear hunting. He saw some elk on that trip and thought it might be a good place to go during elk season. Turns out he was right.

Trying to blend in

After driving from Seattle, meeting up with Jake in Eugene, and driving to the remote corners of Oregon, past the town of Imnaha, we arrived at the spot where we would leave the truck. Jake's plan was to backpack around, chasing elk, either until the end of the season or until I shot a bull. We ended up being away from the truck that entire time, seeing bulls every day.

Jake and I have been accused of being the same person many times before. With similar personalities and the exact same tuxedo measurements (with the exception of his neck being 1/4 inch bigger than mine), this perspective has merit. However, hunting with Jake for these few days helped me realize that in some ways we are quite different and each have our own specialties. Jake's happens to be elk hunting, and I was very impressed and honored to hunt with and learn from such an expert. From his ability to spot the elk to knowing how they will react to everything we could possibly do, Jake must be part elk.

One of the many bulls we saw as seen through the spotting scope

After hiking in a few miles on the first day, Jake spotted a small herd of elk up on the ridge where we planned to go the next day. Shortly after this, he spotted another elk skylined on the ridge as the sun was setting. The silhouette of this large 350 bull was quite impressive, and from that point on I was super motivated to learn how to outsmart these magnificent creatures. For this one, however, it was too late and too far away to hunt.

At the end of the following day, Jake spotted another small herd on a ridge about a mile away. He put the spotting scope on them and told me to watch while he looked around for more. Shortly after setting up behind the scope, I saw the tips of two antlers begin to rise over the ridge, following the small herd. The antlers gradually got bigger and bigger. I kept thinking that I would see fur any second, but the antlers just kept coming into view over the horizon of the ridge as the big bull slowly fed up the back side of the hill. I think I was too excited to anything very coherent, but I remember saying something to Jake to the effect of "Jake. There's a bull. It's big." When Jake looked over with his binoculars, he became even more enamored than I was. He said the bull would have scored about 365-370, which would make it one of the largest elk in Oregon, much larger than anything Jake had ever killed in his 15 or so years of elk hunting.

When we saw the big bull, the sun was about a half hour from the horizon. And we were about 2 miles from the elk via the path we would have to approach them. Jake asked me what I wanted to do, but having no experience, I asked what he would do. He said he would be very aggressive and run until he got about 300 yards from the elk, using terrain features to keep us out of view while we approached. After that, he would continue at a slightly slower pace, getting as close to the animals as possible. This is exactly what we did, and just after sunset, we were within 100 to 150 yards of the herd. A spike (young bull) was hanging near the herd, but not with it. This presented problems as we had to try not to spook elk that were in multiple places. We actually thought I might get a shot at the spike before nearing the rest of the herd, which I would have been happy to do as I was not trophy hunting. We slowly poked our heads over the rise, thinking we would see the spike within range. Turns out the spike had moved since we last saw it and was on the other side of the ridge top. He moved into such an unfavorable position, he winded us and started acting weird. When we saw him, he was 90 yards away, looking right at us. We couldn't see the rest of the herd at this point, but it was clear that the rest of the herd was wondering why the spike was acting funny. In attempt to get to the bottom of the young spike's odd behavior, the big bull came walking back towards us! We were concealed by a small rock outcropping which also prevented us from seeing things very well. Then Jake saw the massive antlers slowly begin to appear beyond the rock, about 50 yards from us. The direction it was moving, it was about six steps from being broadside to us at 40 yards. Jake told me to get ready to shoot. At about that same time, the big bull winded us, smelling the same scent picked up by the spike, and promptly ran away. So, at the end of the first full day of hunting, I was six steps and one good shot from killing the largest bull I had ever seen! The kind of excitement involved was unlike anything I experience while climbing or skiing.

We didn't spot any bulls close enough to be worth chasing the next day, but on our third and final day we found the canyon where the majority of the elk were hanging out. We heard a faint bugle, ran down into a canyon and up the other side to where we thought we heard it, heard it again yet another canyon over, ran down the next canyon and up the other side, seeing about 40 elk spread out all over the canyon, some as close as about 250 yards. We couldn't try to move closer to any of them because one would inevitably see us. So we just sat there and listened to them talk and interact. Jake, being fluent in Elk, translated what they were saying. For the rest of the day, we chased around various groups of elk, trying to get withing 30 yards of a bull. With limited tree cover, closing the last 70 yards or so proved to be quite difficult.

Towards the end of the evening, we spotted a herd we chased earlier in the day about 800 yards away with a nice 325 bull in it. Jake told me that I had learned enough by this point that there was no reason he should go with me. Two people stalking a herd of elk just doubles the chance that one of them will see, hear, or smell you. As soon as they all went over a small rise I began running at them, trying to make it to the spot where they disappeared before they had moved very far away. I got to the rise and didn't see them. They were feeding away from me the last time I saw them, so this wasn't very surprising. I went to the next rise, and the next, all the while with very limited sight distance. I started thinking to myself, "Where the hell are they? They have to be right about here!" Just after saying that to myself, I peered around the corner of a small cliff and say the bull about 80 yards from me, casually feeding away from my position. Perfect! The wind was blowing uphill, and the bull was across the hill, so he couldn't smell me. After composing myself, I started to look around and assess the terrain features in order to figure out how I was going to get 50 yards closer. As I peaked above the cliff I was standing under, I saw the cows! The bitches had doubled back on me, completely changing directions. They were now above me and it would only be a matter of seconds before they winded me and ran away. Five seconds later, the entire herd was running up and over the next ridge, never to be seen again. They disappeared over the last ridge in about a minute and a half. It would have taken me a half hour to cover the same distance.

The hike back to the truck after that was not a sad one, and I felt no sense of failure. I learned a lot about elk and now respect them even more, not to mention having a wonderful and exhilarating time chasing them around all day up and down the canyons. The combination of skill and luck involved in a successful archery hunt makes it an addicting endeavor. I can't wait for next September!

Backpacking, Canoeing, and Mountaineering

2010-09-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I finished instructing another NOLS course. This time it was the Mountain Section of a Pacific Northwest Semester. We spent 10 days backpacking in the Pasayten Wilderness (Slate Peak to Hozomeen Campground at the north end of Ross Lake), 4 days canoeing on Ross Lake (Hozomeen Campground to Colonial Creek Campground on Diablo Lake), and 11 days mountaineering on Mt. Baker. We had a group of 7 male students and 2 instructors (3 instructors for the first two parts).

I was fortunate enough to work with the famous Kenyan instructor, KG, who has something like 550 field weeks (that's over 10 years working in the field for those who are counting). He was great to work with, and I learned a lot of important things, like how to deal with difficult students and when you go mountaineering, bring 3 pounds of bacon.

Deer next to one of our campgrounds on Ross Lake

A side trip up Devil's Creek

One of the highlights of the course for me was getting all the students to the top of Mt. Baker on the only sunny day of our stay on the mountain. The glacier was in much better shape than the previous year when I ran a similar course, making navigation much simpler. This whole NOLS thing still doesn't really feel like work to me. I still find it extremely fun and rewarding!

Climbing the final steep section before gaining the summit plateau on Mt. Baker

Descending one of the only technical sections of the route

Climbing Road Trip – Part Final

2010-08-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

Ava and I just finished up our summer climbing road trip. Since my last post, we spent a couple more days at Lovers Leap, finishing off pretty much all of the classics at and below the 5.8 level as well as The Line (5.9), a line so amazing it is called "The Line". Imagine a pill so amazing it is called, simply, "The Pill" . . . I digress. We also climbed for a day at Smith Rock on our way back to Seattle.

Anyway, I had been thinking about "The Line" and using it as motivation to climb and lead at a more difficult level for the last couple weeks of our trip. I chose this particular 5.9 because it has a reputation for being very protectable (easy to place gear anywhere on the way up to prevent a long fall) as well as having amazing and sustained climbing. The climb lived up to its reputation. In two long pitches, of sustained 5.7 to 5.9 climbing, we ascended the most striking vertical crack that splits the East Wall of Lovers Leap. I placed gear frequently but efficiently and managed to climb the whole thing cleanly, and most importantly, felt solid the whole way up. All the way up, the route demands a mixture of crack, face, and lie back techniques. It finishes with a 15-foot overhung section with great holds, many of them hidden.

After our last stint at Lovers Leap, we met up with Ava's dad in Truckee before heading north. We drove up to Smith, climbed hard for a few hours the next morning before it got too hot, hitting a few of the classic sport routes such as: Phone Call From Satan (5.9), 5-Gallon Buckets (5.8), Outlaw (5.9), and Light on the Path (5.10a). This was a great intro for Ava as she had never been to Smith Rock before, and it was fun to finish our almost entirely trad climbing trip with a little sport climbing. I was happy with how good I felt leading the harder climbs at Smith.

We stayed a night with Jake in Eugene before heading north to Seattle. The next morning I woke up early and made it to Conway, WA to begin briefing for my next NOLS course at 8:00 am. It's been a great road trip! I'd be more sad for it to end if I wasn't looking forward to the next month so much (teaching a mountaineering course, followed by archery hunting with Jake)! It's nice be back in the Northwest after being gone for almost 4.5 months.

Climbing Road Trip Part III – California

2010-08-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

After getting stormed off of the Grand Teton, Ava and I were scheduled to meet up with Kris and Mel (friends from Seattle) in Yosemite for a week of climbing in Tuolumne Meadows. We drove to Truckee, CA and spent a day there with Ava's parents. As usual, it was great to see them and wonderful to have a real house to stay in for a couple nights. On our way down to Yosemite, we stopped and climbed at Lovers Leap, linking Surrealistic Pillar with Corrugation Corner for perhaps the best seven pitch 5.7 climb in existance. What made this even better was that Ava is leading trad climbs now and she was able to take some of the leads!

Corrugation Corner

We had dinner that night at the Strawberry Lodge, a place that is eerily reminiscent of The Shining before driving to Tuolumne Meadows. The next day we climbed Northwest Books on Lembert Dome while waiting for Kris and Mel to show up, which was a great introduction to Yosemite granite. The fun picked up dramatically upon their arrival.

The four of us had a great time camping, drinking beer, and climbing for seven days. Over that week, and in various combinations we climbed:

Bull Dozier (5.7), Dozier Dome;

Holdless Horrer (5.6), Dozier Dome;

Northwest Buttress (5.5), Tenaya Peak;

Great White Book (5.6R), Stately Pleasure Dome;

West Country (5.7), Stately Pleasure Dome;

West Ridge (5.6), Mt. Conness;

Haystack (5.8), Lovers Leap; and

spent a day toproping 5.7 to 5.11a climbs at Murphy Creek.

Kris, Mel, and Ava about half way up Tenaya Peak

All these climbs were of fantastic quality and constituted trip highlights. I was particularly fond of the climbs on Stately Pleasure Dome and the West Ridge of Mt. Conness, but I think I still like the climbing at Lovers Leap best of all.

There are so many "you had to be there" stories, I don't know where to begin and they wouldn't make any sense here anyway. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The 4th pitch of West Country

Second Pitch of the Great White Book

West Ridge of Conness

Ava high up on Conness's West Ridge

We are currently taking the weekend off to avoid crowds, but plan to spend one more week in the Tahoe area before heading north so I can begin instructing a NOLS course out of Washington. For obvious reasons, I want this summer to continue indefinitely.

Climbing Road Trip Part II - Cirque of the Towers

2010-08-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

After spending a month in Wyoming's Wind River Range, I apparently hadn't had enough. Ava and I decided to begin the second part of our climbing road trip by heading into the Cirque of the Towers, which, as the name suggests, is an amazing cirque lined with granite towers on nearly all sides. The abundance of clean alpine granite lines in this area is astounding. This is located only a few miles south of where my course passed by just days earlier (we intentionally avoided the area due to its reputation for being crowded).

Before I begin to recount these adventures, please follow my logic: Cirque of the Towers - C of the Ts - Sea of the Tease. Thank you.

We backpacked into the cirque on our first day with plans of achieving alpine glory on the subsequent two or three days. The weather was questionable nearly the entire time, but we went for it anyway and were glad that we did.

Pingora on the right, with Wolf's Head just to the left and behind Pingora

On day two we got up early and hiked up towards Pingora Peak, aiming for the classic South Buttress line. We ended up taking a non-standard approach to this climb that involved some interesting scrambling. Sufficient wandering around on ledges eventually led us to the start of the climb, where we ran into two fellow NOLSies who were just starting the same climb. I led the first pitch, which was an enjoyable 5.6 crack/corner system on surprisingly clean alpine granite. Ava valiantly led the next 5.6 pitch which continued in a similar fashion. We were then faced with the option of traversing to yet another 5.6 corner or continuing straight up a 5.8 crack system known as the "K" cracks. The left side of the "K" cracks looked amazing, so I got my send on. The first two pitches were great, and this one was notably better. After that, a 300-foot scramble led us to Pingora's summit.

Leading up the first pitch of the South Buttress (look at those pretty new ropes!)

The "K" Crack Pitch

A Craig Weiland inspired summit shot on Pingora

While the climbing/scenery/summit/etc. were amazing, we both left wishing the route was at least twice as long.

Our camp with Pingora and Wolf's Head in the background

We awoke early again on Day 3 and marched back up the cirque in search of the East Ridge of Wolf's Head. There wasn't much searching necessary, as we could see if from our camp, but getting to the base of the ridge proved interesting. It was supposed to be a Class 3 scramble on grassy ledges. We found the grassy ledges but still had to pull out the rope for a few moves down low and and two easy 5th class pitches up higher. The fact that it sporadically rained on us while gaining the ridge didn't help.

Once on the ridge, the reason this climb is so famous slaps you in the face. The first part of the east ridge varies from 1-foot to about 6-feet wide and is split by a crack that provides excellent protection as it ascends toward the jagged summit ridge. Considering the shear drop off on both sides of the ridge makes its position splendid. Despite the dramatic position, the climbing is relatively easy until the towers along the summit ridge are encountered, at which point the route finding and climbing difficulties increase. The exposure below us was made more real when we were forced to traverse around some of the towers.

Feeling the exposure (notice the climbing shoe camouflage)

The blocky towers of the summit ridge

Ava traversing under one of the summit towers with lots of air below

Once we finally made it to the top, I felt more than usual the reality of only being half way there upon reaching the summit. I believe the suspect weather contributed largely to this. We still had to get down and the descent route would be off an entirely different side of the mountain. The descent was adventurous, for sure, but we found the necessary rappel stations and safely made our way back to camp for what seemed like a longer day than it actually was.

We had optimistically hoped to climb the Northeast Face of Pingora on the following day, but due to several factors including: copious amounts of rain the night before, our bodies feeling the ware of the previous three days, sustained difficulty of the route, continuing questionable weather, and consideration of opportunity costs, we opted to hike out and head for the Tetons. I hope to return to this amazing cirque many times in the future as the number of incredible alpine granite lines is practically limitless.

NOLS Backcountry Rock Climbing

2010-07-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

I just finished my fourth course as an instructor for NOLS. Along with 2 other instructors, we took 12 students rock climbing in the Southern Wind River Range of Wyoming for 4 weeks. We finished with 11 students after removing a behavioral issue on day 12. I took the problem student out after he verbally threatened a 17 year old girl. We were deep in the mountains at that point, so the round trip hike to remove him was about 30 miles. Was it worth it? Hell yes! The course dynamics improved tremendously after that and we all had a great time climbing backcountry alpine rock routes and ascending peaks.

The scenery kept changing but was always this beautiful.

This was the first course where I felt I had a solid grasp of the big picture and was able to comprehend the course progression while still being able to focus on the task at hand. We had great weather and terrific amounts of mosquitoes. Apparently I'm still not tired of the Winds because Ava and I are heading back there tomorrow. We plan to spend three days climbing in the Cirque of the Towers, which is the most popular and crowded area of the range - for good reason. After that we'll head to the Tetons for a couple more alpine rock climbs before heading to Yosemite to meet up with Chris and Mel for yet some more climbing of rocks.

Climbing Road Trip - Part I

2010-06-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

Ava and I just finished the first part of our summer road trip. The next phase will entail me teaching a Backcountry Rock Climbing Course in the Wyoming's Wind River Range while Ava heads to southern Colorado to work on a farm for a month. After that, we plan to resume our summer climbing road trip.

Phase I consisted of a day of climbing in the Flatirons of Boulder, Colorado, two days of climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and two days of climbing at Wild Iris, about 30 minutes southwest of Lander, Wyoming. To kick things off, and since we didn't have a car as mine was still in the shop, we started with the Direct East Face of the First Flatiron. This is a 7 to 10 pitch classic moderate line in the Boulder area, with the added benefit of being able to walk to it from Keith's place in South Boulder. At a grade of 5.6, it wasn't particularly challenging but provided a great warm up since I hadn't climbed in a while. The weather was beautiful and we made it from house to house in just under 8 hours.

After getting Quatra back (that's what I'm calling my car these days), we made our way to RMNP to climb a couple of classic lines that I never managed to climb when I lived in Colorado. We got an early start on our first day and made our way from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead to the base of Sharkstooth. We spent the next several hours climbing the Northeast Ridge of Sharkstooth, a beautiful Grade II, 5.6 alpine rock climb. It was great fun, and in addition to being a wonderful climb in itself, also served as a great warm up for the following day's objective, the South Face of Petit Grepon.

Our first view of the Sharkstooth early on our first day

Looking up from the base of the climb

Ava climbing the ledge systems fit for marmots

The inset a couple pitches up the Northeast Ridge

Ava eating (typical) after climbing the Sharkstooth

We spent the night at Sky Lake, which is dramatically situated at the base of the climb we intended to do the next day.

The South Face of Le Petit Grepon (fun to say with an outrageous French accent) is a super classic (read "super crowded") climb on an intensely impressive feature. At Grade III, 5.8, the climbing difficulty was pushing my mental and physical limits. Knowing this in advance, we decided to begin the climb, and see how things went. We could have easily bailed at pretty much any point if we decided we were in over our heads.

Petit Grepon from the base

The climb started out easy with two long 5.4 pitches, followed by a 5.7+ pitch which sets the tone for the rest of the climb. Moving in to the awkward 5.7 portion of this pitch, I needed to remove my pack, which I clipped to a piece of gear and made Ava bring up when she followed. Without the pack, I moved steadily to the next anchor. Ava seemed to do just fine carrying both of our packs, so I "let" her continue doing this for the next few pitches. The fourth pitch was the crux 5.8 pitch which had some steep, pumpy moves followed by about 8 feet of finger crack leading to easier ground. I had to sit on a piece of gear just before reaching the finger crack, and in doing this noticed a fantastic foot hold that I hadn't seen before. Using this helped me easily pass the section I had been struggling on, only to reach the dubious finger crack. I moved quickly as my arms were already tired. The fact that I was able to clip two stuck cams on my way up and avoid placing my own gear greatly increased my speed. Before I knew it, I was through the crux and confident I could finish the climb. The fifth pitch proved to be the most mentally demanding, primarily due to route finding difficulties. Sufficient wandering eventually brought me to an adequate but less than ideal anchor. At this point I was wishing the route was over, but the slightly easier and very fun and exposed climbing over the final two pitches left me wanting more when I reached the top.

Ava at one of our less ledgy belays

A party in front of us finishing the climb

Ava and me on top of Petit Grepon

We joined ropes with two other guys at the top to do a series of double rope rappels to reach the ground near our starting point. Five rappels brought us to the ground, which we were quite happy to be standing on once again. After breaking camp, we hiked back to the car, arriving shortly after dark. This turned out to be the best two-day climbing trip I have ever been on!

We spent the next day driving to Lander, where we spent the night before driving to Wild Iris to sport climb for the next two days. Wild Iris is a limestone crag in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. There are quite a few climbs here, but most are beyond either of our ability levels. In two days we were able to climb most of the routes within our range. Highlights included Ava leading a couple of 5.9's, which she had never done before, and I put up a 5.10a, which matches the hardest sport climbs I have ever led.

In 5 days of climbing, we managed to climb conglomerate (Flatirons), gneiss and granite (RMNP), and limestone (Wild Iris) in a Colorado/Wyoming tour. I now feel good and ready to teach my backcountry rock course.

Denali Teaser

2010-06-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

Dane and I have been off the mountain for almost three weeks now, and I've yet to find time to write and appropriately wordy post. I'll be leaving on a NOLS course in a few days and I'm pretty sure I won't have time before then, so here's the super brief summary.

Dane and I both made it to the top, albeit on separate days. We managed to climb our intended route, the Upper West Rib on our tenth day on the mountain. We didn't ski off the summit, but we did do a lot of skiing above 14,000 feet, including skiing Rescue Gully from it's top at 17,200 feet. We spent 16 days on the mountain all together and had amazingly beautiful weather pretty much the entire time. We never had to endure a multi-day storm that Denali is so famous for, which made us feel like we missed out on part of the experience. I promise a detailed trip account in the future.

Climbing the ridge from 16,200' to 17,200' on our way to ski Rescue Gully

Dane leading one of the neater sections of the Upper West Rib ~16,500'

Systems Check

2010-05-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

With only a few days left before we leave for Denali, Dane and I thought it would be a good idea to do an overnight trip to check out the various systems we plan to bring on Denali (stoves, tent, camp shoes, clothing layers, etc.). We chose to do this trip in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, an area where I have been many times, but entered from the west (something I've never done) with the ultimate destination of Lone Eagle Peak.

Lone Eagle Peak

The weather apparently did not understand what we were trying to accomplish as it snained (a combination of snow and rain) on us pretty much the whole time. This warm and wet weather couldn't have been more opposite from what we expect to encounter on Denali. Nonetheless, we had fun and accomplished what we wanted to. The system I am most excited about: camp shoes/booties. From inside to outside this system consists of: warm socks, down booties, 1/3 inch foam footbed, and overboots. I think my feet will be warm and happy when I'm not in my ski boots.

Cherokee Peak

As for the trip itself, we hiked about 4 miles with skies on our backs due to lack of snow, then skied another 5ish miles before setting up camp near the base of Cherokee Peak. The next day we hiked up a little further to the base of Lone Eagle Peak where we got some amazing views for a few minutes before the mountain disappeared in heavy snow. The return trip to the car was uneventful and good practice for skiing with a heavy pack.

Dane crossing one of the several bridges on the way up the trail

I was super impressed with the ruggedness of the west side of the Indian Peaks Wilderness, which I found dramatically different than the east side. The rock formations are reminiscent of those I've seen in the Winds and Tetons of Wyoming; rising abruptly and seeming to hover directly above you.

2010-05-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

Dane and I have both been up Quandary Peak many times. Most or all of these trips have been with skis in the springtime, but we've always ridden the same line (northeast bowls) down. Yesterday we finally got to ski the Cristo Couloir off the south side of the summit. With 4 inches of fresh snow and a nonexistent wind, we thought we'd have perfect conditions for a safe powder descent of this famous line.

As it turned out, the surface which all the snow fell on was hard and crusty. This made both the layer of fresh snow prone to sliding on the old surface and the skiing less enjoyable. I suppose we should have expected this, but we were trying to be optimistic. We skied the upper part very cautiously as we were concerned that our sluff would accumulate and become difficult to manage - which ultimately never happened. There were a few sections in the middle where things felt more stable and we were able to let 'em rip.

Because it was snowing and a partial white out, none of the pictures turned out (see exhibit 1). However, we took a few videos that aren't half bad.

Exhibit 1

Me skiing the middle section of the Cristo Couloir

Dane Boarding lower down in the Cristo

We're heading out for a 3-day trip to the Indian Peaks Wilderness today to test out some of our gear and systems for Denali. We anticipate this will go well, and hope that it does, because we fly up to Anchorage in 5 days.

Buffalo Mountain and The Citadel

2010-05-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Dane, Ava and I skied the North Couloir on Buffalo Mountain. This peak lies at the southern edge of the Gore Range and only a few miles from Dane's place. The North Couloir is sustained at 35 to 40 degrees for about 2500 vertical feet. The snow surface didn't warm up and soften quite like we had hoped, but it was great fun on a big line anyway.

Dane digging a snow pit at the top of the North Couloir on Buffalo Mountain

Dane midway down the North Couloir

This should have been a reasonably quick 3000 feet up and 3000 feet back down to the car, but we had some navigational difficulties on the way down, which added an extra few miles of bushwhacking.

Today Dane and I skied the Northeast Couloir off of The Citadel. The Citadel is a unique peak in the Summit County region of Colorado because it miraculously escaped the scour of the glaciers during the more recent ice ages. Consequently, it is much steeper and more jagged than most other mountains in the area. We had a great tour where we went up the valley (Dry Gulch) on one side of the mountain and skied down the valley (Herman Gulch) on the other side where we had stashed a car. We were pleasantly surprised by the fact that we were able to ski from the top as the guidebook we consulted made this seem unreasonable.

North Face of the Citadel (we skied the only continuous snow line from the summit)

Lower down we discovered this confined gully which held great snow!

Once again, conditions were a bit on the icy side up high but improved as we descended. The leading edge of a big forecasted storm hit shortly after we got back to the car, so skiing in the near future might be more wintry than we've had for the past several days.

Colorado Update III

2010-05-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ava and I skied the Northwest Couloir on Kelso Mountain on Friday while Dane stayed home to try and kick a cold (basically he called in sick for our training program). We skied up the road to the summer trailhead for Grays and Torreys Peaks, then followed the trail to Grays Peak for a while before turning and skinning up the ridge of Kelso Mountain. This was Ava's first day in CO, and she managed to ski up and down a peak that is over 13,000 feet tall.

Ava feeling the altitude near the top of Mt. Kelso "I did it! Let's take a rest."

On the way up we got a great view of Dead Dog Couloir on Torreys Peak. This is on my list, and I hope I get a chance to ski it before Dane and I head to Denali.

Dead Dog Couloir on Torreys Peak (it's the obvious line coming down from just right of the summit)

The ski down was long (2,200 vertical feet) with a sustained pitch. It was close to 40 degrees for one stretch near the top, then mellowed out for the remainder of the run. There was a bit of wind slab near the top, but that quickly went away, yielding a bit of powder over spring corn for the majority of the ride down. Overall, this was the nicest day we've had so far in both terms of weather and snowpack!

Northeast Couloir on Mt. Kelso

The next day Dane, Ava and I met up with Keith, Edyn, Graham, and Mark to attempt skiing Dragon Tail Couloir on Flattop Mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park. This is a fairly famous line amongst backcountry skiers in Colorado due to its steepness and level of commitment. The three of us arrived at the Bear Lake parking lot about 10 minutes early, and the other four were about 30 minutes late, so we had plenty of time to play hacky sack with ski boots on.

Ski Boot Hacky Sack

We eventually got our cumbersome group going and skinned our way up Flattop Mountain to the top of the couloir. There were two people already there, deciding weather the conditions warranted a safe descent. Keith hiked down into the couloir a ways and dug a pit, ultimately concluding that the top three inches might sluff off, but the snowpack below that was plenty solid. After much deliberation amongst all potential participants, our entire group decided to drop in to the skier's left side of Dragon Tail (there's a right side that's apparently less steep but narrower).

Keith getting ready to drop in to Dragon Tail

Keith loves being the guinea pig, so we all let him drop in first. The start of the line involved traversing the steepest part of the slope to the center of the couloir, directly below a looming cornice. The steepness of this first part, combined with the fact that it happens to be above a 40 foot cliff makes it the most committing part of the descent.

Keith committing to the first turn after the initial entry traverse

After the initial traverse, it mellows out to a nice 45-50 degree slope for several hundred vertical feet, the meat of the line. The end of this stretch culminates with a choke, which is about 100 feet long and 1.5 ski lengths wide. After the choke, you transition into the final half of the couloir which is a little flatter and much wider.

Ava and Keith below me in the bottom half of the couloir

Dragon Tail Couloir, with Keith skiing out the apron at the bottom

As if our group of seven wasn't enough, there was another group of five and a group of two (perhaps even more) all skiing Dragon Tail on this fine Saturday. Some of them climbed part way up the couloir from the bottom, and some of them dropped into the right hand side from the top, while our group was the only one to drop into the left side from the top. This is surely one of the neatest lines I've ever skied.

Wildlife Photography

2010-05-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Nothing of particular interest to note on the skiing scene, but yesterday we did make friends with a fox while skiing at the closed-for-the-season Breckenridge. No, we did not feed the little beggar.

Colorado Update II

2010-05-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Sean and I skied some most excellent powder on Woodland Mountain in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. The pits we dug showed the depth of fresh snow to be between 1.5 and 2 feet deep, but for all practical purposes, it was bottomless.

Face shots on Woodland Mountain

Dane got back into town Friday night, so I "moved" up to Frisco where I'll be based for the next 2.5 weeks while we acclimate and condition for Denali. Getting off on the right foot, we skied Quandary Peak (14,265') today.

Andy skiing the lower bowl on Quandary

The weather is still being quite funky. It was cold and windy (good Denali training) on Quandary, and on the descent it changed from snowing to sunny and back about three times.

Colorado Update

2010-04-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

I've now been in Colorado for about a week and a half. The weather has been quite interesting thus far and has put a bit of a kibosh on my skiing plans. With multiple feet of fresh snow and an inconsistent melt/freeze cycle, the snowpack is not setting up into the nice, stable spring snowpack that I was hoping for. We're now looking at 2 days of warm weather followed by yet another storm cycle.

I have made it out a few days, and actually skied some nice powder just a couple days ago on a north facing aspect near tree line up by Loveland Pass. Also had a beautiful day in the Indian Peaks Wilderness as demonstrated by the above photos. We made it most of the way to the top of Pawnee Peak before the weather turned bad quickly and we hastily retreated.

Nonetheless, my goal of acclimating is going well with supplementary hikes and runs in the Flatirons. Dane should be getting back from his course in the next couple days, and we'll probably head up to Summit County to begin the next phase of our acclimation plan (I've been staying in Boulder so far). My altitude adjustment so far has made me quite glad that I decided to spend a month in Colorado before heading up to Denali. I'm thoroughly convinced that this pre-acclimation process is going to make our time on the big mountain significantly more fun as well as increase our chances of successfully implementing our plans of skiing off the top!

Seattle Mountain Rescue / National Pond Skimming Championships

2010-04-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday evening I attended a Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR) monthly board meeting. I had applied to join the search and rescue organization a couple months prior and was finally able to attend one of their meetings. The purpose of my attendance was for the board to ask me some questions and see if they wanted me to become a part of their volunteer organization. I apparently passed and I'm now part of SMR. I won't be around Seattle much in the next 6 months or so, but after that I'm excited to become a more active SMR member!

The morning after the meeting with SMR I started driving to Colorado. I arrived in Broomfield, CO two days later, just in time for a going away party for Tony and Lisa, who are leaving the Boulder area and heading for Utah. I snuck out of the party around 10pm to drive up to Summit County. The following morning I met up with Keith, Edyn, and Graham (KEG) for a day of shenanigans at Vail during their last ski day of the year. We skied for a few hours in the morning before KEG got costumed up and headed out to compete in the National (World?) Pond Skimming Championships.

I had seen similar events in ski movies over the years, but it was something else to witness an event like this first hand. Aside from a truly horrible announcer, the event was incredible in the best way. Contestants picked up as much speed racing down the hill towards a jump that marked the beginning of a 100-foot-long pond. Five of the 100ish participants made it across. Most flailed and splashed miserably.

The Tooth

2010-04-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

I suppose it was nearly a week ago now, but Jake finally made a trip up to Seattle to visit Molly, Phil, Ava, and me. We spent quite a bit of time eating and playing Settlers over the course of about 2.5 days. Thanks to Molly for all the delicious food!

I wanted to show Jake one of my favorite things about Seattle: the close proximity to alpine climbing. I had been looking for an excuse to climb The Tooth on Snowqualmie Pass, and this was the perfect opportunity.

The Tooth is the big block on the right. I'll refer to the gendarme to its left as The Fang. The route we climbed pretty much follows the left skyline but is out of view on the other side of the peak.

We skied the approach to the climb, which took us a bit longer than it should have for a variety of reasons, the stupidest and funniest reason I'll share here. The route description is very clear about ascending the saddle immediately to the left of The Fang. This we accomplished without much difficulty. However, once in this saddle at the base of the fang, I for some reason decided to switch from ski mode into climbing mode and begin climbing - completely failing to traverse around the back side of The Fang to the base of The Tooth and the beginning of our intended route. After climbing what I retardedly believed to be the first pitch of The Tooth, I found myself at the top of The Fang and immediately slapped my palm to my forehead in disgust of my stupidity. In hind site, I would recommend this route to anyone as it lets you get an extra pitch of climbing in as well as top out on a sweet little spire.

Jake following the first pitch of The Tooth

We rappelled from The Fang to the base of the Tooth and were quickly back on route. There had been a lot of snow in the previous weeks, but the weather forecast for this day was sunny and hot! Our route was on the south face, so I hoped that the sun would turn our climb into a straight forward rock climb. For this reason, I optimistically brought rock climbing shoes with me. It turned out there were only a few moves on the entire climb where rock shoes would have been appropriate due to the copious amount of snow that the sun was failing to deal with to my liking. No problem. I was prepared to climb in my ski boots. Jake thought I was crazy when I told him we would be climbing in ski boots, but he soon realized that these were the most appropriate tools for the situation.

The climbing was fun and on the steeper sections the rock was great with sufficient protection. The flatter sections were covered in snow and we would occasionally start a roller ball down the mountain that grew like they do in cartoons before plunging over the immense and overhanging east face of The Tooth. The climbing definitely seemed harder than the rating of 5.4, but that's to be expected given the route conditions and use of ski boots. I unburied many holds that made seemingly tricky moves much easier, which made me wonder how many other holds managed to elude me for the same reason. Three pitches later, we were on top.

Jake and my leg on the summit with proof of footwear

The views were amazing in all directions - rugged Cascade mountains everywhere! We rappelled the route in four single rope (70m) rappels. Finding anchors after each rappel was tricky as some of them were buried under as much as two feet of snow and ice. However, my strategy of selecting the sturdiest-looking tree and digging down to the base of the trunk, sometimes requiring an ice axe, always revealed some sort of anchor.

Jake rappelling one of the less snowy parts of the route

The ski down was mostly on super wet, heavy, and unconsolidated snow. Skiing past a couple of struggling snowshoers most of the way back to the car reminded us of how much better bad skiing is than good snowshoeing. We made it back to Molly and Phil's place just in time for an amazing dinner!

Teriyaki Now: Climbing in Leavenworth

2010-04-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

"What do we want? Teriyaki! When do we want it? Now!" we chanted shortly after we drove past the perpetually closed restaurant, Teriyaki Now, in Sultan, WA on our way to Leavenworth for a weekend of climbing.

Ava and I, along with the world's best third wheel, Evan, opted for a weekend of rock climbing to avoid escalating avalanche conditions once again. Leavenworth is famous for having an eerie and very much out-of-place Bavarian style to the entire town. I'll spare my readers visual images of the downtown. Suffice it to say that attending Octoberfest there is now on my bucket list.

Ava on the upper stretches of The Fault, directly above Highway 2

The climbing around Leavenworth is much more spread out than I had anticipated, so it was great having Evan as our acting guide. We spent Saturday climbing at Castle Rock in Tumwater Canyon. I led a 3-pitch climb on Lower Castle Rock starting with The Fault (5.6) and finishing with Catapult (5.8) to gain Loggers Ledge, where a slew of climbs begin on Upper Castle Rock. Evan then led Canary (5.8) and Angel (5.10b), both of which were 3 pitches on Upper Castle Rock. The rock quality was incredible and everything we did was great fun!

Evan leading the first pitch of Canary

Ava at the amazing finger crack and crux of Angel

That night, as we poached a campsite at a closed campground, it started to snow. There was only about a half inch on the ground when we got up, but I figured that would be enough to make the rock too wet to be suitable for climbing. We went exploring on Sunday anyway, half-assed trying to find some other people we knew who were also associated with the UW Climbing Club. In the process we found ourselves at Clamshell Cave and climbed an aesthetic and unknown single-pitch route (5.7ish) there, on which Ava got to practice leading on gear.

Me leading the unknown climb on Clamshell Cave

After this we backtracked to The Cube, which is a 20-foot high boulder near the base of Clamshell Cave with a beautiful 5.7 hand crack among other bouldering problems. Evan did this first and made it look relatively easy. I decided to give it a go next, and although 5.7 is not particularly difficult, the exposure at the top of the boulder combined with my novice crack climbing skills made the finish quite exciting.

Evan's local area knowledge then led us on a side-hill bushwhack for a half hour until we arrived at Givler's Dome. The super classic climb on this dome is the two-pitch Givler's Crack (5.8) and was one I had randomly picked out of the guidebook as a "must do" based on it's description. Evan had climbed this crack once before but never led it. I was happy to give him the lead this time as I felt pretty worked over by all the climbing done thus far, and he was happy to have it. Givler's Crack was as amazing as I had hoped and made for a great finish to a great weekend!

Givler's Crack

Evan leading the sweetest stretch of Givler's Crack

Farrel Cat Tits!

2010-04-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Immediately after the Tahoe trip, Ava and I attended my dad's wedding in Lake Oswego. It was quite fancy with copious amounts of booze. Congrats Dad and Jill! I'm super happy for you both!

The next day marked the beginning of several days off for Jake. This worked out perfectly for me as Ava had to head back to Seattle that same day. Jake and I had planned to climb a few Oregon Cascade volcanoes, but the recent snow storm made mountain travel prohibitively sketchy. After an hour, we had come up with an alternative plan: pay for a lift ticket at Mt. Bachelor and ski a full day on our way to Northeast Oregon for a 3-day kayak trip down the Grande Ronde River.

The exorbitantly priced lift ticket at Mt. Bachelor turned out to be worth it! We skied bottomless powder all day, and it snowed so hard toward the end of the day that we were skiing fresh tracks all over again. It reminded me of the good old days when almost everyday at Bachelor was bottomless powder, complete with goggle-coating freezing fog.

After driving from Eugene to Bachelor and skiing all day at Bachelor, we continued driving to La Grande where we stayed the night with my brother. Early the next morning, Wes helped us shuttle a vehicle to the take out (Troy, OR) and dropped us off at the put in (Minam, OR).

Jake and all our gear at the put in

We planned to float the 46-miles to our car in three days, spending two nights on the river. Jake paddled an inflatable kayak (IK) and carried most of our stuff. I paddled my hardshell and stuffed as much into the back of it as I could. With flows around 3,000 cfs, the river was higher than average, but far from flood stage. There were no gnarly rapids on this stretch of river, but we were entertained by abundant wildlife (elk, deer, black bear, bald eagles, mountain goats, river otter, steelhead, etc.), remoteness (most of the run was designated 'wild and scenic'), and weather.

Jake at our first campsite during the long-lasting hail storm

We ended up paddling 15 miles the first day, 10 miles the second day, and 21 miles the last day. Averaging almost 5 miles an hour while on the water, we really only paddled for about 10 hours in three days. We spent much of the rest of our time hiking, looking for shed antlers, fishing, and making fires.

The weather on our first day was supposed to be the worst. It ended up being overcast with patches of sun, followed by a late afternoon hail storm. This was quite tolerable, so we thought we would luck out with the weather. The second day was similar with the occasional snow flurry, but nothing stuck on the ground. On the morning of the third day, Jake paddled across the river and set off to find some shed antlers. I slept in and eventually got up to build a fire and eat breakfast. At about 10:30 it started snowing. Shortly after noon, Jake returned from an unsuccessful shed hunt. There were a few inches of snow on the ground by then.

Yes, I agree. Jake should join a circus.

Putting on my frozen wet suit was tons of fun. Jake's dry suit required much less mental preparation to put on.

Jake getting ready to paddle during the snow storm

Loading the snowy IK

Aside from cold hands and feet, we had an enjoyable 21-mile paddle through the snow storm. Only occasionally did the wind blow upstream, stinging our faces with icy snow pellets. During these times I wished I was wearing my ski goggles. Shortly before reaching the take out, the snow turned to mostly rain.

Snow paddling

We passed several steelhead fisherman within a few miles of the put in, and after that we didn't see a single person until we took out in Troy. Even than, we only saw one lone guy passing in a pickup truck. Turns out Troy is a bit of a ghost town this time of year.

The adventure wasn't quite over at the take out. The drive out from Troy back to La Grande required going up quite a ways to get out of the canyon. For most of the drive back, we were making fresh tracks through about 5 inches of snow on a gravel road.

Hanukkah in March - Lake Tahoe

2010-03-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

You've heard of Christmas in July. Well, Ava and I just finished celebrating Hanukkah in March during a spring break road trip to the Lake Tahoe area. We ended up skiing eight days in a row and ultimately drew parallels between 8 days of skiing and 8 days of Hanukkah, both of which are celebrations of the grandest kind. I can't say thank you enough to Ava's parents for letting us use their place in Truckee!

On our first day we explored the Castle Peak area just off of the freeway near Donner Pass (about 10 minutes from Truckee). We were quite pleased with what we found.

While wandering around on our first day, we stumbled upon this obvious couloir line on Castle Peak. We started late and hit the snow at the perfect time of day!

Ava skiing down the couloir on Castle Peak

The skiing below the couloir was the best, so we made a second lap on the lower part before calling it a day. The next two days we stayed pretty close to the house. We went skate skiing with Ava's mom, Nancy, one day and made laps in the backyard the other.

Nancy having less than a lot of fun on skate skis

Ava and Nancy had never skate skied before, and I hadn't done it in about a year, so that was a lot of lung-busting fun. While making laps in the backyard, we built a kicker (or "booter" if that's your preferred nomenclature) and proceeded to jump over a baby.

Me jumping over Blair

We were joined for the weekend by a slew of friends and relatives. So, the following day, Ava went resort skiing with a bunch of her good friends from the Bay area while Dane and I went and explored some more in the Donner Pass area. We found super windy conditions and a lot of short but well-featured lines.

The skiing wasn't great, so we experimented with ski-bouldering near the top of Donner Peak

We also dabbled in cornice breaking. This failure didn't last long, but the rock that eventually broke it took both of us to lift, so we didn't get it on video.

We also skied

The next two days we got serious and drove an hour each way to the South Lake Tahoe area to ski some classic Tahoe peaks: Talac and Echo. Talac provided us with amazing views of Lake Tahoe most of the way up. It was a weekday, but we saw no less than 10 other people climbing and skiing the same route. The pictures tell the story better than I can.

The upper bowl on Mt. Talac

Making a fashion statement

Skiing the upper bowl

Things were melting out fast, but that didn't stop us from being ridiculous.

Echo Peak was in the same area, but we couldn't see the lake for the first half of the ascent, so it lost aesthetic points. However, the amazing terrain at the top of the peak more than made up for the short coming. With a well setup snowpack, we decided it was reasonable to ski some steeper lines.

Skinning up through the big burn

Assessing the skiability of the snow arete and deciding which side to ski down. I opted to eventually drop off the right (near) side while Ava and Dane dropped off the left side.

One of the more committing turns I've ever made

Ava getting ready to drop in

Ava below the threatening cornice

Dane styling the chute

After this incredible descent, which we eventually got cliffed out on, we made a second lap to ski the aspect that led to the car. The skiing was great, but aside from the cornice at the top, it was much less dramatic than the other side.

Dane hucking on our second lap

Day 7 was a repeat of Day 1 up at Castle peak. The differences were that this time we had Dane with us, the couloir was icy, and it was so much more melted out that it wasn't skiable in its entirety. We planned to drive that evening to Mt. Shasta in attempt to put an amazing close to our spring break ski trip with a 7,300 vertical foot run from the summit. The clear skies that were forecasted did not show themselves. It snowed about 4 inches the night we arrived and continued snowing throughout the next day. After sleeping in, we got up to ski some powder and managed to get within 6,000 vertical feet of our objective. We made two laps from treeline in powder over icy crust, then drove to Eugene to stay the night with Jake. I think this is long enough, so I'll elaborate no further.

The Most Popular Winter Climb in Washington? - Chair Peak, North Face

2010-03-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

With only a couple days left in Seattle before road tripping for a few weeks, I was anxious to get one last adventure in. A moderately questionable weather forecast left enough room for optimism that I decided Tuesday would be as good a day as any. After calling Craig and convincing him to skip out on work, I received a call from Evan who was looking for a Tuesday climbing partner. In a miraculous coincidence, Evan independently proposed climbing the same peak that Craig and I were already planning to climb.

Chair Peak from the Southeast (the right skyline is the Northeast Buttress)

We decided on the North Face of Chair Peak, conveniently located on top of Snowqualmie Pass. We ambitiously hoped to also climb the Northeast Buttress on the same peak, but ended up not having enough time.

We skied the approach through 3 to 5 inches of light, cold powder over a sheet of ice (it hadn't snowed in the area for a long time until the previous day). We skied nearly all the way to the saddle that marks the start of the Northeast Buttress route before switching to crampons. We packed our skis up a little further and left them at the base of the northeast buttress before traversing to the base of the north face.

Evan Skinning Up, Craig and Source Lake in the Background

Craig (Luigi) with Chair Peak in the Background

With three climbers climbing on twin ropes, it's inefficient and a bit awkward to switch leaders in the middle of a climb. Since Evan had climbed the same route 3 days earlier and Craig wasn't demanding to lead, I got the privilege of leading our team up the north face.

The route climbs straight up the ice and snow covered north face for about 200 meters. It's never vertical, but quite sustained and up to about 70 degrees in places. Three full (60 meter) pitches and a fourth shorter pitch put us a short scramble to the summit.

Craig and Evan in the Middle of the North Face

Me Leading the Second Pitch (thanks for the photo Craig)

The first pitch was more ice than snow with quite a few spots having ice good enough to place trustworthy screws. I hammered in two solid pickets for the first anchor. The second pitch and beyond was quite snowy, with a few trees here and there to sling as protection. There was an option on the third pitch to stick to the right side of the gully and sling trees for protection, or head straight up the middle and hope for good ice. I was pretty sure I saw a small patch of thick, solid ice about half way up in the center, so I took the more direct route. I turned out being correct and was happy to place a bomber screw several meters before finishing the pitch at a nice tree anchor. At the top of the final pitch, I had to wallow through deep, nearly vertical snow to gain the ridge top. If it was any deeper, a tunnel would have been more appropriate.

Wallowing through snow near the top of the final pitch (thanks again Craig)

The summit views were amazing in all directions!

After spending several minutes on the top in much nicer than anticipated conditions, we began our descent. This went very smoothly thanks to Evan knowing exactly where to go. We climbed down the ridge to the east for about 100 meters before reaching a rappel station built of three old pitons.

The Old but Solid 3-Piton Anchor

Tying the twin ropes together, we rappelled 60 meters down steep snow before continuing to downclimb. We were able descend to the elevation where we left our skis and traverse under the east face directly to our cache.

Craig Finishing the Traverse Under the East Face to our Skis

The ski down was variable, generally consisting of five inches of powder snow over one of the following: ice, icy crust, or avalanche debris. Adding to this the flattest light conditions imaginable made the descent quite interesting. At one point I went off a small jump, sunk deep into some icy crust upon landing, and proceeded to do a one-skied somersault. Once we got back to source lake, the ski was flatter and on a well traveled trail resembling a bobsled course.

I think we left the parking lot at 8:00am and returned to the car at 5:30pm, for a respectable 9.5 hour day. I didn't feel that we were particularly fast nor particularly slow. The weather turned out to be fantastic and the fresh snow didn't negatively affect the conditions of the route, although getting to it was made slightly more difficult. The fact that one can do an alpine climb of this quality in under 12 hours (Seattle to Seattle) from a major city warrants the popularity of this climb. Climbing on a Tuesday was the perfect choice as we only saw one other party, and they were on a different route.

Going Native at Scottish Lakes

2010-03-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

Ava and I just got back from a three-day weekend up at Scottish Lakes. Jason (my cousin) and his wife, Katie invited us to tag along with them and a large group who had been doing this same trip for years. Prior to this I knew almost nothing about Scottish Lakes, except that it was a backcountry ski hut destination. Turns out it's a unique little operation, tucked away on the east side of the Cascades, just north of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

We were told to sign up for a shuttle time on Friday for a ride in (rides are offered about every 2 hours). I'd been on many hut trips before but was never offered a ride in. At the appointed time and place on Friday morning, a beat up Suburban and 4-Runner came down the private road, loaded us and our gear up, and drove up the gated road to the end of where it was plowed (about 4 miles). At that point, we unloaded the vehicles and reloaded all our stuff onto snowmobiles and their accompanying trailers. We continued another 4ish miles up to "High Camp" at Scottish Lakes.

High Camp is located in a heavily wooded valley at about 5,000 feet and consists of several living huts, a commons lodge, a hot tub, a sauna, and three outhouses. The entire complex is staffed by a few individuals, who take care of everything from heating the wood-fired hot tub to a perfect 102 degrees to grooming cross-country trails. A variety of good ski terrain is easily accessible within minutes of the camp. Further away and higher up, the terrain becomes even more spectacular and variable.

On our first day we toured around in the vicinity of camp, discovering which aspects and elevations provided good skiing in the sunny, 40+ degree temperatures. The conditions we encountered closely resembled spring conditions - classic corn snow on southern aspects.

Scotsman Shredding at Scottish Lakes

Ava's Huge Air

Based on what we skied and what we saw from our highest vantage points, we planned our next day's adventure.

Baldy

On our second day we aimed for Mt. Baldy, a peak we saw off in the distance the previous day. It looked to have a large, open, southern aspect with lots of potential. Six miles of skinning brought us to the base of Baldy. Our first lap was everything we had hoped!

Early March Spring Corn on Baldy

On Top of Mt. Baldy

After our first lap on Baldy, we couldn't resist the more picturesque peak beyond baldy, so we hike up there for our second lap.

We were later told this is Mt. Thatcher, although we never saw it labeled on any maps.

The skiing wasn't quite as good on Thatcher, so we did another lap on Baldy for our third lap. Running out of daylight, we skied over to the top of a couloir leading back towards High Camp for our fourth and final lap of a solid day out.

Halfway Through a Great Day Out!

As soon as we got back to camp, we went straight to the hot tub. It was incredibly perfect and exactly what we needed. Less than an hour later, the potluck dinner that all 32 of us had prepared for was underway. I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in food, then had dessert. Oh yeah, it wasn't easy, but we also managed to finish off the keg.

On the final day, we skinned up a short way before skiing 4+ miles down to the snowmobile/vehicle exchange. If this trip sounds like any fun at all, I highly recommend finding your way to Scottish Lakes http://www.scottishlakes.com/Home.shtml. Good luck getting a reservation, they start taking them exactly one year in advance.

Hawaii - Part 3

2010-03-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Our final few days were spent in the Kona area. For the entire month of February, Dad was renting a condo in Waikoloa Village and had spent the two weeks before I got there finding the more remote sights and beaches in that vicinity. I got to reap the benefits of his reconnaissance work before heading home.

On the first beach day, we hiked about 45 minutes to a beach that could only otherwise be reached via a burly 4-wheel drive road. Consequently, there were only a few people there. The next day we hiked to a couple pools that Dad had discovered a couple weeks before. The first was filled with amazingly clear water and all the rocks in it were covered with gold algae - giving the pool a wicked cool gold-algae-in-the-middle-of-an-oasis look. You know what I'm talking about.

Dad taking a golden bath - that almost sounds dirty

Later that day we got on the mega-tourist trail and found ourselves at Mauna Kea Beach. This fit all of my stereotypes of Hawaii and had some excellent boogie boarding waves. At one point I nearly got to use my WFR skills when a man was pulled from the water after sustaining a head/neck injury.

Mauna Kea Beach and Resort

Then there was the tsunami. Since we were staying 6 miles from the coast and up over 2,000 feet in elevation, we were plenty safe. However, we couldn't execute our plans as the coastal areas on all the islands were evacuated due to the perceived tsunami threat. We spent most of the day sitting in the condo, watching the news as the tide rapidly went up and down as if it were possessed. Several hours of this was enough to make us want to go out and play golf, so we did.

On our last day, Dad took me to see the Green Turtles. These critters were amazing. Amazingly lazy.

The name of these guys seemed to be a bit of a misnomer. They really don't look that green. If I got to name 'em, I'd call 'em Black and Tan Turtles.

The entire time we were hanging out at the bay watching the turtles, the tide was still fluctuating like it did the day before due to the tsunami. Kinda creepy. After bugging the crap out of the turtles, which were trying to sleep (that's why they go onto land) and probably a bit freaked out by the possessed tidal surges, we spent the last bit of time we had at Hapuna Beach State Park. This was the largest beach on the island and a classic way to end the trip. Too bad the waves were all screwed up by the tsunami effects to be any good for boogie boarding.

Hawaii - Part 2 (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park)

2010-03-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

After thoroughly exploring the Kohala Mountains, we traveled across the island to visit the other hiking mecca on the Big Island, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. This new side of the island was dramatically different from where we had just come both from an ecological and geological perspective.

Views at the start of our hike to Halape

The lava flows were much more recent, including rocks that were less than 40 years old. The ecological consequence of this was notably sparser vegetation; and as far as we were concerned, a severe lack of shade.

This plant seems to love growing out of lava rock - weirdo

We spent most of our time on a three-day hike to Halape, which was recommended to us by Megan (my cousin who studied Hawksbill Turtles there in the past). We shuttled a car so we were able to hike in from the north, and out along the coast to the east.

The occasional vibrant flower seemed very out of place on our hike in

After losing about 2,600 feet of elevation in 8 miles, we arrived at a surprising oasis in the middle of an otherwise bland and inhospitable desert.

The Oasis known as Halape

Just as the map Megan hand drew for me at Christmas predicted, there was a brackish pool of water only a couple hundred feet from where we camped. This pool was perfect for rinsing the much more salty ocean water off after swimming in the bay.

The Pond

One fun side experience was trying to break into a coconut. I felt a bit like a primitive caveman, or possibly an ape, learning an elementary skill for the first time. I eventually came up with an easy method for getting at the meat of the coconut while salvaging most of the milk (basically setting coconut on a rock and throwing another rock at it, then drinking the milk as it spilled out in a semi-controlled fashion).

After 1.5 coconuts, we couldn't stomach any more.

We spent most of the second day exploring our immediate surroundings. Before long, we located the other spot shown on Megan's map: Halape Iki. This was another oasis about a third of a mile west of where we were camped. There was obviously much less people traffic here as it's not listed on any of the national park maps.

Halape Iki (we later confirmed our suspicions that "iki" means little)

When we returned from lounging at Halape Iki, we found that almost a dozen people had moved in where we had camped all by ourselves the previous evening. To escape this unwelcome ruckus, we packed up camp and moved east along the coast to Apua Point, yet another oasis miraculously formed where the lava rock meets the sea. This evening move turned our 11 mile hike out on the third day into about a 6.5 mile hike. It was nice to break this up as the entire 11 miles was across barren lava rock, which grew monotonous after less than a mile.

Turns out I have a pension for taking pictures of waves as they crash into rocks

Our camp at Apua Point

We woke up early the next day to grind out the final 6.5 miles to make it back to our shuttled vehicle. We stopped there briefly before continuing on past the car for 3/4 of a mile to the densest known zone of petroglyphs on the island at Pu'u Loa.

Classic shot of where the lava used to flow straight into the sea less than 40 years ago

A couple hundred year old chiseled turtle

After giving the petroglyphs their due admiration, we continued on the tourist path to the end of the road to take the picture of the sea arch that everyone else takes (for good reason, I suppose).

Holei Sea Arch

After that, we finished our tour of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park with a 4 mile hike around and through Kilauea Iki. Unfortunately, there was no lava flowing within the park boundary. We got word from a reliable source that we could go on a 6 mile round trip hike in the dark across private property to have a chance at seeing an active lava flow. We opted not to.

Hawaii - Part I

2010-03-03T21:24:00.001-08:00

Looking into Pololu Valley

I just returned from a two week trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. How does a jobless bum like myself afford such a trip? It's pretty easy, really. All you need is to have some time off. It also doesn't hurt to have a wealthy father spending time over there who wants some company - and a hiking partner.

We spent the first several days hiking and backpacking before heading to the beach to act like more traditional tourists. Part I of my posts will cover hiking in the Kohala Mountains in the northwest part of the island, and Part II will shed some light on our trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the south side of the island. I might even add a Part III, covering the few days we spent in the Kona area.

My first three days on the island were spent hiking in the Kohala Mountains, which stretch east to west on the northernmost tip of the island. Roads along the coast lead in from each side but are abruptly halted by rugged, picturesque canyons. On one trip, we hiked in from the west and crossed about three canyons (Pololu, Honokane Nui, and Honokane Iki) before turning around.

The coast line near Honokane Nui Valley

Part of the trail, quite steep with poor footing, was laced with ropes to aid both in ascent and descent (hand-over-hand style).

Dad, wondering if he can get back up the rope system if he goes down it

The views were great but caused me some confusion as I couldn't tell if I was in Jurrasic Park or Lost. There were no dinosaurs, but at the same time I knew where I was.

An additional short hike/bushwhack on the way home lead to this waterfall

Our second trip was a two-day backpacking trip that started and finished on the east side of the mountains at the famous Waipio Valley.

Looking across Waipio Valley to the start of the hike at the top of the obvious road cut

Waipio Valley

We hiked through a dozen smaller valleys to arrive and camp at Waimanu Valley, which is much like Waipio with the benefit of being more secluded - except for the ever-present helicopters above carrying an endless stream of tourists into the valley on a 30-minute, gas-wasting tour.

Our first views of Waimanu Valley

Looking up Waimanu Valley

The steep, rugged, and beautiful jungle terrain of Waimanu Valley

We encountered a few locals in Waimanu who were "living" there, hunting wild pigs, fishing, and gathering fruit for their subsistence. We asked how long they had been there, to which they replied, "two days." This was obviously a well practiced lie as camping in the valley is highly regulated (but with little to no enforcement, I'm sure they rarely encountered problems).

Future Ideas

I'm pretty sure a through hike between the two trailheads could be completed. We could find no literature on a complete traverse, but it would only be about a 25 mile hike (combining our two hikes, we did a total of about half the traverse). I'd recommend bringing a machete if you plan to attempt this.

Tatoosh Skiing

2010-02-07T21:05:00.002-08:00

Anxious for an overnight trip, Ava and I randomly decided on a ski trip to the Tatoosh Range, which lies just south of Mt. Rainier. Our ultimate objective was to summit Unicorn Peak, the highest point in the range.

Best View we had in 2 Days of Mt. Rainier (Saturday)

The weather forecast called for partly cloudy skies on Saturday, and improving conditions on Sunday. Based on the weather as we skied in on Saturday afternoon, we thought we'd have adequate conditions on Sunday for the climb. After skiing about 7 miles, we set up camp near the base of Unicorn Peak.

I had recently bought a new tent, and this was the first opportunity to use it. I'll take this opportunity to praise this new tent, the Black Diamond Eldorado (formerly made by Bibler). This is a single-wall, 4-season tent made with ToddTex fabric. The fabric is downright magical! Not only is it waterproof, but the inside of the fabric is slightly fuzzy and somehow prevents moisture buildup. I cannot describe how nice this feature is, as it aids dramatically in one's ability to keep everything in the tent dry.

The New Tent's Maiden Voyage

It snowed lightly all night, accumulating only about an inch or two. The next morning we awoke to patchy clouds, fog, and snow. We decided we would start toward the peak, prepared to climb to the top, realizing that we would probably get turned around by the weather and have a wonderful ski down.

At the top of the first major pass, we got a view of Unicorn Peak. It remained in view about long enough for me to take a picture, then promptly disappeared for the remainder of the day.

Unicorn Peak (shortly before disappearing into the clouds for the remainder of the trip)

We hiked up into the fog a bit further before skiing amazing powder for almost 2000 vertical feet back to the tent. The nearly flat ski out for six miles along the closed road was necessary, but unenjoyable.

Red Mountain

2010-02-05T12:50:00.004-08:00

I finally managed to meet up with another jobless climber/ski bum through the UW Climbing Club, so Craig and I promptly headed for the hills. With a questionable weather forecast but stable avy conditions, we opted for a trip that was relatively close to home and more ski oriented than climb oriented.

The Approach

Booting up the south side of Red Mountain

From the top of Snowqualmie Pass, we skied northwest to Red Mountain. We bootpacked up the last 1,000 vertical feet or so before arriving at the top in more or less of a whiteout. The wind dictated a hasty retreat from the top, so as soon as we could get our skis back on our feet we were off. I was told that a ski descent from the summit proper would be dicey, but it turned out to be pretty straight forward (40 ish degrees at the steepest).

Craig's GPS provided this image of our route

Craig and I both had a great time and I'm sure we'll be engaging in more mid-week tomfoolery in the near future.

Stevens Pass Backcountry

2010-01-31T11:29:00.007-08:00

It appears my recent public bitching in the blog world about the bad snow in the Pacific Northwest was worth it. Ava and I went out yesterday with her parents, Rick and Nancy, to the Stevens Pass backcountry and experienced the best snow I've seen all year. With about a foot of new a week ago and 3 recent inches on top of that, I was reminded of what skiing in Oregon and Washington is supposed to be like.

On top of the great conditions, we found a new and wonderful place to make backcountry turns - complete with lots of fun terrain features. And on top of that we were lucky enough to be accompanied by Ava's parents, who rented snowshoes and did a wonderful job following us up and over hill and dale. Special thanks to Nancy for doing an excellent job as designated photographer.

Lots of fun bumps to hop off of on this northwest aspect

Happy Hollidays!

Forced Update

2010-01-29T18:58:00.005-08:00

So, the skiing sucks in the Pacific Northwest this year, so I haven't been out as much as I was hoping. What have I been doing, you ask? I suppose the short answer is reading. With substantial time off these days and a library card for the Seattle Public Library, this turns out to be an exceptional way for a bum like me to entertain and educate themselves for the price of free. More for myself than anything else, I'll try to recall the books I've read in the last month or so.

Poisonwood Bible

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Toward the Mystery

Annapurna, A Woman's Place

The Da Vinci Code

Angels and Demons

The Audacity of Hope

Mandela - An Illustrated Autobiography

Gang Leader for a Day

Born to Run

I did make a short trip down to Eugene to visit Jake. During the visit, in addition to playing copious amounts of cards, we went to shoot bows at a couple of the bow hunting shops in town. Prior to this trip, I'd never shot a bow but was nonetheless smitten by the stealthiness and skills required to "harvest" an animal with one. After shooting a few times, it began to feel less awkward and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to hit a small target from 20 yards. I understand this becomes much more difficult in the woods, on uneven terrain, in the presence of a wary bull elk, etc.

I ended up getting an incredible deal on a 2008 compound bow from Bow-Tech (designed and produced in Eugene), and Jake bought a new one as well. Now I'm hoping to have some free time in September to see how lucky I can get, or rather how unlucky an elk and/or deer can get.

Okay, so I have done some skiing. Since there's not much snow down lower, I've gone up higher on Mt. Hood to get some forced turns in, albeit on crustapalooza.

Illumination Rock

Yocum Ridge and Mt. Saint Helens from Illumination Saddle

Skiing, Holidays, etc.

2010-01-03T13:36:00.004-08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in almost a month! I've been skiing a bit and attending the standard holiday parties. I'm even trying to teach myself to fix simple things on my car, like replacing the spark plugs.

Back in mid December, Ava, Jake, and I had a planned 7-day ski trip in the Three Sisters Wilderness turn into a soggy 2-day epic followed by a trip to Cougar Hot Springs. Then there were a few ski trips to Hood: some with Dad (who recently got an AT setup!), some with Ava, and some with Keith and Jake. The one day I couldn't find anyone to go with me I skinned up to the Hogsback on Mt. Hood and skied down from there.

Jake and Keith skinning up for a second lap in the vicinity of Barlow Pass on Mt. Hood.

Mt. Hood the day I went up to the Hogsback

Keith and I on the edge of White River Canyon

I spent New Years Eve in Portland with Keith, Jake, Phil, Molly, Ava, and Becca. We had an awesome pasta feed and got drunk at Molly's house prior to going out somewhere on Burnside.

Happy 2010!

Ice on Snoqualmie Pass

2009-12-09T11:29:00.004-08:00

The first half of Alpental 1

I've been feeling the desire to take advantage of the recent cold snap for several days now, and I finally found a partner to go exploring with. Deverton and I drove up to Snoqualmie Pass to locate the Alpental Ice that we'd read about.

After arriving at the parking area, Deverton realized he forgot his boots. Luckily, I had my house with me which contained my telemark boots. These fit Dev well enough and he managed the day with them just fine.

Nearing the top of the first pitch

We found the ice about 5 minutes from the parking area and it was in (albeit a bit funky with soft areas, thin areas, brittle areas, hollow areas, etc.). We ended up climbing Alpental 1, which was a long 2-pitch ice climb. Aside for an interesting belay stance right below the crux, the climb was super fun and went very smoothly. The sound of running water below the ice was a new experience for me after climbing in Colorado.

We also scouted potential future climbs in the same area. I've decided there's a lot of ice in Washington when it gets cold.

Alpental 3 (saved for another day)

Alpental 4 (saved for perhaps the same day as Alpental 3)

Thanksgiving Roadtrip

2009-12-02T12:43:00.003-08:00

Ava and I drove down to Berkeley for Thanksgiving with her family, with plans to stop and ski in Tahoe on the way down and back. Unfortunately, Tahoe didn't have much snow, so we stopped in Bend to visit Ogie. We made a couple quick laps on Tumalo before the 8-hour drive to the Bay.

The weather was great, and the snow in the back bowl was surprisingly powdery considering the escalating temperatures and time since the last snowfall.

We made it to Berkeley without incident and had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We failed to ski on the return trip as conditions were too poor to provide the necessary motivation. After an unusually great start to the ski season in the northwest, we seem to be in a lull. Hopefully the Beavers beating the Ducks tomorrow will put the universe back in balance and keep the snow stacking up in the mountains!