the sleepy architect

News Years again at Cascade Powder Cats Yurt

2012-01-01T23:53:00.000-08:00

Just like last year, Mica, Andy, Anastasia, Marcus, Mary, Chad, Becky, and I had a New Years ski trip to the Cascade Powder Cats yurt up near Stevens Pass. Early Friday morning we all piled our gear into the company's snowcat for an hour ride up to the yurt tucked into the north bowl of Windy Ridge at about 4600'. Once we got our gear unpacked, Ryan and his assistants ran us through a multiple beacon search scenario just to make sure we had our heads on straight before briefing us on their observations of what the snow/avy conditions were and giving us some recommendations of the best spots to tour to...then they cut us loose to run amok for the next three days.
Conditions were wonderfully stable given the quantity of the snow...finally a storm came in warm and left cold which gave us a 'right side up' snowpack, and we did our best to track the heck out of the terrain over the next three days.
Friday we had off and on snow showers that picked up overnight and dropped another foot of powder, Saturday was perfect...great visibility, light wind, tons of new snow, Saturday night the wind kicked up and stayed strong through Sunday so our skiing on Sunday was an exercise in finding the least wind-affected terrain but we still got plenty of good turns.
A great way to celebrate the new year!

Crystal Mountain backcountry...finally some new snow!

2011-12-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

After a long dry spell, we finally got some new snow...only about 7" new showing on telemetry, but the wind did a good job doubling that on east aspects. Occasionally we'd touch down on the old crust, but for the most part the snow was way better than expected. Hopefully there's more to come.

fixin' the ski

2011-12-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

A cracked ski edge finally blew out earlier this fall while skiing some very icy conditions...got to do a little ski surgery and try putting it back in place.

Chair Peak mixed bag of turns

2011-12-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Not much new snow during the week and the sun put a crust on everything south facing, so Mike, Ross, Becky and I headed up to Snoqualmie Pass for a quick your before having to get gussied that night up for the office holiday party. We toured up to the north slope of Chair Peak....unfortunately the wind did a number on the snow and it was a total mixed bag of powder, crust, ice, and everything else. Still nice to get out of the Seattle clouds into the sun and stretch the legs for a bit.

a little skiing at Mt.Hood, a lot of relaxing at Timberline

2011-11-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving with the family in Salem...then up to Mt.Hood on the 25th for some post-turkey day exercise. Becky and I got a crack of noon start from Timberline and skinned up to the top of the Palmer chair. The snow up high was a mix of wind-buffed powder and small ribs of ice....perfectly skiable but not exactly great conditions. As we sat around at the top of the Palmer snowfield and had a snack, a snowcat drove up the slope, turned around and headed back down, leaving a 10ft wide lane of perfectly groomed corduroy. The Palmer chair wasn't running, so we figured maybe the employee had gone up just to inspect the lift towers or something...but whatever the reason, we were happy to be able to take a break from the variable conditions and hop onto the groomer for some lazy high-speed turns.
We still had a couple hours before sunset, so we toured over towards the west and yo-yoed a couple laps around Little Zig-Zag canyon that held some great calf-deep powder before shuffling back over to Timberline Lodge for a relaxing night of hot-tubbing and dinner.

season opener...Baker & Alpental touring

2011-11-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Maybe being away for the fall is why it felt like winter showed up in a hurry...but the Cascades got plastered over just the past two weeks and it was time to get the ski season going.

Becky and I toured at Baker on Saturday...we expected the snow to be great, but the sunshine was a unexpected bonus. Not a big day...our legs aren't quite in shape yet, but we yo-yoed some mellow powder and enjoyed the views of Mt.Baker and Shuksan.

Sunday, we met up with Kirsten, Mica, Andy, and Tundra for some laps at Alpental. Quite brushy down low, but coverage and snow quality mid-mountain and higher was fantastic.

home!

2011-11-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

Got back to the good ol' PNW on Thursday morning...spent the first few days napping, visiting with family, napping, knocking the dust off the bicycle and motorcycle...by Sunday I was ready to play in the snow.
Didn't make much of an effort to find any partners for the trip to the Muir Snowfield...figured my pace would be way off after a month and a half of doing nothing but being a desk jockey in Shanghai and I figured it might be more relaxing to just tootle along at my own pace.
It was sunny in the parking lot but clouds were sitting off to the south...and as I slowly made my way up the hill the clouds continued to follow over my shoulder. Fortunately I was able to stay in the sun the whole way up and even at Camp Muir the wind was nearly dead calm which made the temp which was somewhere in the teens quite tolerable.
The ski down was a total mixed bag of ice and powder, and once into the clouds the visibility was terrible..but it was so very nice to get back into the mountains after being away since September.

last weekend in Shanghai, visit to Qibao

2011-10-29T05:24:00.000-07:00

The time really has flown by over here...can't believe that my last weekend in China is already here. My coworker Nancy recommended I go take a look at Qibao, an old water-town about ten miles from the office. A quick subway ride and I was on the outskirts of Shanghai trying to figure out where exactly were these canals. Eventually I followed the crowds and found my way into the Qibao 'old street' area....wow...talk about sensory overload. The crowds and sights were one thing, but the smells were something else. Imagine equal parts of fruit, meat, sugar, and sesame oil all cooking in a pan with a teaspoon of garbage put on top....the competing smells of the various food vendors, trash, and canals was overwhelming. Pretty crazy place to walk through though...Seattle is gonna feel like wilderness after spending time here.

Becky's five day blitz of Shanghai!

2011-10-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that at first when we found out I was heading to China for work that Becky wasn't sure she'd fly over here to join me for a little while....she's so much more into 'cultural trips' than I am and she really hasn't done much travelling that wasn't sport related in quite some time. Fortunately she decided to head on over and hang out with me for a little while.

Saturday, we walked all over the city, and sampled some truly amazing fried dumplings..
Photos from day 1

Sunday, we hopped a bullet train to the nearby city of Suzhou to check out some gardens and a museum designed by I.M. Pei.
Photos from day 2

Monday, I had to return to work so Becky hit a couple museums and in the evening we took the subway over to the 'Fabric Market' where she met with a tailor to get measured for a custom-made cashmere coat.
Photos from day 3

Tuesday, the weather was a big improvement from the drizzle on Monday so Becky was able to get back out and do more urban hiking...this time armed with my slr camera instead of her point & shoot (i think she got some really nice pictures). We finished off the day with a trip to a nearby Taiwanese restaurant where again we filled our bellies with all sorts of food that would be hard to find back home.
Photos from day 4

Wednesday, another day of perfect weather for Becky, so more sightseeing, checking out neighborhoods, galleries, markets... I think at this point she's seen more of Shanghai than I have! My coworker Nancy and her husband Gummi took Becky and I to a Hunan restaurant for lunch where yet again we ate all sorts of culinary treats that we'd never had before. That evening, we braved the Shanghai subway at rush-hour and headed for the airport.
Photos from day 5

Aimless wandering through Shanghai....

2011-10-15T01:32:00.000-07:00

Having walked around a lot of downtown Shanghai, the French Concession neighborhood, and the wacky new area of Pudong, I took the subway over to the YuYuan Garden, tourist market, and just kinda wandered aimlessly for most of the day...
Its tiring walking around the touristy parts of town, constantly saying 'may-yo' ("no" in chinese)...to every offer for a watch, a tea drinking scam, or a massage....but getting off the main drag everyone pretty much leaves you alone and you get to see the city.

Morning jaunt across the Huangpu River

2011-10-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

Finally had a half day free and took the subway over to Pudong...the 'new' part of Shanghai. Big, big architecture over there....funny though that I think the most therapeutic thing aboiut heading over there was the lack of honking horns. Throughout most of Shanghai there is a near constant din of honking car horns, but traffic in Pudong was so light, there weren't any horns....peace and quiet...or at least pretty close to it.

exported...

2011-10-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

Five days after getting home from Kauai, I was back at Seatac....off to Shanghai for six weeks. At this point, its two weeks down, four to go....so far so good. The work is great, the city is fascinating, the lack of mountains, fresh air, and exercise is a little depressing at times, but it is certainly one heck of a cultural experience and the whole world seems a lot smaller and more easily accessible than I ever thought before.

Kauai...the calm after the wedding...the calm before Shanghai

2011-09-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

Two days after the wedding, we were Hawaii bound.
Kauai seems like a bit of an unoriginal destination for the honeymoon...but after a week there, we definitely understood why so many people go there.
lounging at the St.Regis, backpacking the Kalalau trail along the NaPali coast, more lounging at the St.Regis, surfing, snorkeling with sea turtles, more surfing, driving up to the top of the Kalalau overlook and Waimea canyon, more lounging, then home....

its about damn time :)

2011-09-09T00:47:00.000-07:00

Becky and I got hitched...shoulda done it a long time ago....

where did the summer go?....Mt.Hinman climb

2011-08-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

A rather brief backpacking season this summer with travel, wedding plans, and a lingering snowpack in the Cascades, but Becky and I knocked off Mt.Hinman a few weeks before the wedding. The approach was longish, not particularly scenic, and once at treeline the mosquitoes were incredibly thick. We kept climbing and climbing, hoping to eventually get above the bugs. Once above treeline the views opened up and the scenery was amazing...but the skeeters were still biting any exposed flesh.
Finally, just a few hundred vertical below the summit we found a small spot amongst the rocks to set up the tent that was above bug territory.
The evening was quiet, warm, and with a full moon it was a good opportunity to try some night photography.
Sunday morning we took the quick walk to the summit of Hinman and then reentered the buggy realm of the forest for the hike back out.

where did the summer go?.... Rainier turns

2011-08-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

In between too many work trips to Oakland this summer, I managed to get up to Rainier in August for some skiing on the Russell and Flett glaciers.... Becky would've joined me, but she had a cold, so it was a solo jaunt. Skiable snow all the way down to treeline even in August. Managed to get to the top of the Russell, just below 10,000ft...wasn't feeling all the fast but it was nice to get out.

playing hooky, harvesting corn - Van Trump glaciers, Mt.Rainier

2011-06-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Becky, Marcus, Anastasia, Ross, and I took off Friday and headed for Rainier... we had plans to climb Rainier that weekend, but the forecast didn't pan out, so we figured we should at least go get some turns while the weather was cooperating.

Ulrichs couloir, Mt.Stuart

2011-06-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

High Esmeralda loop

2011-06-04T23:04:00.000-07:00

Cascadian couloir, Mt. Stuart

2011-05-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Fortune Mtn

2011-05-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

Spearhead Traverse... going for a little walk at Whistler

2011-04-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

Becky and I have had the Spearhead Traverse on our to-do list for years. The Spearhead is a high alpine traverse that connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains by travelling around the head of the U-shaped valley that divides the ski resort. Its a ridiculously scenic trip that provides a pretty mellow ski route across more than a dozen glaciers and high passes.

I skied it back in 2007 without her, and she's been wanting to ski it ever since. Since our schedules rarely seem to mesh with catching a good snow and weather window, we couldn't quite believe our plans to take Friday off where actually coinciding with some nice weather and fairly safe avy conditions.

We gave it the ol' college try to find some partners to join us, but no one was available to play. Given that we'd be skiing it just as a team of two and spending a lot of time on glaciated terrain, we were hesitant to go...waffling and trying to come up with other plans until about 9pm Thursday night. Finally we decided this really wasn't any different than any number of trips we've done just the two of us, and given the forecast, there was no way we'd be alone up there. We scrambled to finish packing, load up the car, and catch a reasonable amount of sleep before our alarm would go off at 3am.

Friday morning quickly arrived, and we grabbed the multiple thermoses of coffee and barreled out of Seattle at 3:30am heading for Whistler. Fortunately not too many folks are out and about that time of day and by 8am we were in the parking garage in Whistler village throwing on the ski clothes and walking to the lifts.

One of the best things about the Spearhead Traverse is that no time is wasted on the approach...by taking the chairlifts at Blackcomb, you can knock off a vertical mile of elevation without breaking a sweat. We saw more than a few folks with big packs on the ride up, so we figured we weren't going to be alone, and riding up the gondola we chatted with a local whose buddies were skiing the traverse in a day, so we knew we'd have a highway to follow the whole way.

The rest of the day was just one scenic vista after the next, expansive glaciers, neat little passes, a few short pitches of nice north facing powder. By mid-afternoon our sleep-deprived brains were starting to be ready for a nap, but we shuffled on for a little longer, taking advantage of the weaker than expected sun which kept some of the south facing terrain from become a sloppy avy-prone mess. By 4pm we'd topped out above the Diavolo glacier, we had another short south facing pitch below us and we knew it would be a rutted, icy mess in the morning, but a great little windlip next to some rocks and a wonderful view lured us into camping for the night. We'd been carrying crampons and axes (we appeared to be the only skiers carrying this extra baggage) so we figured we could always just boot down the slope in the morning. We dug in, set up the tent, re-hydrated and ate dinner, and were sacked our before sunset.

Twelve hours later we emerged from our cocoon very well rested and ready to keep on shuffling. As we expected the slope down to the Diavolo was a frozen mess, so we tossed the crampons on and made quick work of descending the slope. We saw and heard some other skiers made a chattery descent shortly thereafter which they referred to as 'bone-jarring'. Once out on the sunny flats of the Diavolo, we hopped into the skin track and headed for the next col. Topping out between Fitzsimmons and Benvolio we were now looking at the long straight shot out towards Whistler.
A quick descending traverse across the Overlord glacier and a short climb to Whirwind Fissile col and then a long ski down off the glaciated terrain. I had hoped the snow would be good for the ski down from the col, but the strong spring sun did its work on the west facing slope and provided us with a long pitch of breakable crust. It was hard to complain though given that the weather and views were so nice...so what if we had some bad snow.

Once past Fissile Peak we stopped in the sun, ate some lunch, and lounged about for a good long while. A few more short climbs and more breakable crust finally brought us to the Whistler resort boundary by early afternoon and then we joined the masses of resort skiers for a ski down in the village.
After walking through the village on a very sleepy Friday morning and two days of blissful mountain travel, skiing into the sea of humanity at Whistler village, during the Telus festival, was a bit shocking. We still managed to stake out a table at Zog's and get a big bowl of poutine before we tossed the gear into the car and headed for Seattle.

deep and fluffy in the Crystal backcountry

2011-03-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Face shot deep snow in mid-March....not bad.

A couple days in the sun

2011-02-21T11:32:00.000-08:00

Finally some good backcountry conditions in the Cascades...cold, clear weather and some leftover powder from the midweek storms. Saturday we headed up to Snoqualmie Pass and skied the north slope of Chair Peak, then toured over to Mt.Roosevelt and skied a hidden line off the west side of the mountain.

Sunday we headed up to Stevens Pass and skied Lichtenburg Mtn…still plenty of good snow out there. Maybe there are a couple more months of winter left afterall.

Happy New Yurt

2011-01-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

Spent the long New Years weekend touring out of the Cascade Powder Cats yurt near Stevens Pass. The company has just this season opened up use of their yurt for non-guided parties and we were their first. Getting a ride in their snowcat up to the hut saved us eight miles of skinning uphill and let us bring along a few extras, like umpteen pounds of bbq pork and sausages for our dinners.

The weather was really cold, but clear, and the last storm had dumped a couple feet of powder for us to track up. Over the three days the wind took its toll on the upper slopes and windslabs messed up some of the most interesting terrain, but we farmed the wind sheltered slopes below the yurt and got in some nice touring.

Ryan runs a really nice operation at Cascade Powder Cats and its great that the Cascades have another hut to tour out of.

Slot Couloir ski

2010-12-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

Four back to back weekends spent in Oregon visiting the family and dealing with the passing of my father kind of made the fall pretty darn craptastic…. I was desperately needing a day in the mountains to lift my spirits. Fortunately work eased off right when the weather and snow conditions were looking good…time to play hookie and get in a ski of the good ol’ slot couloir.

La Push and Rialto Beach

2010-10-03T20:37:00.001-07:00

Becky and I headed out to the Olympic Peninsula this weekend for a mini vacation. After mulling over a few ideas for possible wedding venues for next summer, we figured it might be worth taking a closer look at La Push. The last time we’d been out to La Push was five years ago, our first summer surfing, and the waves were huge and packed a big wallop. This time around the waves were even bigger. I paddled out on Saturday and caught a few rides on the far north end of the beach where the swell was getting knocked down by the jetty and seastacks. Just a few hundred yards down the beach where the full swell could get through, the waves were easily double overhead…it looked like something you’d want a jetski to surf.
Sunday morning after a hike to Second Beach we packed up and headed back up the coast…fortunately the big swell was actually pushing surfable waves into the Strait and we both got in a great session at Crescent Beach. We’d never surfed the Strait before and it was a kick to ride some waves in what is known as a rather fickle spot.

John Muir Trail recap and links to all the days

2010-09-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

Becky and I finished our write-up of the trip...here's a link to all the days in chronological order. enjoy :)

Logistics and planning
Day 1: Yosemite Valley to Sunrise
Day 2: Tuolumne Meadows, Lyell Canyon
Day 3: Donahue Pass, Ritter Range
Day 4: Red's Meadow, Mammoth Crest
Day 5: Lake Virginia, Squaw Lake
Day 6: Silver Pass, Vermillion Valley Resort
Day 7: still at Vermillion
Day 8: Selden Pass
Day 9: Evolution Valley
Day 10: Muir Pass, LeConte Canyon
Day 11: Mather Pass
Day 12: Pinchot Pass
Day 13: Glen and Forester Pass
Day 14: Bighorn Plateau, Guitar Lake
Day 15: Mt.Whitney

Link to the photo album

JMT Day 15 / September 14, 2010 - Mt.Whitney and cheeseburgers

2010-09-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

stats: 14 miles, 3000' gain, 6200' loss

We were so grateful that the nighttime low temps didn’t get anywhere close to what we’d seen the night before….we both slept warm and soundly and were well rested when the alarm went off.

As this was our last night in the tent, we no longer had to worry about our tent or clothes smelling like food and attracting bears, so we fired up the stove right next to our tent and finally got to have breakfast and coffee in our sleeping bags instead of out in the cold. We broke camp and joined the string of headlamps working up the switchbacks about an hour before dawn.

After spending two weeks almost entirely above 10,000ft we were incredibly well acclimated for Whitney and climbing the 14,497ft peak felt more like a casual stroll at Snoqualmie Pass (3000 ft), especially now that our food bins were down to just a couple pounds of food. We hit Trail Crest about an hour after sunrise..this is the spot where the west side trail we’d been on joins up with the Whitney Portal trail that everyone else is on for climbing Whitney as just a weekend outing…from there we had two miles and a thousand feet of gain to reach Whitney’s summit.

If we’d been in the sun, we’d have been plenty warm, but the two mile traverse runs along the west side, and our hands were freezing. We’d brought thin fleece gloves which were perfect for everything up until now…fortunately a spare pair of wool socks works as a fine pair of mittens in a pinch, so we continued on to the summit happily wearing socks on our hands.

As we neared the summit, I looked back and saw a familiar figure, and I said to Becky ‘hey, is that Larry?’ …I don’t think Becky said anything, but man oh man did her pace speed up…I think she was determined to hit the top before the speed-demon Larry got there.

The summit cabin came into view and before we knew it we joined Beverly and a young man who was Larry’s son on the summit…Larry strolled up a few minutes later and we all basked in the sunshine of Whitney’s summit celebrating our various journeys to get there. Larry’s son had come up the more challenging mountaineers route that morning and brought along soda, beer, chips, and chocolate…we were happy to help them lighten their pack and ate far too many Pringles.

After spending close to an hour on the summit, Becky and I grabbed our packs and started down…the expected crowds coming from Whitney Portal were beginning to show up. The vast majority of the hikers looked like hell, going so slow and pressure breathing as we chatted and hopped over boulders…not everyone gets as much time as we had had to be acclimated.

We descended the hundred or so switchbacks blasted and carved into Whitney’s east slope and after a short lunch break we met up with Beverly again who we stuck with for the rest of the hike out. I think Becky was happy to have someone new to chat with and I was happy that she was apparently unaware of the wonderfully rapid pace that Beverly was setting. We pounded down the 6300ft to the trailhead by mid-afternoon and before even going to the car for a clean change of clothes we were at the Whitney Portal Store ordering cheeseburgers, fries, and cokes. Despite the pile of food being massive, it was devoured in an instant. We said goodbye to Beverly and headed for the car, which fortunately the bears had taken no interest in over the past two weeks.

A quick drive north on highway 395 brought us to Bishop where we found a motel and hit the pharmacy for all the toiletries we couldn’t leave in our car due to bears ripping into cars for anything that had a nice smell at the trailhead. I finally got to shave off my sad little beard and Becky spent a good half-hour scrubbing the dirt off her feet. By 8:00 we were starving again, so we headed to a nearby taqueria where we ate approximately ten pounds of tacos and tortas.

The next day we hit the Schatt's Bakery where we tried to curb our insatiable appetite and only eat a couple pastries each, then it was off to the coast….we reached the Redwoods by nightfall, camped, then drove home via the northern CA and OR coast the next day. After two weeks of sunny, mostly hot weather, driving along the gray, drizzly coast was quite the change and definitely signaled that we’d squeezed the last of summer out of this vacation and it was time for fall to begin.

After we got back, we read that Cliff Mass, local Seattle weather guru, had officially declared this the worst summer in Seattle since 1980. Upon hearing that declaration we were extra happy to have had the opportunity to spend two weeks basking in the (mostly) warm California sunshine.

Making sock puppets at 13,000ft

Closing in on Whitney’s summit

Views out to the east…our car is down there somewhere…

We made it!

Beverly, Pete, Becky, and Larry

View to the south

Guitar Lake, our camp the night before, is in the lower right

Only a hundred switchbacks to go.

Almost at Whitney Portal

All done! now where's the burger stand?

Whitney Portal Store cheeseburgers are really, really good…

Apparently my backpack straps plus two weeks of grime makes a frowny face on the back of my t-shirt

JMT Day 14 / September 13, 2010 - Bighorn Plateau, Guitar Lake

2010-09-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

stats: 13.5 miles, 1500' gain

We stayed in the tent a bit longer than usual this morning…we had hoped to wait till the sun hit the tent and warmed things up, but we finally gave up around 7am and got the stove going for morning coffee. After yesterday’s big day, we were finally going to have an easy day…just needed to drop a bit, climb over the Bighorn Plateau, and then amble up to Guitar Lake at the base of Mt.Whitney.

We both hiked with down jackets on until the sun was up to full strength. Even with the sun, the constant wind and being above 11,000ft much of the day kept temps a little on the cool side…usually that would be a blessing, but after the frigid night, all I was thinking about was just how cold it was going to be camping at 11,500 ft on Whitney at Guitar Lake.

The Bighorn Plateau was another favorite spot for both Becky and me…just a another huge barren area with views that went out in all directions. Becky even got to get up close to a friendly marmot and take a bunch of photos.

By early afternoon we’d climbed up to Guitar Lake and had nothing else to do but relax….we napped, read, and now that we were finally so close to the end, I stopped rationing my food, and tore into the 8oz of salami I’d been carrying for the past 200 miles. We gorged ourselves on pasta with extra olive oil and chunks of salami for dinner…I was hoping if I got an extra thousand calories in my stomach, I might have a hotter internal furnace while sleeping in my one-pound sleeping bag and might be a bit more comfy.

While hanging out at camp, we met one of our tent neighbors, Beverly, she’d been out for 24 days, hiking the JMT solo. She had met some of the same folks as us, including Larry who we hoped to see on the summit of Whitney the next day.

We sacked out early and set the alarm for 4:30…we originally wanted to be on the summit of Whitney for sunrise, but with temps being as cold as they were, we figured with our limited clothing waiting to hit the top after the sun was up might be more comfortable.

Day 15…

Link to photo album

Finally the sun is up, but its still freezing!

Becky’s little marmot buddy

BIghorn Plateau

Final camp at Guitar Lake

Where are we?!? The Sierras are amazing….

JMT Day 13 / September 12, 2010 - Glen and Forester Pass

2010-09-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

stats: 17 miles, 5100' gain

Our bodies regularly amazed us on this trip…despite feeling beat up every evening, we’d rise the next day, stretch things out, get the packs on and roll right into another 10-11 hour day. Even after yesterdays rough day, we were up before dawn, felt fresh and ready for more miles.

The tent interior was covered in frost when we woke up…we’d both washed socks the night before and hung them on our clothesline in the tent, but the temps got so cold and the extra moisture from the wet socks just ended up building a thick layer of frost in the tent. As was the usual routine, we let the tent freeze while eating breakfast, we shook out as much frost as possible and packed it up. Our laundry was safety pinned on our packs and we knew we’d have our spare socks dry by mid-afternoon.

As usual, our first hour of hiking was done all bundled up as if it was winter, and then once the sun was on us, the frost around the trail melted away and we were back to shorts. We were up over Glen Pass (11,978ft) before 9am and fortunately this time the descent was on a nicely graded, smooth trail that we flew down.

Our plan was to make today a short day and just get to the base of Forester Pass (13,200ft), as we didn’t think two passes in a single day was feasible for us, but we made good time up Bubb’s Creek Canyon towards Forester and found ourselves at our planned campsite by 1pm. Amazingly, we both felt great, and the temperature was about ten degrees cooler that day, so we decided to just keep on going.

We took a short break at treeline and filtered more water, and I unpacked the tent, letting it dry in the afternoon sun…then it was time to head for Forester. As we climbed towards the pass, a nearby forest fire started pumping smoke into the valley…our views began to be slightly obscured and I’m sure it didn’t help that we were huffing and puffing so much smoky air, but we were encouraged when we met another hiker going the other way who said the smoke hadn’t made it over Forester into the valley we were headed towards.

The fire wasn’t particularly big, but the smoke was starting to produce its own clouds which weren’t too far away. Back in college, I’d worked on some really big fires that produced so much smoke that they’d generate their own storm clouds and lightning…I think my pace quickened over Forester out of a little paranoia of not wanting to be so far above treeline if/when this fire started to do the same.

After a couple hours of climbing though we were leaving the smoke behind and were standing at Forester Pass looking south at clear blue sky. This was another pass where the trail was blasted into the mountainside and one would otherwise need ropes to get to this spot. Forester was another place I’d daydreamed about and spent lots of time on GoogleEarth looking at…it definitely lived up to my expectations…such a massive, high, barren place punctuated with deep blue lakes.

We kept plodding away downhill looking for a reasonable place to camp out of the wind…we weren’t going to make it to treeline by dark, but we found a nice spot next to a car sized boulder that provided plenty of wind protection. As the sun set though, the temperature sunk like a stone…most of the nights the outside temperature had dropped below freezing but in our tent the temperatures rarely went below the high 30’s. In the middle of the night I woke up and checked the temp, it was 25 degrees in our tent, not good for those with 45 degree rated sleeping bags. Becky slept better/warmer than I did, and I got through the evening wearing all my clothes inside my sleeping bag, but it wasn’t a restful night.

Day 14…

Link to photo album

Rae Lakes from Glen Pass

on our way to Forester Pass

getting a little smoky from the forest fire

Clear weather once we reach the top of Forester!

Late in the day and searching for a campsite

JMT Day 12 / September 11, 2010 - Pinchot Pass

2010-09-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

stats: 17.5 miles, 3300' gain

I got up before sunrise and snapped a few shots of big peaks of Kings Canyon in the dim morning light and then we packed up and headed for Pinchot Pass. We’d seen a couple coyotes in the days before but last night we were awoken by the howls of a pack of coyotes nearby…so cool!

Pinchot was a12,130ft pass and by now we were pretty well acclimated, so keeping a steady pace and chatting while at altitude was surprisingly easy. Unfortunately after Pinchot we had one of our biggest descents, 3600ft down, and to make matters worse it wasn’t even a smooth dirt trail, most of the elevation loss was stepping down huge stone steps which looked like they’d been made for someone ten feet tall.

By the time we reached the suspension bridge over Woods Creek and were done descending, our feet and knees were aching and sun was cooking us. We found a patch of shade, refilled our water, gave our feet a soak in the creek and then slowly started making our way up the 2000’ towards Rae Lakes.

This was probably the toughest afternoon for both of us, the hammering we’d taken on the descent, combined with the heat from being at such a low elevation, and the late afternoon climb really did a number on us. I’d suggested to Becky that we did not have to beat ourselves up with the fifteen day timeline and could add in a day to slow things down, but this was met with a strong resistance I couldn’t quite understand. Once we finally reached camp and had dinner we figured out that her worries about an extra day were from a fear of running out of food…she had rationed out her supplies very accurately and didn’t have any reserves. Her anxiety went away completely though when I dumped out my bear bin and showed that between the four extra bars, a full pound of Halva, a half pound of salami, and a few other odds and ends, I was carrying more than enough food for both of us to stay out an extra day or two.

We finished the day with our usual routine of stretching, icing our legs in the nearby lake, playing some cards, reading, and then sacking out by about 9pm.

Day 13…

Link to photo album

Mt.Ruskin before sunrise

closing in on Pinchot Pass

on our way to Woods Creek

Rae Lakes

Rae Lakes and Painted Lady

JMT Day 11 / September 10, 2010 - Mather Pass

2010-09-10T18:25:00.000-07:00

stats: 17.5 miles 4880' gain

After spending all afternoon the day before pounding out the miles through LeConte Canyon we were eager to get back into the alpine. We broke camp and were on the trail by the usual 6:30am heading for Mather Pass. Within a few miles we started the 4000’ climb towards Mather Pass (12,100ft). We laced back and forth on the ‘Golden Staircase’, an impressive set of switchbacks that ascended the steep head of Palisade Creek Canyon and were rewarded with Palisade Lake at the top. We couldn’t pass up taking a break at the sandy beach and turquoise blue water, so we had our mid-morning snack while cooling off our legs in the frigid water.

After an hour of lounging in the water and grassy meadows, we tossed the packs on and ground out the final 2000’ to the top of Mather. Towards the top of Mather the views really opened up and we found ourselves again in a massive open bowl with ancient glacier moraines and small, deep blue colored tarns.

At the top of Mather we could see south all the way to Pinchot, our next pass…some speedy hikers knock out both Mather and Pinchot in the same day, but we were just hoping to get to the base of the pass by sunset. We had some leftover bacon from dinner the night before, so our usual lunch of peanut butter and honey tortillas were supplemented with dried bananas and bacon…maybe it only tastes good when being out in the woods for a long time, but we thought they were great.

Down from Mather there were more impressively carved switchbacks into what would otherwise be a 4th class scramble over terrible rock, and then we were out into the flats of another huge plateau that a glacier had carved out thousands of years ago.

We made quick time and were at the base of climb to Pinchot by late afternoon. We rallied and knocked off a small 800’ climb to get back above treeline so we’d have some nice views that evening…it was well worth the effort. We passed by a ranger station just before finding camp and got an updated weather forecast…clear weather through the end of our trip…what a relief to hear that!

Today was our last mandatory 4000’ day, so we felt happy that we’d only have 3000’' climbs in the days ahead.

Day 12…

Link to photo album

The Golden Staircase on our way to the Palisades

The Palisades

Palisades Lake

Almost at Mather Pass

The view at Mather to the south

Long ways still to go today!

JMT Day 10 / September 9, 2010 - Muir Pass, LeConte Canyon

2010-09-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

stats: 20 miles, 2000' gain

When the alarm went off at 5:30 we discovered the inside walls of our tent were soaked…unfortunately as it snowed overnight, the snowflakes briefly melted on the warm tent walls, then refroze into a sheet of ice, effectively killing the breathability of our single-wall tent. As we ate breakfast we set our sleeping bags out on a few boulders that didn’t have snow on them and let the tent freeze solid. After some cream of wheat and coffee, we did our best to knock and wipe the ice off of the tent (having the unexpected benefit of simultaneously cleaning all the accumulated dirt off the sides!) and off our bags, then we bundled up in all our clothes and started up into Evolution Valley. Fortunately the trail only had a trace of snow and the blue sky above meant we’d be warm soon, once above treeline and into the sun.

Evolution Lake was spectacular with the fresh coat of snow over everything, and as the sun rose we couldn’t spot a cloud in the sky, so we felt optimistic we’d made it through what would hopefully be our only storm. Once out in the sun, we shed the puffy jackets and goretex and it was back to our usual wardrobe of t-shirts, shorts, and sunscreen.

We climbed towards Muir Pass (11,955’) up into terrain that can best be described as what you might imagine outer Tibet to look like. We passed sparkling blue Wanda Lake just below the pass. Muir Pass is flanked on each side by a spectacular Lake; Wanda Lake and Helen lake, named for John Muir’s daughters. At the Pass the Sierra Club constructed a stone hut for hikers to use to get out of inclement weather while crossing the pass. The hut is just plain cute and was a welcome shelter to escape the wind. We spent about a half hour resting at the pass before beginning the looong descent into Le Conte Canyon. Along the way we stopped at an unnamed lake for lunch and to filter water. As we approached the lakeshore we saw a flurry of movement and discovered that the lake was populated by scads of frogs. We were both giddy over the discovery and renamed the place Frog Lake.

We continued our descent from rocky, arid, high-alpine terrain down into the lush, forested valley of Le Conte Canyon. It made Becky think this must be what Switzerland would be like and it seemed like the place should be dotted with cows and milk maids. We passed the Le Conte Ranger station shortly before setting up camp at the Palisades trail junction and were informed by the ranger that a bear had been sighted in the canyon that morning so to keep a close eye on our food. Had this piece of intelligence been relayed a week earlier Becky would have spent the night wide awake, poised to repel any impending bear attacks. But we were 10 day trail veterans by now and bears had become nothing more than a possible nuisance to be dealt with if the situation arose and much less of a vicious and certain threat to our lives and food supplies. We slept just fine that night.

Day 11…

Link to photo album

Evolution Lake with a little fresh snow

Wanda Lake…almost at Muir Pass

if only it was warmer, I would’ve gone swimming….

The view back from where we came

Muir Hut at the pass!

Our froggy friends at the lake we had lunch

Black Giant and upper LeConte Canyon

JMT Day 9 / September 8, 2010 - Evolution Valley and a snowstorm

2010-09-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

stats: 15.5 miles, 2100' gain

It was below freezing when we woke up and the barometer had dropped a bit overnight, but it was still sunny when we started hiking. However by the time we crossed the border into King’s Canyon National Park, we could see clouds off to the west. Over the next couple hours we saw the high peaks above us become wrapped in lenticular clouds and by lunchtime there wasn’t much blue sky left.

We passed a couple park rangers who told us the chance of precip had increased from 20% to 50% so we figured we were definitely in for some weather that afternoon. In the Evolution Valley we had our one and only stream ford of the entire trip…all the large rivers had bridges and all the small creeks so far had good rocks to hop over, but this one we finally had to take the shoes off and wade shin deep to the other side. Aside from our moleskin and foot tape getting wet, it was actually nice to give the feet a cold bath mid-day.

As we neared the final 800’ of switchbacks to get above treeline and into the upper Evolution Valley it began to snow and we ran into several parties descending that told us the weather was bad up high. We decided to stop a little short of our goal (Evolution Lake) and get camp set up while it was still fairly dry. I still felt a little weak from my bug, so it was nice to call it a day a little early and spend the afternoon playing cards and reading.

Day 10…

Link to photo album

Heading into Kings Canyon…where’d those clouds come from?

Almost at Evolution Lake…but shortly thereafter it starts snowing

JMT Day 8 / September 7, 2010 - Selden Pass

2010-09-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

stats: 17.5 miles, 4000' gain

I got my birthday wish today….after a long night of sleep I woke up and my fever had finally broken. It still felt like my stomach was in a vice, but I could deal with that. We broke camp while it was still cold and made quick work of the 2000’ climb up Bear Ridge on our way to Selden Pass. We had read several accounts of people having a heck of time fording Bear Creek which we crossed late morning, but the nice thing about doing the JMT in early September is that most of the creeks and rivers have dropped to very easily passable levels and we happily skipped across the exposed boulders with nary a problem.

While we were hiking along Bear Ridge, Becky rounded a corner at one point and encountered an older female hiker with wild curly gray hair and a deeply intense look on her face tearing up the trail in an outfit constructed entirely of an ultra-lightweight, baggy parachute type material. Becky’s initial reaction was “Oh my god! It’s a witch!”, but then the lady spoke, rather curtly - “Are you doing the whole JMT?" Yes? Good.” - and then she blew past us. Becky realized that it was just one of the many characters you’re sure to encounter deep in these mountains. She became known to us as “The Witch of the Sierras” and we learned later that Larry had also encountered her on the trail and got an unsolicited and somewhat angry earful on the nutritional deficiencies of Gatorade.

Marie Lake, situated just below Selden Pass (10,880’), was another highlight of the trip…an unreal shade of blue, rimmed with beaches and meadows in the middle of a desolate rocky high alpine basin. We caught up with Larry (ever so briefly) at Marie Lakes. We all crossed Selden Pass together, snapped a few pics and then he sped off, not to be seen again until our very last day.

We had planned to camp on the north side of the pass by Sally Keyes Lake, but when we got there we still felt strong enough to go a couple more miles, so we continued on down below treeline and camped along Sanger Creek. The weather was still clear when the sun set, so we had hopes that the forecast wouldn’t hold true and tomorrow would be dry.

Day 9…

Link to photo album

Marie Lake

Selden Pass

Sally Keyes Lakes

JMT Day 7 / September 6, 2010 - still at Vermillion

2010-09-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

stats: 1.5 miles, 150' gain

After a huge breakfast at the VVR restaurant, omelets and potatoes, we picked up our resupply buckets from the resort staff. A week before we left Washington, we mailed two 5 gallon buckets of food to the resort that contained our second week’s supply of food. We spent the morning evaluating what we’d eaten the previous week and how we could possibly pare down our food to make our packs a bit lighter. We ended up leaving behind a couple pounds of food each and just managed to cram what we needed into our bear-proof food canisters.

While we were sorting our food the water taxi dropped off another load of hikers. One of them was a man named Larry from Virginia who we spent the afternoon chatting to and we discovered that we both had the intention of summiting Mt. Whitney the morning of September 14th. Larry had started his hike in South Lake Tahoe (about a hundred miles north of Yosemite) and was doing all 300+ miles by himself, but had made plans to meet his son on the summit of Mt. Whitney. We also discovered that he had passed “New York” on the trail the day before and it sounded like he wasn’t doing any better than when we left him at Duck Creek. Larry even suggested to the VVR owner that they may want to muster Search and Rescue for this guy as he appeared to be in a great deal of pain and moving at a snail’s pace. I don’t think they did and I’m sure New York eventually made it to VVR under his own power and caught his shuttle to the Fresno airport (we hope!) but it really drove home the point that a thing like the JMT can attract all kinds of people. In any event, Larry was a great guy and we dug his story and his vibe so we hoped we’d run into him along the trail again.

I was starting to feel better and after some time online using the resort’s computer, we figured that somehow I had picked up some kind of food poisoning, how exactly we didn’t have a clue, but from what we read, we figured the symptoms should subside in a couple more days and I should kick it without needing antibiotics or a doctor. Vermillion was a place that we could pull the plug on the trip, but it wouldn’t have been easy…it would’ve involved hitchhiking to Fresno and from there catching a Greyhound or YARTS bus back over to the east side of the Sierras and then hitchhiking up to Whitney Portal. We decided to catch the afternoon ferry and just hike the one and a half miles back up to the Muir trail junction and spend the night…if I felt like garbage the next day, we could still hike back to the water taxi and begin the west side exit, but we hoped I’d be well enough to continue.

We did check the NOAA forecasts while at the resort and the weather looked like it was going to be changing in a couple days…rain, snow, and very cold temperatures were on the way for later in the week, but would hopefully only last a day or two.

Day 8…

Link to photo album

time to repack the bear bins!

back on the boat, returning to life on the trail

JMT Day 6 / September 5, 2010 - Silver Pass, Vermillion Valley Resort

2010-09-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

stats: 9.5 miles, 300' gain

We only had a short climb over Silver Pass before we started the long descent to Edison Lake and the water taxi. I was still running a fever and felt like someone had a vice around my stomach, but we still made steady progress.

From Silver Pass, we dropped past some huge granite slabs and amazing scenery that was a good distraction from how lousy I was feeling. We reached the lake by noon and Becky spent the afternoon reading while I slept in the tent. It was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and there was a pretty big crowd of folks waiting for the water taxi by the time it arrived. Fortunately we all fit onboard and didn’t have to wait for a later boat.

Arriving at Vermillion Valley Resort, we set up our tent, took hot showers, did some laundry, and headed for the restaurant for dinner. It’s worth noting that we specifically did our only resupply at VVR because of their restaurant and Becky’s dream of having a huge pile of bbq ribs for dinner… my regular question to her during the months leading up to the trip was ‘what if they aren’t serving bbq that night?’ was always met with ‘of course they’ll have bbq, they have to’. Sadly, when we got to the restaurant their limited menu for the night was t-bone steak, chicken curry or chicken with thai peanut sauce. We both had the chicken curry and it was quite good, especially followed up with a couple pieces of pie, but sadly it was not the feast Becky had dreamed of. At least she got a couple cold beers (a Mirror Pond Pale and a Stone pale ale – VVR had the BEST beer list!) which went a long way towards making her feel better.

We spent a little time out by the firepit reading and talking about what we would do the next day if I was still running a fever and feeling weak, then it was off to bed for a long sleep.

Day 7…

Link to photo album

Up and over Silver Pass

Down down down to Edison Lake

showers, hot food, and beer!

JMT Day 5 / September 4, 2010 - Lake Virginia, Squaw Lake

2010-09-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

stats: 15.5 miles, 2500' gain

Up at 5:30 again and on the trail by 6:30. Before we left camp though we met our neighbor…we didn’t get his name, but we had recognized him as a fellow from New York that another hiker had mentioned the other day. ‘New York’ appeared to be having a pretty rough time…we’d seen his pack the day before…it was huge compared to the average JMT’er…and he’d been complaining of having back pain. He’d been trying to make up time by traveling after dark, but had gotten turned around by taking a small unmarked trail off the main trail in the night and walked miles back and forth before finally plopping down next to our tent. When we left him that morning he was off exploring adjacent spur trails (with his tent WIDE open for all manner of critter to easily enter), seemingly unwilling to accept that the highway the rest of us were on was in fact the correct trail.

We felt great in spite of our long, hot 22-mile day and were making good time, but by mid-morning things took a turn for the worse. Without going into too much detail, lets just say I became violently ill, my stomach was a train-wreck, and I was running a fever by 10am. Becky slowed the pace, and we crawled along far slower than the day before. We reached Purple Lake by lunchtime. Becky made sandwiches and refilled our reservoirs while I fell asleep in the shade. Fortunately the handful of Aleve I took finally started to knock my fever down and we still managed to grind out 15.5 miles that day. The day’s hike ended with a hot 1000’ climb out of Tully Hole to Squaw Lake which only drove home how much we prefer to do our climbing in the cool of the morning.

The terrain we covered was really quite spectacular though, we briefly got above treeline into a rocky bowl filled with house-sized granite boulders, and passed by more amazing lakes. Lake Virginia was our favorite…not particularly big, but the most intense shade of blue with bright green meadows that ran right to the lakeshore which was rimmed with beaches of pulverized granite sand. We could’ve easily spent the day lounging there, but the downside to a two-week schedule is that we couldn’t just drop the packs and set up camp that early in the afternoon.

Squaw Lake was a great campsite though, and we rolled in to camp with enough sunlight left to soak our tired legs and wash our socks. It was Labor Day weekend and after several days of relative peace and quite, we were a little annoyed to have to share ‘our lake’ with campers who were way to noisy and boisterous.

I passed out early, trying to gather some strength for Silver Pass and the ten miles out to the water taxi the next day.

Day 6…

Link to photo album

Mammoth Crest

Purple Lake

Lake Virginia

Squaw Lake

Dinnertime on the slabs at Squaw Lake

Fun with long exposures and a headlamp at camp

JMT Day 4 / September 3, 2010 - Reds Meadow, Mammoth Crest

2010-09-03T18:19:00.000-07:00

stats: 21.5 miles, 2500' gain

This was the first day we gave the new “Frank strategy” a try. Rather than get up with the sun and start the day at a leisurely hour, we set the alarm for 5:30am and began what would become our regular routine of eating breakfast by headlamp, breaking camp at first light and being on the trail by 6:30.

The day was hot, the trail was an awful combination of dust, loose dirt, and way too much horse shit from all the mule trains and guided trips in the area. We dropped out of the alpine, past Devil’s Postpile National Monument (we didn’t take the side trail to get the up-close view – the view from across the river was just fine for us), and down to the edge of Mammoth where we took a mid-afternoon break at Reds Meadow Resort. Some JMT hikers pick up their first resupply packages at this camp, but our first resupply was still a few days away at Vermillion Valley Resort. Though we didn’t have any food to pick up, we were pretty happy to raid the small grocery store and get some cold Gatorade and popsicles before heading back out into the afternoon heat. The next stretch beyond Red’s had burned a few years past, so there was no shade, but it was tolerable thanks to our long break and as we got back into the shade and climbed the 1300’ to Mammoth Crest we felt surprisingly good with our slow and steady pace. By the time we dropped our packs for the night at Duck Creek, we’d covered almost 22 miles. Frank’s method for covering a lot of ground was a good one!

Around 10pm we heard someone walking by, then about a half-hour later we heard the noise again…someone was rolling in way after dark and was setting up camp near us. He was quiet and we didn’t mind having a neighbor, but it seemed a little odd for someone to be hiking so late.

Day 5…

Link to photo album

Becky cooling off at Red’s Meadow Resort

A hot hike through the old burn to Mammoth Crest

JMT Day 3 / September 2, 2010 - Donahue Pass, Ritter Range

2010-09-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

stats: 14 miles, 3000' gain

Kind of a slow start this morning. We didn’t break camp till 7:30. After many miles of flat valley bottom hiking, we finally climbed out of the trees and up into the subalpine wonder below Mt.Lyell…tons of small tarns, creeks, meadows, huge granite domes…it really was as we expected - like Washington’s Enchantments, but on steroids. Up over Donahue Pass, 11,056ft, and we finally had some new views to the south, June Mountain, and the Mammoth ski area were visible in the distance.

On our hike up to the pass we met and passed fellow thru-hiker Frank. Frank’s approach to hiking was slow and steady and go ALL day. While we initially congratulated ourselves on being fast enough to pass other hikers, we found our energy sapped and our feet sore by early afternoon. As we lazed about, soaking our fatigued limbs in a lake later that afternoon we saw Frank slowly make his way past the lake, still cranking with three hours til sunset. We knew then that Frank had the right idea and we’d have to adopt his strategy if we were going to happily put in 15-20 miles a day for 14 days in a row. We referred to our new pace as “Franking it”.

While having a mid-morning snack on the top of Donahue, a mouthful of chocolate covered raisins provided just enough stickiness to loosen a temporary crown I had over one of my molars, and before I knew it, I had pulled off the crown and there it was in the palm of my hand. I’d heard horror stories of tooth pain hikers have had from losing fillings before, but fortunately a crown popping off a dead tooth that’s had a root canal only makes for awkward eating.

The warm morning gave way to a hot afternoon…we found a patch of shade near a stream for lunch, refilled our water reservoirs, wetted our bandanas and hats and headed towards Island Pass.

Just beyond Island Pass is Thousand Island Lake, a spot I’d been dying to see ever since I first started researching the JMT last year. There’s no way for me to describe it…it just looks so amazing, a deep blue lake below a huge black peak, and what truly seems like a thousand tiny islands dotting the water. It would’ve been easy to camp here, but we still needed to knock off a few more miles, so we continued on to the equally spectacular Garnet Lake where we had camp set up by 3:30.

The weather was still plenty warm for a relaxing afternoon of swimming and doing laundry on the lakeshore. We didn’t bring many changes of shorts and socks, so after three days our first set of socks were fairly caked with dust…it was nice to be able to get them cleaned and dried for the next day.

Becky and I both had been looking forward to tonight's dinner….we had a sealed package of pre-cooked bacon that we finally cracked open and added to our lentils and couscous…so nice to get some fat and salt!

The evening weather was warm and we didn’t need our down jackets after dark…made for a pleasant night of sleeping, but the next day was likely to be really hot.

Day 4…

Link to photo album

Tarns below the Lyell Glacier

closing in on Donahue Pass

Thousand Island Lake

JMT Day 2 / September 1, 2010 - Tuolumne Meadows, Lyell Canyon

2010-09-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

stats: 18 miles, 300' gain

We both felt surprisingly good in the morning, our feet and legs recovered from the big start the day before. A cup of Starbucks instant VIA coffee with some cold cereal and we were on our way. Not much climbing today, just a little 300’ climb over Cathedral Pass, down to Tuolumne Meadows and then south to the head of Lyell Canyon. As we neared Tuolumne, we got a bit turned around with the jumble of trails, but one of the volunteers at the Visitors Center got us going in the right direction to the hamburger stand. We gobbled up burgers, fries, and fruit salad, and picked up a few last minute first-aid items at the store then left civilization behind and started up the canyon.

Lyell Canyon was gorgeous…big meadows with tall grass and a slow flowing stream with one tempting swimming hole after the next. We kept hiking till about 4:30 when Becky started to fade and began to stumble on rocks and roots and such…and I was more than happy to call it a day too.

As we set up camp a large group of guided hikers walked back and forth on the trail…they were part of a horse-packing trip and the guides, horses, and all the overnight gear were nowhere to be found. Fortunately about an hour before dark, the hiking guide found some evidence of where the pack-train had left the trail and the group headed to find their camp…I was glad we didn’t have to start donating food and fuel to a big group that had lost their way.

We got in a quick dip in Lyell Creek before the sun dipped below the ridgeline and cooled things off. The one drawback to using running shoes on such a dry trail is that ones feet are filthy at the end of the day from all the dust getting through the light mesh fabric.

Becky started to look at the schedule and maps (an exercise on her part that would become a near-obsessive nightly ritual :) ) and suggested that we try to up the daily mileage so that we get to our food resupply a half-day earlier, but that would mean we’d be doing at least one 20+ mile day and I hoped that she would reconsider as I was not eager to start putting in big-mileage days unless necessary.

Tomorrow would be our first big pass, Donahue Pass, then we’d leave Yosemite and head for camp in the Ritter/Banner area.

Day 3…

Link to the photo album

Cathedral Peak, nearing in on Tuolumne Meadows

way up Lyell Canyon, looking back towards Tuolumne

JMT Day 1 / August 31, 2010 - Yosemite Valley to Sunrise

2010-08-31T18:09:00.000-07:00

stats: 13 miles, 5320' gain

Time to finally start hiking! We got up at 6am and were all packed by 6:45. We walked over to Curry Village, the restaurant/store hub in Yosemite Valley and had our final ‘real’ cups of coffee and pastries then it was off to the trailhead. Becky wanted to walk the mile and a half to the trailhead, but fortunately a shuttle bus stopped right next to us, so we hopped onboard and got a quick lift to the end of the road.
We got our picture taken at the trailhead sign that lists the mileage to all the major landmarks, the last line of the sign reads ‘Mt.Whitney summit, 211 miles’….guess we have our work cut out for us.
The trail past all the various waterfalls went a bit slower than last year as we were now loaded down with overnight gear and our first week’s supply of food, but the weather was sunny and pleasantly cool.
Originally, we were unable to get a permit to start from the traditional beginning of the JMT in the valley bottom, the Happy Isles trailhead, and we could only get a permit to start from Glacier Point, but there were enough first-come first-served permits the day before that we were able to switch things around and start from Happy Isles. The good thing was that we could then hike the full JMT, start early in the morning, and save $25 each for bus ride up to Glacier Point…the only bad thing was starting from the valley bottom added 3200’ of climbing to our first days travel.
The Happy Isles trailhead is also the starting point for day hikers heading to Half Dome, probably the most popular big hike in the park, and we shared the trail with a sea of humanity until we reached the Half Dome turn-off….from there on out, we largely had the trail to ourselves.
By late afternoon we were grinding up the last of the 5300’ of climbing and our pace had certainly slowed as our lungs weren’t quite used to hiking at 9500ft just yet, but we reached our first camp, Sunrise, at 3:30pm and spent the afternoon doing lots of stretching and rehydrating. The backpackers camping area at Sunrise was pretty full by evening and some stragglers were still rolling in after dark.
There were lots of friendly backpackers staying at Sunrise, a big group of folks from Colorado, some well into their mid-70’s…it was a kick to see folks of their age still hefting packs and running around in the alpine.
Sunrise has seasonal tent-cabins and provides catered meals for those with big budgets… we tried not to think about the fancy food others were eating nearby as the cook rang the dinner bell and we ate our simple one-pot meal.
Off to bed early and looking forward to our next day of hiking.

Day 2...
Link to the photo album

Becky and I at the Happy Isles trailhead...the last time we'll be clean for a while

Leaving Half Dome behind on the way to Sunrise

John Muir Trail: planning, logistics, gear, getting started

2010-08-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

The John Muir Trail is a 211-mile high route that travels through the heart of the Sierras from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mt.Whitney (the highest peak in the lower 48)...add in the 10.5 miles to get from Whitney's summit down to your car, and you've got an epic 221.5 mile thru-hiking trip!

Last summer while working in San Fran, I did a weekend trip out to Yosemite to hike Half Dome and Clouds Rest.... I'd certainly heard of the Pacific Crest Trail before, but the JMT was new to me. The JMT shares much of its route with the PCT, but unlike the PCT in Oregon and much of Washington, down in California, the trail runs high above treeline quite a bit, crossing numerous mountain passes above 11,000ft.

After my weekend day hike in Yosemite, seeing folks with tiny lightweight backpacks heading out for 2-3 week long adventures, wearing little more than running shorts and sneakers, the idea of checking out the JMT really got stuck in my brain.

Fast forward to this year, Becky and I were able to get away from work for three weeks, and we were eager to get down to the Sierras to hike the Muir Trail.

For a trip of this duration in the northwest, we'd have brought all sorts of foul weather gear, a waterproof tent, a white gas stove, all sorts of insulation, and waterproof boots...but for this trip we got to keep our packs fairly light and simple, which made high-mileage days feasible. We used an Epic fabric single-wall tent, a butane canister stove, 40-45 degree sleeping bags, and wore low-top trail running shoes.

Over two days we drove from Seattle to Mammoth Lakes, where we stayed for two nights taking care of all the final logistics. We had expected the weather to be sunny and warm on the east side of the Sierras, but we had also seen the latest forecast calling for an unseasonably strong low pressure system to hit the area during our first day in Mammoth…we had a few worries about the weather and our lightweight gear our first morning in Mammoth when we went out for breakfast and there were snowflakes falling from the sky. It looked like the weather was to return to normal by the time we started hiking though, so we tried not to worry about our water-resistant tent (not water-proof) and summer-weight sleeping bags.

Getting our car to the Whitney Portal trailhead and then getting ourselves 200 miles north to Yosemite took a little time. For those with an unlimited budget and no time, its possible to hire a private shuttle to take you up to Yosemite after you've dropped your car off at the southern terminus of the JMT, or for those with no budget and lots of time, its feasible to hitchhike your way back to Yosemite...but we didn't quite fit into either category. Public transit does exist on the east side of the Sierras, and lots of folks take a ESTA bus from Whitney's closest town, Lone Pine, to Mammoth and the the next day take another bus from Mammoth to Yosemite. We were eager to get the hiking started as fast as possible, but didn't want to fork over the money for a private shuttle, so our compromise was to pick up a rental car in Mammoth, then we drove both cars down to Whitney, left Becky's car behind and returned to Mammoth. The following day in Mammoth we hopped on the YARTS bus and for $15 each got a nice bus ride on into Yosemite Valley. The rental car/bus combo was a bit more spendy than the bus only option, but saved us from having to spend an extra day kicking around Mammoth.

Once in Yosemite Valley we picked up our permit, set up camp for the night, and spent the rest of the day being tourists...walking to the base of El Cap, taking lots of pictures, doing last minute gear checks, and generally being rather nervous about what exactly we had in store over the next two weeks.

Day 1…

Link to the photo album

Here's an elevation profile of the trip...the first day is a biggy, 5600 vertical feet, then a series of small passes and climbs for the first week. The second week things get a little higher and the ups and downs get a lot bigger.

Becky at the Mono Lake overlook on the drive down to Mammoth

Hanging out in Yosemite Valley…the start of the JMT is just right over there.

Becky at the base of El Capitan

Glacier Peak ski (and a surprise on the summit)

2010-07-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

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

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

2010-07-06T13:05:00.000-07:00

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

winter ain't over yet... Naches Peak freshiez

2010-05-23T15:51:00.001-07:00

back to Rainier - Paradise glacier ski

2010-05-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

Rainier - Camp Muir and the Nisually chutes

2010-04-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

The Forbidden Tour

2010-03-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Chair Peak circumnav & Kaleetan ski

2010-03-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

Dragontail Peak ski

2010-02-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

Big Sur and a V-Strom

2009-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ptarmigan Traverse, July 2-6, 2006

2006-07-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

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

Fairy Meadows hut ski trip, Selkriks, BC

2006-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fairy Meadows Hut Trip from A. Toyota on Vimeo.

Two weeks in the Waddington Range

2005-04-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

I saw on an article on the Waddington Range in Backcountry magazine about eight or nine years ago, back when I was an architecture student at U of O. The place looked amazing...huge rock spires, expansive glaciers, views to tidewater from the alpine, and of course Mt.Waddington...described as Mt.Rainier with a three pitch rock climb on top...who doesn't want to see that! I knew I wouldn't have the skill to climb the rock tower on the top of Waddington, but I sure wanted to climb high on its glaciers and ski in such a wild setting.

Fast forward to 2004...it had been a year since my last big trip, Denali, and I was smack in the middle of the hell of taking my architecture licensing exams...time to start day dreaming of the next big trip. Ski touring in the Waddington Range was an easy choice.

Sat April 23

We arrived Friday night and stayed at the White Saddle bunkhouse at Bluff Lake which is ran by Mike King's brother and sister-in-law Dave and Lori. Lori cooked up a fantastic breakfast for us before we drove over to the helicopter hanger. Sausages, orange juice and all you can eat pancakes is a great way to start a trip. Lori had some great stories about all the folks that have stayed with them through the years such as skiers for a Warren Miller Movie and when Brad Pitt was up there for the filming of 'Seven Years in Tibet' ... who knew that Tibet was actually in the Waddington range.

The weather was good so Mike flew us in that morning and we spent the day soaking in the scenery and getting camp put in. That night it started to rain and our spirits sink...we're thinking "we're on a glacier...and its raining....welcome to the coast range"

Sun April 24

By morning it has cleared and we ski towards Mt.Cavalier. A small but very aesthetic pyramid just above the Dais glacier. We figured it would make for a good warm up climb and ski. There hadn't been a hard freeze that night and with the rain the snowpack was ugly. Both Matt and Todd managed to find snowbridges that collapsed on the way up. Fortunately we were all roped up, but punching through crevasses while wearing skis kind of drove home how sloppy the snowpack was. We put skis on the packs at Jester-Cavalier col and booted the last few hundred feet up the ridge to the top. Todd and I had hoped to ski the 35-40 degree north face on Cavalier but the whole thing was knee-deep smhoo, so rather than start the trip with a big avalanche we booted back down the ridge to the col and skied the lower angle terrain, figuring we should give the snow a little time to firm up.
That night we discussed what to do next, we had planned to hit the Dais couloir - Angel glacier route on Waddington that next day but with the soft snow and plenty of time for conditions to improve we opted to take four days of food and fuel and check out the Munday area

Mon April 25

Up early, hoping to ski the crust before it melts away into deep mashed potatoes we break camp and skin over Jester pass and down to the Corridor glacier. Everyone except for me opted for moderate sized packs and sleds. I'd had enough of misbehaving sleds on Denali a few years back so I just opted for a big backpack.
The ski down to the Corridor glacier was survival skiing for most everyone, the snow by mid-morning had been cooked to sludge and the sleds were thrashing around quite a bit. Once over Jester Pass and on the flats I think the sled equiped folk had an easier time than me.

There was evidence everywhere of a big avy cycle that had happened recently, lots of 2' crowns on sun-facing slopes, so we were happy to get to the flats of the Corridor glacier. The rest of the day was spent touring across the Corridor and up the Ice Valley glacier where we set up camp about 2km from Mystery Pass and Mt. Munday.
We had a fine yoyo slope right out of camp which allowed the more energetic folk a chance for some turns after a day of mostly load hauling.

Tues April 26

Mt. Munday via Mystery Pass. Early start out of camp, finally have a good hard freeze that night and it gets us thinking the corn cycle might soon start in a day or two. Easy skinning up to the pass and on up to just below the summit plateau. A short 200vf section of 45 degree snow brought us up to the plateau. Sunny, dead calm, views across the Tiedemann glacier and out all the way to Bute Inlet. The ski down went all too fast...probably shoulda waited another hour or so on top for the slopes to soften a bit more. Rest of the day spent hanging out at camp and yo-yoing the slopes on the side of the Ice Valley glacier. A trio of guys from Whistler who were camped nearby kept us entertained by skiing lines above camp that were way over our comfort level.

Wed April 27

Julia hadn't joined us for Munday the day before because of some boot fit issues and needed a day out of her ski boots, so with a good forecast we figured "lets go ski Munday again". Got up a little later with hopes to harvest more corn today, but high winds above Mystery Pass and even worse winds ripping spindrift off the summit plateau cause us to turn around just shy of the summit plateau. We skied down to Mystery Pass and skinned up the side of Mt.Agur hoping to find some sun-soften snow, but the wind was just too strong today, keeping everything too firm to be all that fun.

Thurs April 28

Broke camp early and headed back for our cache on the Dais glacier. We wanted to get up and over Jester Col before the slope turned into an avy hazard. We were back at the 'basecamp' my late morning and checked the weather again (first trip with a sat. phone...man are they handy). Looked like we'd have good weather on Friday then it was going to get stormy, so we figured we should try to get in the climb of Waddington before the snow started. We packed our day packs and set the alarms for 3:30am.

Fri April 29

Really really cold this morning, perfect for climbing. We cruised up the Dais glacier and got to the bottom of the Dais couloir by sunrise. The couloir was about 300 meters long, about 45 degrees at the bottom and mellowed to 35-40 degrees for the last 100m or so. Easy climbing with an axe in one hand and a whippet in the other. Unfortunately Matt's crampons broke with about 100m to go. The steel toe bail on his aluminum crampons had taken so much stress from climbing on front points that the holes the toe bail fit through stretched enough the toe bail popped out...not good. (fyi, don't use Grivel G10 aluminums for front-pointing, this was the first time I'd ever heard of a toe bail blowing out, usually alum crampons break their spikes, not completely fall apart) We set a picket and he started working on his crampons with a leatherman tool and jerry rigged them together, but he was going to be limited to flat footing those feet for the rest of the day.
Once at the top of the couloir we hiked easy terrain to the schrund that separates us from the Angel Glacier. Picked one of two decent looking snowbridges and quickly got across that slope above the schrund is really spooky...not all that steep, but just a perfect convex bubble, that gets steeper and steeper ending in a big ice cliff and a long rocky fall to the Scimitar glacier below. Glad that the snow conditions were firm and avy hazards weren't an issue.
Once down on the Angel we started skinning again. The skinning wasn't all the easy...stretches of drum-like windslab were hard to get a grip on and when you'd try to boot it, you'd often break through the crust and be wallowing calf or knee deep in powder. (I'll bring ski crampons if I go back...Todd brought them and Matt and I were envious)
Before we knew it it was about 2:00 in the afternoon, our energy levels were dropping, thick clouds were visible out to the west and we knew we'd have a long descent with Matt's damaged crampons, a tricky schrund crossing and a couloir we weren't sure we could ski, so with only about 400 vf to go to the NW summit we decided to take off the skins and start our descent.
The turns down the Angel glacier were actually good as long as we could link the pockets of powder and avoid the windslab.
We had been worried about crossing the schrund and the convex slope because it could be really soft but it was icy has hell when we got to it, unfortunately we only found this out after Todd had skinned across the schrund and was forced to inchworm his way along the slope relying on his whippet and edge grip of his skis to keep him from slipping off the face of the world. After a couple pickets had been put in and a little more trashing, Matt, Todd, and I were all back over the schrund skiing rough, bulletproof slopes down to the top of the couloir.
There was now enough of a wind and clouds that the top of the couloir was too firm for our liking. It could certainly have been skied, but we chose to play it safe, it had been a long day and we didn't want to do something stupid. With our two 50m ropes tied together Matt was lowered on belay in case his crampons blew off again (which they did actually). After two more lowering stations we were on mellow enough terrain to tie in and plunge step until we were past the Dais glacier schrund.
Finally at 6:30 we clicked in to our skis and cruised the 3500ft of not too bad breakable crust back to camp. It was a long day, we didn't top out (not that the NW summit is the true summit anyways), but we got to experience a beautiful route that threw a few good puzzles at us and we had some decent turns along the way.

Sat April 30

Just as my girlfriend Becky had told us on the sat phone the day before, today was going to be a day to sleep in and drink coffee. It snowed all day, though not all that cold and little if any wind. We sealed up the sides of the megamid cook tent with snow blocks and just took it easy, eager to get out on the freshies once the weather improved.

Sun May 1

No more snow showers, high overcasts, and about 4" of new...enough to cover the rain runnels and hardpack. We skied down the Dais glacier to the Dais-Franklin junction and then up Regal Dome, a 700m cruiser that extended up towards the NW ridge of Wadd. We spend the day skiing two laps on the Dome with no other parties in sight. Nice to see just our tracks on a mountain. Regal Dome would be a great spot to hit early in a trip up there cause of the views of all the rest of the surrounding terrain.

Mon May 2

Snowy, cloudy weather in the morning...figured it would be another day to spend in camp, but by early afternoon the sun was out and we had managed to dry all our gear.
With our remaining days to be spent down-glacier from where we were camped, we decided to break camp and slide it the 2 or 3 km down to the Dais-Franklin glacier junction where most folks locate their basecamps on Waddington ski trips. We camped alongside the trio from Whistler and group of energetic guys with purple, red and green dyed hair from Victoria.
The lower slopes of Regal Dome were right out our back door so yo-yoing some great corn was an easy way to fill the rest of the day.

Tues May 3

Mostly sunny weather so we were up early and started the five mile slog up the Finality glacier to Mt.Finality. Easy skinning all the way to the summit, took about five hours from our camp. We all agreed this was our favorite viewpoint of the trip...all the peaks we'd played on could be seen, and the rather remote Mt.Jubilee further west looked like a great (albeit remote) destination. I got a kick that we could once again see tidewater from a peak, this time the Knight Inlet was visible in the valley bottom out west. Finality also rests on the edge of the Waddington range and we could see deep green valleys just a couple miles away.
The snow was really nice corn the whole way down and the Finality glacier has just enough downhill tilt that we could pretty much cruise the five mile back to camp with only the occasional skate to keep the speed up.
While we'd been away we noticed that Mike had been busy making three flights that morning...we figured a huge group had landed. Much to our surprise, the three flights were for only seven guys (and a ton of gear)...their camp made us feel really ghetto. They had a massive cook tent, LED lighting, a separate tent for each of them, camp furniture, propane stove, and a sat phone, laptop, and a solar panel battery charger. And we had thought we were high-class cause we had booze and some canned fruit

Wed May 4

More good weather, more turns to be had. We skied to the head of the Fury Glacier and up to Fury Gap. Skinned below the steep couloirs of Chris Spencer ...maybe I'll try those next time when I'm a better skier:) and skinned the ridgeline that connects Brokenhead and Chris Spencer. Great views of the Scimitar glacier icefall and the Angel glacier route from there, plus the ridiculously steep northeast face of Mt.Bell.
Best turns of the trip were from Fury Gap back to camp…rocks on one side, icefall on the other, and in between was smooth, buttery corn that had no top speed limit....we all savored the big gs turns down the 35ish degree slope....good turns to end the trip on.

Thurs May 5

With food running low, our legs getting tired, and our polypro beginning to rot, we figured we'd pack up and head home rather than running the risk of getting stuck in a multi-day storm with only ramen and oatmeal left to eat. A quick sat phone call to Mike King and an hour later we were on our way out. Before we knew it we were back in the land of green...always a shock to be transported from winter to summer in a matter of minutes by way of helicopter.
We happily paid up $5 each for showers at Dave and Lori's and then were on the road...rolling in to Seattle at 1 am.

We all felt very fortunate with the weather, we never expected to fly in and out the days we wanted and only spent one day tent-bound. I'll definitely be back again.

Denali West Buttress expedition

2003-05-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

The cast of characters:

Drury Hall

Norm Fox

Ryland Moore

Asheley Kinsey

The schedule:
Thurs May 15th leave for Alaska
1 Fri. 16th -arrive on glacier
2 Sat. 17th -depart basecamp and single carry to 7800ft
3 Sun. 18th -carry equipment to 10,300ft
4 Mon. 19th -move to 11,200ft
5 Tues. 20th -retrieve cache from 10,300ft
6 Wed. 21st -carry gear to 13,500ft
7 Thurs. 22nd -rest day/storm
8 Fri. 23rd -move to 14,200ft
9 Sat. 24th -retrieve cache from 13,500ft
10 Sun 25th -rest day, build igloo
11 Mon 26th -carry load to base of fixed lines
12 Tues 27th -rest day/storm
13 Wed 28th -move to 17,200ft
14 Thurs. 29th -summit
15 Fri. 30th -return to 14,200ft
16 Sat 31st -late morning departure for basecamp, 3am arrival in basecamp
17 Sun 1st -fly out for Talkeetna

And the journal entries while on the mountain
Well, the trip is off to such a crazy start I haven’t had a chance to write any journal entries. All in all, things are going pretty well. Out flight was delayed out of Seattle by two hours, but we eventually were on our way. We met Ash in Anchorage, due to the delay, he’d already been waiting for about five hours. We met our Denali-Overland van driver and were on our way after a short, frantic trip to the grocery store for butter, cheese, and basecamp snacks. The drive through the early morning hours was surreal, most of us slept as best we could during the three hours.
We arrived bright and early in Talkeetna and registered with the Park Service at 9am, then were back at Doug Geetings at 10:30. Our pilot Jacque said the weather was good and we should get our glacier clothes on and start packing the plane. We had not planned on such a fast pace…sometimes teams get stuck in Talkeetna for days, even a week, waiting for good enough weather to fly to the mountain…and he we are just in town barely long enough to register and now we packing the plane in time to have lunch at basecamp.
The plane was loaded and Norm, Dru, and I squeezed into a tiny beat-up Cessna 185 with skis. Bags were in our laps, skis alongside our heads, and sleeping pads under our feet, but we fit and away we went. About 45 minutes later we were in the middle of the Alaska Range, and were greeted by basecamp manager Lisa at the landing strip, we registered with her and picked up our cans of fuel from her and of course gave her the obligatory gift of fresh fruit, a pineapple, as she is stuck on the glacier for the entire summer climbing season.
Basecamp wasn’t nearly as crowded at I expected, the latrines kept everything pretty clean. It was warm and clear at camp and we snagged a campsite recently vacated and there we were, surrounded by way, way too much gear and nothing left to do but climb. I guess I should mention that our bags were gigantic, we each had about 160lbs of equipment, much more than we expected to have. The quantity of equipment scared me, particularly when I saw how relatively little gear other parties had. But I decided a long time ago that I wanted to take up 25 days worth of food and fuel so that we could hang in there through any big storms and still summit.
So, Day 1…we got up really early, 4 am…but it still took hours to get our act together. I am shocked by the cold…its is extremely cold, has to be at least in the teens or single digits, I am not used to this, but we will over the next couple weeks.
We roped up, Norm, Ryland, and Ash roped up. Dru and I took off first, about a half hour before the rest of the guys finally got moving. It was slow going with our packs and sleds each weighing 70lbs each. At first it was just slow, but after two miles it was painful, the waistbelt digging into the harness underneath it. The scenery was unbelievable, skiing up the Kahiltna glacier amongst such gigantic mountains in perfect weather. After about five hours we had finally covered the 5.5 miles to the base of Ski Hill and arrived at our first camp.
Dru and I began putting camp together. It wasn’t that crowded, maybe six or seven parties, and a large AAI (Alpine Ascents International) guided team who had just finished a double carry from basecamp. The guided groups did not like to overload their clients by attempting to do a ‘single carry’ hauling all the gear all at once, like we did, and opt to spread the gear shuttling over two days. Norm, Ry, and Ash arrived about an hour later, multiple problems plagued their progress on the final mile or two. Ash had severe leg cramps, possibly from dehydration and Norm has a gas can that leaked a little fuel into his sled. Luckily Norm caught the leak before his gear was saturated with gas.
I made dinner that night, everyone got stuffed off a supper of burritos and we definitely enjoyed the potato soup with strips of bacon. The bacon was quite the find at Costco, precooked, vacuum sealed bacon, that could be added to any meal to boost the calorie count. The surroundings of our camp are unbelievable, staring up at the West Rib and Cassin Ridge, I guess it has finally settled in that I’m actually in Alaska, camped on the side of Denali. Granted, we still have many many more days to go, but so far I cannot believe our good luck with the weather. Today we all slept in and got a very slow start, which was alright considering our big day before. Today our plan was to carry to 9700ft but fortunately we had totally clear skies and we were able to climb to 10,300ft. Dru and I skied down roped up and Norm, Ry, and Ash skied down unroped. Skiing roped together was fine since the snow was calf deep powder and we had no weight in our sleds and packs!
Day 6-7 Well, I haven’t been that good about writing in my journal. The days have gone by quite quickly with very little slack time. Day 3 we moved up to 11.2k camp at the base of Motorcycle Hill. It was a grinder of a day skipping over our planned camp at 9.7, but the three rangers that have been traveling on our same schedule recommended that we move on to 11.2 because of better weather and it would help us with acclimatization. The camp site at 10,000ft is often mired in clouds and bad weather so we opted to climb high to get to the better weather at the 11,200ft camp. Again Dru and I arrive about an hour in front of the other rope team, Norm is not moving very fast. As we eat dinner that night we meet some of our neighbors, a group of guys who write into the local online climbing bulletin board , cascadeclimbers.com, are camped nearby...some of them have been on the mountain for weeks already as they accompanied Erden Eruc on a human powered climb of Denali, meaning no airplane on the approach. They keep busy by running along and diving into their sleds, racing them down the Main Street path that runs through camp. It is hilarious to watch.
Day 4 was an easy day, a quick ski back to 10.3 to retrieve our cache and move it up to camp. Norm, Ry, and Ash again chose to ski unroped while Dru and I tied in. It would’ve been fine skiing unroped but if a member of the team wanted the extra security, I wasn’t going to gripe. Ryland took off like a rocket downhill and caught a ski edge taking a nasty wipeout and tweaking his knee a little…it was a bold reminder that we needed to be careful…we were a long way from home and had invested too much to be careless when skiing.
We had planned to rest on day 5, but on the recommendation of the rangers we made a carry around Windy Corner to beat the arrival of a snowstorm that was predicted to arrive the following day. It was a long day and frustrating. We were not moving fast at all, and Norm was way overdressed and very dehydrated, which caused him to move slower than just about anyone on the hill. Before Windy Corner I took the 2 gallons of fuel from his sled and put it in my sled since I was feeling fine. Windy Corner is a slightly downward slanting ramp above an icefall that drops off the side of the mountain. Once we had traversed around the corner the temps were once again balmy and the wind stopped. As Dru and started sorting gear I dug the cache pit. Norm and company arrived about fifteen minutes later. Luckily we were quick with our caching and were on our way back down before the AAI group. Dru and I piggy-backed our sleds behind me so that Dru could keep tension on the sleds. As we descended the slopes below squirrel point the sleds drifted and bucked across the exposed blue ice. Motorcycle Hill wasn’t nearly as steep as it was seemed that morning and the well established bootpack made the trudge downhill much easier. Going up that morning, I was the first one out of camp and kicking steps up the headwall with a sled pulling backwards was tiresome work.
Today is our seventh day on the mountain, our sixth day away from basecamp. It’s a rest day, probably something that everyone needs, including me. Tomorrow if the weather is good enough we’re hoping to pack up and move to Genet Basin at 14.2. I think everyone in the group will be ditching skis at 11k. I think I am fit enough to carry them up to 14k, but I don’t want Norm to bring his skis, he is moving slow enough that I don’t want him carrying the extra weight of his skis and after Ryland’s crash while returning to our cache at 10.3 a couple days ago I am realizing that we all need to be more careful. We’re here to climb not to ski. Not taking skis up to 14 was a tough decision…especially with the friendly climbing rangers inviting us to join them to do some skiing in the couloirs around Genet Basin…maybe next time.
Day 10,Storm day, we should’ve climbed to 16.2 and dropped off our cache abut the weather wasn’t good enough. I think we’ve got our first Alaska-scale storm. Cold, snow, and high winds. The igloo is particularly nice on days like today when I barely notice the 50mph gusts outside. The strongest gusts produce a cloud of powder snow that drifts up my igloo entry tunnel. At night I stake down a trash bag over the entry that keeps the spindrift out…and I make sure to keep a shovel inside with me to dig myself out in the morning. We arrived at Genet Basin camp on the 23rd. It was an ugly night, good weather but we didn’t get the Megamid (our single-walled, open floor cook tent) put up cause it was so late and dinner was only half prepared when Norm, our chef for the evening meal, decided that he was too tired to do anything but sleep. So we did our best to make do. The dinner was awful…undercooked angel hair pasta with a glue-like covering of starch…we had no water to spare to wash the cooked pasta, A topping of minced anchovies and pesto sauce rounded out the rather disgusting meal. It was not our finest hour and morale was not very high. We couldn’t finish all the food and in the chaos we managed to get pasta residue into all the pots, we had been fairly diligent about not getting any food in our snow melt pots so that our water didn’t taste like dinner….scrubbing the frozen remnants out of the pots was not fun the next morning.
Most of us slept well that night, the next day we took it easy and slept in until it was warmer, then hiked back down to 13.5 and carried the rest of our gear up to camp. The weather was fantastic, hot, sunny, and gorgeous. We’ve been camping next to Team SICK, from Tucson, Michael, Denelle, and Matt. We’ve had a lot of fun camping next to them as we’ve worked our way up the mountain. Now that we’re at 14.2 we’re eating dinner by late afternoon and are making sure that all the water bottles are filled and the dishes are cleaned before the sun dips below the West Buttress and the temperature plummets. We’ve also become a little more organized with chores making sure that we rotate the duty of getting up first to start the stoves and melt water for breakfast.
Yesterday was our rest day. I wrote a letter to Becky, and we made a chocolate cheesecake topped with animal cookies for Bill’s birthday, one half of the two man powerhouse team Biff and Bill. Biff and Bill are a hilarious duo, Biff from Virginia so he gets along quite well with our southern boys, Ash, Ry, and Norm.
Team SICK joined our group in building the igloo today so that the other boys got some extra breathing room in the tents. I also had an ulterior motive for constructing the igloo that I keep to myself. I figured that with our two tents and five team members we had to come up with an alternate shelter if Norm is left behind at this camp when the time comes to go higher.
Today we were supposed to go to 16.3 to deposit our food and fuel cache but due to stormy conditions we only took gear as high as the base of the fixed lines. The bad weather up high is really bad…in the days before this storm the Llama high altitude helicopter has been making daily visits to camp picking up frostbitten climbers. A ranger even descended from 17,000ft the other day with a black nose.
Departing camp to run up a cache of gear, Dru lead, I was in the middle, and Norm was in the back. Unfortunately Norm hit the wall, after less than a 500 vertical foot gain from camp he said he was dry heaving and had to turn around. We scrambled to come up with a solution to our problem. I asked Dru to climb ahead and meet up with Team SICK, which was down to just Matt and Denelle, Michael was losing his vision and was already packed up and being escorted down with a large guided team who agreed to help him get back to basecamp. I took Norm back to camp and he rested. On our way down we passed by Ry and Ash on their way up, they took my food for me and carried it up to the cache as I went back down with Norm. Norm admitted at first to his inability to keep up with the pace of the team, but then within hours he was already trying to convince himself and myself that he could continue. I hope that he comes to the conclusion on his own that he cannot climb any higher. His inability to move as fast as the rest of us is too much of a risk and if he is already exhibiting serious symptoms, I do not want to deal with any team member on the upper mountain with severe problems. It would turn our summit bid into a rescue and its an unnecessary risk to the expedition, and everyone else’s shot at the summit. I hope that when the weather clears, Dru, Ry, Ash, and I with Denelle and Matt can all go for the summit and Norm will not be too busted up about being left behind.
May 27th,Storm day, too snowy, too windy to do anything. So we all just sat around, napped, read, heard the evening weather forecast and it predicted there will be high winds tonight and camp, up to 60mph. We collapse the cook tent and pile snow blocks on top and tension the guylines on the tents anticipating a very nasty night. It is a quiet night inside my igloo but I am kept awake for a long time because my feet and numb and I don’t want to go to sleep until I can get the feeling back in my toes. Eventually the chemical packets I put in my socks kick in and my toes start to warm up.
May 28th,The forecasted storm does not materialize and the skies are perfectly clear today, quickly my thoughts change from running a cache of gear up to Washburns Thumb at 16,700ft to taking a crack at the summit instead. It takes a long time to organize gear and tent groups. Denelle and Matt agree to also go and we take their tent and Ash’s tent leaving my tent behind for Norm. It is almost 1pm before we are on our way, packs overloaded with gear since we have not had time to make all the deposits yet to a high cache as was planned.
Up to the base of the headwall. We wait for nearly an hour in the queue for our turn on the fixed lines. It seems as if everyone in 14 camp decided this morning to make a mad dash for the summit during our brief weather window. A thousand feet of jugging up the fixed lines is a sweaty chore that puts us at the top of the headwall at 16,200ft. The ridge is narrow in spots and very exposed, definitely the most frightening part of the climb for me. With a day pack and a lower altitude it would’ve been fine, but with a 60lb pack, a gallon of fuel swinging around outside my pack and the clean mountain clean (our portable shitter) hitting my head, traveling the 1000vf on the ridge was an attention getter.
We didn’t hit camp until nearly 11pm, still light out but brutally cold. I quickly threw on my insulated pants, primaloft jacket and down jacket and synched the hood around my head. My feet were warm but I could feel that my socks were wet with sweat. Many teams didn’t even set up snow walls, the task of cutting blocks was too tough and so they take a chance that the weather would stay calm through the night. We cut enough blocks to encircle three sides of our camp just a couple feet high, it was better than nothing. I felt light-headed just bending over to cut blocks and rather than carry them we dragged them from our block quarry to camp on our sleeping pads. Once in the tents, I started getting dinner cooked. Ry, Ash, and I downed a few dehydrated meals, mine was a thai dish that was so spicy I was sweating despite the temperature hovering around -20. After dinner Ry and Ash passed out but I stayed up till 2am running the stove getting enough water for us tomorrow. Our wake up time of 5am came all too soon and the sputtering stove was back on. Despite overhauling the stoves at 14 camp and installing new fuel jets, the thin atmosphere make the stoves very hard to run. Again, it was tiresome and cold work preparing to leave camp and we didn’t have full water bottles until 10am. Over night, Dru had developed a nasty gastro-intestinal problem. His body disagreed with his freeze-dried dinner and he was now forced to stay behind and deal with bad stomach cramps.
We were finally moving and were climbing well across the traverse towards Denali pass, we felt much better now that our packs contained so very little. We got caught behind a team of Korean climbers that were moving much slower than the rest of us, but eventually at the pass we were able to move around them. The wind picked up around the pass and we all put on our down jackets. It was sunny, but incredibly cold, all of us wore ski goggles and windproof facemasks, any exposed skin would’ve been frostbitten. Around 19,000ft Ryland’s pace began to slow considerably. He said he was just tired and we continued on. Finally arriving at the Football Field we ditched our packs and put on our primaloft pants. With a water bottle each and a couple cameras shoved into our parkas we continued on up the final 1000vf. Ascending the short face up to the summit ridge we ran into fellow Seattleites Eddie and Corey, and Erden, the hardman who biked to Denali from Seattle as a tribute to his recently deceased friend Yoran Kropp the man up biked to Everest from his home in Europe, climbed it then biked home.
We hit the summit ridge and slowly made our way up the last ¼ mile to the summit. By this time the sunny weather has begun to deteriorate, hazy skies…from what we hear is a forest fire in Siberia..or at least that was the rumor….We can just barely see Foraker in the distance by the time we reach the summit. Frustration from our slow pace turns to elation upon reaching the summit. I break into tears….its too much, standing on the top of North American, looking down at the elevation marker, being there with Ry and Ash, who I started on this journey with years ago and here we are.
We quickly snap a few photos with team SICK and then we head down….its 6:45 pm and we have a long way to go. Shortly after getting off the summit ridge Ry says that he’s not just bonking…he thinks something is going very wrong, edema perhaps, and he is losing coordination. We load him up on steroids, 125 mg of Diamox and one tab of Niphedipine, and give him water, I take his backpack and strap it to my own and we continue descending. Ryland is stumbling along out in front but we are making good time. By this time the sun is providing little warmth and a stiff wind is cutting across the glacier. My face feels sore and hot, hard to tell if its sunburn or windburn. We reach the top of Denali pass, Ry still feels weak. Ry stumbles once but Ash and I are quick to arrest and Ryland stays put. We stumble into camp, I am spent, physically exhausted, cold, wasted, but I just climbed Denali. Dru greets us at camp, he has recovered from his illness and has spent the day fortifying the snow walls and already has our stove running with a pot of water warming.
Again, I am up till late tending a fussy stove melting snow and I fall asleep well past midnight. I have developed an ugly cough and weeze, I am spooked that it could be the start of HAPE, so I take some Nephedipine and Diamox….I am so dehydrated that the diuretic side-effects of Diamox never appear overnight, I don’t pee once.
The next morning we are up early but take our time getting out of camp. A woman from a tent next to us walks by our campsite to find some bathroom privacy behind the emergency equipment locker, just past our camp she falls to the ground and is unconscious…she has passed out. We scramble over to her and she awakens after a few tense moments. Her teammates for some reason are not in a rush to come to her aid, but eventually walk over and assist her back to camp…it is frightening how this altitude can affect all of us.
We leave camp at 1pm, the weather is still gorgeous but there is an increasing wind up high, we can see plumes of spindrift coming off the ridges above Denali pass, the best weather was yesterday, we are lucky we went for it when we did. Before we leave camp we already see many summit parties retreating because of the wind blasting off the summit.
The descent is just as sketchy as the climb, Dru is leading and is moving well, too fast for me, my legs still feel weak and I’m still drained from the day before. Down the fixed lines and Dru and I unclip from them and start plunge stepping towards 14k camp. Then it happens, a solo German climber above Ash and Ryland slips and slides down the 45 degree ice slope and collides with Ash. Ash is knocked off his feet and the careens down the line towards Ryland who is hit. Ash is able to regain his footing but is in total shock, Ry is on his back, face first down the hill. They are both screaming and Dru and I are too far away to offer immediate help. Ry coaches Ash through the self rescue setup that he needs to make using his ascenders. Dru climbs back to the base of the lines to tie them off, so Ry cannot slide off the end of the line, as I pound in a picket and set up and anchor for Dru and I in case Ry and Ash slide further. Eventually Ry is back on his feet and everyone continues the descent. Amazingly they say they are both fine. We were so lucky. Dru and I roll into camp and I immediately pull out my summit treat, a can of Pringles that I’ve carried all the way up to 14k. Ash and Ry are lagging behind and when they arrive in camp we get the bad news, Ash is worse off than originally thought. Hans’ (the solo German) crampons hit Ash’s thigh and gave him some nasty puncture wounds and his left knee has been torqued and is swelling. Ash is tended to by the rangers and is in good hands. I head for my tent and take a nap, its hot inside, the heat is a wonderful luxury. Norm wakes me at 6pm with a bowl of potato leek soup which I quickly scarf down. I spend the next hour before dinner just lying in the tent staring up at the ceiling, reflecting on the past two weeks and what I’ve been through. I’m not in the igloo tonight, Ry, Ash, and Dru are in Ash’s tent and I’m in my tent with Norm. We’ve passed along the igloo to a team of Euros who arrived that afternoon.
Tomorrow we are hoping to descend all the way to basecamp. It will be a long haul but it will be good to be back at the KIA (Kahiltna International Airport) and that much closer to home.
We all slept in on the morning of the 31st, not entirely sure if we’d leave for basecamp or wait to see if the weather was good enough for Ash to fly out in the Llama helicopter. After discussing out dilemma with the rangers we decided to head down the mountain with Ash not carrying any of his gear. It made our loads awful even though we had managed to give away all our surplus food and fuel. Earlier that morning I loaded our extra food (50 man-days worth) and circled camp….the ice cream man…Much to my surprise just about all the food was taken. By 2pm we had broken camp and were on our way down. The crowds ascending the mountain were amazing, it seemed like there were 100 climbers heading for 14 camp that day. The descent was long and tiring, it was frustrating to peer 6000vf down from Windy Corner and see the tiny dots of 7800ft camp below. The only incident between the corner and Motorcycle Hill was a crevasse that I fell waist-deep into…with the bulk of my backpack I stopped at my waist and I rolled out of it, cursing and complaining but fine. Luckily Squirrel Hill had fresh snow on it covering the blue ice so our overloaded descent was almost tolerable.
At 11,000ft camp we dug up our cache, retrieved our skis, and managed to unload our extra group dinner that we had left there. We clicked into the skis and headed for 7800ft camp…and all hell broke loose. The perfect powder that we had had two weeks earlier was now replaced by heavily wind deformed sastrugai and breakable crust, and this was the first time our packs and sleds were fully loaded and pointing downhill. Ry and Norm skied unroped, Dru and I roped up, and Ash tied in with Danelle and Matt opting not to take the chance of skiing and screwing up his knee further. The going at first was slow but not impossible….we skied in deep snowplows until our quads were screaming and we had stop and rest. We actually passed Norm who repeatedly took diggers. Then as we neared the top of Ski Hill at around 9500ft the snow got worse and with Dru and I falling every 100ft or so our progress was painfully slow. I finally suggested we get off the skis, Dru had been thinking the same thing. But that was just the start of our problems. Once our skis were off our feet and on our sleds, less than 100 yards down the glacier my skis caught on the snow and overturned my sled, which caused my sled poles that ran to my backpack to snap. I was snow stuck with rigging my sled with perlon cord, not good, and for the next hour my sled rolled repeatedly was dragged upside down, was kicked along, was pushed down the hill…anything to keep moving until we caught up with everyone at Ski Hill camp. We all ate a little food and got back on the skis now that we had a relatively flat 5.5 miles to travel back to basecamp. I tried to keep my focus on that we were just a few hours from basecamp…but it was still hell. Our summit three day weather window had finally shut down, as we expected when we had seen massive lenticular clouds on Hunter and Foraker that morning. It was around 11pm, the sun had set and the blue-grey twilight of an Alaskan summer has arrived and clouds were socking in the glacier. For the next hours we crept along though an increasing wind, snow, and near total whiteout conditions barely able to follow the occasional ski track of the teams ahead of us. Both Dru and I were nearly out of water and both had sweat soaked feet that were blistering. I knew that my first-aid kit was so deeply buried in my pack that I didn’t want to stop to tend to my feet and we just pressed on through the dimly lit whiteout. It was 2am when we finally pulled into basecamp in some of the worst weather we had experienced in the past 18 days. Norm was falling apart, dehydrated and utterly exhausted, he had fallen to the ground lying on his backpack at the base of Heartbreak Hill, the final 500 vertical foot climb from the Kahiltna glacier back up the southeast fork to basecamp. We staggered through camp looking for abandoned campsites, Finally we set up Ash’s tent and Norm fell in, Ash and Ry were quick to follow. Dru and I put up my tent and quickly fired up the stove. I was mesmerized by the speed and efficiency at which the stove roared to life as compared to how it functioned at 17,000ft. After we had had a little to drink we filled a liter of water and I took it over to Ash’s tent. They fell asleep without having any dinner, Dru and I stayed up and ate, I wanted to have some tea and hot food before going to sleep. Freeze dried sweet and sour chicken never tasted so good. Before going to sleep I put down almost two liters of tea. I went to sleep not expecting the weather to improve in the morning, but sure enough in the morning the clouds were lifting and soon Lisa was welling for teams to assemble for their flights out. After the painful chore of putting my bloodied and blistered feet back into my plastic boots I dug up the cache of food we left behind, eagerly looking forward to my breakfast of raspberry and coconut frosted twinkies and Glenlivet scotch. Ry put on his hillbilly wig, fake teeth, Harley t-shirt and acidwashed jeans and ran around basecamp offering folks sips from his bottle of whiskey. I just relaxed in the warm morning sun and mixed my Glenlivet with fresh snow in my granddad’s Sierra cup that he had loaned me as a good luck charm and I reflected on what we had gone through. It was a strange feeling of complete satisfaction that I don’t think I had ever felt before. Years of dreaming and planning and so many hours getting ready for this trip, and now it was over. Camp was quickly broken down and after a few hours we were on our flights out with Jacque in his beaten down orange Cessna. The flight out was just as breathtaking as the flight in and stepping off the plane I tore off my plastic boots and walked around on my blistered bare feet on the warm pavement.
In Doug Geeting’s bathroom and I took off my goretex and fleece bibs and was amazed at how thin I was, I had lost between ten and fifteen pounds and there wasn’t a scrap of fat around my mid-section, I hadn’t noticed on the mountain that I had been losing that much weight, but sure enough.
Dru was still waiting on the glacier for his flight out, Ash and Ry had flown in before us and were already at Bill’s house. Bill, of the Biff and Bill team, was a Talkeetna local who’d offered to put us up for the days we were in town before we flew home. Norm and I walked down to one of the many burger joints and loaded up. A coke, fries, and a large cheeseburger with bacon and avocado…it was perfect. We walked back to the airport shortly before Dru arrived with the rest of the gear and we loaded up Bill’s pickup, taking back a few pizzas and a lot of beer to his house. Showers, drinking, and eating at Bill’s house in the hills outside of Talkeetna kept us busy for the rest of the afternoon, then we headed into town for dinner, Elk steaks , more fries, and West Rib ‘Strong Ale’ a potent concoction from the local brew pub which was the malt liquor of choice. Then with a good buzz beginning we headed to the Fairview Inn, a great bar in the center of town in one of the oldest buildings, and the hub for post-climb celebrations. The festivities with our skinny, sunburned friends continued late in the night and it wasn’t until 7am the next morning that our crew was finally asleep back at Bill’s house.
Late the next morning we got up barely in time to catch breakfast in town….we then went back to Bill’s and spent the day cleaning house and filling many trash bags with empty bottles. Then we started to figure out what everyone was going to do…Dru was going to tag along with Danelle and Matt and go check out some sea kayaking outside of Anchorage, Ash and Ry were going to catch the train and head up to the visitors center at Denali National Park for a couple days, Norm and I wanted to go home…I had done what I came to do and I missed my home, and Becky. The next morning Norm and I hopped on the shuttle bus and headed for Anchorage. We switched our flight to an earlier departure and we quickly on our way home. One the flight home we were treated to a cloudless view of the tidewater glaciers of the Wrangell St.Elias Range, the Fairweather Range, the Coast Range, more mountains than I had ever seen in my life….so many other snowy peaks to explore.