Raging in a Day

    So two weeks ago I had the grand idea to ride all the important trails at Raging River. In a day of course because why not, I probably had the fitness. Previous to this, my longest ride had been just barely over 5000’ but 7000’ shouldn’t be that bad. I was just adding No Service, Physical Therapy, upper ET, and lower Ferdinand the Bull. So maybe more like an extra 2.5k but why not. 

I left seattle at 07:15 and was at exit 27 by 07:45. I pulled in next to a lady I knew from outdoors for all, exchanged plans, and after some valve core troubles, was off by 08:30. I made good progress up the road feeling good. After stashing a bottle at the road turnoff by poppin’ tops, I grinded it out to the top of No Service and arrived at 10:15. I was feeling great and enthused for the long day ahead of me.

There had been recent rain so No Service was super fun. It was a little slick in spots and at one point, I crashed on my side but it was painless. From here I vowed to take it easy on the trails. It would suck if I had to bail the ride if I crashed badly on the second to last run. I started the climb up Return Policy and was still feeling awesome. After a short break in the middle, I hit the top at 11:30. 

CC downhill ran great. 2000’ of descent will always be brutal yet fun. Like No Service, it was slick but manageable, and I always got a shower when I brushed against branches. The climb up raging tiger was much longer than I remembered but I got to the road at 12:30 and took a break while replacing my water bottle with a full one. 30 minutes of steep suffering up the fire road section of RR2, I was at the top of Reverance at 13:00. 

Reverence was easier than the last time I’d rode it. By now, my legs were feeling it but I was still able to keep a reasonable speed. The flow section in the middle felt amazing and while I still made a few mistakes, I survived it unscathed. This was the climb where I finally felt it badly. I stopped 3 times on the way up to the fire-road and it was 14:45 when I made it to the top of PT. Here I took a break and saw the lady from ODFA. She was coming back from No Service and I envied how she just had to do poppin tops and she’d be back at the Car.

PT was super easy and at 15:15 I was again at the bottom. Now all I had left was ET. The techy climb up Pacific Climbing Trail was brutal with my shot legs but by 15:45, I was at the top. With legs of jello, I couldn’t pedal much on the descent, but made it down the flow section, where I traversed over to lower Ferdinand and had a great time on the easy Tech. From the bottom of Ferdinand, I climbed back out and was power-napping on the bench above poppin tops at 16:15. 

Realizing I still had to do ED.

Poppin tops is a great trail but not this time. Upper was admittedly fun but from there, I just wanted to be done. Luckily, it’s all downhill from there and after some sitting on the saddle for lower Poppin tops, I pulled into the lot at 16:30, just as the post-work riders were arriving. It was a mega-fulfilling day and a reminder that big MTB days are possible.

Over the past year I’ve become obsessed with type-2 adventures. Climbing media portrays alpine sufferfests as the cutting edge. Fourteen, sixteen, eighteen hour days have gifted me with a strong sense of accomplishment and reflection. These adventures will always have their place, to push your mind. To force your legs to take another step when they shattered beneath you two miles ago. They are the most reflective, accomplishing days you can get.

As I gave the immovable pedals another crank today, hopeless that I’d be able to pedal up and over to the car, I questioned the reward of this pointless suffering. I love biking but I don’t need to ride to failure. Whether I hit a quick lap of predator or all of raging, I come home satisfied. So will I stop pursuing type-2 fun? I don’t think so but maybe I’ll at least let myself have a chill day more often. Long days provide invaluable reflection but sometimes, all you need is a few jumps on a bike or powder slashes to make you remember what's so great about life.

Nooksack Tower - Beckey-Schmidtke

 

Alpinism has always been what I dreamed of pursuing. The alpine rock of this summer has got me close, but Nooksack tower confirmed my alpine ambitions. It's got a cascadian approach, some glacier slogging, steep snow climbing around bergschrunds, and finally alpine rock on top. And of course like any alpinism objective, there was endless suffering. I first saw Nooksack tower in my Nelson-potterfield book and was quickly fascinated by its striking character. With exposure on all sides, it begs for climbers. With a little beta from CascadeClimbers, Cole picked me up at the yarrow point station and we were off. We picked up some rappel rings, webbing, and a rope at the AAI shop in Bham before driving towards nooksack cirque TH.

My first true taste of alpinism

After sleeping in, we left the trailhead around 09:00. We took the wrong route along the creek but were quickly onto the old railbed, where the endless trail continued until we got to Nooksack river. The tree crossing from the year before was gone, so we bushwacked along the river to the normal ford. Cole went first, bringing the rope so we could set up a tyrolean for the packs. Giving the packs a dip, I completed the nut-freezing ford and put the heavy and now-wet rope back on my pack. So much for dry-treatments.

A shitty tyrolean + my pantless legs

Once across the river, we schwacked for hours, eating blueberries on the way. Eventually we reached the moraine, but quickly headed up some vertical schwacking to gain the ridge. From there, we traversed until we reached the rock slabs around 04:00 but with thunder nearby, we decided to set up a bivy and not go any higher. It would mean an extra 500 feet the next morning but we didn’t wanna risk it with the storms. It was a stunning, flat bivy with views of shuksan and the surrounding mountains. I was worried about the precipitation on my down bag but we were lucky and it missed us, with mosquitos attacking us instead.

Good old schwackin

A beautiful bivy

We got going at 04:00 on saturday morning, prepared for a long day ahead of us. We quickly reached the 5900’ notch and descended onto the glacier with one rappel. From there we slogged after end-running a crevasse and after climbing over a snow-filled gaper, we were at the base of the steep snow by 06:00. Simul climbing with 4 pickets, we reached the top of the snow gully by 08:00 with the snow reaching 65 degrees near the top. 

Cole Climbing up the final pitch of snow

After stashing the snow gear, I led the first pitch, over the chockstones in the right chimney, then a quick rightward traverse and up the easy slabs. From there, we took in coils to simul. There was very sparse protection and lots of loose rock. We gained the false ridge and worked our way up the gully, trying not to throw rockfall onto eachother. At one point, I kicked off a piece that hit coles backpack after he covered from my “rock” call. We worked our way left once possible, crossing a few ribs before reaching the summit around noon. It is certainly solo-able but the sheer amount of loose rock was unnerving. There were many death blocks precariously balanced, ready to fall from any force.

Runout exposed choss

Cole leading a pitch

At the summit, we relaxed a bit before starting our rappels at 13:00. We backed up the rats nests and worked our way down with many double rope rappels, commonly getting the rope stuck during the pulls. On the final rappel down to snow, the rope got so stuck that the 3:1 wasnt getting us anywhere. Cole started jugging up the rope but 3 feet off the ground, it went loose. In hindsight, we should’ve done a 9:1 before considering jugging. Once we retrieved the ropes, we discovered Cole’s rope was coreshot from the pull. We still trusted it for rappelling but with the exposed core, it would have to be cut down after. By now, it was past 16:00 and we still had a lot of snow to get down. We cut some snow bollards into the moat and worked our way down the gully. Even after loosening the rope after the first rappel, we still had to use a microtrax to haul and retrieve the ropes after each rappel. By 18:00, we were down-climbing around the crevasses and after a quick slog and some exposed low 5th class scrambling onto the ridge, we got to camp at 20:30, 16.5 hours after leaving camp and 7.5 hours after starting the descent. We quickly scarfed down some food and got to bed.

On the summit with Shuksan in the background

Summit register

Bomber 2 nut anchors

Almost done with a long-ass day

The next day we woke up at 08:00 and were going by 08:30. Other than getting stung by a bee, the reproach was largely uneventful. The tyrolean went quicker, we were too lazy to take anything off for the river crossings, and we were back at the car by 12:30. All in all, it was an amazing trip into the alpine, and while we definitely complained about it a lot, it was my raddest alpine adventure and already has me excited to keep climbing.

Mount Stuart - Complete North Ridge

 The Complete North ridge of Mount Stuart is likely the most famous alpine rock line of washington state. The bold route, named in the 50 classic climbs of North America, stands out on the North side of Mount Stuart, splitting the Ice Cliff and Stuart glaciers with more than 3000’ of granite, which some scientists believe came from Mexico. If only it had come a little closer to one of the main highways.

The complete north ridge in the skyline from the north ridge of sherpa

The complete north ridge is the obvious ridge in the center. Taken from the summit of Colchuck Peak.

While Emily proposed the idea to me a few weeks ago, it was an objective I wanted to do since I learned of it. Since this was my first season of Alpine Rock, we did a few other objectives first, making sure we were ready. The week before, we had done the North Ridge of Sherpa peak, a climb that I’d say had a lower technical difficulty, but due to the lack of beta, was much more adventurous. Emily had Monday through Wednesday off and I was on summer break so we figured we’d hit Stuart over two days, and then climb ingalls on wednesday. 

The Car logistics of stuart are super tricky, if coming in from the north it’s easier to get to the climbing, but you then either need to rappel down the ice cliff glacier(bringing snow/ice gear) or go through sherpa Col, which entails a lot of extra walking. You could also go from the south, but that requires a tricky traverse around the west ridge and a long approach. We opted for the rarely done option 3, car shuttling. While definitely time and gas consuming, it made the whole climb much more straightforward. We started at Stuart Lake TH and finished at the Esmeralda TH.

Red: hiking                  Blue: Climbing

On Sunday evening I drove up to meet Emily at the Esmeralda TH. I put my expired forest pass on the car, and we drove off towards Leavenworth. We arrived at Stuart Lake TH around 8 to sort out gear and get some good sleep. I cowboy camped in the parking lot with a creepy deer while Emily enjoyed the luxuries of her car sleep-setup. At 04:00, our alarms rang and at 04:30 we were off. Since we had done the mountaineers creek approach the week earlier, we knew we could always traverse the talus field, but from other trip reports, we wanted to see if we could find the trail along the creek. It can be found by turning downhill and following the cairns once you reach the entrance to the boulder fields. Once you're along the creek follow the trail and if you ever lose it, just keep walking and you'll find it eventually. It always sticks between the talus and the creek so you won’t ever be far from it.

We eventually started our trek up towards the Stuart basin. We grabbed water in the trees to the left about 100 yards before they ceded to the boulders. From here, the north ridge was obvious and we began our slog up to the moraine. Once on the moraine, it was a quick walk to the toe, where a pitch of class 4 climbing awaited before the last obvious belay ledge. We arrived at the little ledge and gladly unloaded our packs around 09:00, about 4.5 hours after leaving Stuart Lake. Emily took the first pitch, getting the packs stuck while trying to haul them past the squeeze chimney. We also broke a trigger string on a Metolius ULMC #3. Nice training wait I guess. It was nice we had doubles. The second pitch can easily be linked with the first if you have a 60m rope but I guess I should’ve looked at more beta before, since I wasted a few minutes wondering if I was done after the 20m of climbing. It might be hard to haul packs  if linking these up though, since it’s a little wandery and there were numerous places for packs to get stuck.

The third pitch is the crux by far. It was Emily’s lead, but she ended up aiding a good bit of it. If this is near your limit, I highly recommend at hauling the leaders pack, I was able to follow on TR with my pack on, but as a novice trad climber, the 5.9+ was definitely pumpy. From there, we switched to simuling and tried to make good progress. We had to pitch out a few little crux sections, still moved fast. Having a micro-trax for each person on this route is super helpful. They’re great for hauling packs, belaying people up rope-draggy sections, and fall-proofing simul cruxes. This first simul block was fun, with lots of optional route options to spice it up. You often aren’t within earsite so radios are highly recommended.

Emily following up a simul block

After 7ish hours of simuling, we reached the slab with the crack pitch. It’s kind of cool I guess but it’s honestly a bit overrated in my opinion. After leading it, we found two bivy ledges 60m below the great gendarme. It felt great to take the packs off and get some food in my stomach. Since my ledge was slanted outward, I tied in and tried to go to bed. It was hard to close my eyes though, since everytime I opened them I’d be looking at the great gendarme and my 5.9 lieback to start the next day. Eventually I got to bed, waking up every hour to readjust and stop myself from rolling off. 

A view of the great Gendarme from my bivy

I was awakened the next morning by mosquitoes attacking me. While all I wanted to do was cuddle up in my bag against the cold morning air, I had to swat a skeeters trying to eat me alive. When Emily woke up and said we should get going, I didn’t disagree. She led the slab up the base of the great gendarme, with me having to go on simul for the last 20 meters. At the base, I racked up and tethered my pack, intimidated by the 5.9 lieback. It went much easier than expected though. There were rest sections every couple moves and I never got pumped tryna place gear. At the top, I brought the packs and Emily up, and she started up the offwidth. After french freeing it(thanks to our #4, worth the weight), she brought me up to a good belay alcove. 

Emily Following the Lieback

me at an airy belay ledge

To go from there, we had to descend a little bit to traverse over to the notch. I had too much rope-drag and had to stop at the Bivy ledges before the notch. We climbed over a gendarme, having to rappel it to finally get to the last crux, a great 5.8 finger crack. For other parties, take the downward ramp at the Bivy ledges, even if it seems like it goes too far down, it’ll avoid an unnecessary rappel. Emily again french freed it and I led one long simul block to the summit. We topped out 50 feet from the summit, put away the rope, and at 11:00, completed our climb of the north ridge of Mount Stuart. After a few summit photos, we started our descent of the Cascadian. It’s not hard to get over to it, just follow the cairns and don’t go down the obvious couloir you see from the summit. It’s hard to imagine, but that somehow gets worse than the Cascadian.

On the summit

While annoying, the Cascadian descent was pretty straightforward. It was nice to have a trekking pole for the scree skiing but other than that, it’s just a lot of sand in your shoes and cursing at yourself for choosing this sport. Jimmy Chin said in Meru that “the best alpinists are the ones with the worst memories”. While I’m still waiting to do Nooksack tower this weekend to call myself an alpinist, I totally agree with this sentiment. I keep thinking to myself as I write this how the Cascadian wasn’t that bad. Similar to how I already wanna try glacier peak c2c, even after the 18 hour push from camp-summit-car. A bad memory isn’t terrible. As long as it doesn't kill me, It keeps me pushing myself.

    Once at Ingalls creek, we decided we didn’t feel like climbing Ingalls peak. While we had the energy and it was totally do-able, it felt anticlimactic. We’d just completed the biggest alpine rock route in the state, and now we were gonna climb this red piece of rock? It was like trying to bag little T after Rainier. We also joked about just hiking out the Ingalls creek trail to US 97 like on sherpa. Luckily we actually had a car this time. My car was a great sight. We reversed the car shuttle to come across Emily's ticketed car( a FS employee who doesn’t have a NW forest pass) and I was back in Seattle around 10:00. By the time all my gear was inside, I was already thinking about when I’d climb it again.