Snowfield peak - 6/27

 Soloed snowfield. Expected to bivy but then decided I didn't wanna schwack through dew in the am so ended up carrying overnight gear all day. Could write more but tired. Weather was shitty but I forced myself upwards.

Mount index North Peak - 6/29-6/30

 Kinda tired but figure I should write some stuff down while it’s fresh in my mind. I’ll split this into two parts, the story and the beta. 

The Story is pretty simple, me and a partner decided to go for the Index traverse on Sunday and Monday. We had extra time on Friday so we hiked into lake serene to make for an easier morning. Without light on Friday night, we made the mistake of trying to bivy at the flatter spot in the topo on the north of lake serene. This is very schwacky. Don’t do it. It wasted a lot of time. Anyways, Sunday am we worked our way up the talus and then up to the ridge. It was still a little wet and loose so we decided to rope up. Halfway up, my partner bonked and our pace slowed considerably. We made it to the summit late and decided that in his condition it wouldn’t be safe to commit ourselves to the rest of the traverse. A nice summit bivy ensued and then 16 rappels + downclimbing the next day. We chilled in by the lake and hiked out at a reasonable time. My partner has a brain and realized this blue collar suffer climbing aint for him, but if anybody wants to get on something suffery with me, let me know. I got a lot of time this summer and like to put my head down and work. Anyways on for the beta

Beta: Approach via Lake Serene. Take the trail around the lake to the talus field. Follow the talus field up, eventually getting near the cliffs on the left but not on them. Eventually you will be forced into the bush to the right of the cliffs where there is a faint climbers trail. At times it can be decent but often, its only marked by the fact that you can see the ground every once in a while. Bushwack 4th class up onto the NE Ridge, pulling on lots of branches. Eventually you’ll get out of the schwack and onto the ridge. Take the easiest looking route up, roping up if you feel necessary. Climb this until you reach a slab with two pitons under a roof. Once here take the leftward brush filled ramp for about 50ish meters until you reach a short E facing exposed rock rib. This is a great pitch with exposure above lake serene. It will quickly ease up into a nicer gully below an open book feature. Climb to the treed ledge on the left side below this open book where you’ll find the crux pitch of the route. Start up on left side of the open book before traversing right on smaller holds to get to the easier gully above the open book. Here you’ll find a block with a lots of slings for a nice belay. At the block, climb hard right out of the gully and then climb straight up the steep trees and brush until it gets too steep. Here you should see a small hidden ledge going around right. Take the narrow, exposed ledge around the right skyline where you’ll finally see the North Bowl. Traverse, pulling steep brush, to get into the open bowl. Once in the bowl, the route goes up the steeper long gully on the left. Work your way up this thing, staying on the right side of it for most of the time. Eventually, before the gully turns right, you’ll find yourself on a nice ledge to the right of the gully with a slung tree and a piton + nut anchor above it. Climb up here and then to the left back into the gully. From here(when the gully turns right) it is 60 meters of steep bushwacking up to the toe of the North Rib. The North Rib is the highlight of the route. Stay right on top or barely(a few feet) to the right the entire time. This can be led in 2-3 pitches or one easy simul. It is exposed, but the holds are great unlike the rest of the route, and the location is amazing. Once at the top of the ridge, quickly climb up the small slabs onto the summit ridgeline. Scramble this, along, or slightly to the right for most of it until you reach the summit.

slab with pins below roof. Ramp off to the left

great exposure on E facing rib
topping out of open book

looking down rightwards turn at end of gully filled with steep branches. Taken from toe of N. Rib

ig I'll have to come back for these guys

summit bivy

summit ridge scrambling(taken on way back)

Adams - 6/23/2025

Skied Adams. Again. Twas Sloggy. Walking and more walking. Glad to be noticeably fitter than the first time I did it. had some nice napping and mediocre skiing. Took the high traverse since we had dropped our shoes so there was a good amount of walking in ski boots but to be honest it wasn't even horrible. Saw some stupidity on the way out with people sliding into rocks. Photos below. 

Mix-up peak 6/10

First day of summer break was yesterday for me. What I’ve learned from summer breaks is they pass fast, can’t just sit around. I’ve got a lot of things to get to but figured I’d set myself a standard by getting out the first day, even if my partners were busy. Spent Monday night at graduation for the old seniors and the mounties gear grab so got home at 9:30 and talked to my parents. Originally wanted to do an overnighter and bag magic too but couldn’t take a car on wednesday so I settled on just mix-up. 

Slept through my alarm by 30 minutes but was driving by 3:30 and and at the TH by 6. Later than I would’ve liked but wasn’t gonna do anything better with my day so figured I may as well give it a shot. Biked up the road in an hour and tossed it in the alder. 2 hours later I was at cascade pass with a lot of cobwebs in my face. Followed some goat tracks on the traverse over the cliffs and was soon moving up towards the U notch. There was one old track continuing to cache col but nothing super fresh.

The gully towards the U notch was more melted out than I’d seen in any photos. Brought two ice axes and was glad to have em. Very doable with one tbh but if snow conditions were harder I would’ve definitely wanted both. Traversed around to the V notch and made a few 5th class moves before being on steep 4th class until I gained the hump. Was glad I brought a rope to rappel that. From here I was onto the slabby ledges and had a fun time working my way up. The summit was intimidating but I found a low 5th path onto the ridge. The final move pulling onto the ridge was steep and airy but I felt confident in my holds so took a lil breath and everything was okay. 

Summited around 12:30 and was very glad to see some rappel anchors with fresh-ish tat. Summit register was full but of the few random pages I flicked through, I found Jeff Wright, Fred Beckey, Martin Volken, and most notably, my freshman science teacher. Took a photo and he was pleased to see my find. Enjoyed the summit until 1 and then figured It was time to get off that god forsaken rock. Ooh but the views were pretty cool. First time looking at the middle cascade glacier, I could even see all the way out to dome. Gotta do the ptarmigan this summer I guess.

Anyways, a couple rappels brought me off the summit block, then a lot of down scrambling, then 1 more to the V notch by 2:00. Wrapped around to the U notch and made a rappel down through the top section since there was an anchor already there. Was also this insane cornice thingy that seemed to be precariously balanced. Tried to stay off to the side because I didn’t wanna get killed by some goofy looking snow glob. 

Once at the bottom of the gully, it was a nice stroll with good views back to cascade pass. Saw a group of four goats at cascade pass which kinda scared me. 1 idiot teenager vs 4 mountain goats, I don't think the odds were in my favor. Lucky for me they ran up towards Sahale as I was taking off my crampons so it was a nice pleasant walk to the pass, where I arrived around 3:30. Saw my first humans of the day as a party was finishing the hike towards cascade pass and headed towards Glacier camp on Sahale.

A nice stroll down the trail got me to my bike at 5, and by 5:15 I was at my car. I buzzed a hiker too fast on my bike which he was very unhappy about at first but then we made up and he turned out to be a reasonable guy. A bell on my bike might not hurt. Usually its cars buzzing bikers so was funny to be bikers buzzing hikers. Anyways, Twas’ my bad and we seemed to make up for it. I learned from it. Heres da photos for the populace

 

Mclellan, Enchantment, and Cannon - 6/19

 Started at 6:20. Ran up to Mclellan, snowfree until on mclellan where I very much wished I had more than an ice axe. Summited around 11. Then ran to Cannon where I was in awe of the Druids Plateau. Summited that around 1:20. Then went over to Enchantment Peak where I summited around 3 and took a summit nap. Ran out of food, only eating 100 calories an hour up to this point. Very bad idea. Felt the bonk starting so I ran back down towards asgard and got back to the car at 6 in the afternoon. Nice day out. Also pretty tiring. Also was hungry when I was done. saw goats and marmies.

Black Peak - 6/13

 Ran up this thing. Ran down. 6hrs c2c. Twas a Fun time. Had a nice salted baguette after. Photos below

Ingalls to Sherpa Traverse - 6/14-6/16

Was feeling lazy but people are asking for some beta and I should prolly be less lazy so here it is. This is the summer of getting Asher into alpine climbing so a great objective for us would be a traverse from ingalls to sherpa. One might think to go further but past sherpa it gets much more sloggy and less climby. When I climbed the North Ridge of Sherpa and tried to go over to the col, we hated it so much we bailed down to the creek. I also hadn’t climbed Ingalls or the W. Ridge of Stuart so it would be new but easy terrain for both of us. This would be my first real big trip without an equally experienced partner but given it was commonly climbed easy terrain, I felt it would make perfect sense. 

Asher was with friends in leavenworth so I soloed up black peak on friday before making the drive down. We started on Saturday around 5, hitting snow at Ingalls pass. We didn’t bring any foot traction since microspikes are lame. This would end up being the crux of the trip. Anyways, by 9 we were at the base of the route and a nice simul pitch got us to the top by 9:40. We got back down by 10:15 and were quickly moving back down towards lake Ingalls. 

We slogged along the ridge for a while until reaching the talus below the W. Ridge at 1 and with so much time, took a half hour break to fill up water from a tiny trickle, worried that it would be the last running water of the trip. Sadly for our dumb asses we found a great faucet just 15 minutes after moving again. Anyways, we scrambled up the gully for a while, never roping up. There was definitely snow but it was bypassable, often by going into the moat or just climbing around it. Didn’t feel as classic of a climb as I expected, given the amount of gully time for the thing, I think a more suitable name would be the SW chutes of Stuart. Anyways, I’ll stop the hate. Asher was getting tired so at 3pm we decided to stop at the bivy sites below Long Johns Tower. I still had energy so went over to the mandatory snow patch and kicked in some steps while the snow was warm. We threw in a nut to stash our food bag for the night and enjoyed a very long afternoon.

Day 2 started at 6:30ish. We found a downloaded GPX super helpful. We appreciated the steps in the morning but getting up to long johns tower. I think we went too far climbers left and had a mountain goat kick a microwave sized rock over our heads. That was a bit scary. Eventually we found our way up but this began the even trickier section of snow. With only approach shoes and very steep snow, we had probably 25 meters(???) of steep snow. I took the lead and many chopped steps later with my adze, we were back on rock. From here it was just that big gully traverse to the west ridge notch, where we summited around 12:30. Took a short break before moving over to the cascadian. There was obviously snow on the face up to the false summit, so a rappel and even more step chopping got us to a more used track. 

From here we enjoyed a nice traverse over to sherpa including a rappel, though it seemed it could’ve been avoided with some super airy downclimbing over the sherpa glacier. We reached the base of Sherpa’s W. Ridge at 4 but routefinding errors took lots of time and by 5:15, Asher was tapped out on that flat section below the true summit. I found a way climbers left and soloed to the top, summiting at 5:40. I descended back down to asher and we made a few rappels back to the Col. given it was Ashers first big alpine climb, he just wanted to get down to flat ground so we descended to around 6200 where we found a nice bivy on a boulder and played MnM chess. 

The next day was just a nice hike out. We were able to avoid snow up to longs pass. We had a 3 course meal of brats, crepes, and ice cream in leavy. Twas a fun little trip. Nice to have some time to relax in the alpine.