Argonaut Peak - NW Arete - 10.13.2024

 Admittedly I haven’t been getting out enough. Frisbee tournaments, mountain biking, and rough weather have been great excuses but with great weather for the weekend, Cole hit me up about doing something. As with many times this summer, the enchantments looked enticing so for the nth time , we rallied in leavy to feast on some overpriced brats before heading to the most crowded forestlands I’ve ever seen. We were driving by 05:00 the next morning and arrived to a swarm of humanity. I got stuck in the lot for a few minutes but by 05:45, we were hiking.

The colchuck trail never gets better and I think this was the worst time I’ve had on it. We kept a chill pace but still somehow found ourselves keeping a similar pace to a group of trail runners. Trail runners may have been a stretch, it takes more than a salomon adv skin 12 to call yourself a runner. Once we got onto stuart lake trail, the hike became much more pleasant and we soon found ourselves at mountaineers creek. The last time Cole had taken this, we’d struggled through the cairned talus field traverse together so he was pleasantly surprised by the nice forest walk along the creek. Once at the fork in the creek, we crossed the two creeks and made a shitty bushwack upward. The trick here, as we’d learn on the descent, is to cross a log onto the dividing piece of land at the fork in the creeks, then you can continue upward and eventually cross the second creek. 

We continued up forest, never finding a true path. Once we hit the talus, we followed the beta of going into the trees to the right. While this avoids slide alder, it’s still quite a pain. Eventually we reached the slightly more open talus field, where a thousand-ish feet of talus divided by waterfall slabs lead us to the snowfield. For the cliff band in the middle, there is an easy line to the left of the steep(possibly walkable) slab on the right side. Just take the little ridge of dirt and continue straight up. Also, there was running water for us right below the snowfield so don’t carry up 3 liters from the valley like we did.

Given that we didn’t bring crampons, we decided to take the smaller gully to the right instead of the central snow-filled gully. After some sketchy ice-traversing with just axes, we started up the super loose gully. It felt decent for a while until I unleashed a massive table sized flake and a second 3 foot diameter boulder. This got our hearts pumping and we soon reached an impassable slab, especially with just our approach shoes. First we ventured right, but it didn’t lead anywhere. Still pumped up after the massive rockfall, we went left, where Cole lead a runout 5.8R line out of the gully. From here it was soloing up the side with a few nerve-wracking moves that eventually brought us to a secondary gully going left out of the main gully. Cole lead it up to a tree, where we unroped after a short exposed slab and scrambled up heather and larches to the ridge. Our nerves finally settled here and after some beautiful ridge traversing, we reached the base of the normal route.

I started the first pitch of the arete with a long simul block. The carl P topo seemed to be pretty accurate. To start, you climb barely over the gully to the ingalls creek side, where there’s a nice belay stance by a tree. I climbed through the tree and though decent holds to an easy corner. It’s a pretty ledgy climb and from there, easy terrain lead to a steeper face, where a rightward traverse on ledges lead to amazing jugs to the top. From there, I pulled myself over a block and found a nice terrain belay at the large easy ledge below the right facing corner that starts P4. Cole was feeling pretty tired from the climbing so we decided to pitch out the rest since we had made good time. 

Cole climbed the corner and then headed up to the right side of a mini great-gendarme looking thing. This was some great climbing and put us on the right side of the ridge. From here I climbed up 15-ish feet before traversing right to a gully which I climbed up. I’m pretty sure the correct route takes the smaller, second rightmost gully to easy ground. It still worked out though, with me climbing more right and onto the summit ridge, where a tiny knife-edge brought us to the end of the rope work. From here, we dropped our packs at an obvious bivy site and romped up to the summit.

After some nice summit views, we went back down to the bivy where we saw the comet and enjoyed the sunset views of argonaut and sherpa. It’s cool to have done the four peaks that surround the valley and definitely makes me feel fortunate. With an early sunset, we settled in for the night.

Eleven hours later, I started the morning by scraping ice off my bag. After many groans and grunts, we got moving. A short downclimb brought us to the snowfield, where we melted some snow and easily found the rappel anchors at the gap in the ridge. We replaced most of the anchors and cut out the old tat, though Cole did end up having to lead back up one rappel after the rope got caught. The rappels brought us down to flat ground, where we climbed back up the ridge and then descended a gully one-by-one until we reached the open talus field, where we hiked down to the water-fall slabs and rappelled.

From here, it was more talus field descent. With a better view of the route down, we decided to descend the talus fields to the right, and after a short yet heinous bushwack, we emerged to cairns. From here, there is a faint trail that abruptly stops in places. We crossed the creek about two thirds of the way down, and enjoyed a relatively straightforward descent down to mountaineers creek. Once at the creek, we walked along it a little to far but eventually found our way and by 02:45, we were back at the trailhead. All in all, it was a great little trip. The alternative gully we took definitely satisfied the gnarliness requirement and it was a good time.

Prusik Peak - West Ridge - 09.21.24

 Sitting deep in the enchantments lies prusik peak. It shoots up above lake Vivian, a beautiful spire of white granite, reminding me of the giants in Patagonia like Cerro Torre. Obviously prusik is not Cerro Torre though, with a well maintained approach and a quick 5.7 line up the west ridge, it begs for the weekend warrior. 

With a free weekend and decent weather, I messaged Emily about doing it on thursday. At 19:00 on Friday night, we met up and decided to do it car to car from stuart lake TH. After a rough sleep in the hustle and bustle of Stuart Lake Trailhead, we got up at 03:00 and were moving by 03:30. While I still maintain my hate for the trail, it is much nicer in early hours when there isn’t as much traffic. 

By 05:15, we made it to Colchuck lake and started the circumnavigation. The sun started to come out as we started up the asgard pass talus field. This was my first time up asgard and it definitely wasn’t as bad as the some said. You simply have to embrace the slog and by 07:15, we were on top. The core-zone is beautiful and I understand the hype. I think I’ve started to become a spoiled alpine climber since I was personally a little underwhelmed but for such an accessible location, it is beautiful.

From Aasgard pass, we worked our way over to Prusik. The trail through the core-zone is well maintained and cairned. We still found our way off trail a few times but with a little rock-hopping, we were able to get back to it. As we neared the base of the west ridge, we saw one party racking up a good bit below the true start. After hearing they were planning on pitching it out, we rushed ahead to the base and I started the first Simul lead.

I ended up going a bit too close to the crest on this lead and put us near a (rap) anchor on the ridge crest but Emily took the lead and we quickly found our way back and got to the base of the offwidth. I started this lead but in approach shoes, I didn’t feel secure so I handed it to Emily. After some less than stylish squirming, she got through the OW. If the stuart gendarme OW is 5.9, I believe this is at least that. 5.7 my ass!

This lead put us on the summit at 11:00. After a little summit break, we started the 5 straightforward raps down the north side. 5 minutes of traversing put us back at the base of the west ridge at 12:00. From here, it was fighting against the crowds of the enchantments loop. Climber Kyle had done the West ridge car to car in 13.5 hours so that was my goal. After being humbled by climbers who had just done acid baby passing us on the way down Aasgard pass, Emily and I split up for the last segment from the lake. At 14:22, I made it back to the car with a time of 12:52 with emily arriving 15 minutes later. I’m super happy with that time but will say that I don’t think the approach is worth it for the climb. I’d like to come back to do the Beckey-Davis or Stanley-Burgner. A quick stop in leavy got me a pretzel and brat and then I was off to Esmeralda Trailhead to go climb Stuart with a friend the next day.

Raging in a Day - 08.21.2024

    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.

But... maybe I'll reserve type-2 fun for climbing and let biking just be a chill thing.

Nooksack Tower - Beckey-Schmidtke - 08/11/2024

 

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 - 08.06.2024

 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.

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.

Sherpa Peak - North Ridge - 07.28.2024

 I’m not sure how I feel about the north ridge of Sherpa. The climbing wasn’t spectacular and I honestly could’ve simulated the whole thing. The approach and exit were fuckin terrible. But at the same time, it was an unforgettable experience, and those attributes made it unequivocally Cascadian.

The original plan was  to link up two routes on Vesper, mile high club, and Mt Triumph all into a 3 day weekend. The Easy fire on Hwy 20 quickly foiled that plan since emily lives in Mazama so we instead chose to meet up in the stuart range. Me and emily would climb on the snow creek wall on friday, and then link up the North Ridge of Sherpa and the South Face of Argonaut. I don’t have a ton to say about snow creek wall. We climbed outer space, saw a mountain goat, and then got out at noon. On friday evening, we met cole in town to discuss plans.

Emily on Outer Space

Our plan was to climb the North Ridge of Sherpa on Saturday, descend and Bivy and sherpa col that evening, then climb the east ridge of argonaut to the south face. We aimed to get back to the car by 3 so cole could make his doctors appointment in seattle at 7. Since we knew there’d be snow at sherpa Col, we brang a stove and enough fuel to melt snow for 3. We drove to our communal vacation home (forestlands parking of course) and set alarms for 04:30.

The North Ridge of Sherpa Peak with the East ridge of Argonaut behind, taken from the North Ridge of Mt Stuart.

By 05:30 we were off on the stuart lake trail. It’s one of the busiest trails in washington and while that makes it horrible, given that we’d only be on it for an hour, I decided to at least have some fun with it, trying to pass as many people as possible. It’s quite fun to pass trail runners while carrying a 35 pound overnight climbing pack. Similar to the feeling you get passing E-bikers on “analogue” bikes, though at least these trailrunners are abiding by wilderness regulations so I don’t feel a dislike for them.

After a little walking past the colchuck lake turn-off, we reached the mountaineers creek climbers trail. It was our first time and we made the mistake of following the cairns to traverse the talus field. Then, we were too high and were stuck either schwacking through slide alder or climbing a few hundred feet above the slide alder. By now we were past our estimated approach time, and we still couldn’t see the ridge. We eventually made it up into the sherpa-argonaut basin, about 4 hours after leaving the car. From here we could see the notch we would gain to start the north ridge, and I think that’s when we all realized we were in for an epic. After more than a thousand feet of talus field climbing in the sun, we racked up and flaked the ropes at 11am.

Sherpa-Argonaut basin, with Colchuck(left) and Argonaut(right) in the skyline.

The first two pitches to get to the first notch were the technical crux of the route, but they allowed us to get our heads in the game and figure out the rope system for 3 people. From the ridge, we began a long afternoon of pitching out the ridge mixed with soloing and a little simuling. We found Lemke’s beta about getting to the second notch and by the time we got there, it was 6pm and we figured it would be the best spot to bivy. We were well behind schedule and doubted our chances of getting argonaut. With the sunset winds at full blast, we made our meals, did our best to shelter from the winds, and tried to doze off. Watching a party make their way up the West ridge didn’t help us get to sleep any faster.

Cozy in my protected bivy

And Cole’s not so protected Bivy

At sunrise, we woke back up and got into a groove. The pitches from here were much better. While still licheny due to the routes rarely climbed status, it felt much more solid and after four hours, we topped out. With Stuart to the West and Argonaut to the East, it was beautiful summit. 

On the summit

The descent was the true crux of the route. We got to Lemke’s “cascadian esq gully” but after seeing the traverse we’d have to do, Cole gave us another option- descend into ingalls creek and follow the trail to us 97, where we’d hitch a ride back. After underselling us by 4 miles on the mileage, we were convinced and proceeded to schwack down to the creek. After 2 hours of talus descent and bushwack, we hit the trail around 2pm. This was when Emily checked the actual stats of the trail, about 9 miles of hiking plus 2 miles of road walk. We realized how fucked we were but there was nothing we could do, and proceeded to slog. 

The Cascadian-esq gully

At 6, me and Emily came out far ahead of Cole, deciding to try and hitch a ride back so we could pick up Cole if he was unable to get one. We rode in the back of a truck to the highway, and then proceeded to fail to hitch a ride for 20 minutes. Eventually, we were picked up and were lucky enough to get a ride all the way back to forestlands. We met Cole in town, who had paid two crackheads to give him a ride, and enjoyed the experience of coming back from an epic adventure into the tourism center of Leavenworth, a stark juxtaposition every time.

Colfax Peak - East Ridge - 07.23.2024

 Emily had mentioned Cole while climbing together and noted how I’d like him. Eventually, she gave me his number and we figured we’d do East ridge of Colfax Peak together to see how we vibed. Cole had just done the North Ridge of Baker two days earlier so it was convenient for him and I was excited to do some snow climbing rather than rock. Cole mentioned he had gotten out of shape in colorado and I wasn’t feeling like suffering so we decided to split it up into a mellow two days. I drove up monday morning and met Cole in B-ham where we grabbed some groceries and headed up to heliotrope ridge TH. the road is a classic FS road and after hundreds of potholes, we arrived.

Baker is the big snowy thing on the left(the north ridge in the left skyline), Colfax is the smaller rocky thing on the right.

The Hike in was quick. The trail is steep but we quickly arrived at our camp, overlooking the baker seracs. Since we had lots of time and didn’t want to get attacked by mosquitos, we decided to do some serac cragging with our four Ice screws. I had just got quarks so it was exciting to actually climb ice with them. I toproped some AI3, we did some laps, and then headed back up to camp. I made the mistake of not bringing a mosquito net(I don’t have one since I don’t consider them ‘sexy’ pieces of gear) so after some quick dinner, we tried to get an early sleep, aiming for a 3:30am wake up. Cole used his phone for the alarm and I woke up at 05:00. Apparently Cole just wanted to sleep in. Given that Colfax is a pretty chill peak, I was fine with it and we got going by 05:15.

After an hour of hiking, we got to the snow. The Slog up the Coleman was hot but easy. We brought skis to make the way down quicker but even with that added weight, we were at the col by 09:00. After simuling a steep snow traverse over some crevasses, there was a short steep snow pitch and we topped out at 11:00. We took a five minute break, then decided that it was kind of windy and started our way down.

Traversing

 

On the summit

The way down was pretty uneventful. We descended before corn-o’clock so it was brutal on the legs but we were at camp by 14:00. After stopping at camp, we blitzed down the trail passing hikers. At one point a group of hikers got out of the way for us but directed us toward the toilets. After joking that they must’ve thought we were two horny gay mountaineers, we climbed back up to the trail and made clear our straight-ness before continuing and arriving at the car at 15:30. 

Cole skiing suncups

All in all it was a great chill two days in the alpine. Cole and I got along well and have since become regular climbing partners. Hopefully I can come back one day to climb some of those hard ice routes on Colfax.