Mt. Rainier 2009, Climb 2 - Kautz Glacier in a day

So, Greg and I wimped out of Sufferfest 2009 – with an epic carry-over up the Emmons, down the DC, traverse to the Kautz, up the Kautz and down the Emmons – instead deciding that pizza sounded much more appetizing than carrying large packs up and over the peak twice. Therefore, it was time to make up for it and do a car-to-car climb of the Kautz Glacier, descending via the Disappointment Cleaver. After resting for two days at my Aunt and Uncles house overlooking Lake Washington in Seattle – eating copious amounts of cheesecake and blaring classic rock over their speaker system (we had scared them off to their cabin up north, and had the house to ourselves), we headed back to Mt. Rainier; this time to the crowded Paradise trailhead instead of White River.


Arriving at the ranger station, we registered for our climb the following day – and found to our amusement that the rangers were still trying to figure out how to enter “through climbers” (those not stopping to camp anywhere) into their system, so they ended up registering us for summit camp – a place we sure didn’t want to end up staying at considering a weather system was due to come in Sunday afternoon and it was going to be quite cold and windy up there.

In a day you ask? Well, it’s not uncommon for people to go ahead and climb Rainier in a day – though most ascents are 2-3 day trips. We kind of figure why camp and carry a tent though if you don’t have to! I'd be lying if I said there isn't a trick – “what is it?” you might be thinking? Well, I think everyone has their own little tricks. Some train hard, get acclimated, sleep and eat healthy, but I’ve got a little trick that I’m going to share about big car to car days. What is it? Simple… Cheesecake. Deep dark double-chocolate cheesecake (DDDCC). Greg unfortunately had to rely on the standard training methods for success as he is rather lactose intolerant (don’t get caught sleeping in the back of the same car or tent with him after he’s ingested dairy products), but I made sure to ingest a healthy dose of DDDCC after a parking lot pasta dinner, and another first thing in the morning at 2AM when we woke up for our alpine start. Let me tell you – there’s nothing better to start off an alpine day than DDDCC.

Hitting the trail (5400’) right at 3AM, we saw that our nearly full moon was in inconveniently in the process of setting a couple hours before sunrise. Luckily though, I’d been on the beginning of the trail the year prior in similar snow coverage, and so we quickly made our way to the approximate area of the branch-off where we would head across the lower Nisqually glacier to “the fan”. As we crossed the Nisqually, the sky began to slowly gain some hues of brightness, and the mountain began to take shape in front of us. Behind, Mt. Adam dominated the pink and blue horizon, highlighting a beautiful panorama. Greg and I had lost a little time finding our way off the main Muir trail and onto the Nisqually in the dark, but quickly gained pace as we headed up “the fan” and above – going from only gaining about 1500 feet in the first 2 hours, to averaging 1500+ feet an hour when moving up to the turtle and the Kautz.

Around 4500’ up the route, we encountered a few tents of people camping on the route, and a little higher up as we approached Camp Hazard (~11,300’) we passed some people coming down the route having camped the night before up higher (and maybe having summitted that morning?). Near Camp Hazard there was a fixed line rappel down a small cliff to keep from having to hike up to the ice cliffs and then back down (saving those who used it about 200 vertical feet of scrambling), but detesting fixed lines, and hoping to find some black barrels for our morning “blue bags”, we continued hiking through Camp Hazard to the ice cliffs (sans finding a place to deposit the morning’s business, thus requiring a S)(*&y carryover), hiked down a couple hundred feet below the ice-cliffs, and then traversed over to the ice-pitches of the route.
The two ice pitches of the route were the “money pitches” – the best part of the whole thing. Varying between 50-60 degrees of slightly rotten, but safe, ice, the pitches were not difficult by any means, but were a lot of fun to literally run up using all four spiked appendages, and simul-climb with Greg. Having only a 100’ rope and 6 ice screws, I ran it out about 45-50’ between screw placements trying to keep from having to re-stock gear as much as possible on each “pitch”. Along the sides of the pitches were moderate to huge ice pillars, giant neve penitentes, lining the route and giving it a surreal atmosphere. The also were handy rappel anchors for those descending the route. It was beautiful. On the second pitch we encountered a party rappelling down, and to keep from receiving too much ice-fall from them I went ahead and climbed as fast as I could to get to their side and out of the firing range. Greg and I even managed to climb the entire pitch, with one anchor built to re-supply me with ice-screws, in the time it took them to set-up and do one rappel down the face. We were moving quick, and it felt GREAT.

At the top of the ice section, the climb tapered back off to ~2400’ of slogging up snow-cupped snow. We followed the intermittent tracks working their way up towards the top, and as we crested a rock formation around 13000’ were greeted by some amazingly beautiful, waste to chest high, thin ice flakes which we basically slalomed through to get back on the snow field continuing up the glacier towards the summit. At this point we were maintaining about 1700’ feet per hour as our climbing pace and decided to do our best to reach the summit sub 9 hours. We could feel our legs burning and lungs working hard in the slightly thinner atmosphere, but kept pushing, receiving a boost from the increasing winds at times (luckily travelling up hill), to reach the top in about 9 hours and 18 minutes – not bad for two guys just out for a days fun!

We hung around at the top (14, 410’) briefly as we were getting blown sideways and frozen solid by 80-90 mph winds (the winds on the summit and crater rim were much higher than those just down the slope a bit which were probably only 20-30 mph), got a couple pictures, grabbed another layer, and started descending towards the Disappointment Cleaver.

The Cleaver was really interesting this year in that large seracs, and a huge single crevasse caused the route to be strongly diverted to the climber’s right directly above the cleaver. Last year at a similar time when I was on the route it was able to go straight up the face through where these obstacles now sat. It made for beautiful scenery though to admire on our way down to Muir. Lower down where we dropped into Cathedral Gap within site of camp Muir, the winds which were howling on the upper mountain blasted us like with scree like a sandblaster which made me jealous of Greg’s goggles, but he needed them much more than I as I was travelling directly in front of him and kicking up more rocks and dirt for him to be blasted with.

Arriving at Muir, we finally deposited our blue bags, and had originally planned on making water since we had never added to the 2 liters a piece we started the day with, but feeling lazy we just lounged around for about 30-40 minutes chatting with the climbing ranger and snacking. Finally, we started moving down the Muir snow field, boot skiing as we went, and about an hour later were back at the car with a total car to car (or should I say truck to truck) time of 13 hrs flat. What a great day! Then it was back to Seattle, where we cooked up a steak dinner and drank martinis with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin to finish up. It was, well…. Brilliant. A 9000’ day on ice and snow, and a steak dinner. What more could a guy ask for?!

Mt. Rainier 2009, Climb 1

After picking up food for a few days on the mountain, Baby Greg (aka “the Kid” aka “the Animal”) and I headed towards Mt. Rainier Tuesday afternoon. Arriving at the ranger station at White River campground, we spoke with the ranger about conditions on Liberty Ridge – the route we had come to the mountain from San Diego to climb. The ranger mentioned that a party had just finished the route, but reported significant rockfall hazard below thumb rock and thin ice/snow conditions up high – typical poor late season route conditions. Talking it over, Greg and I decided that since we had a week around the area and the weather forecast was good, we would go ahead and jaunt over to check out the route for ourselves. Having not been on this side of the mountain before, we weren’t very certain of approach times, but looking over the map we figured we could make Thumb Rock pretty easily in 1 day if conditions on the route were climbable, and so checked in for Thumb Rock camping on night one (the following night 7/1), climbing the rest of the route the next day, with a possible stop at Camp Shurman the following day (7/2) on the way out if it was getting late. Our goal was for a 2-day climb, but we logged in an extra couple days in case we took longer so that the rangers wouldn’t feel obligated to start search efforts due to our over ambitious planning should we fall behind and not return in time.
Getting up at 0300 on Wednesday (7/1), we finished packing our gear, threw down some food, and headed up from the trailhead (4400’) around 0420. We purposely started slow, letting our muscles warm up for what would hopefully be a long couple days ahead, working our way up the maintained ~3.2 mile trail to Glacier Camp. As we hiked up the trail, the sun began painting the peak in a pink mountain glow as it rose above the horizon. This beautiful mountain glow excited both of us with the trip ahead, and moving up the trail calmed our nerves about the climb ahead. Around 0545-0600ish we arrived at Glacier Camp, and as we rounded the corner into camp, a “trail runner” came bounding down the trail from the toilets above us. We were both confused to see a “trail runner” at that hour of the morning, but stopped at the entrance to the camp so I could go off to use the toilets in hopes of avoiding the infamous “blue bag” carry out system. I ambled the 1/8 mile to the open-air toilets (with side by side seating even for those so inclined to have bathroom buddies), and proceeded to do the morning duties – on the way back, however, I noticed there was a medium-large black bear not far off the trail below. I watched him waddle through the brush for a little while, and then proceeded back to Greg. We re-saddled our packs, and continued through Glacier camp where we encountered the “trail runner” – turns out he had also recently enjoyed doing the morning duties, only to have his session interrupted by a wet bear nose sniffing (and touching) his backside! He took off, slowly at first, and as the bear continued to follow him, he started sprinting down the trail away from said bear. An interesting start to the morning none-the-less, and I was glad I hadn’t been a few minutes earlier to the bathroom facilities.
Greg and I continued to work our way up out of Glacier Camp, up Glacier Basin and to St. Elmo pass. At this point we were starting to cover ground pretty quickly, made our way over the pass to the Winthrop Glacier, tied in, and crossed the glacier using footprints made a day or two prior to show us the way. The Winthrop was in great shape, with a nearly straight shot across it, and we continued to traverse it at around 7400’, then traversed the slopes between is and the Carbon Glacier. Arriving within site of the Carbon, we took a long break to nap, refuel, and watch the goat families walking around the snow fields before continuing on towards the Carbon. Still around 7500’, we encountered a group coming towards us. They were coming straight from the base of Liberty and making their way towards the Emmons route. They had started up two days prior, spending one night at Glacier Camp, and the previous night at the Carbon, and had earlier in the current day tried to attain Liberty Ridge via the melted out rock ridge at its base, and via an ice chute just to the right side, only to be turned back by serious rock and ice-fall hazard. They continued on towards the Emmons, and Greg and I watched the ridge and pondered for a while how “intelligent” we were feeling. In the end though, after listening to repeated rockfall and icefall along the surrounding faces, and thinking to the climbing reports, we decided to head back to the trailhead and try another route later on. Liberty Ridge will continue to be there, but we wouldn’t be if we caught that rockfall head-on - so, it will have to wait until next year…
As we traversed back, we could see the other group of 4 about 30-45 minutes ahead of us… and see them as they turned off the original traverse and started to head up towards Camp Schurman for a go at the Emmons Glacier route. As we approached their track, I began wondering about something a little more audacious – instead of decending and driving around the mountain, why not climb up over the Emmons, go down the Disappointment Cleaver (DC) to meet Adam and my SDMRT buddies coming up that route, than traverse to the Kautz Glacier, and climb that back over, down the Emmons, and return to the car that way. We pondered the idea, going back and forth as we headed across the Glacier… arriving at the split in the tracks where we would either head back to St. Elmo pass or up towards Camp Schurman, I turned uphill – with intentions of heading to Camp Schurman and doing our “up and over twice” plan. We camped at Schurman (~9430’), sleeping in late (until about 0530) on the 2nd, and were the last to leave camp at about 0715 that morning. Even carrying our big packs though, we were averaging well over 1000’ per hour of elevation gain. I could tell I wasn’t in quite the shape I hoped to be though, and I started to wonder if my legs had two more days of carrying full packs, especially on the steep terrain of the Kautz. Proceeding up, we started reeling in a few skiers that had left at the time we woke up. At around 13200’ we passed them, with one complaining of altitude problems (they ended up turning around about 700’ below the summit). At 13700’ we encountered the four guys who had also come from Liberty on their way back down (they started around 0330), chatted for a bit, then continued up the last bit of the climb towards the summit.
About 400-500’ below the summit though, we decided that it would be more fun to go back down the Emmons now, rest a day or two, and make a single-day push on the Kautz. This was in part because we weren’t sure how low we would have to go to traverse to the Kautz, and hauling large packs around just for fun just didn’t sound interesting. So we left our packs about 400’ below the summit, and pushed up to the top, arriving at the 14,410’ summit in about 4 hours and 50 minutes to average just a little better than 1000’ per hour, even with our nice social visit at 13,700’ and carrying our large packs most of the way! Not amazing, but we were happy with it none-the-less.
At the summit we met the skier, Amar, who had left Camp Schurman about 20 minutes ahead of us, and with whom we had been maintaining pace with on the way up. We also met Frankie and Scott who were camping directly on the summit… and Frankie had brought his controllable air-foil kite!! Strangely though, there was nearly no wind on the summit (Greg was in only a long sleeve button-up t-shirt), and so the kite flying was unsuccessful, but fun to watch the attempt. We hung out with Amar, Fankie and Scott for about 45 minutes, then headed down to our packs to brew up some water for the descent. After brewing up about 1.5 liters of water, we shouldered our packs, and started hauling down the nearly 5000’ to Camp Schurman. Along the way we passed a couple other groups, including our 4 friends from Liberty Ridge, covering the whole descent from our packs to Schurman in about 52 minutes. Conditions were ideal for descent, with a soft, wet layer of snow allowing us to basically jog/boot ski down the glacier, minding the occasional snow bridge. Changing socks at Schurman to help save our wet, sweaty, feet from destruction, we chatted with IMG guide Andy Polloczek a bit about the mountain, then continued down, moving fast down the soft snow which was in perfect conditions for descent, and arrived at the trailhead 2.5-3 hours later.
Moving fast towards the trailhead as we were both incredibly thirsty, didn’t want to boil water, and my iodine tablets weren’t dissolving for some strange reason, we headed straight towards the trailhead water fountain. Just on the other side of the fountain was a very large group of ~8 skiers heading up. As we approached them I started having the funny feeling that my friend Kelly was with them (she had mentioned she might be on Rainier this week), and low and behold there she was! We chatted for a bit about mountain conditions and trips, wished them well, and continued out of the park to some well deserved pizza and rest - rest for a what we’re hoping will be a one-day push of the Kautz Glacier (slightly less than 9000’ vertical) on Sunday. And a good rest it’s been so far, at my gracious Aunt and Uncles place with a beautiful view of Lake Washington, double chocolate cheesecake, and a bald eagle perched in a tree outside. Ta an saol go maith… Wish us luck!

Solo Ascent and Ski of Snow Creek Couloir

I tried to find a partner - I really did, but problem one was that I don't know very many strong skiers in SoCal. Problem two was that the few people I knew strong enough to ski it, weren't too keen on earning their turns from the bottom up. Problem three? The two I did know who were strong enough and "willing" were busy, and this was the last weekend of winter and the only weekend I had time for it. 3 strikes, I guess it's solo time...

After a couple quick stops to pick up some batteries, and visit friends on the way north, I arrived at Snow Creek Rd. around 22.30 Friday evening and drove up the road until reaching the "no trespassing" signs for the private community of Snow Creek Village. Taking a look around, and getting oriented for later in the night when I'd be back to trespass on my way up the trail, I turned back down the road, drove past the power station on the right, and headed out into the washes to review route notes, and grab a couple hours of sleep before parking at the power station, and starting the ascent. Although quite excited about the route, and the long day ahead, I was a little apprehensive since I'd never been on the climb before, and was going to be doing the first alpine test of my ankle that I broke at the end of summer, but I crawled into the back of my '87 Land Cruiser (the SNOOZE), and tried to konk out under the bright 3/4 moon, and Snow Creek looming above.

00:59 AM - after laying in the back of my truck awake for two hours, and before my alarm had time to sound, I turned it off and began breakfast. Wanting to get moving, and feeling too tired to get the stove going for hot water, I pored hot mint-green tea on my instant oatmeal, and scarfed down a few packets (surprisingly, green and brown oatmeal with mint-green tea isn't too bad) before driving back to the power station. The moon was bright, and my surroundings were well-lit as I left the snooze at around 1180' and headed up trail with my skis and touring boots strapped to my pack. In order to make better time on the first half of the route, and for comfort's sake on the long slog, I'd decided to wear my usual running shoes until I reached the snow around 4000' above. A half-mile from the power station I came upon Snow Creek Village and turned left onto Falls Creek Rd. Passing a few houses in the silent night, I hopped the gate guarding the Desert Water Agency's property, and continued up Falls Creek Rd. My ankle was stiff, and a little sore, but I decided to continue on and see how it loosened up over the next couple hours. If it got worse, I'd bail, else I'd go on.

Perhaps 30 or more minutes after leaving the car I came upon the first two buildings guarding the water agency's property on each side of the 1-lane road. Passing by the security camera directly overhead, and walking as silently as possible, trying not to crunch any gravel on the pavement, I walked past the open windows of the buildings and continued on into the night. A few hundred feet later, the road split - with the trailer of the caretaker and a large storage tank on the right, and a bridge crossing the creek on the left. Figuring I needed to get on the other side of the creek, I crossed the bridge, and scouted around for the beginnings of a trail. After a short while I decided to give up on the trail, but immediately after crossing under a small pipeline, I gained it by luck and started up the switchbacks of the brushy and rocky slopes above. Traveling purely by moonlight I continued along, soon losing the trail in one of it's thinner sections, and went for the SFU (direct) approach up the hill. Around 3000' the slopes leveled out into a gradually ascending plateau, and I continued up following the contours of the ridge, hoping to regain the trail before the entrance to "the tunnel" above.

Around 4000', in a place where the ridgeline steepened and narrowed, I passed a group of 3 sleeping climbers, and soon regained the trail again, now better marked with cairns and more traveled. Turning on my headlamp so as not to lose the way again as the bush thickened, I continued up for another few hundred feet until reaching the entrance to "the tunnel" at around 4400'. The tunnel is a nice path cut, and woven through clearings along the brushy hillside to connect the initial ridgline between the East Fork of Snow Creek and Falls Creek with the actual East Fork. Resting for a few minutes and grabbing a bite at the entrance, I was happy to have made 3200' of elevation gain, and a decent amount of horizontal distance in less than 3 hours. My ankle was holding up well (thank you brace), I felt refreshed, and was excited about the possibilities of soon being on snow. At this point, I was also hoping to gain the summit by about 11am and make it back to the Perris area to meet friends for dinner around 6... unfortunately that wasn't going to happen thanks to a blunder soon afterwards.

Leaving my skis on the pack as I entered the tunnel (I should have just carried them by hand through the brush), I hunched over and made my way through the bushes (skis catching on regularly of course, and making scrambling a bit tricky), eventually dropping into Snow Creek still near 4400' and a little way below a split in the creek. Right before I dropped into the creek, I could see the headlamps of the party that had been sleeping as I passed them earlier, get up and start heading up the trail behind.

Continuing up the creek only a few hundred feet, I came to a cliff blocking the route. Not taking time to glance at my map, and remembering incorrectly, I made the big mistake of assuming this was part of "the chockstone" and followed a steep, loose, dirt slope up to the right to circumnavigate it. Crawling up in the dark, I began to think it was probably about time to traverse back left into the creek, and followed the beginnings of a trail in that direction. Unfortunately, had I got only 20' higher, I would have seen the correct trail going to the right into the East Fork of Snow Creek proper, but instead I continued left into another creek coming down from above. After some short, but hellacious bushwacking (especially with those darn 190cm skis and poles... no light touring set-up yet), I entered the gully and continued up a few hundred feet more. Around 5200' I found a windbreak/camp built up of stone, and as the dawn sky began to light up the ridges around me I realized "oh crud, I'm in the wrong gully". It was now probably around 06.20, and I'd just wasted a lot of time bushwacking, up and down, back and forth, into a gully that I didn't want to be in. Bloody-friggin' hell.

Looking at the map, it was quickly apparent that this gully would soon gain a ridge (probably more hellacious bushwhacking involved) and not be nearly as fun as the Snow Creek option. So, cranky, and pissed at my own stupidity for not checking my map earlier (or using my headlamp as much as I should have instead of relying on the moon), I started side-hilling and bushwacking to Snow Creek. Every move took extensive effort to get my pack, skis and poles around as thick brush and regular boulders and small cliffs got in the way. About halfway through I finally just took my skis off the pack, and although this made boulder scrambling more difficult (except for when the skis would catch on boulders while still strapped to the pack), it made getting around, over and through trees and bushes much easier. Another two hours later I dropped into snow creek, thoroughly exhausted, and pretty upset with myself. I continuued up the gully for a short while, topping off my water on the way, and soon came upon the "real" chockstone, which was quite obviously named such for a reason.

Examining the easy 5th class to the right of the chockstone, I decided that with the trouble the skis had already given me, I didn't want to get stuck on 5th class terrain with skis hanging-up on rocks, and me already feeling exhausted, so I took the easier option of third and fourth class scrambling through the trees to the right. The skis and poles were a nightmare through here, even though I had again taken them off the pack, but I eventually popped out above the chockstone - totally spent and in need of a break. It was now 9 o'clock, and I had just wasted four and a half hours on what should have taken me a maximum of one and half. I was pretty spent, torn up (especially my new soft-shell pants - bummer), but happy to be on route and looking at snow above.

As I got my ski gear on, and enjoyed a nice PBJ, the group of 3 I had passed earlier caught up. They had also done some bushwacking, having missed "the tunnel", and had nearly followed my lead into the wrong gully. Luckily, however, another experienced group in hot-pursuit redirected them in the right direction and they avoided doing my off-route bushwacking as well. Upon chatting with these three, I found out that they were from Riverside Mountain Rescue (RMRU), and were up here to both experience the route that they often rescue people off of, as well as retrieve some gear that was blown away during a rescue a little over a week prior. Being from another mountain rescue team, SDMRT, it was nice to meet some other colleagues, and catch up on their recent operations in the area. Around 09.30 though, I headed up, and left them to finish their own snack break below.

I initially tried skinning up the firm ice/snow at the base of the gully, but it quickly turned too steep and hard for skins, so I strapped the skis back on my pack and began the tedious process of side-stepping in my crampons up the slope above. After about 1000' I hit sunshine, the first RMRU member caught-up, and I could see a large group of 8 coming up from near the chockstone. For the rest of the climb, I'd leap-frog with the RMRU crew, mostly taking breaks in alternate spots, until two of the three slowly pulled away during the last couple thousand feet to the summit. Sticking to the right at most junctions, we continued up the couloir, zig-zagging back and forth as we side-stepped up the 35-45 degree slope, occasionally front-pointing when necessary. I had brought a new set of crampons for this trip to replace my well-worn BD sabretooths, and they seemed to perform quite well.

About 2000' from the top, a group of 4 skiers and a snowboarder came down from the summit, knocking debris down the gully, and the occasional rock - but nothing too sketchy. Just to round-out the mountain rescue crew, one of them happened to be from San Bernardino Mountain Rescue! I gave them what info I could on the route down (they had never been on that trail), and they continued on out of site. Probably around 1500' from the top, the leader of the group of eight from below caught up, and passed ahead. Myself and the slowest of the three from the RMRU group continued plodding along, following the others' steps in the softer sections, and getting passed by a few more from the group of 8, until we crested the summit around 15.00. The top few hundred feet was pretty soft, and I was definitely grateful that someone had set the steps ahead of me...

At the summit, we were met by more of the RMRU crew that had taken the tram up in the gear retrieval operation, and I was told the story about their contacting the water agency in order to try and get a permit to access the route legally. Being as ridiculous as they are, the water agency wouldn't even give the mountain rescue team a permit citing the importance of the purity of the water. Apparently, the agency seems to believe that only 1-2 people even go back there a year, right...

A quick nutella snack, and a couple summit shots later (with my Vasque txapela hat for kicks), it was time to head out and use all the daylight I could to ski out. The RMRU guys thought it was pretty funny I was going to climb and ski it in one day, but I soon dropped in (literally), and after a little rock navigation was in the firm, and at times quite icey and bumpy, Snow Creek Coulior and on my way back out.

I skied back down the snowy 5500' of the route, taking frequent breaks, and making few nice looking turns thanks to the firm and bumpy snow/ice and my pooped legs. Shadows covered most of the route again, and so even the parts that had softened slightly during the day were again firm and slick. In short, the skiing was pretty lame as conditions go, but it was still a great place to be and a lot of fun (and relatively technical) skiing down. By around 04.30 I had reached the chockstone, kicked off the snow gear, and scrambled through the trees around it. Descending another few hundred feet, I filled up my water bottle again, passed a couple funny guys making a two-day trip out of it (and enjoying some nice looking PBR's and steaks), and continued along the part of the trail I had missed before... dropped back down into the gully to the cliff where I got off-route, then back through the tunnel (much easier with skis in hand instead of on the pack), and down the ridgeline following the marked trail, and taking a couple breaks to grab a quick snack here and there.

As I headed down the final 1000' to the water station, dusk started to settle, and the attendent of the water station returned home and started driving around to check on the facilities. I carefully worked my way down the hill when he was turned away, staying behind rocks and bushes when he was looking my direction, until hitting the road again right as dusk fell. Under the cover of darkness, I crossed the bridge and dropped into the wash circumnavigating his trailer and the houses on the road, until rejoining it one sprained ankle and about 1/2 mile later for the final walk to the car in the dark. Around 20.15, a little under 19 hrs after setting out, and one great day later (and after probably 10,500' of climbing instead of 9600' thanks to a bunch of extra vertical gained during my off-route escapades), I was back at the car - and ready for a big burger and rest before heading back to San Diego.

Final Note: The skiing is technical, with serious consequences should you fall, but it is a fun way to do the route, and it would probably even be skinnable in sections with the right snow conditions (it'd help to have an AT setup with crampons attached), and a nice way to avoid the cabfare to get back to your car! Plus, you've got to earn your turns...

(Also posted at pullharder.org)

Sun-less Ribbon Arete

I was reminded last night while speaking to a friend of another fun trip... it's a couple years old now, but Adam wrote up a nice piece from our car-to-car winter ascent of Temple Crag.
http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/265579/sun-less-ribbon-arete.html

Bub and Bubba's Turnagainhouse Trot, Part 2 - Making It Happen

The trot began the same way that most of the trips that Bubba and I take, with me lying between my teeth on everything from how long I think it will take (always stated as much less than what I expect to be true), when we should leave (given much earlier than the time I know we'll actually leave), and giving assurances that if he doesn't come he's the wimpiest, laziest, most adventure deficient piece of scum to crawl the face of the earth. Unfortunately, this approach only persuades Bubba to join me about 20% of the time, but now luck was in my favour and he agreed to join me on the trot.

Prepping my bag around 7.45 (I had told Bubba to come by around 7.00), I got a call from him that he was on his way, and by 8.30 he had actually arrived (he lives 10 minutes away) and by around 9.00 we were hiking up the trail out of the Glen Alps parking lot. Bubba, keeping fit to his name, had taken on a strong passion for firearms in the last year, and strapped to his pack in a shoulder holster was a large .454 hand gun- plenty to keep both rock scrambling bears, rabid Dall sheep, and any questioning tourist near Flattop away.

We decided it would be more fun to go up Flattop the "old way" on the loose north aspect instead of the wide stairs that had been installed on the south side, and as we tread along I thought back to all the fun I'd had on this trail as a kid. I also had the opportunity to explain the ambition of the hike to Bubba during this time, and enjoyed the nervous cackle as the reality of the day's adventure set in. Cruising up, we quickly crested Flattop and dropped down the backside so that we could begin heading up Peak 2. The weather was about perfect this day, with a strong overcast covering the whole sky just a few thousand feet above the mountains, and only a slight breeze in the air - just right for pushing fast in the mountains with light layers, and little worry of overheating of freezing.

Peak 2 soon turned into Peak 3, and then we were running down the back side of Flake Top Mtn. to the saddle between it and Ptarmigan Peak. We paused to empty scree out of our shoes, and then head up Ptarmigan Peak at our quickest "endurance" pace. I was also rewarded to see my shoes had been slightly cut open by the scree, and was happy I had decided to wait and purchase a new pair after the trip. On our way up Ptarmigan we managed to find a few trickles to top off our water, though the snow wasn't as thick as I'd remembered it from the year before, and there wasn't much snow or ice left to melt. After Ptarmigan peak it would all be virgin territory to both of us, and as we continued along the ridge leading from it's summit, we began to see the tricky terrain ahead. Now, I should mention here that one of our goals in this trot was to stick to the summit ridge as loyally as possible, but without being to reckless of course. Unfortunately, however, there were a few vertical sections that kept us from being too precise, and led to a constant up and down as we worked our way down a couple hundred feet around an impassable feature before regaining the ridge and continuing on again. We continued along though, cresting Hope Mtn., and then down it's gradual backside to a large saddle.

I have a love for jogging down scree slopes, and so pulled a little ahead of Bubba during this time, and sat down for a quick snack. Taking my camera out I shot a relaxed picture showing my feet with the Suicide peaks in the background - a picture that is now a little funny to look at half a year later when I know what happened to that right foot/ankle just a couple hours later, and along the ridge in the just behind the two Suicide peaks in the image...

Bubba quickly caught up and we continued back up the ridge to where it splits three ways - one way back to where we came from, another to Homicide Peak, and then our route towards North Suicide Peak. I tried to convince Bubba to do a little hour-ish jaunt over to Homicide and back so we could really complete the whole ridge line, but despite my prodding, pushing, name-calling, and general chiding I couldn't convince him to do so. He did offer to stay and wait for me, but it didn't seem wise to split up for a while and let him get cold in the slight breeze while I ran to the side. That, and we were still hoping to make it to Indian in time to stop by the Turnagain House for a big steak dinner, and going to Homicide would fully eliminate that possibility.

Continuing on to North Suicide, the ridge dropped down and took a much more dramatic nature than we had experienced so far, but we continued to scramble along, every once in a while pulling a few 5th class moves, but for most part just having extremely exposed 3rd and 4th class terrain. Then it was up the north ridge of North Suicide, with rants back and forth such as "at least it's not too steap" - "what's too steap?" - "well, at least it's not overhanging" as our legs burned while we tried to power up as fast as we could. At the top of North Suicide I was elated at how far we had already made it, and we sat down to have a few more snacks and laugh our way through the summit log before descending to the col between the North and South Suicide. Our knees were both starting to get a bit sore as we came down North Suicide, but we hurried across the col, and up the loose scree slopes of South Suicide.

On the way up South Suicide, we had a little bit more fun and distraction in trying to chase ptarmigan across the loose scree, but despite our best efforts could never get closer than a foot or two away from actually catching one. It was a fun distraction though from our aching legs at this point. At the top of South Suicide, we didn't loiter for long, as we could now see that the ridge to our last peak, Indianhouse Mtn., was long and the second half looked questionable. Then there was also the fact that our steaks were also calling, and the possibility of making it to them in time looking slimmer.

We cruised down the ridge, knees upset but moving, along mountain goat and dall sheep trails - a few of which that ran off in fright as we came moving steadily down the ridge. Signs of other people being on this ridge gradually faded away, and soon it became apparent that we were probably some of the few to have played on this small section of "difficult" to access ridge line.

About halfway to two-thirds of the way along the ridge to Indianhouse, the ridge became more technical, and even had one prominent point that forced us to climb a few hundred feet back up, and then down, to maintain our policy of "sticking to the ridge". At one point we were forced to down-climb a steep couloir due to a drop along the ridge, wedging ourselves between the snow and rock on the side to keep from sliding down the hard snow face. Then we climbed back up to gain the ridge only 30' horizontally from where we were forced to originally detour, but with a nasty, loose, 30' overhang between us. Water supplies were also low, and I think it was around this point that we managed to get a little water from a puddle on one of the rocks along the ridge.

We continued along, and once again I started to put distance between Bubba and I as I strove to push out ahead and route-find so that we wouldn't both have to constantly detour while doing so. Then I came to the point of the ridge that has defined these last few months. In front, it appeared to drop off about 10-12' to a low point with a funky landing, with an overhanging down-climb on wet, chossy slate being the main option of forward progress. To the left, the ridge dropped off about 400' at an ~85 degree angle to the valley below, with 5.9ish downclimbing involved to down-climb and traverse back to the ridge. To the right, the slope was probably only 65-70 degrees, and much easier, but EXTREMELY loose, crumbly, wet and moss-covered, before angling off for another 400' drop. I looked around at our options, and cursed myself for not bringing any rope, when Bubba came along. I showed him our options, and after he had taken a good look, I decided that "I think I'm just going to jump - it's only about 10 feet"... to only be met with.... silence.

After a long pause, I re-stated "yeah, I think I'm going to jump", while Bubba again started looking around and re-evaluating the options. As he came back over to look at "the jump" I again said" yup, going to jump" at which point I pushed off... to be met by Bubba's concerned voice as I left the ground stating"Realllly?!?"

"O-shit" I thought when I heard this, and realized that the ground was farther away than I initially thought, and going to be very hard (it was rock after all). I had tried to jump as far out as possible from drop in order to catch the rock where it angled back up and limit the total vertical drop, but this also meant that I was going to the surface fully square-on and not be able to deflect any of my kinetic energy into forward movement or a roll. I'd also neglected to take off my small ~10 lb pack, and thus had a little more weight than usual. The padding in my shoes was totally worn out (this was their final trip after all - in fact I had stitched part of them together specifically for this trot), but I kept my feet together and tried to land in as energy-absorbing fashion as I could. Unfortunately a small protrusion in the rock caused my right heel to hit first, and as I hit the ground I felt a shock go up through my ankle as I had never felt in my life.

Rolling over in a bit of agony, and breathing deep I heard Bubba ask if I was alright. I replied "Yeah, I think so" while I thought "Robb, you're a fucking idiot". But, before the thought had even had time to fully process I did my best to ignore the pain, and took my foot in my hand to move the ankle and check for crepitus. Negative - no crepitus. Check-one. I can move it on it's own (ableit painfully). Check two. Stand on it? Holy cow that hurts... but... check three.

Bubba at this point states he is going to do the down-climb, but before he has a chance to maneuver into position I reached in my bag and popped 4-ibuprofen. Then, I did my best to describe to him where he should be able to reach holds (they're impossible to see from above as you start the down-climb, but I could see them from below), while reveling in the few moments that I could stay off my ankle before we had to get moving. Bubba soon finished the 15-20' down-climb ( I say 15', he says 20' - why didn't I also take that option?!?), and came over to check on me, before we started moving again.

At this point I was extremely luck - firstly my foot/ankle hurt like the dickens and threatened to give out reguarly, but at least is was stable enough to walk on. Secondly, we had once again gained the part of the ridge where hands are also needed, allowing me to take some of the weight from my right foot/ankle during our ascent. Thirdly, as if it was gift from God - there was a large branch, perfect for a walking stick, on the ridge... now take in mind that that the nearest trees are about 1000-1500' below and down the valley's on the side, but here was this walking stick, that I can only imagine someone had thrown off the summit some time back to have it land by us below... it was a divine gift, and definitely critical in finishing the trot. Sometimes I just used it for balance, but other times it was more of a crutch as my ankle threatened to fully give out, and that thing made life much much happier in gaining the summit of Indianhouse Mtn..

At the top of Indianhouse we found the summit register, signed it, and realized we were going to have to haul arse if there was any chance of making our steak dinner nearly 5000' below - not easy with me being a half cripple and Bubba's knees starting to throb. I popped a few more vitamin-I, and we set-off gingerly along the ridge line to the descent gulley a few hundred feet beyond. The gully was extremely steep with large scree, and we made our way slowly down it for about 1800' - unable to "scree-ski" as usual due to our physical states. I was happiest when I was able to feet-first crawl or ass-skid down, as this allowed me to keep weight off the painful ankle. Eventually, some way down the south-eastern face we were able to start side-hilling towards the ridge rising up from the highway far below, and to the west. Following Dall Sheep trails along the side hill (saviours for our aching limbs, as they eliminated probably 50% or more of the true side-hilling, which was quite unpleasant on the ankle), we continued for probably another 45 minutes or hour until gaining the ridge above the highway. I had remembered being on with Daniel and my Dad during a hike a few years back, and was extremely happy to be back on familiar terrain. At this point we could hear the cars on the road 2500' below, but we still had a long ways to go, dusk was taking over the sky, and the trail became fainter and fainter as the vegetation thickened - and my memories of the trail faded.

As we approached "brush-line" we lost the trail, and despite our best efforts had to descend substantially through the brush before re-gaining it again, only to lose it during some scrambling a short while later. Eventually though, working our way down the slopes, and into the trees we happened upon a grown-over single-track trail, leading down to the road, where we popped out, elated, and joyful. We gave Bubba's parents a call, and they had already started our way. So we hobbled the extra three-quarters of a mile down the road to the Indian Valley Meats, arriving just as darkness truly descended, ~30-45 minutes past our steak dinner goal unfortunately, but with a total time of only around 13.5 hours, despite my injury. Not bad for about 16 miles and more than 10,000' of climbing according to the GPS and map approximations.

The next couple days were difficult with the ankle, but I figured I'd just pissed off the cartilage and there wasn't much that could be done so ignored it. As a family we went clamming in Ninilchik, and walking around there in xtra-tuff's (commercial fishing rubber boots for you land-lubbers) with Mom and Tara re-tested my pain tolerance, but we actually had a lot of fun. I even tried climbing along the highway with a new climbing buddy (thank goodness no true lead falls then), and did the "Long Climb" on Tahquitz after I came back to school in San Diego, along with some diving and boogie-boarding, before finally deciding something might legitimately be wrong with my ankle and going to to the school clinic. As I waited in the evaluation room after the x-rays (they were skeptical at first since I had no limp, but became concerned as the painful areas all coincided with their "critical spots"), I heard the docs mention about a few breaks in someone's ankle. "Hmm, poor sucker" I thought, as I was sure it couldn't be me since I had never broke anything - to be quickly corrected as they came in and told me my position. End results after some more x-rays and a CT? Small chunk broken off of the anterior aspectof the tibial plefond, crack in the posterior tibia, possible cracks in the calcaneous and fibula (some debate here - so no big deal), and a fracture of the talus. Oops. No big deal really - but being non-weight bearing makes it difficult to go play in the mountains...