Ouray Ice Climbing

I took a little vacation to Ouray, CO with Kathy and our friends John and Samantha to go ice climbing for a few days. If you ever want to learn how to ice climb, then the Ouray Ice Park is the place to go. We climbed for two days, and would have stayed a little longer, but John scored us a really sweet place in Telluride, so we decided to spend a couple days over there as well.

You want to go ice climbing but never have? If you have rock climbed before and know how to belay and set up an anchor for a top rope, then you have the skills to go ice climbing in Ouray. Here's how:
* find 3 or 4 friends who also want to go
* supply everyone with crampons (steel, not the cheap aluminum ones), rigid boots (I have plastic boots) and a helmet. And a belay device.
* bring a couple ropes and a couple sets of ice tools (assuming 4 people in your party).
* bring a few ice screws and a half rope (30 meter 9mm or thicker) for anchors, as well as a few cordelettes and several locking carabiners. The amount of gear you bring obviously depends on the number of ropes that you want to set up at a time. We tried to set up two ropes side by side so that we could all climb together and switch back and forth on a couple different climbs.

The Ouray Ice Park is just a two minute drive outside of town in a canyon that is 20m - 50m deep. Sprinklers line the edges of the canyon, and every night they are turned on in order to build/rebuild all the frozen waterfalls that hang over the edge of the canyon. We climbed in the areas of South Park and New Funtier, which tended to be 25-30m deep and have slightly easier climbs than further down canyon, just about right for toproping on a 30m rope. A trail runs along the top edge of the canyon, and there are several access points where you can scramble down to the bottom. Most areas have trees growing somewhere near the canyon edge, which are good anchor points for a toprope. If the tree is close enough to the edge, you can use a cordelette to help build the anchor; otherwise, you can use the 30m rope as a super-long cordelette, running it from the tree to the upper edge of the climb. We liked to put an ice screw in right next to the main anchor point and clip it into the system as a "just in case" something happens to the tree or 30m rope. Rarely, a climb may not have a tree near it, in which case you may have to build an anchor completely from ice screws. Always have at least two anchor points in your system. If I were climbing solely on ice screws, I would put in three, but with our 30m rope, we were always able to find a tree that was within range of were we wanted to climb.

After setting up your topropes, you can hike down to the bottom of the canyon (or rappel your rope, but I avoid rappeling unless I cannot avoid it) and start ice climbing. It is like rock climbing at the gym, except that you have really sharp points in your hands and on your feet. Don't hit the rope with the sharp point and you should do fine. OK, maybe there are a couple more things to learn than "don't hit your rope with your ice tool", but the Ouray Ice Park is definitely a great place to learn and practice how to ice climb, and I highly recommend it.

A Visit to the Craggies

The Craggies (Big Craggy Peak and West Craggy Peak) are two peaks north of Winthrop that are among Washington's Top 100 Peaks. Susan Ashlock invited me along to scramble these two peaks on Wednesday, and despite the reported 6 to 8 inches of snow that fell in the mountains on Monday/Tuesday, I quickly accepted her offer.

After a long drive up from Seattle on Tuesday night, we stayed at one of the campgrounds out Eightmile Road, north of Wintrhop. An inch or two of snow dusted the road, but the campsite was bare. The temperature was definitely below freezing, however, and it was going to get colder up top.

We arose at 6am and got on the trail at about 7:15am, just as it was starting to get light out. The trail began as a jeep trail and eventually turned into a hiking trail, which was still easy to follow despite a few inches of snow over everything. The jeep trail/hiking trail did not seem to match the trail on the topo map, but it got us to the right spot nevertheless.

At 5900' we turned off the trail and headed up an open meadow, following the SE ridge all the way up to the peak of Big Craggy. As we got higher, we encountered deeper snow and some drifts, and the last scramble section was a more sporting due to the snow-covered scree that unnerved me a bit as the slope steepened up (I think that going much further climber's left would have been easier). I wallowed up a snow-filled gully trying to follow Susan's light steps, but we eventually prevailed through the steepest sections and followed the final ridgeline to the rime-covered cairn at the summit. The temperature was 21 degrees, but the winds were calm and the sun was even threatening to peak out on this gorgeous late October day.

From Big Craggy summit, we traversed the ridge and followed an easy contouring descent down open slopes to the saddle between the Craggies that was only made easier due to snow covering the scree. We continued contouring along slightly more difficult slopes, occasionally bogging ourselves down in snowdrifts, until we reached a wide gully with access to the West Craggy ridgetop. We went up the gully to a notch, then up another gully to access the easier high slopes on the west side of West Craggy. The final climb up the gully was a bit tricky, requiring us to scrape the snow off of the rocks to find good footholds, and it was even trickier coming down (I let Susan show me her delicate balancing style coming down the snowy rock outcropping and I followed as best I could). An easy hike along the ridge got us to the top. The sun came out and we had beautiful views of the Pasayten Wilderness in all directions.

On our way down, we dropped down to Copper Glance Creek and followed the creek down to our original hiking trail. The snow drifted much higher down near the creek, and we alternately plowed through waist deep snow or dealt with tricky rockfields hidden under the snow that threatened to trip us up. Once back on the trail, however, we cruised the final couple miles back to the car, happy that we could enjoy a final trip to the mountains before the snows became too deep.

Total time: 9 hours, including 3.5 hours to Big Craggy, 2 more hours to West Craggy, 3 more hours back to car.

Kayaking in Clayoquot Sound

Kathy wanted to go kayaking, so I decided that we should head up to Tofino for the week. Clayoquot Sound has a good mixture of open ocean kayaking and sheltered spots, and no matter what the weather, we could find someplace to go. I had only been there before for one day, so it was also a somewhat new area to me as well.
We drove up Friday and stayed at the Paddler's Inn. It was slightly overpriced for what we got, but it was right next to the Goverment Dock and was run by knowledgable paddlers. We also talked with another group that had just finished their paddle and told us of their experiences. Although they had nice weather, today it rained all evening and all night. Saturday morning was blustery and rainy as well, with wind gusts over 30mph. Luckily, the weather cleared out by the time we got on the water at noon. This was going to be a relaxing trip.

After a stop at my favorite coffee shop, the Common Loaf, we parked the car in a most-likely-to-be-there-when-we-get-back spot and headed on out. We crossed the channel to Opitsat, a small Indian community across from Tofino that is served by occasional water taxis, then we headed up around the east side of Vargas Island. We lunched at a gravel bar, pulling out the cooler from my Big Beast (I brought the PWS Sea Otter in order to carry the cooler), then spent the early afternoon wandering over to Flores Island. Swell came in from the outside coast in spots, giving Kathy a taste of what it was like, and a tailwind kept us moving along. Kathy used Andrew's NDK Romany Explorer. She was still learning how to use the skeg, and in wind and waves it became a bit frustrating learning how to manuever correctly. She decided to use the Big Beast for the rest of the trip.
We landed on a beach just east of Whitesand Cove to camp. Rain appeared as we set up camp and stayed with us all night and into the next morning. The wind picked up, too, and blew sand through our tent, which was one of those tents that had only a mesh liners underneath the rainfly. I hope I don't wake up under a sand dune... At least the rain will keep the sand from blowing on us too, too much. I moved the kayaks next to the tent to act as a windbreak.
The next morning, we made sausage and eggs scramble w/veggies) for brekkie, watched a few diving birds through the binoculars, then headed out for a hike. We hiked along the Wildside Trail a short bit, which runs along all the beaches as far as Cow Bay, about 4 miles away. We also hiked a trail north towards the bay containing Ahousat, but turned back due to miserable-looking watery bogs in our path. At lunchtime, we decided to move camp down to a nicer spot on Whitesand Cove where there were more amenities (including a wooden pallet that acted as a table). After moving camp, we paddled our empty boats out toward Cow Bay.
Rounding the point, we started to enter areas of larger swell. My stormsurf forecast showed that 10 foot swells were expected today, dropping down to 3 to 5 feet for the rest of the week. As we got further along the coastline to the more exposed areas, the swells picked up to at least six feet and got steeper and steeper. I felt a little nervous taking Kathy out in these conditions, and we eventually turned back. Cow Bay was a good spot to see whales, but we would have little chance to seem them in these conditions in any case.
In the evening, we walked along White Sand beach to wash our dishes at a stream along the far end of the beach as literally millions of sandfleas jumped erratically around us. Kathy swore as she crushed their small bodies between her feet and her sandals. The sand was not even white here.
Monday was the best weather day - it only rained a couple times in the morning, then stayed overcast to partially sunny the rest of the day. Wind and swell were low. Kathy and I watched birds again, then eventually broke camp and paddled south. We stopped at Whaler Island to look at the campsites tucked into the edges of the dunes there, then continued on to the northwest side of Vargas Island. The weather report predicted 20-30 knot SE winds (not to mention rain) the next day, so we decdided to camp on one of the NW beaches, planning to go back around the inside of Vargas and back to Tofino in the morning. At this point, we have decided to cut our trip a day short, as the rain is a bit too much for us. Kathy practiced surfing into shore on small 1' waves. A sign warned about the wolves on Vargas Island. We saw wolf tracks in the morning. Or maybe fox. They looked a little small to be wolf. Maybe they were skinny wolves. An osprey circled above us.
We returned to Tofino on Tuesday just as the winds picked up, and we decided to go visit Port Alberni for the evening. It rained most of the way there, which made us feel good about our decision to stop early. Port Alberni has a nice river that runs next to town where we did some more bird watching. The next day, we washed all the sand out of our kit and headed home.

Ptarmigan Traverse

The Ptarmigan Traverse is a classic 5+ day traverse along the crest of the North Cascades. John Commiskey and Susan Ashlock joined me on a recent trip. John and I had tried doing the traverse two years ago, but I had an inflamed tendon before we started (from running White River 50 mile trail run the week before) and I made us turn back at Koolaid Lake when I realized I was going to be limping (or worse) the whole way.

On Monday morning (8/17) we met Bob Coleman, who travelled with us to Suiattle River Road to drop off the car, then shuttled us up to Cascade Pass TH where we would start our trip. Thanks Bob! We all hiked up together up easy switchbacks to Cascade Pass, then Susan, John and I said our goodbyes to John and headed out on the climbers trail up to Cache Col. We ascended the glacier unroped to the col and dropped down scree fields on the other side to Koolaid Lake. Not wanting to stop quite yet, we headed over to the Red Ledges, which is a short scrambling section on an otherwise modest day. We scrambled about twenty feet from a steep snowfield up onto the ledges, then traversed across one or two gullies before it opened up again. John dislodged a boulder as heavy as he was during the climb to the ledge, and it crashed down into the moat between snow and rock. Susan was luckily out of the way below him, but it reminded us that mountaineering is an inherently dangerous activity that requires constant attention. Shortly after bypassing the Red Ledges, we found a heather bench next to a stream, and settled in for beautiful views of Formidable and a gorgeous sunset.

We rose at dawn on Tuesday (6am), our usual wakeup time. We made a descending traverse to bypass a rib, then climbed alongside the Middle Cascade Glacier to about 6600 feet before roping up and walking onto the glacier. We dropped a short bit to avoid icefall and crevasses above us, then headed straight up the center of the glacier, occasionally bypassing a crevasse in the way. We reached the Spider/Formidable col, then dropped down a very steep snowfield on its backside before traversing right towards a saddle on a ridge south of Forbidden.

At the saddle, we prepared to climb Formidable. None of us had a summit pack, so we dropped food and gear from our packs that we did not need. John decided to stay with the packs after eyeing the scree-filled gully we would have to descend; he was on vacation after all and had enough scree for the day.

Susan and I use the beta from summitpost to choose our route to climb Formidable. We traversed across a basin a then traversed a rib that bisected the south basin. In order to bypass a cliff band above us, we could either choose a gully option or a ledge option - they said the ledge option was easier except for a very exposed section, so we decided to choose the gully, as we felt good about our climbing abilities. I felt like everything was fairly exposed, but at least in a gully you get to use your hands and your feet. We stayed right up the gully and climbed past a short class 5 alcove before reaching easier grades above. We scrambled the upper sections, aiming for the leftmost of several summit stacks, and made it to the top after some exposed but fairly straightforward scrambling.

Getting down made me a bit more nervous. I spent extra time downclimbing in order to focus on what I was doing and not slip or dislodge rocks on Susan below me. We downclimbed the gully (one at a time) that we had gone up, and eventually made it to easier ground below. A traverse back across the basin brought us to John and our packs. Whew! The route was a bit more chossy and exposed than I liked, but the day was perfect and the views were incredible.
We grabbed our packs and dropped down to Yang Yang Lakes to camp.

On Wednesday, we followed a trail onto a ramp that headed up to the ridge leading to LeConte mountain. At the upper end of the ramp, we had to scramble up a steep dirty section for a couple hundred feet to attain the ridge. The ridge itself is was wide and flat and very easy going. After we reached the low point in the ridge (good bivy spots, but not much flowing water) we hiked up a couple hundred more feet and then traversed leftward onto snow, then made an ascending traverse of the snow onto the side of LeConte mountain. From afar, the traverse looked very steep, but it was quite moderate. We continued to traverse, dropping to a corner of LeConte glacier where we roped up and worked our way up past a couple crevasses, then headed up towards a gap on the right of the glacier below Sentinel Peak.

On the other side of the gap, we traverse rock/scree all along the west and south side of Sentinal Peak until we could drop down onto the South Cascade Glacier, a fairly flat glacier which stretched the length of the valley below us. Crossing the upper part of the glacier (no rope or crampons) , we crossed a gap on its south side and then descended steep scree slopes to White Rock Lakes. It was a hot day, and we enjoyed a good foot soak. John wanted to camp at White Rock Lakes (it was 3pm), as Pat had mentioned what a beautiful spot it was. Susan wanted to go on to Itswoot Ridge to be in good position for Dome and Sinister tomorrow; I decided to stay at White Rock Lakes - it was a classic camp site and we had it all to ourselves. We would get up in the morning at 5am instead of 6am, however, so that we could have a good shot at Dome Peak the next day. We camped with beautiful views of Dana Glacier across the valley, and we pondered at what our route would be, as it all looked impossible (foreshortening at work again). Susan, always full of energy, decided to hike part of the next day's route as a scouting mission, and came back at dinnertime with reports that the route was once again very moderate.

I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking that John was grinding his teeth. No wonder he needed a vacation. It must be the stress of work. I looked outside our tent to see a goat chewing on the heather a short ways off. After shooing it away, the grinding noises stopped. We put our boots and poles in the tent (we always kept our food in the tent, in odor-proof bags) so as not to lose them to the goat if it came back.

On Thursday, we woke pre-dawn to alpenglow. Susan led us on her pre-scouted route to the base of the Dana Glacier, and we climbed along rock and snow sections until we reached a spot where we could easily enter the glacier, although we ended up much higher and to the right of the area for which we were aiming. We crossed a lot of blue ice with small crevasses and melted out sections and ascended to the pass at the top of the glacier near Spire Point. From here, we traversed a snowfield and climbed down scree/boulders on the other side, trying to figure out how to start traversing east without losing too much altitude. In retrospect, we should have dropped all the way down Itswoot ridge to the bivy sites, left our packs, and took an established trail across heather below the many scree fields and ribs on the south side or the ridge that aimed for Dome Peak. We went a harder way with our packs, and after much scrambling, decided to leave them in order to make better time to Dome and back. John decided he had enough scrambling for the day and planned to meet us back at our gear drop in five hours or so.

Susan and I headed out for Dome Peak with lightened loads, gradually ascending up snowfields aiming for the upper part of the Dome Glacier. We crossed some very tricky glacier-scoured slabs. A few moat crossings between the snowfields and rocks were tricky as well. We attained the Dome Glacier and traversed over to a flat area below the Dome/Chickamin col. From here we had to skirt between several huge crevasses at the base of the col (I was a little more nervous as there was only two of us now on the rope), then climb up dirt/rock (ok in crampons), dropping onto a steep snowfield on the other side. From here we climbed a couple hundred more feet up steep snow to sandy benches, then headed up the benches to the summit. I opted for the easy summit (probably two feet lower than the true summit) that I could comfortably sit at, while Susan scrambled around on an exposed 100 foot long arete in an attempt to see which of the small bumps on the arete was the tallest. Once she was satisfied, we headed back down the way we came, and met back up with John - round trip time from our gear drop was 6 hours.

With our full packs again, we decided to drop down to heather meadows and pick up the established trail that took us easily to Itswoot Ridge. A stream ran briskly by the camp spots along the ridge, and Glacier Peak commanded our view southward as we settled in to camp. Shortly before dark, a thunderstorm passed 15 to 20 miles east of us, and we saw the lightning flashing east and north of Dome Peak. Five drops of rain fell on us.

Friday morning, clouds filled the valleys a few hundred feet below us, but dawn sparkling off Glacier Peak enticed us out of our tents. Enjoying the last views of the mountains, we dropped down into the clouds for the long slog back to the car. Slick dirt, wet brush, slide alder and avalanche debris awaited us during the course of our 15 mile trek down Bachelor and Downey Creek basins to the trailhead. The road was closed due to washouts, so we slogged another 9 miles down Suiattle River Road to the car. The trail was quite reasonable for the most part, though, and bountiful blueberry bushes helped soften our sorrow as we winded our way slowly back to civilization and milkshakes at the Darrington Burger Shack.

Between Cache col on the first day and Downey Creek on the last day, we saw no other people. The skies were sunny and beautiful every day. The mountains were gorgeous. We climbed a couple very remote peaks and crossed several glaciers that you cannot see from any road. We are definitely happy campers.

Sloan - Corkscrew Route

Zak Bisarcky sent out an email to the WAC email list searching for out-of-work people who wanted to join him on a climb. A few of us responded, and after many emails back and forth, Zak, Rob Hurvitz and I decided to conquer Sloan Peak as a one day adventure.

We met at 65th Street Park and Ride at 5am on July 15th (mid-week) and set out for the Mountain Loop Highway. I decided that we should try the new Mountaineers route starting from Bedal Creek rather than the old Sloan Creek route. I had a topo map and compass, so I figured we could wing it even if we couldn't follow the route directions, which were a little obtuse.

We hiked up Bedal Creek trail for a half hour, then at some point decided that we had gone far enough and turned to head straight up the hill through steep open forest. After several hundred feet of climbing, we turned east and traversed through the forest. I was worried that we might go too far and end up under steep cliffs, but it turns out that we were supposed to keep going east until the forest ended at an open drainage. Instead, we turned and headed up to 5000' through the forest, and then had to bushwhack across nasty brush for much longer than we needed to in order to reach the saddle at 5330'. Crossing the saddle, we joined up with the Sloan Creek route, and aimed for a point just west of a small knoll at 5852'. Here we reached snow and the glacier was ahead of us. We roped up and headed straight up the glacier. Some crevasses were evident, but there was lots of snow and the hike up was easy. We traversed a short ways over to the SW corner of the glacier at 7200' and exited onto rocks, where we left our glacier gear and ice axes.

We followed a well-defined but exposed goat/climber trail for a ways along the south and west slopes until it climbed up to a gully. We scrambled (3rd class) up the gully and followed the ridge above to the summit. The views are beautiful in all directions, as Sloan is the tallest peak in the area, with the exception of Glacier Peak rising not too far to the east. We never saw another person on the whole trip. I like climbing on a weekday. After a half hour or relaxation, we headed down the way that we had come up.

Crossing the saddle, we headed down the open drainage, which was also a difficult and steep bushwhack. Once in the forest, things got easier, and we made it back to the car at 6:30pm - 10.5 hours car to car with breaks.

Forbidden Fourth of July

Kristin Kaupang and Jeff Watts have been wanting to climb Forbidden for a while, and Kathy and I got to join them for a 4th of July attempt. Another group of WACers was also heading up: Denny, Joanna, Liz and Carlos, so we would have a lot of friendly company.

After getting the last permit available, we hiked up to Boston Basin and set up camp. The other WACers were going to head up the mountain in the wee hours of the morning, so we decided on a 6am start to give them a head start, as the mountain was sure to be crowded.

At 6am, we got moving, heading up across the glacier to the snow gully that led to the ridge. We climbed the 50 degree gully for a few hundred feet (don't fall) to reach some rock 4th class ledges. A few exposed moves got us up on the loose rocky ledges, and we headed left up a steep gully another 150 feet to the ridge proper. Leaving our packs, we scrambled a short ways up the ridge before setting up a belay to start the roped climbing.

Kathy and I quickly finished the first pitch behind Kristin and Jeff, only to wait for almost an hour while they finished the second pitch, then someone else came down from above, then a pair simul-climbed past us. I realized that we probably would not reach the summit, as it was too busy, and we had three other rope teams that we knew about ahead of us (all of whom planned to downclimb the West Ridge), as well as several groups of simul-climbers who would occasionally speed past us up and down the ridge.

The ridge itself was mostly very low 5th class climbing. Pitching it out like we did slowed us down a bit, but we were stuck behind Kristin and Jeff and the other two WAC rope teams ahead of them in any case. Kathy and I finished a few more pitches. Kathy was worried about having to downclimb the ridge, so I suggested that we turn around early. We let Kristin and Jeff know that we were turning around and then headed back, taking our time to downclimb the ridge.

Down in the gully, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to belay ourselves around the sketchy moves coming up. Only after a lot of delay did we discover that there was a rappel station that allowed us to skip the sketchiest section that came right off the snow, and we rappeled a very short rappel down the last ledge to the snow gully. During this time, we saw a two foot wide slab of rock spontaneously let loose and slide down the snow gully ahead of us as the day warmed up.

Kathy and I downclimbed the gully. Halfway down, we heard a roar of rocks coming down a gully to our left, and we instinctively ducked and covered. We made it down safely, then hiked across the very low angle glacier back to camp. We made it back for dinner at 7pm, a long day. We ate dinner and kept our radio on, listending to how the others were doing.

Kristin, Jeff and others reached the top at 2:30, about an hour and a half after Kathy and I had turned around. With so many people on the mountain, they took a long time to get down, and were still trying to do double rope rappels down the snow gully when the sun set. From our campsite, Kathy and I watched them, like little ants, coming down the snow gully. A rope got stuck and they had to climb partway back up the gully to deal with it. With headlamps on, they trudged back home, tired and weary, making it back to camp at 11pm.

The next morning, everyone was too tired to do anything else, so we slept in, packed up at a casual pace, and headed home.