Past Featured Trip Reports

Frisky and I are so glad to be out and about again. We've had a long winter shut up indoors, (never mind what we were doing!), but this gorgeous April morning is beckoning. We decided to climb Harry Daly in Yosemite. I am especially limber from all those positions I've been getting into.

This climbing trip was—as the Scottish say—PURE DEAD BRILLIANT. It was a rich experience of physical exhaustion, mental fortitude, family bonding, tasty food, cultural festivals, and mountain top triumphs!

Less significant climbing successes in the summer of 2000 on Cotapaxi Ecuador and Chichani near Ariquipa, Peru left me itching to return to South America for greater adventure. When my brother Chris—14 years my senior—invited me to join him and his super-fit teenaged sons for a Peruvian adventure, I leapt at the chance to return.

We selected the Cordillera Blanca due to enthusiastic recommendations here on SummitPost and our desire to move beyond climbing volcanoes. Tocllaraju and the Ishinca Valley were a natural choice due to their proximity to Huaraz and intermediate difficulty. We chose wisely. These climbs allowed us to have an epic mountain adventure without overly neglecting our businesses or families waiting for us back in the USA.

I wanted to hike the 7.3 mile long (14.6 mile roundtrip) Boulder Canyon Trail in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona. After a few miles, I lost the trail and ended up in the La Barge Canyon. I bushwhacked my way up La Barge Canyon to a nonspecific point where I decided to turn around and go back. It wasn’t until the next day when on the internet, I read about Lower La Barge Box Canyon, which is supposedly the most impressive place in the Superstition Mountains. It turns out that I had reached within a few tenths of a mile of the start of the box canyon. I wonder what I missed.

Wow! This trip was one of my most special trips in a long time. It had been two long years since the last time I had done a Cascade volcano and Glacier Peak was in my short list for a very long time. As some of you have known it had been two long years since I have been able to get to the larger volcanoes in the Cascades. I did get Mount Lassen back last year with my wife but this peak was basically just a hike. My year started decently by going down to southern California and Death Valley but has waxed and waned since with a couple of decent climbs such as Big Lou and Icicle Ridge and one other Bulger that being Dragontail.

But I knew that this year was not going to be a true success unless I took a shot at Glacier Peak. I often told many of my partners that if I got Glacier Peak and no other summit than this year was a great success. My friend mtn.climber decided to setup a good 4 day trip up Glacier Peak in September. I was a little out of shape and as late as July my conditioning was at its lowest point. The effort up Dragontail really woke me up to the fact that I need to get into shape and fast. Over the next two weeks I had gone at least 20 miles a week and had knocked off at least 7000 feet of elevation gain. Some my longer hikes and scrambles included Wright Mountain, Mount Roosevelt and Mount Angeles. Luckily there was very little in terms of odd weather and I was really able to kick my conditioning into overdrive. But none of these hikes would ever be able to prepare for a trip like Glacier Peak.

The planning could not have gone off better and the weather forecast looked very favorable for this trip. In fact there was supposed to be no clouds in site for the entire trip. Another thing going for us is our team. All of the members on our team were very strong. Our team consisted of Fletcher, OneLuv, mtn.climber, rock n' climb, Jimbopo and me. With a well thought out trip and an excellent forecast I knew this was my best shot at Glacier Peak for a long while.

A day after breaking 6,000’ of elevation gain for the first time on the Triple Traverse, I decided that my legs were due for an easy day. Bald Mountain in the Western Uintas seemed to fit the mold, as it offered an easy trail right off the Mirror Lake Highway. I set off Sunday morning excited to make my first foray into the Uinta Range.

The road wound through deep forest past Kamas, and I was caught off guard at how quickly those round knobby Uinta summits suddenly rose above the trees, first in isolation then eventually in tandem. I found the trailhead for Bald and soon started up the easy trail.

I was still tired, lungs and legs, from the day before, but the peak presented no problems until I found myself at the noted early season snowdrift blocking the trail right before the summit plateau. I scouted around for awhile before backtracking a bit to climb the slippery obstacle, then ascended through the woods lining the south side of the peak.

Mount Gould can be climbed from its magnificent blocky face from the Many Glacier area, and that would be one heck of an adventure. More commonly the ascent will be done as a scramble from the Highline Trail, and that is the way I went up the mountain. The approach along Highline is a mere 3 miles and that as flat as a mountain trail can be, with good views, animals in the area, and plenty of people to meet. From the saddle between Gould and Haystack Butte, an obvious little lush table-topped hill, you will go up steep scree and crumbly rock on the Garden Wall for one of the best summit views imaginable upon this fine earth. This trip will take half a day for most people, probably in the area of 5-6 hours. It is 3rd class, but steep, with some 4th, and even a few 5th class moves possible if you want to find them. Though the Highline Trail sees much traffic, I expect Mount Gould will be a lonely spot to be.

In February 2012, I had snowshoed up to Sourdough Mountain with a couple of friends in a quest to find the Sourdough Mountain Lookout, which turned out to be completely buried under snow. The Sourdough-Stetattle area is a spectacular location, especially when encased in snow, and I noted I needed to return for an overnight trip someday. The opportunity to do this overnight adventure came just over a year later on a stellar early spring weekend in March 2013, with friends Matt Burton, Mike Torok, and Carla Schauble.
And what a great trip it was, full of spectacular snowy North Cascade views, warm spring sun, and fun partners. This page gives a bunch of photos from our overnight adventure.

This past summer I spent most of three months living out of my car and climbing mountains. Or, to placate those of you who use ropes and gear and militantly attack anyone who uses "climb" in the original definitive sense of: moving uphill and gaining altitude steeply, I "hiked" mountains and did some scrambling and light 5th class unprotected, and solo. Some of my fun will be documented in reports and some will not, but the overall numbers were impressive to me: 47 mountains in a 90 day period. Out of those, the hardest experience I had was climbing "The Brothers" in the Olympic Range of Washington. Part of the trouble I had was getting lost frequently, so I am writing this report to try to be entertaining while also helping to provide a public service. The new page for The Brothers is wonderful and seems far-improved from the information I found last year when I wanted to make my trip. Start there. I hope my pictures and story will be of some further use. The Brothers are a great mountain and a worthy spot to visit, though an ordeal to say the least.

The week after Borah and Deep Creek I received an email from Dean about some Idaho Peaks, namely South Putnam and Diamond. South Putnam is a fairly basic hike outside of Pocatello up a P2K, while Diamond is a tougher class 3 trek up an ultraprominent and one of Idaho’s great peaks. Dean had been turned back on Diamond a few times before, and after recovering from some sprains earlier in the year as well as a recent bout of the flu he was not quite sure he would be up for Diamond yet, so we decided to test his legs first on South Putnam on Saturday.

I met Dean in the morning at Lava Hot Springs off I-15, then hitched a ride through the charming and little seen countryside to reach the South Putnam trailhead. We were supposed to have good weather for the day, but I saw low clouds and lightning earlier in the morning over Bonneville Peak while driving towards Pocatello earlier in the morning. Thankfully the weather cleared up as we circled around to the eastern side of the range, and the sun seemed to quickly burn off the clouds.

I've had a goal of climbing Utah's 13000 footers in the winter for several years. This winter I had a first hand dose of how unrealistic that goal is. Depending upon how you count, there are 17 of them. The minimum round trip distance to any of them is over 20 miles. At a maximum, the round trip mileage is at least 42. Two winters ago I did a one day trip to Gilbert Peak and last year I did a one day trip to Mount Powell. Wow, 2 out of 17, I was moving at a snails pace. I was hoping to step it up this year and get a few more in day trips and then try an overnighter. I ended up trying the overnighter first as a friend proposed a three day trip to Tokewanna, February 16-18. I was dreading it. Sleeping out when it is cold isn't so bad, it's the part where you have to get up and do stuff that I didn't like. On day one we would ski 6.4 miles on a snowmobiled road and set up a base camp. On day two we would ski 21.5 miles round trip to the summit, and on day three we would ski out. I had actually skied to Tokewanna in one day before, but it had been in June, when the road had melted out.