Past Featured Trip Reports

Winters in Washington State often can be brutal in terms of lack of sunshine and rainy days. Washington State turns into the ultimate picturesque winter wonderland though when the days do get nice. The snow that falls in the winter tends to cling to every rock and tree branch in the mountains which makes picture taking in winter ultimately amazing. I find winter here in Washington to be the most beautiful of all seasons to hike in the mountains.

This is especially the case when an inversion layer sets up in the Puget Sound Region. Usually once or twice a year warm air from the south with actually ride up over the cold air in the Puget Sound Region that is trapped at the surface and set a layer of fog or clouds. This can vary from low stratus clouds at 2000 or total fog in the city. What lies above the inversion layer is clear bluebird sky and warmer temperatures. This inversion layer is also a photographers dream in that it often covers the lower elevations with clouds and saves the higher mountains for amazing views. If a hiker or climber can get hit this inversion layer right, he will be in for an amazing treat.

The TR title says it all. Well, sort of. OK, not the whole story.

Last year, I found myself looking for new peakbagging goals to kill the time. Basically, obscure peakbagging ideas floated around my head.

One such idea was to reach 100 peaks that have at least 2000' of clean prominence ("P2K") in the USA. At the end of August 2011, I had a total of 80 such peaks. At the beginning of 2012, I had a total of 89 such peaks. That meant 11 more to go to reach my obscure, self-fulfilling goal, but I wanted to accomplish that goal by July.

Mt Rainier - Ptarmigan Ridge (IV, 55 degree snow/ice, AI2/WI2, 5.6/M3)

Though not as popular and well known as neighboring Liberty Ridge, many climbers who have done both consider Ptarmigan Ridge a better climb, and possibly the best route on Mt. Rainier. The path of Ptarmigan Ridge is less direct and the position less striking, and sadly the real climbing ends at a much lower altitude than Liberty Ridge (ca. 12,200’ rather than at Liberty Cap’s lofty 14,112’.) However, Ptarmigan Ridge offers more technical climbing, with steeper slopes, more ice, and a choice of two finishes: A less popular variation that climbs through an icefall to the left, and the standard right variation that ascends a chimney system through a rock band and requires some technical rock climbing on perhaps the only good rock on the mountain.

Although it seems that most climbers these days climb the ridge after a long traverse across the Winthrop and Carbon Glaciers from the White River Trailhead, we opted for the original & more scenic approach from Mowich Lake. I wasn't a fan of the 2 hour drive required to set up the car shuttle (or the 2 hour drive back after the climb), but this approach was so much more scenic than the White River one and totally worth the effort.

Jaymie had read my note in SummitPost's Plans & Partners section and sent me a message. We started exchanging ideas, and quickly settled on the popular Ishinca valley. I wouldn't go as far as to call it crowded, but it is still one of the busier places in the Cordillera Blanca. Quite understandably so I might add: There are great hiking possibilities – especially if you don't mind a short and simple glacier crossing – some easy glaciated peaks such as Ishinca and Urus Este, suitable for novices as well as useful for acclimatization, and a number of harder ones. Of the latter, Tocllaraju (6034m) would be our main goal. We would try climbing the normal route, the NW ridge. Although one of the easiest 6000-ers in the Cordillera Blanca, it is still rated AD.

Jaymie lived in Alaska, so I had no doubts about his outdoor skills. We talked a bit about dealing with glacier hazards and about getting acclimatized. Like many, he simply didn't have a long holiday, so, to make the most of it, he wanted to start climbing as soon as possible, instead of acclimatizing gradually. He had been climbing regularly in Alaska shortly before coming to Peru. I had no idea how high he had been recently already, but I just figured that he was in a better position than me to judge how fast he would adapt to the thin air, and he was confident.

I crossed the Missouri River during the night, and I stopped for a brief nap before continuing west from a Nebraska interstate rest area. The braided nature of the Platte River was new to me, but this Nebraska part of the trail was mundane until the river forked. I followed the North Platte until a neat landmark, Chimney Rock, appeared in front of the afternoon sun. I could first make out the rock formation about ten miles away, and state route 92 traced the path of the trail right past it, just as pioneers had done in the 19th century. A few miles farther, I parked at the Mitchell Pass view of Scotts Bluff, another famous feature along the trail’s historic route.

The paved Saddle Rock Trail provides a panoramic view of the bluff before it brings you a closer experience. Several sedimentary layers, including one standout white stripe, are capped by exquisite shapes of soft eroded sandstone. Inside the trail tunnel, near which I grabbed my own souvenir rock, there are many examples of inquisitive people rubbing into the pale stone. At the top, high above the North Platte River valley, the geological survey marker stands oddly well above the surface, unwittingly serving as an amazing reference to eighty years of erosion. Make no mistake, this natural monument’s time is running out on a geologic scale. After looking to the horizons with my binoculars, I started back. In one narrow section, I politely yielded to an oncoming girls’ cross country team. The main pack had callously left one slow girl in their wake, so I followed their example and did not yield for her. Actually that is untrue, I felt bad for her so I smiled and encouraged. With no camping prospects here, I had to cross into Wyoming to the nearest interstate rest area. Tomorrow, I looked forward to actually sleeping outside of my car.

“Beiber!”

The televisions on the darkened bus began blaring whatever piece of crap video the diminutive Canadian pop star was peddling as music at the time. I rolled my eyes at my friend Jordan, who was literally dancing in her seat next to me. Most of the other passengers on the bus, all Rwandan except for my five American friends and I, seemed to be enjoying the song as well. We had been stuck in the mud on the road between Kigali and Ruhengeri for the better part of an hour, but looking around at the smiles on everyone’s face it was hard to be annoyed. And since the entire bus seemed intent on turning this setback into a party...I reached into my bag, pulled out the bottle of Waragi (Ugandan gin) that I had been saving for the hotel that night, took a swig, and passed it on.

Rising at 4:00 a.m., I set foot on the trail at 5:00 a.m. exactly which allowed for a relaxing climb in total darkness. There’s something incredibly peaceful about a winter trail lit only by a headlamp especially while alone in the woods. The soft glow of morning banished the darkness while I was on the ridge about 2 miles into the trek. I continued to use the headlamp until it was bright enough to judge depth; the trail was a mess of amazingly deep post-holes.

This was a birthday celebration hike for me and I felt my age…or the heavy pack, hopefully the latter. I felt like I was moving at a snail’s pace and took more breaks than usual. None-the-less, I arrived at the edge of the East Face’s upper southern edge (just left of the ‘view’ sign partway down Giant’s flank en route to Rocky Peak Ridge) at 7:30 a.m. I was trying to time it with sunrise, but the heavy clouds gave little hope for a brilliant display. Grays and blues dominated the color scheme.

I’ve always felt myself drawn to the Great Northern Rockies. Some of it was residue left over from a childhood visit to Yellowstone, the Tetons, and a swing 'round Beartooth Pass. A lot of that was recovered and amplified by some of the wonderful pages here on this website, as well as from reading Turiano’s masterpiece cover to cover.

And yet I had yet to venture into the Northern Rockies. The fact that SLC was within driving distance to these magical places (as well as many other western environs) was one of the reasons I had made my decision to move there (for better or for worse). I had vague plans of heading north as Summer approached, but know not when I would have executed them had I not gotten a call from Greg about Wind River Peak.

I had broken my own elevation gain record the weekend before on the Triple Traverse. Confidence thus a little higher than before, I beheld the prospect breaking in consecutive weeks my distance record (no more than 20 on one day, 22 in two). It wouldn’t come easy, but as we researched and debated routes, it seemed doable.

This honestly has been one of the roughest hiking months in a long time. With only two unique summits for the month of December and countless failed trips along with tons of mountain snow and glommy days, I will hope to soon forget December 2012. But it is not time to dwell on the iffy weather but to take action on what does come around. And for the first time in well over a month Western Washington was going to have a sunny day. I wasn't going to watch this day go to waste.

I originally was hoping to get a large group to go to Cleveland Mountain. I only up with me and one person and due to lack of people and the major fears of the snow being unconsolidated we decide to save Cleveland Mountain for another day. For this trip I went with Almostthere from NwHikers who has completely recovered from an injury on Merchant in May. He also brought his awesome dog who was a really trooper on this trip. I have had three fail attempts on it and I could definitely see this being failed attempt number four on that peak. For us it was time to scale back a bit so we choose Haystack near Route 2. Though there was a decent review on this peak I honestly wasn’t expecting too much here. Many in the peakbagging view this peak as a dumpster dive due to it's low elevation and realtive ease of access. But I knew getting out here would be a better choice than having a go big or stay home attitude. I was having serious cabin fever.

So this was it! This would be my 2012 finale and what a way to end a dynamic year in the mountains for me than climbing Little Bear Peak in calendar winter. I had made the 1,400 mile drive from Seattle to do this climb. The day after I arrived in Denver I met with Josh around noon and we drove down to Fort Garland and got there just before the sun set. I had been in contact with Jed and Sarah about this climb and Jed planned to meet us there later that night since he had to work and Sarah was just going to meet us at the trailhead coming from Vail. I shot a nice photo of Little Bear from town at sunset and was getting really excited to see the entire SW ridge was about completely wind blown. Josh and I walked into the first motel we saw in town assuming there could only be one in this tiny town. Once inside the Motor Inn this lady who must have been possessed by the devil comes out and gives us rude looks and chases us out. We did manage to get her to tell us where the $55/night motel was and once we checked into the correct motel the guy at the desk said that lady is his best customer! I wondered how she stayed in business. Anyway, Josh and I got the key and threw some stuff in the room then walked across the street for dinner. It was getting very cold and the forecasted low temperature in Fort Garland was -12 degrees! We were happy to have the warm motel room.