North Cascade Guiding

Washington's North Cascades

After I came back from Alaska, I jumped right into the Cascade guiding season in full swing. I've been cutting back on the amount of guiding I've been doing for various reasons but the ten days of work I had in the Cascades were a refreshing reminder of why guiding was so attractive to me. I met some great people and love helping people accomplish their goals. But in the end, I know that I am going to be more happy wearing out my body on my terms rather than on work terms because those backpacks are heavy!!

On Mt. Shukson, Jonathon and I helped a father/daughter team get to the summit. I love helping other women in the mountains. I think it is inspiring. We climbed the southeast ridge and had some of the worst weather I had ever experienced but we all made it up and down safely.

The southeast ridge is the right skyline. It was one of the more technical routes I have guided and definitely kept me interested!

Me leading us towards the summit. The weather only got worse.

On Baker, we had a fun group of clients and again not so great weather until we got above 8000 feet and were above the clouds. But 7 out of 8 folks reached the summit!

Hanging out at the crater rim.

On Mt. Rainier we had glorious weather and a really funny group of climbers. Again 7 out of 8 climbers reached the top.

Summit!!

Here we are descending

Sick climbing video

Check out this video I made from my trip to Alaska!

Denali

Approaching Camp 2 at 11,000 feet

From May 30 to June 20, I was on Denali working a trip for Alpine Ascents International. This was my first trip on the mountain and a trip that I have wanted to do since I first started guiding in 2003 in Southeast Alaska. A lot of guides have a love/hate relationship with Denali, i.e they say they hate it but keep coming back to work more trips. I found the trip to be a lot harder than I expected. I felt physically prepared but I definitely felt tired at the end of the day. The altitude and the heavy loads were tough for me in addition to all the cooking, shoveling and putting on a happy face. We had a lot of bad weather and ended up spending 6 days at the high camp at 17,000 feet waiting out weather. There were high winds and really cold temperatures. In the end we left without a summit but we did leave with all of our toes and fingers. Here are some photos from the trip. Thanks to Steve Tambosso for sharing all of these images.

Climbing on the lower mountain with heavy loads

Such pretty views and weather

Heading up in a storm

Climbers on the upper West Buttress Ridge

Looking out at Mt. Foraker from the diving board at high camp at 17,000 ft