Sawtooth Daydream

In the August 2010 Climbing Magazine, my good friend James Q. Martin published this beautiful photo essay and article about rock climbing on the Elephant's Perch in the Sawtooths in Idaho. James and I drove out there from Seattle last September to climb and make some photos. We met up with Heidi Wirtz and local guide Marc Hanselman. It was a really fun trip with great people, a beautiful setting, and amazing alpine rock climbing. And some great photos came out of the trip! Check it out!

http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/sawtooth_daydeam/

Prusik Peak

On Friday, Phillippe and I climbed a route called Solid Gold (III, 5.11a) on Prusik Peak in the Enchantments. Prusik may be one of the most beautiful peaks in Washington. It has that perfect symmetrical triangular shape and is surrounded by beautiful alpine lakes. It is known to have some of the best alpine granite and we were both impressed with the rock quality. Although I still found myself dusting of the lichen and chalking up the footholds on the crucial spears and edges. We both thought the ratings were a little soft and the route could have been climbed in 3 or 4 pitches but we did it in 5 as the topo suggested. The climbing was interesting with lots of cracks and a couple techy face climbing moves as well The route tops out at the base of the west ridge, which is also a super classic moderate alpine rock ridge. It was a nice way to finish the climb.

The only drawback is that it is a 10 mile walk and 6000 feet of elevation gain, ONE WAY!!! We did it car to car in about 16 hours and by the last 2000 feet of the descent the balls of my feet hurt so much! My legs were very sore the next day! Treking poles were a must. I'm still not sure if it is worth it to hike that much for so little climbing, relatively speaking but nonetheless, it is an amazing alpine playground. Unfortunately my camera broke so I don't have any climbing photos :(

This is the topo that we used that I found on CascadeClimbers.com

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

Alaska Range

Sometimes climbing trips go exactly as planned; most of the time, however, there are a variety of mishaps that always seem to make the climbing trip more than memorable. That was the case for this trip to Alaska. After planning and training for this trip for over 6 months, it was inevitable that things wouldn't go as planned. In the end though, it was a great learning experience and a fun trip.

Jonathan and I flew into Kahiltna Base Camp on May 19 with hopes to climb the southwest ridge of Mt. Frances and the west ridge of Mt. Hunter. After socializing with fellow climbers, we learned that the snowpack in the range had been a little funky this year. Not willing to go completely on hearsay, we still opted to give Mt. Frances a try. We woke up at midnight due to warm conditions and started up the ridge. The climbing was fun and the cruxes were pretty easy and straightforward. After climbing above the third tower, with only one more tower to go, the struggles began. Since Alaska had a pretty light snowpack this season, what was normally straightforward neve was scary, facets on top of unprotected slabs. I lead out for 200 feet through scary mixed climbing, sparse protection, and thin snow. The next pitch brought more of the same, although this time there was no gear for protection. Although disappointed, both Jonathan and I opted to retreat. We descended the route and made our way back to camp.

The next day brought more sunshine but Jonathan woke up sicker than ever with some sort of lung infection. It didn't look like he was going to be able to climb for awhile and I couldn't help but feel a little irritated and frustrated, while also feeling sympathy for my friend being sick on the glacier. We rested for several days and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to work on my tan (hehe) and go rock climbing on the base of Mt. Frances.

On Monday, we teamed up with Loren, a solid Montana alpinist to climb a newer route called Bacon and Eggs, also dubbed the mini-mini moonflower. It is always nice to climb an alpine route with three people, where you have two people at belays sharing the work, socializing, taking photos and hanging out. We started up with the attitude of just being psyched to climb and not caring how far we got on the route. Nine pitches later, we were at the top of the route and super impressed with the quality of the climbing. The climbing was characterized by continuous alpine ice 3 to 4 up a narrow chimney system. Seven v-threads later, we were back on the ground and ready for the ski back to camp.

Two days later, Jonathan and I headed up the mini moonflower, another long ice climb up one of the gulleys on Mt. Hunters northeast ridge. The first pitch of the bergshrun was steep and then the climbing mellowed off to 65 degree ice for what seemed like forever. For myself, it was a serious calf burner and was not all the fun or interesting to me. For the record, I am not much of an ice climber and tend to do the majority of my ice climbing in the alpine. While more responsible individuals usually hone their technique at the crag, I have just jumped right into ice climbing when out climbing alpine routes. In fact, this is the first time I have placed screws all year! I wouldn't necessarily recommend this training method. Needless to say, we only climbed about 1200 feet before we both decided that we weren't that psyched or inspired to continue.

We skied back to camp just in time to receive a refreshing glass of lemonade from Lisa and word that we could catch a plane back to Talkeetna within a half hour. With burgers and beers already on our mind we quickly took down our camp and eagerly awaited our flight back to civilization.

Until next time Alaska Range…

Spring Rock Climbing at Index

The rock climbing at Index, WA may be some of the best granite, traditional cragging in the country. Amazing climbs are stacked right up next to each other; one after another. There has been a lot of sunshine in Washington the last week and I spent three days out at Index. A couple other really good things about it are: there is no walk to the crag, there are always nice people climbing there and its right next to the river, among other things. The bad parts are the trains and all the meth-heads living by the river. The climbing is definitely not for the beginner and the ratings are notoriously stout but once you get the hang of the style it is so much fun!

A third of the way up Sole Children

I miraculously made it to the top of this great climb which was something that I had been trying to do since I took about a 40 foot fall off the top of the climb about 4 years ago after running it out while climbing over confidently. I tried to lead it last summer but came down half the way up it when I couldn't get the visions of me scraping, falling and screaming down the wall out of my head. Now all I have to do is get that last move cleanly!

One of the best parts about climbing at Index is that you get to look out at Mt. Index in all its glory. This place is so pretty! I