A demanding day with 9 hours of continuous climbing. 10 pitches of hard ice, up to WI5. Lots of fun. Made possible by my friend and guide Steve House. Followed by dinner in town with Barry Blanchard, his friend Pat and plenty of great stories from Alaska. Thanks Steve!
A few months ago Beamer and I climbed the Ingraham icefall direct route on Rainier. It was “spicy”…….
In August 2007 I went to Shasta to solo climb the Hotlum Wintun glacier route. This was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. This is my story.
I park in the lot 50 miles from the main road. It is 7,000 feet elevation. Pine trees tower around me and pine needles lay a soft blanket over the landscape.
There is a small SUV parked near the trail head with two other climbers setting out. A man and woman. They are making breakfast on their stove and their coffee smells great. I stop and they start asking me questions. What route are you taking and did you bring a rope and ice-screws? No I didn’t, why? We heard from a guide coming down that the top is all exposed blue-ice and you will need at least three ice screws. Well I’m climbing solo and wasn’t planning on roping up. I tell them the route I am taking and set off.
I wasn’t to see them again or anyone else until for the next two days.
The approach is nice, but long. About two miles up I pass a large stream. I stop at each hour to drink 500ml of water and eat a small snack. I move fast but curse my my pack which is far too heavy.
It is 10am at 9,000 feet and I stop behind a stubby cold rock and sit in dirt to drink and eat with some shelter. The wind finds me just the same. I am cold when I stop, but I have energy. The day feels great so far.
By 2pm I pass 10,000 feet with no sign of the base camp that is supposed to be there. The snow starts here so I stop to put on crampons and get out my ice-axe.
Grass and dirt and trees fade to rock and loose rock and snow and ice. Colors change. Green and brown are replaced by grey and white. The wind bites into my skin. My “windbreaker” doesn’t seem to be doing much. Passing 10,500 still no base camp. I feel good so I decide to continue climbing and camp on the ridge somewhere up above.
Steep is replaced by steeper and steeper still. Any loose snow that might provide purchase is long blown away, leaving the hard, brittle intense blue ice of the glacier. The sun beats down mercilessly. My windbreaker is soaked through. I feel my skin burning and stop regularly to put on high altitude sunblock. Still my skin feels hot. I take off my sunglasses for a minute and I can’t see much at all.
Here and there an errant gust catches me off balance and I have to act fast to keep from slipping down the steep slope. It plays havoc with my nerves and I slow down. I decide to get off the ice soon and onto the ridge to my left. It looks like there is a flat spot about a thousand feet up, but on arriving, it turns out not to be flat. I begin to worry that I won’t find a suitable bivouac ledge, and climb higher still.
4pm I am desperate and drop my pack to scramble around on the ridge looking for a suitable ledge to sleep on for the night. Eventually, I find a 2 foot wide ledge good enough for a bivouac, but not wide enough for a tent — I will have to climb into my tent and simply roll it around me to block the wind and possible rain. Disheartened, I begin to downclimb back to my tent and something tells me to turn right. I follow my instinct, and just 40 feet to the right I find a somewhat flat bivy ledge with a rock wall to block the wind and large enough to setup my whole tent. A flood of relief washes over me and I am calm again.
By nightfall I have eaten and collected water from some glacier runoff I find close by. I settle down for the night with the base of the valley some 11,000 feet below. I fall asleep easily from exhaustion.
2am? I am awake and it is dark with pin pricks of light from the stars only. No moon. My throat is on fire and I fumble around to find my bottle and take a long pull. Relief! I had never felt such a thirst. 11,000 feet is the highest I’ve ever been, and I must be completely dehydrated. After the pain in my throat subsides I notice that I have an intense headache. I am so tired I simply ignore it and go back to sleep.
Every 30 minutes or so my rasping throat shakes me to life and I drink a few sips then pass out again. Dawn seems to be coming soon so I get going. It is 4:30am.
Packing a small pack for the summit I bring only 2 liters of water a few snacks and a down jacket. I am off onto the ice again. Thankfully this morning there is no wind and only a stillness and quiet that makes the dark inky blackness of the mountain foreboding.
With the warnings of the previous day in mind I plan to climb to the summit but will turn around if it gets too steep and dangerous to continue with no rope.
I move slowly like my legs are filled with lead. It is the altitude and I tell myself it is OK and normal. After 3 hours of steep terrain, I am disheartened to realize I’ve only ascended 1,000 feet. At this rate I won’t summit till 2pm.
I told Steph (my wife) that I’d be off the mountain by 6pm and would call her to tell her I am OK. I decide that I must turn around by 2pm even if I have not hit the summit. Otherwise it will get dark and I will risk getting lost wont be able to call her which would leave her worrying all night.
I climb faster despite the heavyness and quickened breathing. I set goals for each 10 yards. Just keep moving until I get to that rock up ahead then I can rest. Then the next rock, then the next.
Finally I get to 13,000 feet where I know I am supposed to traverse left across the ridge. I have a 2 paragraph description of the route memorized and realize that it is woefully inadequate. It says to look for a pyramid rock and there are at least 10 rocks around that look like pyramids. Seeing no other option, I rely on my altimeter and traverse the ridge.
The rock of the ridge is heinous and unstable. Every 2 feet up I slide 1 foot back. Even the big rocks are loose and I start more than a few mini rock slides. My nerves are completely shot from the loose rock and I finally get to the end of the ridge and back onto ice and thankfully back to some snow!
Putting the crampons back on my fingers get numb from the cold. It is now 11am, I am at 13,000 feet and the summit is nowhere to be seen. The mountain is much bigger than I thought. It is enormous and looks nothing like the small 3×5 black and white photo I studied for months.
Depression dances at the edge of my awareness and I push it back with the idea that I’ll just keep climbing till 2pm then turn around. I start out up a steep chute and have now switched to front-pointing (using the front points of the crampons). It is tiring on my calfs but I press on. Noon comes and goes and the summit is nowhere in sight. An hour later I think I can see the summit. Still I have not crossed the “super steep exposed blue ice” that the other climbers referred to so I continue climbing.
I arrive at the summit headwall and here is the ice. It is steep and scary but I can see the summit just 100 feet above me. I have no rope and I know I should turn around. I don’t. The summit is so close. Emotion wells up. I push it down and attack the final 100 feet.
2:30pm I emerge onto the summit plateau. 14,400 feet! Two climbers appear from the opposite side and ask where is my partner. I have none. They are surprised and look strangely at me.
I spend 5 minutes there eating and drinking then start downclimbing.
Immediately I realize that it is too steep to downclimb and I get scared. There appears to be no choice so I just go down anyway hoping not to slip. A few minutes later, despite my caution, I slip anyway and slide for some distance, maybe 40 feet, but I can’t be sure. I manage to self-arrest with my axe. Adrenaline floods and my heart jumps out of my chest. A few minutes later I get myself under control and realize I’ve just stopped myself from a 7,000 foot fall down the glacier. I realize I have made a mistake by descending here but now it is too late. I must get back to my tent and off the mountain.
I resolve to move slower and more carefully. I try but the steepness is too much and I slip again. This time I catch myself sooner. There is no adrenaline left to shock me so I retain my composure. With excrutiatingly slow motion I continue down until I have passed the steep bits.
The 4 hours that follow were a blur in my mind. Exhausted and dehydrated time seems to speed up. I see the other climbers coming up and stop to talk to them. They are surprised I made it to the top. They turned around at 12,000 feet due to risk. I mumble something about the conditions at the top and move quickly away back to my tent. I finally reach my bivy ledge and pack up the tent with too must haste. I am not thinking straight.
Getting back to the safety of my truck parked at the bottom is all I can think of. I have to get down to the trail before dark or I will be lost. I haven’t eaten anything for hours and begin to hallucinate. I see rocks in the distance and think they are tents. They end up being rocks and I feel I am losing my mind. I continue and move faster. I hear other climbers behind me, but turn and see no one. After what seems like ages, the trail finally appears just as the sun begins to dip below the mountain top and I finally stop to drink and eat. Getting the food and water quickly suppresses the hallucinations, and I jog the rest of the two miles down to my truck arriving just as the last light leaves the sky.
The battery in my truck is dead. My heart stops. I try again. Nothing. I look around and there is no one else in the parking lot. I am 50 miles from the highway and it is pitch black. I have no cell service. I try my emergency radio for thirty minutes and get no response. I pace around outside my car and hypothermia starts to set it. The lack of food and water married with the cold of the night take their toll and I begin shaking. I begin to feel myself panic and I sit down to think. Stop my mind from racing. Think. Think. I get into my car and put on all my down clothing and get into my sleeping bag. I make a hot meal. The shaking stops. I return my mind to the problem of the battery.
A car is next to mine. The one belonging to the other climbers. Maybe I can get their battery out and jump start my truck. A frustrating hour passes before I finally figure out how to use my ice axe to pop their hood and get their battery out. Hooray! I am saved. My celebration is cut short when I plug it into my car and it doesn’t work. Their battery is too small for my truck and fails to even turn the engine once! Finally drained of all hope I put their battery back and jump into my truck to sleep until dawn at which point I will plan out my escape.
I get started the next morning and plan to climb back to the base camp I couldn’t find earlier and find the other climbers for help. I leave a make-shift sign on my car stating my predicament in case the rangers come and I head back up the mountain.
I am sore but I am desperate. I worry that my wife is worried. I almost run the three miles back up the mountain to the base camp at 10,000 feet. I find it. There are no climbers there! I blow my whistle continuously. I see no one.
By 10am I have given up on finding them and head down the mountain. An hour later I see the climbers coming towards me. They had gotten lost on the wrong trail and had passed me earlier.
Relief! I ask for his phone and quickly call Steph. Tell her everything is OK and I will call her back soon. We get back to my car and it jump starts with no problem.
I thank the climbers and hurriedly drive away. Back to town and safety and people. I am safe.
I decide never to climb alone again.
While climbing the Ingraham Direct route on Mt. Rainier, this was a ladder which had been placed over one of the (many) crevasses we had to cross over. It’s not as scary as it looks, and, as you can see in the picture, we are roped together in case of a fall.
Last weekend, Lauren and I climbed Shasta to do some winter climbing.
They’ve only gotten 5-7 feet so far this year, so it was still in-shape and the weather was stellar. We started up Avalanche gulch on the south side, and climbed to Green Butte ridge, where we camped at 9,000ft. Out of camp by 8am the next day, we leisurely climbed back to the gulch and ascended to 10,000ft, where we found an access point to Casaval ridge, called the “first window”.
Here we roped up and began our real climb. The first pitch was easy climbing to a rock in the middle of the snowfield, where I belayed Lauren. We spotted a few small rocks careening down the field, and decided we’d best climb on the left where there was a few overhanging rocks which would give us cover from any falling rocks. The final 2 pitches led to the stunning crest of the ridge, which is 2 feet wide at the top, providing spectacular views in all directions.
We had lunch at the top, and began our descent (roped). After the third pitch, and watermelon sized rock screamed down and came ~10 feet from Lauren, which was a bit unnerving. We looked at each other and unanimously decided to unrope, figuring that it was safer than being hit by a rock and knocked off the face. 10 minutes later we got to the bottom of the snow-field and breathed a sigh of relief.
All in all, it was a great day of climbing!
This weekend Collin and I climbed Mt. Baldy as part of our regular training for big mountains. I get up there at least once a month, since its an hour from my house in LA and I can there and back easily in a day. But this time, the Baldy gods reminded us that the mountains are in charge.
Being familiar with the route, we packed light – ice axes, crampons, winter jackets, a litre of water, a bagel and an orange, one pack of GU, a first aid kit, a compass (on my watch) and headlamps. We got started at 9am and made decent time to the San Antonio Ski Hut – the half way point on this route. So far there had been only a light dusting of snow and no sign of the winter storm that was forecasted to be approaching. At the hut, we chatted with a craggy looking mountaineer and his wife who were training for Mt. Rainier in May and Denali in June. It would be his third attempt on Denali, getting “blown off” twice before. They were nice to chat with.
After a 20 minute break, some water and food, we donned our crampons and ice-axes and planned our route up the bowl. Looking up we could see an ant-line of at least 20 climbers slowly plodding up the bowl with heavy packs laden with a god awful assortment of unnecessary items, a lack of fitness, or a lack of confidence on the steep, exposed snow slope, or a combination of all three.
With our light packs we moved up past the other climbers and into the center of the bowl. The last group we passed was a mountain guide with two clients who he had short-roped together (connected together with 15 feet of rope between each). He was giving these new climbers a lesson in rope technique and self-arrest. The sun was shining and they looked like they were having a great time. Both clients smiled and said cheery hellos as we passed.
Climbing the main section of the bowl must have taken us an hour and a half, and slowly, the line of climbers we’d passed receded in our view into what again looked like a line of ants. We felt good and the day seemed to be perfect to make good time to the top, however this was not to be.
As we reached the rocky outcrops which mark the center of the bowl, the clouds began to roll in, and within a matter of minutes a winter storm was brewing around us. The wind picked up and visibility dropped to a hundred feet. The climbers below us were swallowed up in a thick cloud remarkably quickly. I remained hopeful that we’d climb out of it to a sunny beautiful day at the summit.
We pressed on.
As we climbed the visibility continued to drop. 45 minutes later, as we crested the top of the bowl, we could barely see the ground in front of us, and it made every step slow to a crawl. Minutes later a couple of climbers emerged from the white. The guy in front has his nose pressed to his GPS. He called out to us in a thick accent (sounded like eastern european) “Do you know where the trail is?” — “No, we’re not following a trail” we responded. He continued on, using his GPS to find his trail back. I our compass bearing (due north) and continued up.
We continued higher, attempting to follow in the footsteps of the GPS climbers in the hopes they’d lead us to the summit. At some point we lost their trail and were left wandering up the barren landscape. Eventually, using the altimeter, we hit 10,050 feet, which is the elevation of the summit so we knew we were close (altimeters are not precise).
We decided to stop and eat. Donning our jackets we’d brought up here just for this purpose, we sat down and discussed options. Our original plan had been to downclimb a route called “the Devil’s Backbone”, and we quickly ruled this out as there would be no way to find that route in these conditions. We decided to head down, using our compass to navigate and get us off the summit plateau. We couldn’t even use the tracks we’d made coming up, since the snow was hard and windblown and we left very little visible marks.
Trusting the compass to lead us to the entrance to the bowl, it took us probably 30 minutes to cover the ground which would have taken 5 minutes in clear weather, but eventually we found the top of the bowl and started down. The downclimbing was slow with the poor visibility and the need to keep checking the bearing on the compass, but we made steady progress. Eventually, there was a break in the cloud cover and we briefly made out the ski hut a thousand feet below us. We took a compass bearing on it, so we could follow all the way back in zero visibility.
As we continued down the clouds began to break and visibility returned. The summit remained ensconced in clouds, but the path to the hut was clear.
The rest of the hike back to the car was uneventful, but we were reminded that the mountain is a harsh mistress.
For the last year, I’ve been planning and training to climb Denali
(North America’s highest peak) in 2010. Due to weather and other
conditions, May and June are the only feasible months to climb Denali,
and due to my work calendar, June has been the plan. As some of you
know, several months ago, we got the great news that my wife,
Stephanie, is pregnant with our second child and due in June!
Technically she is due at the end of June, and I tried half-heartedly
to convince myself that I could still climb in the beginning part of
June and be back for the birth, but, ultimately, I knew that Denali
would have to wait until 2011.
Check out photos here on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=153079&id=533161680&l=7c0e9146b7
We got rained out for the ice climb, so tomorrow we climb Half Dome in Yosemite. The route is called Snake Dike.
