March 23rd, 2014, Rock-Howard-Mastiff Traverse

 On Sunday, March 23rd, Jeff Tarshis, David Ratliff and I headed east of Stevens Pass to do the Rock-Howard-Mastiff traverse. The traverse covers 13 miles, 7,740 in elevation gain/loss and takes you to the summit's of 3 gorgeous mountains. The terrain in this area offers limitless options for skiing and would certainly be worth spending numerous days exploring.

The climb up to Rock Mountain was by far the hardest part of our day. We must have transitioned 4 or 5 times on the way up... skin, skin with crampons, boot pack, skin again... generally following the summer trail the entire way. Initially we had departed the trailhead at 7:20 am and the snow was still frozen in most places. This made ski crampons a necessity lower down. At around 3,600 ft (I don't remember the exact elevation) we encountered some remnant avy debris and above them bare slopes. We switched to boot packing for the next 200ft and saw an old crown, probably 3ft, at the top, indicating that the slope we just traveled up was likely bare because of a previous ground release avalanche. After a bit more heinous skinning we finally reached good consistent snow at 4,200 ft, around the start of the ridge that leads up into the alpine. From here forward conditions were excellent all day.

Pointing out the cornice on the final flat ridge up to Rock Mountain. Photo: Jeff Tarshis

Jeff and David on the top of Rock

 We made our first ski descent for the day off the north face of Rock Mountain and traversed skiers right at the bottom ending up slightly below the notch separating Rock and Howard. We ascended to the top of this notch and then made another 1,000ft descent down to Crescent Lake. The snow conditions were great: boot top left over pow, hardly a crust underneath and well bonded. We found these same snow conditions all day (except at lower elevations). At Crescent Lake we took a quick lunch, enjoying the sun and solitude that we were being treated to on this amazing day. 

David ripping down from the notch toward Crescent.

 After our lunch was finished we began the 1,600ft climb up the south face of Howard. The lower section is a bit steeper, but there are plenty of routes through the trees. We saw some pinwheels and had a few spots sluff slightly on us, but nothing of concern. Once we made it through the steeper lower sections the rest of the way up the south face of Howard was gorgeous and provided us with a great opportunity to take in our surroundings.

Looking back on Rock Mountain and what we had skied

Me dropping in on the north face of Howard

 The route up Mastiff is very easy and straightforward. We generally followed the ridge all the way, staying on the climbers right, and farther up just cut one nice long easy skin track that meandered through some wind beaten trees.

Howard seen from Mastiff.

 There was some wind on an otherwise calm day at the top of Mastiff and we made a slightly quicker transition. We began our descent by following the ridge of Mastiff southeast (ish) before dropping in on a more east facing aspect. The decision was made to follow the ridge before dropping because of a large cornice overhanging the face. This top portion initially skied awesome, before we entered a gully to descend towards Lost Lake. The gully was full of avy debris, but the skiing was still okay in some spots. 

Touring across Lost Lake and looking back at Mastiff

One final climb up the treed slope on the south side of Lost Lake brought us to the notch above Merritt Lake. From this point we were able to "ski" all the way back to the road and arrived at Hwy 2 around 5:20pm. To our surprise skiing was easily possible the entire way down. Conditions on the Merritt trail were much better then those found on the Rock trail.

 Of Note: The trip took 10 hours total. I think it can easily be done much faster. The initial climb up to the summit of Rock took us 4.5 hours because of too many transitions and a dropped pole incident (and rescue) that was my mistake. I would recommend touring the initial road underneath the power lines as far as you can. Once the touring becomes impossible because of bare ground, or to difficult, just boot all the way to 4,200ft. You will save time in the end. Also, the traverse itself is easy enough to navigate as you can see your next destination (peak) most of the time. However, without a GPS we certainly would have had a difficult time descending from Merritt Lake to Hwy 2. The summer trail at Merritt is completely buried. There were a number of times on the descent that we became slightly off route and corrected our heading. 

 Thanks to Jeff and David for an awesome and safe adventure!

January 14th - 24th, Japan, Mt. Yotei, Niseko and More

I went to Japan with 2 good friends, Judd Graham and Spencer Schrote, in search of some legendary powder. We would not be disappointed! Our first 5 day we skied in Niseko and snowfall averaged probably 10 in per day. Our luck continued after that and we had a rare January sun break allowing us to climb and ski the prominent Mt. Yotei on January 19th. The rest of our trip we spent with friends from college who now live in Sapporo. There we enjoyed ski days at the awesome Sapporo Teinie resort. Teinie has steeper terrain then Niseko and far less crowds. We also enjoyed getting to experience the Japanese culture and took part in many "nomihodai" (All you can drink)!

Me getting some Japanese Pillows

The 3 of us on the summit of Yotei

Mt. Yotei with me airing into the summit crater

January 3rd - 8th, 2014, Rogers Pass, BC

Jeff Schomaker, Miles Morris, Reid McCaul and I took a road trip in early January to the Asulkan Cabin in Rogers Pass, BC. Conditions were excellent. A big storm rolled in our first night and we skied 35cm of light freshies the following day at Revelstoke. On January 4th we toured from the Information Center under overcast skies and skied Puff Daddy and Grizzly Shoulder. The snow quality was excellent. Blower and relatively stable - what more could you want! We toured into the Asulkan Cabin the following day and spent the next 3 picking off multiple lines in the area. They included 2 climbs of Young's Peak with descent's of Seven Steps and the Forever Young Couloir. Also, we skied many great lines on the Pterodactyl and in the Triangle Trees below the Asulkan. We even managed to catch a pow day at Stevens on the 9th on our way home. Could not have had a better trip! Check out the short video of the time at Rogers.

March 12, 2014, Mt. Rainier, Gib Ledges & Chute

  On Tuesday, 3/11/14, Tom Meiner and I left Seattle bound for Camp Muir and, with conditions permitting, a climb of Gibraltar Ledges and a ski descent via Gib Chute the following day. With the numerous storm cycles over the previous month we were unsure exactly what conditions we would find. With the recent wetter storm system having finished a few days previously we hoped to find more stable conditions and good coverage on the upper mountain. At around 11:00 am we stopped at Longmire to pick up our yearly climbing permits. There were a number of other cars in the day parking lot, but only a few in the overnight lot, with one guiding companies van. We departed Paradise around 11:45.

 The skin up was great with a slight breeze and only a few clouds in the sky. Snow conditions were a few inches of sun warmed snow and made for great touring. From the parking lot the Gib Ledges route looked to be well filled in.

On our way to Camp Muir The Gib Ledges route (roughly) is drawn in blue and the Gib Chute ski descent in green. Mt. Rainier is displaying its power as a chunk of the Nisqually breaks off and causes a slide.

 When at Camp Muir Tom and I talked with a guy from Montana named JD. He had just applied with RMI to work this summer and had came up to check out the conditions of the Gib Ledges route and possibly then return to climb them this coming weekend. JD had climbed Rainier before, but like myself was also looking to make his first winter ski descent. After some talking we all agreed he could climb with us the following day. First hand beta for his climb the coming weekend would be best!

 There were two other people in the public shelter at Muir that night, as well as a group staying in the guide hut. The guided group was not going up Wednesday and the other 2 gentlemen planned on climbing the Ingraham Direct route.

That night at Muir we were treated to a great sunset!

 We awoke a bit after 3:00 am, Wednesday morning, and after making breakfast and melting more water we left the shelter around 4:20. The initial climb up the Cowlitz was through mainly boot top snow down low and changed to wind buffed with a 1” crust in places closer the start of the route. We began the route directly below Gib Rock. The initial section was easy and about the width of a side walk.  The snow was firm in most places and made for good cramponing. The second ledge was steeper and we traversed front-pointing across some of this section. We then moved around a rock corner that led to the final ledge and eventually the exit chute. This last ledge had some sections of granular snow, but travel was still not bad. We stayed directly below, and next to, Gib rock the entire way. We all found the Ledges to be a really enjoyable climb. They provided some great exposure, while every move was still right there.  Plus they are certainly a great place to watch the sun rise!

JD coming across the first section of the final ledge as the sun rises.

 The exit chute was firm and the descent down Gib Chute looked to be in excellent shape. After the chute the rest of the way to the top of Gibraltar Rock at 12,700ft was about 6” of boot top snow. For reference we climbed on the climber’s right side of the chute most of the way.

 At the saddle winds were blowing around 25 mph and we dug a small hole to take a break in at around 7:45am. Looking up at where our route was meeting with the Ingraham Glacier there were a few crevasses that would be easy to navigate around. After initially traversing climbers left between 2 crevasses we then continued more or less directly towards the crater rim. We entered the crater at 11:00 am after crossing a small section of wind blown snow with rock and then following a small patch of snow to the rim. It was a crystal clear sunny day with relatively calm conditions and such a treat for a winter summit of Mt. Rainier! Wind in the crater was around 20 mph, but Columbia Crest was blowing harder, I would say around 30 mph.

JD on the summit

 It was a very unique day on Rainier in that we did not have to share it with one other person or group! We did not encounter the team climbing the ID until about 13,000ft on our decent at around 12:15 pm.

 We stopped back at the hole we had dug that morning at about 12:20 pm and took a break while discussing the descent of Gib Chute (and the part we all had looked most forward to) that was to come. The previous day we had decided the latest we would want to be skiing the chute was 1:00 pm. One reason we had decided this was because of what we had witnessed the previous day, with a chuck of the Nisqually breaking off, and the reality of the large ice cliff also overhanging Gib Chute.  None of us wanted to be caught in that! Also, we could see lots of evidence lower down near the Nisqually Chute of soft sun caused point release avalanches that must have released later the previous afternoon.  Thankfully, we were right on time for this 1:00 pm deadline (our back up would have been to ski the ID, which is actually much more “direct” this year, as we were told by the other 2 climbers).

 Tom skied it first and communicated via radio that everything was good to go. It was sun warmed pow and rippable. He cautioned that he did have some sun sluff to deal with, that there was a very small bergschrund at the bottom and that we should ski it fast as conditions were warming rapidly. I then skied it next and wished that my legs were not tired from the climb and that I could have shredded it even harder!

Tom and JD after skiing Gib Chute.

 We then went back to Muir, packed up from the night before and had an enjoyable ski back down to Paradise. It was one of the of the best days I have had in the mountains. Excellent climbing conditions, great team work and solidarity, good skiing and by far the best part was that it was only the 3 of us on such an amazing mountain enjoying the day.