On June 27 - 29, Tian and I climbed Mt Jefferson via Jeff Park Glacier route. This is the hardest climb we have done so far and a very memorable one. Here is a brief account of the climb. Mount Jefferson is the second highest mountain in Oregon. However it can be rarely seen from Willamette Valley and it has mostly kept its anonymity even to avid climbers. We were not able to find many trip reports. It is a quite remote mountain. There is no road to its base. Its mysteriousness however doesn’t conceal any bit of its beauty.

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On 7/3 and 7/4 of 2009, a team of 5 of us climbed Mt Rainier via Emmons Glacier Route, 3 of whom haven’t climbed Rainier before. It’s quite a nice experience for each of us. Here is a brief account of the climb.

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This is almost an epic climb. We have experienced almost all four seasons in 15 hours.

We started from the trailhead at about 5:15. The trail disappears in snow after about 1000 vertical feet. We arrived Long Pass before 8 and cut across to the base of E Ridge. We found a boulder where we dropped our packs and continued scrambling on rock and snow to the base of the first pitch. Time was about 10. By 11 we were on the top of first pitch. We can see clouds from northeast of Stuart. They don’t seem to be moving fast so we pressed on.

All 6 of us topped out at around  3 and began rappeling the south ridge. We did a double rope rap from the top. The clouds were moving in but we still had time to get to the base. However, Murphy’s Law applied at this worst time. Our rope got stuck on the top! We put a couple of people’s weight on it and still can’t get it move. Now it started drizzling. We decided that the only way to get the damn thing down is to climb it. Liang and I quickly put on our rock shoes and took out our rack. Doug flaked the rope while we were doing all this. Liang led out the first pitch placing only 3 pieces. The rock was now totally wet and it was hailing and the wind was blowing. Thunder and lightening were hitting around us.

I followed the first pitch and led the second pitch placing another 3 pieces. The rope was stuck on a very small edge. I literally shook it with two fingers and freed the rope. I was surprised a little by myself how calm I was leading the second pitch. I even took a note what gear is needed for the route for future reference (for anyone who is interested, it’s a Metolius #6 cam and a set of nuts). I then rapped back down to where Liang was and we did another double rope rap (this pitch is longer than 30 metres and we needed to do a double rope rap) down. Now everyone was soaked and cold. We did another two raps down and started to traverse to where we dropped the pack.

Shit always happens twice. The last rap station is behind a big rock so the rope is running on the surface of the rock, plus the rope is now wet and heavy. It got caught again! Now everyone has left for their packs, it was just Steve and me. I didn’t hesitate for a second and climbed up while prusiked on both strands of the rope. I freed the roped and downclimbed it (it’s mostly a class 4 scramble, maybe a couple low class 5 moves). Finally we were back to where we dropped the packs. 40 minutes later, we were back to Long Pass. Time was about 6:30. Although still cold and wet, but we knew we got through all this.

The hike out thankfully was smooth. We were back to trailhead at 8pm. Everyone was tired. It was a tough climb. However, I think I have learned more than what an uneventful climb could offer.

I climbed this route again with Tom Nims, but as a rope lead this time. I was signing up assuming we were climbing Adams. But I wouldn’t mind climbing Baker again since it’s such a nice and pleasant climb. It was a fun and uneventful climb. If you have read my last year’s TR, there isn’t really much excitement. We had pretty much the same weather this time, only a bit nicer. It drizzled a little on Saturday but didn’t really rain. We were astonished to find out how many cars were there at the trail head. It’s really crazy.

We took off at around 2:10 from the camp (~6000′, about 500′ lower than where we camped last year). Tom decided to go with only three ropes because everyone was obviously very strong and we didn’t see any reason anyone would be turned back. So I led the first rope and Tom followed me, since I am the only one except Tom who has done this route before. I kept a moderate pace of ~1100′/hour and we took three 5-min short breaks. We summitted at 7:15. We were above the clouds (pretty much the same as last year) and couldn’t see any peaks around us. It was however not very windy on the top, at least to Baker’s standard. We were back to camp at about 10 and took our time to break camp and left at 12. We were back to trail head before 3.

TR: 08/02/2008 Sahale Climb - Quien Sabe

Reference: Selected Climbs in the Cascades, Jim Helson, V1 2nd Edition. Climb 47

We car camped at the trailhead on Friday night. It began drizzling in the middle of the night. At 4AM, we woke up and shuttled. It was rainy and chilly. We started off from Boston Trailhead, followed the heavily brushy trail to Boston Basin. It was wet, cold, and foggy.

We roped up on Quien Sabe Glacier. Mike, Jonathan, Doug and I lead 4 ropes. There were several crevasses open, but nothing too serious. At 11am, we arrived at the col between Boston and Sahale. The last section of the glacier is steeper (up to 35 degrees). The col consists of orange rocks. From the col, you can see the false summit which is right below the true summit. The route is along the ridge. It’s easier than it looks. Although there is certain exposure, but the foot holds are as big as stairs. The drizzling stopped by now and became snow! It snowed for a little and the sun burned off the clouds for a few minutes. We had a glimpse at Boston through heavy fog.

From the false summit, we set up a fixed line and all 12 of us climbed to the summit. Interestingly, the elevation mark on the summit is mistakenly marked Boston Peak, with the elevation filed. It was mostly foggy while we were on the summit. Fortunately it was not wet or too cold.

The summit block is not very roomy. It was very hard for all of us to get around. We set up a rappel station and dropped down to the other side on Sahale Glacier. It was almost 5pm when we were all off the summit. We traveled on rope on Sahale Glacier until we reached Sahale Arm. The wild flowers were blooming. We could vaguely see Doubtful Lake through the fog.

From Cascade Pass, it is just “switchbacks from Hell” as Mike puts it. I counted 35 and it was confirmed by others.

On 7/25 - 7/27, we sumitted Rainier via DC route. Here is a brief account.

Our original plan was to camp at Muir Snowfield for the first night, Ingraham the second night and summit in the morning of the third day. The arrangement was due to camping permit issue. We later was able to change our camping permit to Camp Muir for both nights.

Yinan and I drove to Paradise and slept in the car on Thursday night. Friday morning, we met with the rest 10 at the visitor center. After registering with the ranger and sorting out gears, we took off at 8am. We arrived at Camp Muir at 1pm and camped. The weather is pretty good. But before we took off, we saw a lenticular forming at the summit area. According to the forecast, Saturday morning would be better than Sunday, weather wise. We decided to push for summit on Saturday morning rather than Sunday. This means we don’t have an extra day for acclimitization.

Brian wasn’t feeling well and was slow on the way up to Camp Muir. We were down to 11 and 3 ropes. We brewed water and ate and went to bed. You can’t really sleep with the sun high in the sky and all the people going around. Camp Muir is really a busy and noisy place. The elevation is 10000 feet. I timed my pulse, 70 per minute, a lot faster than usual (<50). It’s the altitude. I had been drinking and eating ginger a lot.

We woke up at 12 and started off at 1:15. The “trail” is very well traveled and can be clearly seen on the snow. The route leads northeast to the base of Catheral Rocks, then switches back on the scree to the ridge. It levels out on the top of the ridge and gets back on snow (Ingraham Glacier). Then we ascend slowly and steadily towards northwest on Ingraham Glacier untill Disappointment Cleaver. DC is about 30%-40% covered by snow now, the rest is volcanic rock. We somehow lost the track at a certain point, misled by an abandoned wand (probably from an early season route). We wasted at least an hour before getting back on track. The sun rose when we were about half way up on the cleaver. Urban lights from Yakima faded and gave way to the dawn shining on Ingraham and Emmons glacier. The mountain is waking up. Little Tahoma is shedding its shadow below us.

We got through the cleaver at about 6:30. The rest 2200 feet elevation gain is supposed to be relatively easy. But it’s by no means easy to me. The wind is blowing hard and I get a headache from it. It was quite a struggle for me from the top of the cleaver. The route is however very well wanded. It’s all snow from here too.

It is quite straight-forward untill about 13500 ft where there are a few crevasses to cross. Most of them can be easily stepped over. There is however a wide one that cannot be jumped over, at least not for me. It’s about 2 metres wide. The RMI guides have placed a ladder with plywood, along with a fixed line. Nicole clipped to the fixed line. The rest of us didn’t bother. The last several hundred feet seemed endless. The wind is high, the temperature is low, and the air is thin. My headache is not getting any better. Fortunately I am not feeling the altitude except the thin air. One of our rope leads John is apparently suffering from the altitude. He couldn’t move his legs when there was only 500 feet to gain. We stopped and took a somehow long break. I was almost frozen to death due to inactivity. Finally, around 10am, we reached the crater rim. We dropped our packs and unroped and walked across the crater for the true summit. It’s quite interesting that the crater rim is a huge circle of rocks not covered by snow. The diameter is said to be about 400 metres. There is a spike on the ground marking the summit. We took pictures of each other around it and took a group picture. Yinan and I signed the registration book in both latin letters and Chinese! There is a circle of haze around the horizon. We can see Adams, St Helens, Hood, and even Jefferson on the south and Glacier Peak on the north. Baker is somehow hidden in the Haze. We have never seen Adams from high above. It is a very interesting feeling. Not to mention the clear look into the crater of St Helens.

 We were almost the last group to descend that day. Fortunately it was not that hot. But the snow was still somehow soft and was balling a little under the crampons. There is no snow bridge to cross on this route though, so there is no big danger to descent late. Going down is unventful. Greg and Jogn were out of water at the top of the cleaver. I spared my extra 2 litres again (just like Baker climb three weeks ago). The cloud is coming up while we descend. By the time we were on the top of the cleaver, Little Tahoma was half covered by clouds. I was worrying a little about the condition. Fortunately the clouds didn’t get over to Ingraham Glacier. We were back at Camp Muir around 4pm. I know we were awfully slow. I guess that is what happens when you have a big group like this. I was very tired back at the camp. I didn’t have any appetite whatsoever, unlike the day before. I got in the tent and didn’t get out till the next morning. It was a very windy night. We all had a good night of sleep.

The next morning, we broke camp and left around 8. It was still windy, but quite warm and sunny at Camp Muir. The clouds were thick. We were not able to see Tatoosh Range on the way down. Only the top of Adams was in sight, covered by a lenticular. We cramponed on Muir Snowfield for about 1500 ft when the snow was soft enough for glissading. After another 500 ft or so, we dived into the clouds. It was drizzling and wet. By the time when we got to
Pebble Creek, it was miserable, cold and wet. We were back at the parking lot around 11. Had a group lunch at Copper Creek. I somehow regained my appetite and doubled it

This is certainly a climb we will remember for the rest of our lives. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it still exceeded my expectation. Maybe I am not in my best conditioning. But the minute we stood at the top is well worth all the effort. Now we can leisurely walk in a park in Seattle and point to the mountain on a sunny day and proudly tell people, “hey, we were once on the top of that thing”. Pain is temporary, bragging right is forever!

07/05 and 07/06, a group of 12 climbed Mt Baker on Easton Glacier successfully. Here is a more or less detailed account of the climb.

Approach

6:45AM, Met at Sedro Wooley Ranger Station, registered, took off to Railroad Grade trailhead at about 3300 ft
8:45AM, took off from the TH. Weather was humid and chilly. 40% PoP in the forecast and clearing up at night. The trail starts flat for about a mile in the woods, mostly snow covered from the start. Then we came to a place where the trail crosses a creek. It took us a little while to find a nice spot to cross it. It took us another 15 minutes to find the trail on the other side of the creek. Soon enough, we lost the trail again, thanks to the snow. We decided to give up and make our way up. We did some step kicking on a steep snow slope through the woods onto an open area. It has become foggy and the visibility was poor. After walking on the open area for a while, we finally spotted Railroad Grade Trail. It’s on a sharp ridge. It’s very conspicuous, at least this time of the year, because the top of the ridge is barren even if the rest of the mountain is still under heavy snow. We picked up the trail from here and camped at 6500 ft at around 2PM. The rest of the afternoon was foggy, breezy and rainy.

Summit push

The weather forecast predicted a turnaround at night. I kept checking while resting in the tent. It was rainy and windy all the time. I was checking my barometer every half hour, 803 mbar every time, I was disappointed. I was already about to accept that we’ll bail out. “I’ll at least get a good night of sleep”, I said to myself. The rain and the wind stopped sometime after midnight. I got out of the tent and checked the outside at 2AM. It was too foggy, I couldn’t even see tents 20 feet away. We decided to check again in an hour or so. 3:30, the leader woke up everyone and decided the climb is on. It was still foggy, but much better now. We were able to see a planet in the sky although not the stars. We roped up and took off at 4:30. This is an awfully late start. We began to see small crevasses and bergshrunds soon after we left camp. We were keeping a very nice pace at 900 feet per hour. It was a little boring walking in the fog. But the sun is trying to break off the clouds and we are ascending above them.

We took a short break for snack and water before 7. We were above the clouds now. We could see Sherman peak by the crater. We also saw the tip of Glacier peak sticking out of the clouds. It wasn’t clear enough to see Rainier though. Roy realized that he is out of water since he was drinking too much out of his camelpak. This is another thing I don’t like about camelpak. You can’t keep track of your drinking. This is a bad situation. We have barely started and the heat hasn’t begun yet. I carried 3 litres when I started. I knew I wouldn’t need that much, I can also melt snow in the Nalgene bottle as soon as the sun is out. So I offered him 2 litres. I can see the panic going away from his face.

There is a crevass in our way at about 8500 feet, long enough that there is no obvious way to get around. But there is a spot where it’s narrow and shallow so that we can just crawl over. We encountered crevasses more frequently above 8500, but they are all pretty straightforward to get around. It’s so pretty to glare into those seemingly bottomless crevasses. They are beautiful, deadly beautiful. There was a guy in the team who was obviously not in a perfect conditioning and the leader decided to send him down with a rope lead. We reassigned rope and continued on. We now had 5 people on each 40-metre rope.

We maintained our good and moderate pace, without long breaks. We arrived at the base of Sherman peak by the crater and found a place out of the wind at 8:30. After a short chocolate break, we ascended to the crater rim to look into the steaming monster. This is the third time I had looked at a volcano crater. This time is the closest range.

The last 1000 feet begin with a 30-35 degree slope. I can definitely tell the lack of oxygen at this altitude. Active breathing helped a lot. After ascending about 700 feet, the last part is a long and flat walk. The summit is a huge and flat snow dome. It’s so flat that it’s really hard to tell which point is the summit :). We took pictures, congratulated each other and had lunch.

Descent

After summitting at 10:00, we spent 15 minutes on the top and quickly descended. It was already warm and the snow was soft. There was a section of very open slope and no crevasses. We did a syncrhonized roped glissade :). The slope was barely enough to pick up speed though. That was fun. The rest of it was uneventful except that we were lost again around our camp. It was very foggy (we descended back into the clouds). We knew we were very close to the camp but just couldn’t see it. We should have marked a way point with the GPS or wanded our camp. The pack out part is uninteresting, as usual. I got quite tired back at the trailhead at 6:00PM, more tired than I expected. I hadn’t recovered very well from a Thursday run and didn’t get good sleep Friday night.

Summary

It was a perfect climb. The leader is very experienced and decisive. He was well aware of the situation of the whole team all the time. He was also very sensitive to the pace. Pace control was very successful. It was a key to this trip considering our late start.

This trip has been planned for a long time by Cabbage. There had been some complications. Originally we had 8 in the group. However, due to excessive snow this season, the National Forest has not been able to keep the road to Marble Mountain Sno Park open. This would add another 10 miles to the climb, which now becomes a 2-day climb. Three people in the group dropped due to this reason. We are also having a cold spring in Pacific Northwest this year. It even snowed a little in April in Seattle. The forecast has been very nasty for May 3^rd and 4^th weekend. We were not very optimistic at all. Backup plans have been made. However, the forecast began looking promising on Tuesday. We decided to make a final call Thursday night. By Thursday night, the forecast is slight chance of flurries on Saturday and sunny on Sunday. Low in upper 20’s Saturday night and high in lower 50’s Sunday. So the plan is on. We are now a little concerned about avalanches. Saturday morning, we took off at 4:30am. Around 7:00, we met Cabbage and YF at a McDonalds’ at exit 21 of I5. After a brief breakfast we took off on WA503. We arrived at the trailhead around 9:30 after picking up climbing permits. To our surprise, the road was ploughed 2 miles further than last weekend when Cabbage checked. There were a bunch of snowmobiles making deafening noises and suffocating fumes (cheaters!). We started off on showshoes at around 10 and walked along the unploughed road.

The skies are covered with a thick layer of clouds. The clouds are high and whitish. We arrived at Marble Mountain Sno Park where the usual winter climbing route begins at around 11:40 and had a brief lunch in the shelter. We hit the trail again at around 12:30 and followed the Worm Flows route. The route is marked by blue tags on trees for climbers and skiers. Around 2:30, we arrived at an open area where trees become somehow sparse. The elevation is around 3500ft. This is almost at the top of the timberline. We looked around and picked a spot for our camp. The clouds begin to clear up now. The top of the mountain, however, can still not be seen.

After setting up the tents and digging our kitchen, we walked up a slope next to our camp and taught some basic snow travel skills and self arrest. A group from Mazamas passed us when we were setting up tents.

After dinner, Cabbage and I took off to take a look at the route. With the clouds clearing up, avalanches become our primary concern. Looking at the topo map, there are a few spots where the slope is within the avy angle (30-45 degrees). We must pass these spots when the snow is still stable and try to stay on the ridge and close to the rocks. We decided to get up around 4:30 and take off before 5:30. I had a sound sleep in the tent. However, our alarm somehow failed to set off and we got up a bit late. After getting up, I felt a sour throat and a headache. This is probably due to the 3-season tent and a thin sleeping bag (30F) both of which should not be used under this situation. Also, I left too much space under the rainfly of the tent. I knew I could still make it and I was hoping it will not get worse (however, it eventually did). We took off around 6:00 and traveled on snowshoes for a little and found the snow too hard to benefit. Then we took them off. The Mazamas group apparently have already taken off and left perfect steps for us. That saved us a lot of energy kicking. I felt like we were cheating, but summiting is what counts, isn’t it? J.

We ascended to about 6000 feet and decided to put on crampons. It wasn’t that necessary to have crampons at that point but it wouldn’t make it more difficult anyway. We were at a steady pace of 1000 vertical feet per hour. The sun is rising quickly heating up the snow. Fortunately, there is a big cloud hovering above the summit. There was also a circle of haze around the skyline. Mt Adams can be partially seen. Mt Hood was hardly visible all the time. We met that Mazamas group about 400 feet under the summit and thanked them for kicking steps for us. Around 12:10, we come close to the crater rim. With all the snow, it was impossible to tell the real summit point. We can either go too far on the rim, fearing cornices. The clouds are now all gone on the north side. We had a clear view of Mt Rainier. We could also see smoke coming out of the crater dome, which is at least one thousand feet down from where we were standing. 

While we were nibbling lunch and taking pictures, a pair on splitboard and AT skies skinned up and took a group picture for us. I so envy them! We took off from the summit at around 1pm, plunging our steps down and glissading. The snow had become very soft now. We tried to stay on the ridge and close to the rocks. On one glissade, I notice some loose slabs of snow but too thin to cause any harm. I also saw an avalanche track cause by glissading, which was also of a small scale. We returned to our camp at around 2:50 and broke camp. We took off again at around 4:20 and sprinted our way out and arrived at where we parked at 6:45.