Sloan Peak via the Corkscrew Route
I had the third weekend of July set aside for a climbing trip with my friend Kara and her friend, Sam, since the beginning of the year. Initially we had planned to climb Snowfield Peak over the weekend but between the oppressive heat and wildfires near Highway 20 we decide to change our plans. Kara suggested Sloan Peak since it was a climb that had been on her radar for years and it would still give us a Snowfield-esque experience, though in a much smaller package—Sloan has the steep, forested approach, it crosses a glacier, and it has a fun scramble to top it all off. The main difference is that Sloan can be done in a day and we wanted to avoid hiking with overnight packs in the heat so it seemed to fit our bill perfectly.
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Photo Diary: Vesper Peak
When Alex and I first moved to Washington in 2017 I made a long list of hikes and backpacking trips I wanted to do in the area and Vesper Peak was one of the first I added to my list. Somehow other trips kept taking precedence and Vesper Peak kept getting relegated to the back of the pack. Every year I’d slate it in and every year it would get bumped. This year I was determined to finally make it to the summit so I planned it as the first backpacking trip of the season to ensure we’d do it.
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July Turns: Steamboat Prow and the Inter Glacier
During our Olympus climb Sander, Dan, and I talked about trying to climb/ski Mt. Rainier via the Emmons Glacier during the long Fourth of July weekend if the conditions were right. We thought it would be the perfect cherry on top of an incredible ski season. Unfortunately, the conditions were not right and a huge heat wave was forecasted to sweep through the state with highs in the 80s and 90s over the weekend and a freezing level above 16,000’. We didn’t want to climb the mountain during such an intense period of heat but we also didn’t want to let a long weekend go by without at least a little adventure so we pivoted to a day trip to Steamboat Prow and a ski of the Inter Glacier.
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Return to Olympus
In 2021 I attempted and failed to summit Mt. Olympus. It was one of my first big mountain experiences after taking a mountaineering course and the mental and physical tolls of the climb left me feeling completely frayed before we even made it to the summit block. I knew that continuing on could be unsafe in my condition so I made the very difficult choice to stop climbing as I watched from afar as everyone else in my group went on to summit. I was so grateful for my time spent on the mountain but there was also a small part of me that felt I had unfinished business on Olympus.
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Baker C2C via the Squak Glacier
A few weeks ago Alex and I ticked off a ski that I thought was impossible at the outset of our ski touring career: Baker c2c (car to car). As part of our ski mountaineering course we summited the mountain over the course of two days and that task was monumental for me at the time. Granted, we had to haul overnight packs up the mountain but still, the prospect of climbing the mountain in one day (something I knew people regularly did) felt out of the realm of possibility for me. Fast forward three years and many backcountry experiences later and it suddenly didn’t feel like such a stretch goal any more.
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Skiing South Sister
Long weekends allow me the opportunity to head out on a trip that is just a tad too ambitious for a weekend trip. Last year over Memorial Day Alex and I went on a three day ski mountaineering trip to Glacier Peak with our friend Sander. This year the three of us had our eyes on a couple different destinations in the North Cascades but unfortunately the forecast for the entire state of Washington was looking cloudy and wet, so we set our sights on a sunnier locale: Bend, Oregon.
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Aurora Watching in the Baker Backcountry
Last Friday night Earth experienced the strongest solar storm since 2003 and as a result people in places as far south as Arizona were able to see wisps of northern lights. Alex, Sander, and I were already planning to be in the backcountry on Friday night so we got lucky and were able to witness the show from one of the most scenic viewpoints.
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Ruth Mountain Annual Ski Trip
There are many ski tours I do once and while I enjoy them I do not have the desire to repeat them. There are also a small handful of tours that I could do again and again, year after year. Ruth Mountain is one of the latter. The view from the summit is one of my favorite views in all of Washington and the ~3,000’ ski down Ruth’s face is one of the most enjoyable lines I’ve experienced in the backcountry. So last weekend, Alex, Sander, and I set out to ski Ruth in a day. I already had two successful ski summits under my belt, one time in a whiteout with Alex that I am reluctant to even count, and a second time last year with my friend Andrew. I was excited for Sander and Alex to ski Ruth for the first time in—fingers crossed—good conditions.
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