The Elusive Snowfield Peak
Over the Fourth of July weekend, my friend Kara and I climbed Snowfield Peak, a mountain that we have been wanting to climb since 2023. Each year, some weather-related event prevented us from even stepping foot on the trail. In 2023, just two days before our planned trip, the Pyramid Area wildfire sparked and the entire area was closed. We decided to find a different objective since we already had the time set aside and climbed Chiwawa Mountain in the Glacier Peak Wilderness instead. In 2024, the weekend we scheduled our Snowfield climb coincided with an oppressive heat wave that swept into the region and, not wanting to haul our overnight gear and glacier gear up in the heat, we pivoted to doing Sloan car to car instead. This year, we decided to plan the trip at the beginning of the season to try to avoid the wildfires and heat waves that can afflict the North Cascades later in the season. The strategy paid off. Finally we got our Snowfield summit!
Read More
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.
Read More
Cascades Crown Jewel: Skiing Glacier Peak/Dakobed
At 10,545’, Glacier Peak/Dakobed is the fifth tallest peak in Washington. It’s also the most remote of the state’s five major volcanos. While all of the other volcanos can be seen from major highways and cities, Glacier Peak is the recluse of the group, cradled deep within the Central Cascades and only able to be seen from a highway on the clearest of days and from the most precise angle. Summiting the volcano requires a 34 mile round-trip hike with 10,000+’ of gain and is usually done in two to three days. This is a volcano Alex and I have been wanting to ski since we first started ski mountaineering a couple years ago, but its remoteness and reputation as a rugged peak kept us away until this year.
Read More
Skiing Ruth Mountain 2.0
This past weekend I finally got to properly ski a mountain that I have been dreaming of skiing for over two years. Ruth Mountain. If you’ve been around here for awhile you’ll know that technically I already have skied Ruth Mountain in May 2021, but unfortunately, it was in a whiteout so it was more survival skiing than anything. Since that trip I have been dreaming of returning in better conditions, but I’ve also been a little apprehensive since our first trip to the mountain really pushed Alex and I out of our comfort zones and pushed our limits physically.
Read More
Inspired in the North Cascades: Completing the Inspiration Traverse
Over Labor Day weekend of 2022, Alex and I experienced the highlight of our summer. We went on a guided mountaineering expedition with Pro Guiding and completed the Inspiration Traverse in the North Cascades. The route connects the Eldorado Trailhead on Cascade River Road with the Thunder Creek Trailhead off Highway 20. It traverses six glaciers, presents opportunities to summit multiple peaks along the way, and offers an intimate look at some of the most rugged and beautiful terrain in Washington.
Read More
Juneuary in Washington: Skiing Loowit
This January offered a string of sunny, warm weekends with relatively low avalanche risk, resulting in many to dub the month Juneuary and head off on adventures usually relegated to the stabler spring months. Alex and I couldn’t let an opportunity to climb and ski a volcano in the depths of winter pass us by so we, too, headed for the mountains. We make it a goal to ski Loowit (Mount St. Helens) once per year and chose this for our Juneuary destination.
Read More
Journey to Olympus
Deep within Olympic National Park, surrounded by the verdant Hoh Rainforest and a winding network of rivers, lies the park’s crown jewel: Mount Olympus. At 7,980’, this peak is the tallest on the Olympic Peninsula and offers a birdseye view of the park. However, getting to the summit is no walk in the park, the trek requires 19 miles of hiking before visitors even glance a view of their lofty objective.
Read More
Skiing Ruth Mountain
I first saw Ruth Mountain in the summer of 2019 while Alex and I were hiking the Copper Ridge Loop. We were on the early stretches of the trail, making our way toward Hannegan Pass when a beautiful mountain face, its upper slopes still draped in snow in late summer, came into view. In my planning process for that hike I had been so fixated on the camp spots and other high points that I had entirely overlooked Ruth Mountain, but it was impossible to overlook on the trail, it dominated our views. As we got closer I said to Alex, “I’m pretty sure you can ski off that. We should do that!” 1.5 years later and we did just that!
Read More
Spring Summit of Mt. Hood
I pressed the start button on my Garmin watch and checked the time. 1:04AM. Above us, billions of twinkling stars painted the sky. I was thankful for the calm and clear conditions that would accompany us on the climb ahead. We couldn’t see the finer details of our objective for the morning, but we knew its presence was there. Its hulking mass of rock and ice covered slopes blotted out a huge portion of stars on the northern horizon. It acted like a black hole, obscuring any light and drawing us in like a magnet.
Read More
A Fortress of Glaciers: The Mt. Baker Orbit
In late 2019 Alex and I signed up for a ski mountaineering course on Mt. Baker with Pro Guiding Service. After a few seasons of backcountry touring we were feeling limited by our lack of glacier travel and mountaineering skills. We had taken our AIARE 1 course and could travel and route find in the wintry backcountry, but we could not traverse onto the slopes of some of the more remote mountains in Washington because they were surrounded and covered by glaciers.
Read More
