Mount Baker North Ridge Trip Report

My trip report from my trip to the North Ridge of Mount Baker is posted under climbing or click here to view the report.

Mount Baker North Ridge Trip Report

Snow and sleet was being blown sideways causing zero visibility. I could barely see my partners who were 30 feet in front of me on the rope. We had just started walking through a large area of past avalanche run out, full of evidence of past avalanches havoc. We had heard an avalanche release about 10 minutes ago. Because we could not see through the falling snow, we had no idea where it released from, except to know that the avalanche was above us. We moved as quickly as we could through this area. Then it happened. We heard a large roar of another avalanche releasing above us. We could not see anything so we just stopped, not knowing if we were about to be blasted off our feet and down the mountain or if we should run. So, we stayed frozen in place. It was the most frightening 20 seconds of my entire life, waiting to be blasted by an avalanche at any moment. Luckily, the avalanche stopped before it reached us. We were able to see this later when the weather cleared. It was a narrow escape to say the least. In my Avalanche courses, I remember learning about people with Avalanche training becoming statistics; People with training can still make bad decisions even when they know better. I was lucky to get a chance to climb another day.

The three of us started our expedition by finding that the rain over the past 5-6 days had caused some of the stream crossings to be quite a challenge on the approach to Mount Baker. We routinely had to move up or down stream from the path. We hiked up to find downed trees or large rocks to cross the swollen creeks on. Once we reached high camp, we made camp for 2 days. We dropped down in to some of the deep crevasses and ice climbed our way out for practice for the upcoming climb of the Mount Baker’s North Ridge. This was done in horrible weather, including constant rain and sleet.

I climbed into my warm, dry sleeping bag about 6 pm, trying to dry off from the rain that had been pouring on us constantly for the past four days. This was my own little haven of dryness on a very wet Mount Baker. I checked my altimeter; it read just over 5500 feet. I quickly went to sleep only to awaken to the 2 am wakeup call by my climbing partners. I once again checked my altimeter. Either I had been sleep climbing or we had a weather change coming. I had gained 30 feet in elevation while I slept. It concerned me but it had stopped raining so we decided to get ready to climb the North Ridge.

Finally, the moment had arrived. I rolled out of my sleeping bag, put on my headlamp and headed out into the darkness to prepare for my climb. We made breakfast and noticed we had a small visitor to our campsite, a little mouse (This is foreshadowing). I had climbed Mount Baker from the other side of the mountain the year before and we had a major problem with mice. It was so bad that we had to keep all our food inside our tents at all times when we were not cooking. Even inside our tents, we had to keep them in between the two people in the center of the tent; otherwise, the mice would chew through the tent to get the food. Anyway, I warned our guide of this and he told me that we had nothing to worry about. In fact, I warned him three separate times. Each time he dismissed this as nothing to worry about. So, we left our food out in our campsite under some small rocks to keep the wind from blowing it away in plastic bags. We finished eating and headed out to the North Ridge. The beginning of which was about two-hours of glacier travel from our high camp.

Once at the ridge proper, we started simal-climbing the 50-degree slopes and climbing the steeper sections in pitches. The North Ridge of Mount Baker is very interesting because it is a very committing climb. Once on the ridge you are going to summit. You do not really have an option to turn around and come back the way you came. The only way down is to go up. It’s quite a scary thought when high winds pickup half way up the ridge and knowing you have no choice but to push on to the top. Because it was July, the North Ridge was mostly ice with some sections still being snow covered. We continued up the ridge using two-tool ice climbing technique. My friend was leading the pitches while I followed and cleaned the gear. Cleaning is simply removing the pieces of protection the lead climber put in to protect himself in case of a fall. These items range from ice screws, to snow pickets, to dead man anchors. In order to clean, you generally have to let go of your ice tools to unscrew the ice screws or yank out the pickets.

With the winds we were having, it was quite a scary experience. You are hanging on to the mountain with only the two front points of your crampons into the ice and a rope to your partner. This is what separates you from a several hundred-foot fall. It was very invigorating to be on the 80-degree sections with nothing below you to stop a fall (except the rope) and taking your hands off your only connection to the mountain (your ice axes) to balance and unscrew the ice screws. In addition, if you dropped your ice tools they would be gone permanently.

You would have to climb up the remainder of the ridge with only one tool – not a fun idea. The North Ridge is deceiving. Several times we thought we were only one more pitch or 100 feet away from being on top of the ridge; only to get there and sadly find that we had 5 more pitches to go. We brought a short rope, which is only about 75 feet, so we had to pitch out more than most people would. If you do go to climb this route, bring a 70-meter rope. You will be very glad you did.

We finally reached the top of the ridge. The weather had been windy but no rain, which was unlike all the other days we had experienced on the mountain so far. Once on top of the ridge, we climbed between two high ice cliffs through a small passageway to reach the summit. This was exactly when the weather turned bad. It was like the flip of a switch and the weather changed from windy and overcast to full-blown blizzard conditions. We started to descend shortly after reaching the summit, because the weather was worsening quickly. We had been climbing for almost 12 hours at this point and were starting to get tired. We descended the walkup route. We had the avalanche incident as I mentioned earlier and proceeded to camp. It took us about 15 hours round trip. It was a very long day; all of us were tired. All we wanted was to cook some food and crawl into our sleeping bags. However, when we rolled into camp we found that a tag team of animals had ravaged our food supply. Our best guess is a gang of ravens, marmots, mice and other small animals had been the culprits. Upon further investigation, we found that we had only some half-eaten coffee, and a can, without a label, left that the raven could not peck though. Although they did give it their best shot and dented the can. We were devastated. All we wanted to do was to get out of our wet clothes and crawl into our sleeping bags after eating a warm meal but that was not going to happen. We had no other choice but to pack up camp and head down to the car where we could get some food. This was at least a two-hour hike away. So, we packed up and headed back down the mountain. After 18.5 hours of climbing and descending, we reached the car. Wet, tired, and hungry, we ate the Snickers bar we had packed and headed into town to find some food. All together, the animals ate two full 2-pound bags of rice, three Tasty Bites pouches, an 8-pack of Snickers, an avocado, and two bags of dehydrated paste and sauce. They even took the wrappers from most of the items because they were nowhere to be found. It had all become their feast.

Besides the badly ironic ending to our trip, it was a great experience. The North Ridge is a fun yet challenging ice climb. It was scary at points with avalanches coming down the hill at us but we did learn a few lessons in the process. We were glad to finally dry off and, once we had eaten, we laughed about our silly mistakes.

The Picket Range Expedition

I slowly pulled myself forward though the thick brush with twigs still caught in between my 65-pound pack and my body. I struggled to free myself and press uphill. It was two steps up the hill and one step back because of the muddy ground sliding beneath my feet. Every branch that I fought through was wet and the rain made it that much more miserable. It is one thing to be hit in the face with a branch but it is quite another when its soaking wet. It was as if I was being slapped with a wet sock, over and over again. I was climbing up the approach to the Eliey Wiley ridge on day 2 of my 8-day expedition into the Picket range. It was a rude awakening when I realized what this mountain range actually included. The trip had not been presented to me as a bushwhack through the rainforest while being rained on and then endless climbing on loose boulder fields. I felt like I was trying to climb 50,000 bowling balls stack up on top of each other. But it didn’t matter; we were already 17 miles and a boat ride away from civilization. I had no choice but to press on.

We started out on the first day of the trip with a boat ride 6 miles down Ross Lake to Big Beaver pass where we said goodbye to civilization. My guide and I were stuck for the next 8 days in the wilderness with no quick or easy way back. As we started our journey, I realized we would be fine with heavy 65-pound pack. We had packed enough food I was sure. We hiked 10 miles on a trail to Luna camp and then another 7 miles the next morning until the bushwhacking began at Eliey Wiley ridge. I found myself during the first few hours of battling the brush taking five steps forward and either falling/sliding down the muddy terrain or taking 4 steps back. It was almost as if the Pickets were playing a cruel joke on me. I would take three or four tries to step up and over a fallen tree uphill from me. Or I would get caught in a thick slide alder, a weed-like tree with thick branches that refuse to let you through without a fight. Going downhill, these alder trees have slick branches that grow along the ground making it slippery and causing you to fall.

We also faced Devils club, aka the guardian of the Pickets. Devils club is a thorny plant that grows in wet areas and has thousands of sharp thorns on each plant. They grow close together making it difficult to cross without pain and being poked many times. These are some of the hazards of getting into the Picket range. Once on top of the Eliey Wiley ridge, we set up camp. The problem we ran into was none of the snowfields had running water coming out of them. They were all dried up. We knew it was a long way to the next water source. So we took out our ice axes and started hacking away at the downhill edge of the snowfield. After a few minutes of hard work, it had released enough water to allow us to rehydrate and have enough for cooking that night. The next morning we headed out and traveled on the side of the ridge. This involved a pile of very loose rock leading to unstable footing and several falls. The problem was, once I got a 60-pound pack moving in the wrong direction, I could not stop the momentum, which was caused by loose rocks shifting under my feet. I ended the day with multiple bleeding wounds on my arms and gruesome bruises on my legs. We pushed on the next day toward our first objective, Mount Challenger. We decided to stop at Wiley Lake.

Willey Lake is a natural campsite with stunning views of the lake. The lake is surrounded by huge ice cliffs on two sides and has an ice bottom. Moving on the next day, we made it to the base of Mount challenger by mid morning. We setup our camp for that night and set off to climb the peak. The Challenger glacier was not broken up much and was an easy climb. We got up to the Bergshrund in about 2 hours. The normal route was not crossable due to the melt out. A schrund is a large several hundred feet deep crevasse that looks as though it has no bottom. We had to improvise if we wanted any chance to summit. We spotted a 55-60 degree snow climb on an exposed ridge to the far left. As we headed there, we found a natural route to the summit. We climbed and tried not to look at the 1500 foot drop offs to either side of us as we climbed.

From the top of this, it was an easy 30-minute traverse across a snow ridge to the summit pyramid. The climb is about 5.3 but it feels much harder if you are wearing mountaineering boots. I had double plastic boots on so I could not foot jam. Therefore, it was all arms. I pulled myself the final 80 feet to the summit, which is a bird’s nest type of feeling. It is a little spot big enough only for two people to sit on but the views of the virgin untouched wilderness are stunning and unmatched in the cascades. After repelling down the summit pyramid and down climbing the steep snow ridge, we headed back to camp.

On the fifth day, we headed out from camp for a huge 10-hour push with full loads to Lousy Lake. We setup camp on a rock island about 30 ft into the lake, which contented spectacular views of the surrounding peaks. Lousy Lake is a glacial lake that had a huge glacier on one side and a rock/ice plug on the other side holding the water in. It had deep, algae, green colored water due to the glacial sediments. Even with this color, the water was very pure, clean, and great for drinking. That night there was constant rock fall off the glacier into the lake. We looked at the wall of the glacier on the edge of the lake and noticed it was separated from the rest of the glacier, tilting towards the lake. We even joked about the possibility of the wall falling into the lake causing a tsunami, which would blast us off the island we were on into the rocks on the edge of the lake. Well, soon thereafter, we heard loud cracking that went on for about 15 seconds. We got out of our tent and looked just in time to see the ice wall fall into the lake. We stood stunned, unable to do anything but wait and see what would happen next. We watched as a huge wave formed. However, lucky for us, we found out later the lake is only about 10-20 feet deep and the impending wave of doom ended up 2 feet below our tent platform. It was a scary sight to see and we were thankful it did not turn out worse.

The following day we headed back toward Mount Fury to attempt the northwest face, which was not in the greatest condition. It was stained by rock fall on the left side of the route. We had hopes to find a route up the right side of the lower portion of Fury’s NW face then cross the rock fall area quickly to minimize the risk. In hindsight, this was a not great plan but we thought we would try it. The closer we got to the route, the more we could see what terrible shape the route was in. We started climbing the steep snow and ice up, about half way to the top of the rock fall area (shown in the photo). There were boulders twice the size of cars coming down the far side of the route. The final factor that led us to turn around was a huge ice serac the size of a house came crashing down the west side of the face. It shook the earth so much it made one of my ice axes pop out of the ice. This is quite a scary feeling when you are two-tool ice climbing up a 60-degree face. We decided to turn around after this as the objective danger was off the charts. We then, as quickly as possible, repealed down the face keeping an eye at all times on the ice cliffs above. We got back to camp very thankful that any rocks or large ice chunks did not hit us.

We headed up Luna Peak, to the saddle, the next day where we were going to camp and attempt Luna the following day. It was a difficult day since I had torn up my feet the day before. My wet feet never really dried the whole trip because of all the rain. I had large, deep, open sores on my feet that made me limp slightly in pain with every step. We made it to the saddle about 4 pm and enjoyed the views of the Southern Pickets and the rest of the Northern Picket range.

We had an alpine start to attempt Luna but we ended up calling off our summit about half way up because of my feet. We headed back down to camp, packed up, and head down through access creek for another full day of bushwhacking. We enjoyed the pleasures of slide alder, devils’ club, fighting wet brush out of our way, and balancing on slippery logs across rivers. We down climbed and hiked for about 10 hours until we finally reached Beaver creek. We had a 2-foot wide tree that had fallen across this fast flowing creek about 100 feet wide. It would be very bad to fall at this point. The risk of drowning was very real. I slowly shuffled my way across the creek and made it across. I was greeted by a 200-yard field of devils’ club and then I was back on the trail, 1 mile away from Luna camp.
We arrived at Luna camp and I was very happy to be there. Having dealt with rain all day and being soaked after falling into a smaller stream we had crossed early that day, I was ready for a break. That day left my feet sloshing in 3 inches of water inside my boots. To make it worse, the sores on me feet had gotten much worse making it almost impossible to walk without a limp. Back at Lousy Lake, we were able to tape my feet to my insoles to limit the movement of my foot inside my boot. This helped a little but the pain was still horrible. It made me almost a cripple around camp without my boots on for protection. Tasks like getting water and going to the bathroom were huge ordeals since they involved putting pressure on my torn up feet. This was not the end of the trip though. We still had 10 more miles or so of hiking on Luna trail to the boat dock the next morning. The next day was full of pain and agony in my feet. Every step hurt but was made even worse by the pressure of my heavy pack. I reached the dock about 1pm. I could not believe I had made it. Just days before, I never thought I would make it to the dock. We caught a 2-hour nap while we waited for our water taxi. The final test of stamina was, once back at Ross lake resort, we had one final mile of uphill climbing to reach our car. It seemed like forever but I was very glad to see the parking lot. We made it back to the car safely.

As an entire expedition, I would consider the Pickets successful. They are a special place for me. They are where I learned what real mental toughness is. I learned about planning expeditions, a lot of wilderness navigation and how to analyze objective hazards. This mountain range charges a high rent… payable in sweat, blood, and tears. The reward is worth it all, a spectacular experience of a hidden treasure and beauty in northern Washington. While I did not have the best experience in the Pickets, it was priceless. Maybe someday I will get back there, back to the land guarded by alder, devils’ club, and miles of despair and agony.

Photos From The Picket Range Trip

Posted under the photo section are new and updated photos from my Picket Range Trip. Go to the photos page or click here.

Failure on Denali – Defining Success

I was climbing with my team between camps 1 and 2 on Mount McKinley. When I took the next step, suddenly my foot went straight down. It was like a trap door opened up underneath me. My body followed and I realized I had punched through a snow bridge into a crevasse. I felt my snow shoe become caught in between the two walls of the crevasse and the weight of my pack caused me to fall sideways. Instantly, I felt pain shoot through my knee. With my foot immobile, I twisted my knee in the process. I had only fallen about 6 feet but it felt like a lot more. It really didn’t matter. My climb was done; the pain in my knee stopped me. My teammates helped me out of the crevasse and I tried to walk off the pain. I figured we had rest days coming up and it should feel better then. Until then, I just had to keep pounding away at the mountain. I failed to reach the summit of Denali and was flown off a few days later.

Yeah, you heard me right. I failed on Denali. More accurately, I failed to reach the summit of Denali. This is true. It was a tough pill to swallow when I had to make the decision to go back down after arriving at 14,000 feet. While I believe this was the right thing to do, it didn’t make it any easier. The thought at the front of my mind, as I sat alone in the Talkeetna motel that night, was “how I am going to define success in mountain climbing?” I believe that no summit is worth your life. We must be responsible to our friends and family by coming back alive. But the person who turns back on a mountain still gets the same response when telling the story to others. “Oh, you didn’t make it to the top.” They can’t understand the journey, the spectacular views, the years of preparation, the self reflection that you make while pushing through the pain of a heavy load and seemingly unending terrain.

Which brings me back to my first question, “how do I measure success in climbing?” Is it really a successful climb if you lose a finger to frostbite or how about if you make it to the top but require a rescue team or helicopter team to bring you down? While in my motel room safely back in Talkeetna, I pondered all these questions. Not making it to the summit had never even entered my mind, let alone not making it to high camp. I wondered how, in mountain climbing, I was going to define success. What yardstick will I use to determine if I truly succeeded in my endeavor? While I sat there with a lump in my throat, the answer came to me.

Measures of Success

1. Did I do my best with the hand I was dealt
(i.e. weather, route conditions, partners)?

2. Did I not take any foolish risks?

3. Did I return with all my fingers and toes?

4. Did I return home to my loved ones?

5. Did I have fun and experience the challenge I set out to achieve?

6. Did I not step over or ignore another climber in need
but gave help as I was able?

Although these are far short of original, they are really the responsible mountain climber’s creed. We can’t compare ourselves to others’ accomplishments and expect safety on the mountain. We must look objectively at the risks and dangers in front of us and make wise choices, regardless of our desires for the summit.

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