Molar Tooth

Having let myself get a little out of shape in the past two months, when a friend talk to me about doing a trip this last weekend I was a bit worried I would get my ass handed to me. When my watch alarm woke me up at 4:00am on Saturday morning, I took a moment of silence to ask myself if I felt like I would be up for this. Our objective for the weekend was a long traverse that included four summits just North of Rainy Pass dubbed "Four Sheets to the Wind". As I passed in and out of a sleepy consciousness on the drive up, I had that butterfly feeling in my stomach which gave me a bad omen. Maybe it was the fact that there was a 50/50 chance of thunderstorms forecast for the evening and we were going to sleeping in Bivy bags all night long. Maybe not.

Wine Spires

All week long, as I watched the weather forecast go from good to bad and back to good, then bad again our plans kept fluctuating. Once Eric and Mike showed up at my house a little after 7pm on Friday we finally decided to head up to Washington Pass and Bivy in the basin below Burgundy Col. So, after a few packing adjustments and picking another Mike downtown, we were on our way to Mazama to crash at one of the Mike's friend's cabin. I was surely in store for a adventure with these new acquaintances, far more than I would realize yet.

Pearly Gates

When I got a call on Friday night from Brian, I really had not made much in the way of plans for the weekend in regards to climbing. From the weather forecasts that were playing on the TV it the hopes of getting any climbing done was pretty slim. So, when I agreed to go out a climb with some of his students from the course he was teaching my hopes were not very high in getting any good climbing done. Flashes of drenched slabs and wet cracks splashed through my mind as I drove across the pass towards Leavenworth in a driving rain that never let up all the way there. As I pulled over to crash in the back of my truck along the side of the road, I took extra special care not to get my gear completely wet.

Liberty Bell Group

After an long evening hanging out at the camp fire on Sunday night, we woke up later than we had planned on the night before. I arose from my sleeping quarters in the back of my 4runner when Michael opened the back hatch to get some of his food for breakfast. I immediately sat up and shook off the sense of lethargy that was beckoning me to go back to sleep and started to pack my gear for the day. I grabbed the box of oatmeal I had brought for breakfast and walked over to the picnic tables in front of the cabin. My water bottles were devoid of liquid, so I took several minutes to walk down to the river to pump water. By the time I came back to start boiling water, the sun's rays had finally washed away any doubts about our objective for the day. I greeted that though with a smile.

On Sunday morning, I wiggled around in my sleeping bag until I could no longer bear the feeling of my skin crawling. Low and behold, my Bivy site under some tall pine trees was being besieged my large black ants, of which a few had found there way into my sleeping bag. Being from the South, I brushed them aside, knowing that they were no Match for the biting red ants that dominate that region. Most everyone had already begun their morning, since the sun was already lighting the partly cloudy sky so I begun the task of making breakfast. It was only 6:00am and we had what we thought would be a long day ahead of us, climbing a bolted Alpin Clippin route on Mazama's, Goat Wall. We were parked and hiking up the talus slope by 7:30am, and at the base of the route at a quarter after eight. Looking up, it appeared that indeed it would be a long day of climbing.

Home in the Bugs

Near the border with Alberta, in the eastern most part of British Columbia, lies a well known wonderland of granite whose spires scratch the sky. When the first explorer to reach the summit of one of the grandest spires, Conrad Kain, was stymied by a large gendarme high on the south ridge of spire No. 2, the feeling he had is what stuck as this spire's name: Bugaboo. It was from this first Ascent in 1916, that the area and eventually the Provincial Park received it's namesake. Known by climbers as, "The Bugs", it is one of the world's most premier alpine rock climbing venues, and I'm lucky enough to live only a 12 hours drive away from it.

Mt Stuart from the North

When Rad first asked me if I wanted to do the North Ridge of Mount Stuart with him, I could hardly refuse. It had been one of the climbs that was always on the list, but seemed a bit out of my league, until I took a confidence building trip to the Bugaboos. The plan would be to go light, with only emergency Bivy bags, and go up and over in one day. We would shuttle one car to the Esmeralda Basin trail head, and start from the Stuart Lake trail head and Approach via Mountaineers Creek. Seemed easy enough when we discussed it over beers after climbing around in the Gym on a Tuesday, but little did we know what we had in store.

North Face of Mt. Buckner

A few weekends ago I spent some time with a couple of new friends; One that I had met recently rock climbing near Seattle and the other his long time climbing partner. It was the first time I had been in the alpine with these two and I have to admit I felt a bit like an outsider at first, but things turned out great. Our destination was a climb of the North Face of Mount Buckner just north and east of Cascade Pass in the North Cascades National Park Complex. I have to say that it was quite the endurance challenge, especially with Alex cracking the whip.

After a great day of climbing with a couple of friends, one a new acquaintance, I thought a weekend long road trip out to the east was a good idea. In talking with my friend who had introduced me to Aaron, he had to bow out in order to meet a prior obligation. So that left Aaron and I to ourselves and in checking with weather forecast on Friday afternoon it appeared the only issue would be a little wind. Wind was nothing new for the area, but little did we know what we had in store.