Ski weekend in the North Cascades.

Spent last weekend skiing around Mt. Baker.  The skiing on Heliotrope ridge was great.  The skiing in the Mt. Baker back country is not.  We still need a bit more snow to make the skiing a little better.  

Photos from the Baker Ski Area back country...

Jason skiing rocks

American Dipper

Heliotrope Ridge...

Justin

Luna the super dog

A Quick Trip Up Ruth Mountain.

A couple of weeks ago I did a trip to Ruth Mountain.  It was one of the more perfect fall days I have seen in the mountains.  The most incredible thing about this trip was the views of the North Cascades.  It is very clearly winter in the North Cascades.  October has in the past been my favorite time of the year to climb in the mountains.  There is already too much snow in many places.  

Hannegan Pass.

Flowers still peaking out of the snow.

Snow on the summer plants.

Bird in the snow.

Bear tracks at Hannegan Pass.

Skiers heading up to Ruth.

Mt. Shucksan in the distance.

Skiers on Ruth Mountain.

Wind patterns in the snow.

Perfect weather.

A Few Photos from a Weekend on the Hood Canal.

We spent the weekend at a house on the Hood Canal with several other new parents.  Here is a few photos.

Forbidden Peak North Ridge Climb with Mountain Madness.

I just got back from a climb of Forbidden Peaks north ridge with Mountain Madness.  I have been wanting to climb this ridge for over 10 years and after looking down it after my west ridge climb a few weeks ago it was more on my list of things to do than ever.  I got a call on Wednesday asking if I was interested in working a north ridge climb and I jumped a the chance.  

The north ridge is not one to be taken lightly.  Just getting to the ridge can feel like a climb in itself since it involves a climb up loose rock and a rappel down the other side of sharkfin col, followed by a walk across a big glacier, and then another climb over a ridge on the other side of the glacier.  

We spent the night at the base of Sharkfin Col with the intention of climbing over will full packs and then spending the night somewhere on either the north or west ridge (our descent route).  We woke up the next morning at 5 am and made the quick decision to go for the whole thing in a day and leave our camp at Sharkfin Col.  

Sharkfin col.  The notch we used to get to the Boston glacier is  located directly above the finger of snow on the left side of the photo that points up and slightly right.

The rappel down the other side of Sharkfin Col at 6:15.

It was looking to be the best weather day of the year so far.

Our objective in the distance.

Crossing the Boston Glacier

There were not to many crevasses on the glacier so it was fairly quick moving.

The north ridge col is located at the lowest point in the ridge on the far west side of the Boston Glacier.  Many people miss this and go up one col too early (south).  This also works but requires a rappel or two on the other side.  I did not like the look of the standard crossing due to a large chunk of snow that needs to fall off, so we climbed up the col just to the south of the standard one.  After we got there we made one rappel and I changed my mind about the route variation choice.  We climbed back up the col and reassessed our situation.    We were planning on climbing the NW facing snow slope that takes you to the north ridge, but after having a better look at the complete north ridge I decided we might as well just start climbing from where we were.

I was very worried about time, since we were not carrying any bivy gear, and although spending the night on the ridge would not have killed us, it would have been a very uncomfortable night.  I figured we really needed to be at the summit between 12 and 1 to get down at a reasonable time, and right now (9:30) we were quite a bit behind that time.  I put the camera away and we got serious.  We climbed the ridge with a few short pitches and a whole lot of moving together on whatever terrain looked to be the easiest.  We bypassed a couple of steep snow sections by downclimbing around them on relatively easy ground.  The climbing was easy, and very enjoyable.  After an hour of climbing we had made it to the snow crest where the NW variation usually joins the ridge.

The only photo I shot on the lower part of the ridge.

The NW facing snow slope that gains the ridge does so at a point where the ridge builds up a lot of snow over the winter.  There were still some cornices on this ridge so we had to traverse the slope lower down where it was a bit steeper.  We did three full pitches on firm snow with picket anchors.  It was now time to relax a little since I was sure we could make it off the peak before dark.  

Looking across the first pitch of the snow traverse.  My crampon marks visible in the bottom right of the photo.

The second pitch.

The final pitch back to the rock ridge.

John maybe wishing he was somewhere else.

The upper part of the ridge was amazing.  Super fun and easy climbing.

Climbing the upper ridge with the snow traverse visible in the background.

The last few moves to the summit.

The entire ridge can be seen below in this photo.  We joined the ridge just after the farthest tower visible in the photo.

Opps,  I forgot to shoot a photo of us on the summit.  Someone else did, so when he emails them to us I will post them.

I took a second to shoot a photo of the n. face of Mt. Buckner.

Much to my surprise we were the first party on the summit, followed shortly after by another guided party.  It was 1:00.  We were soon warned of the large number of parties heading up the west ridge.  We took a short break on the summit and started down.  We down climbed and made 3 rappels on the descent to the top of the gully.

The crux of the west ridge on our descent.

We also passed 4 parties still heading up.  At the top of the gully was a large group of people who had decided to turn around and were trying to figure out how to rappel (or something like that, I don't really know what they were doing).  We walked past them and headed directly to the first rappel station on the right of the gully.  After a little route finding and several raps we made the final rap to the snow below the gully and were surprised to find that were also the first group off the peak.  We decided not to camp at Sharkfin col where all our overnight gear was, so we dropped a pack and ran up and retrieved our gear cached there.   At 7 pm we rolled into the lower Boston Basin camp and started cooking a very needed dinner.  It would be somewhere around 2am before the final group on Forbidden passed our tent heading back to camp.

All in all this was one of the best alpine routes I have done in the Cascades.  It has everything.  It is never difficult, but its length, remoteness and variety make it quite serious.  It is a route I highly recommend, however only to experienced parties of very competent climbers.

Back at the car.

Golden Eagle Nest Work with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

For the second year in a row I spent some time working with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on a Golden Eagle project.  This work mostly consists of going to eagle nests just after the young birds have fledged and picking out all of the remains of prey that the birds have brought back to the young.  Golden Eagles nest mostly on cliffs and that is where I come in.  Most of the nests are accessed by rappelling from above down to the nest.  Occasionally there is no place to anchor above the nest or it is easier to climb to the nest.

Earlier this year we placed a trail camera on a nest with some young birds in it. The first part of this work was to retrieve that camera and collect any prey remains that were left in that nest.  Right when we got to the nest a juvenile bird flew over.  It is quite common for the juvenile birds to stay around the nest for a while after they fledge.

Juvenile Golden Eagle above nest near the Tieton River.

We collected prey remains and the camera and headed to the Wenas wildlife area to spend the night.  This area is one of the hidden gems of Washington.  I was amazed by the amount of birds in this area.   Unfortunately a very noisy great horned owl kept waking me up throughout the night.  I can't really complain since being woken up by an owl is a lot better than being woken up by my neighbors at home.

A night hawk at Wenas Wildlife area.

A house wren also at Wenas Wildlife area.

The next morning we headed the the next nest just south of Ellensburg.  This nest was in a beautiful area and despite a little bit of rain and a few ticks the half mile walk was very enjoyable.  There was no sign of the birds when we got close to the nest, but after rappelling to the nest it was clear it had been used that year.  The nest  contained several coyote legs and deer legs.  As we were driving the road out of the wildlife area we saw a juvenile golden eagle, but I was not able to get a shot of it.  I was able to get a shot of this deer that was a hundred yards down the road from where we saw the eagle.

We made one quick stop to shoot some osprey before we got to Ellensburg.

From there we headed to a nest south of Ellensburg close to Puget Sound Energy's wind farm (also known as bird killing area).  After what seemed like several hours of driving on must be Washington's single worst road we arrived at the most unique area of Washington I have been to so far.  The top of this high ridge was mostly rock and sand with the only vegetation being some desert plants and cactus that I did not know exist in Washington.

A horned lark on sagebrush on the way to the nest.

Pediocactus nigrispinus - Hedgehog Cactus

The young bird had still not left the nest, so we could not go to the nest to collect remains.  Instead we spent a few minutes shooting photos and then left.

On the way back down the "road from hell", we stopped to check out a coyote carcass and found another interesting Washington species...

A horned toad.

Driving past the windfarms I shot this photo.  I guess they haven't killed him yet.

Kestrel

From there we headed north to Wenatchee to return to a nest we did last year.  From a climbing standpoint this nest is probably the most interesting.  It  is located on a small basalt cliff that if you look at the wrong way might just collapse and kill you.  I think this cliff would win the medal for most unstable rock in Washington.  There are also not anchors above the cliff so rappelling to it is not an option.  I climbed along a small ledge and through a constriction (covered in mouse crap) to get to the nest.

Me in the nest last year.

From there we headed north to Twist and Winthrop to look at some more nests.  One of the nests was located up a very steep slope a long way from the road so we decided to skip it an continue on to the next.  At the next nest in the Metow Valley west of Winthrop  there was still a juvenile bird.  We were planning on tagging that bird the next day with a radio tracking device to gather more information on the movements of the birds.  On the way back we stopped at a tree nest in Entiat and collected some prey remains below the nest.  After that we headed back to Twisp for the night.

The following day we headed to the Cheif Joseph Damn to meet with some folks from the Army Corp of Engineers who would take us by boat to a nest just upstream on the Columbia River.  We visited a different nest from the same birds last year.  They biologist for the area had told us that he had not seen any birds since they had fledged a few weeks earlier.

Eastern Kingbird at the boat launch.

Me sitting in the nest collecting prey remains.

We found the carcass of the bird that had fledged in the bushes below the nest (apparently the victim of a coyote).  I found a second carcass of a very small bird on a ledge just below the nest.  That bird was likely pushed out of the nest by the other one.  For the second year in a row it appears this nest failed to produce any young.  The nest however had more prey remains than any other nest that we had been to so far.

The pile of prey remains from the nest.  Including lots of deer legs, coyote parts, a snake skeleton and the carcass of a small golden eagle.

The carcass of the other eagle.

We were supposed to capture and tag the eagle at the last remaining nest, but when we got there the bird had fledged and was nowhere to be seen. We collected the prey remains from the nest, and headed home.