Mt Baker-Squak Glacier

Claire, Yuko and I took advantage of a perfect spring weekend to climb a local volcano. We started on Saturday afternoon at a leisurely pace, camped on a perfect flat bench, then summited on Sunday under clear skies. My previous two climbs of Mt Baker required down-climbing the icy Roman Wall before encountering safe ski conditions. However this time, the snow softened perfectly and we were able to ski from the very summit (10,781 ft) all the way to the car (3,400 ft).

starting up:


camp:


We noticed a sizeable avalanche fracture, which was likely several days old. At the time of our climb the snow was extremely stable following a week of warm days and cool nights.


We did not rope up, due to the good snow coverage and the firm surface. This was one of the only crevasse bridges that we encountered:


Approaching the summit:


Enjoying the weather and views:


Skiing down:

Patagonia

After years of thinking about it, Yuko and I finally managed to take a trip to the Fitz Roy region of Patagonia in South America.

First Dave and I, in conjunction with Mark and Steve, climbed the Whillans Route on Poincenot in a 29-hour roundtrip push from Paso Superior. The route was plastered with snow and ice from a recent storm, which added some enjoyable mixed climbing to the ascent.

Poincenot as seen during the approach. Fitz Roy is hidden in the clouds to the right.


The initial ice ramp:


Steve aid climbing iced-up cracks higher on the route:


Dave, with Cerro Torre and the continental icecap beyond:


The summit:


We topped out around 9pm and rappelled all night. We experienced several inches of snowfall during the descent.

Next Yuko and I hiked our gear into the Torre valley (about 20 miles round-trip) in a windstorm:



A few days later, a brief weather window arrived!


We climbed Torre de la Media Luna with Mark via the route "Rubio y Azul". The temperature was around freezing and some of the cracks were iced up. This route took us around 18 hours from camp.

Yuko leading splitter cracks low on the route:


Me belaying, with awesome views in all directions:


Mark leads the amazing headwall cracks:


Yuko and Mark on the summit plateau:


The following week, we had yet another brief weather window. Yuko and I climbed the North Ridge of Aguja de la S in 16 hours round trip. We encountered cold temperatures, occasionally strong winds and snow flurries, all of which added to the ambiance of our ascent.

The upper pitches of the route:


Yuko leading on amazing granite flakes:


Yuko on the summit:


In addition to climbing some great routes, we met many cool people in Chalten, which was perhaps the best part of the trip. Celebrating our ascents in town:


We stopped by Buenos Aires on our way back. It's a cool city, reminiscent of Chicago but bigger and perhaps cleaner & safer:



This trip was amazing and we will hopefully return to Patagonia soon! Maybe we will even get a "real" weather window next time...

Banff ice climbing

Frank and I headed up north for a few days of ice-cragging. I am still relatively new at ice, so I was fortunate to develop my skills with such an experienced partner, who has logged plenty of mileage on ice up to WI6 in difficulty.

Monday

The drive up took longer than expected, due to heavy snowfall. 18 hours, and one low-speed collision with a deer later (fortunately the deer survived and walked away), and we were finally at Banff!

Tuesday

We got a late start on the first day, due to our 2:30am arrival. We headed to the Grotto Falls area, and climbed the super classic Grotto Falls (WI3):



Followed by "Hers" (WI4):



We tried to hike up to a multi-pitch route around the corner to see if it was in, but avalanche-prone slopes (rock slabs, overlayed by sugar snow, overlayed by a wind slab) convinced us to turn around. We had a few minutes of daylight remaining, so we decided to climb Grotto Falls again.

Wednsesday

We started slightly earlier on our second day, opting for the multi-pitch classic Professor Falls (4p WI4). Our start time was a little too "alpine", as we sat around for 45 minutes at the base of the route waiting for sunrise.

Here is a view of the route from later in the day:



Pitch 2:


Pitch 4:


There is a fifth pitch several hundred feet up some snow/ice slopes, but it is exposed to avalanche hazard, which happened to be somewhat high on this particular day. About 10 people had died in avalanches over the past 4 days in Canada...so we weren't about to push our luck...

Plus it was a bit wet, and a bit cold/windy, which was causing our gear and clothing to ice up a bit:




Thursday

The Weeping Wall is one of the most famous ice-climbing areas in the world. Thus it was a mandatory stop on our trip:



We climbed Sniveling Gully (4p WI3)

The climbing was moderate,



until the final pitch, which was rather thin.



Frank's extensive experience came in handy as he safely led this intimidating pitch.

We rappelled as per the guidebook's instructions. However one of the anchors was deeply buried by powder snow, and we could not locate it. So we traversed back to the climb and continued down on a v-thread anchor.

Friday

The forecast called for cold temperatures (-25 to -30 C) so we started a bit late, and stopped by the auto parts store to fix the turn signal bulb that was destroyed in the aforementioned deer collision.

We then headed to the classic, and easily accessible, Louise Falls (2p WI4).

A view of the climb from the approach:



I led the first pitch (WI3), and briefly considered stopping to belay at the low-angle ice shelf 30m up, which had a fixed anchor consisting of two bomber v-threads. However since I had a large amount of rope remaining, I elected to continue, traversing up and left toward the base of the crux pillar.

This proved to be a good decision. After traversing about 20 feet, I heard a huge roar, similar to a train approaching nearby at high speed. I looked upward and the entire right half of the climb was collapsing! It was surreal to see the school-bus sized ice curtain suspended in mid-air. I ducked my head, pulled against the wall and hung on tight to my tools as many tons of ice flew past. Incredibly, neither Frank nor I was injured. The rope extending between us was buried under basketball-sized ice chunks...





After waiting for my heart rate to level out after all the excitement, I continued up until I ran out of rope at the base of the pillar. The second pitch looked to be in fairly moderate shape, but Frank made the excellent point that the earlier ice collapse indicated unstable conditions, perhaps not the best time to be tapping our way up a completely free-standing ice pillar. So we placed a v-thread and rappelled the route, living to climb another day...

Saturday

On our last day, we stopped by Hafner Creek for a nice WI3+ pitch, after which we toproped a fun M6+ which featured a full-value steinpull move at a roof.

The M6+ is located to the right of the icicles. After my experience on Louise Falls, I knew to stay far away from all that hanging ice!



We made it back to Seattle before midnight, and fortunately without any additional collisions with roadside animals. This was a great trip, and I can't wait to head back to the Rockies for more!