June 25, 2012 - Silver Peak

Plans shifted back and forth on a bid to ski Silver. The season for easy access and good skiing is short on Silver - it's an easy approach (can't get easier) once the road is open to Windy Pass, but the snow melts out and reveals base ripping rocks only a few weeks after the road is open. With sketchy weather our plans kept changing. We finally opted for a Tuesday night bivy ahead of a Wednesday - Thursday weather window.... not sure how that made sense, but it seemed to.

I raced home early from work, grabbed the ride and picked up Zahlen and Pat in downtown, where we commenced the crux of the trip: navigating downtown Seattle traffic at rush hour. We managed to sit around on Western for a number of light cycles before bailing to Alaska, which despite the construction provided easy access to SoDo, burritos, Beacon Hill and Skye. The car being full, we headed up to the pass, and made our way to the end of the road.

Views improved as we climbed, with breaking clouds providing some good views, and a hope for perhaps a bit of a sunset to watch from the ridge.

Snoqualmie Pass clouds

 The clouds decided to gather strongly at the summit instead of breaking, however, and as we climbed, visibility dropped and, despite the wager of burrito bites, Rainier was not visible from the ridge.

Pat and old tracks

We skinned up to the ridge via some soft snow and dropped packs. Skye and I dropped over to the SW side of the ridge to scramble up to the summit while the rest lapped up the slope below camp. The rocky trail and scramble proved difficult, because we actually didn't drop packs... for some reason... perhaps hoping for a camp spot big enough for 4.... we got to the top, enjoyed some "views" had a quick snack and headed down. The downhill we stayed on the trail proper, which made the traveling much better in the AT boots.

Skye on summit

We then got one lap under out belts before setting up camp to a light pattering of rain. During the night I kept checking for stars, and thankful each time that they weren't out there to pull me out of the bivy to take pictures. The sun rose early revealing beautiful light on Rainier. The morning dew was still strongly adhered to my front element, however, and all shots of Rainier came out just like I felt that morning... a little wet. The sun finally hit our slopes, however, warming and drying quickly, and softening up the snow slowly.

sunrise, hours after daybreak

Filtered light and remnants of moisture on my lens causing some "rainbows"

With thoughts of getting to work not THAT late, we finally pushed off to ski down, before the skiing was all that great. Upper slopes were nice, but in the shade lower down it quickly got icy. The top few turns were well worth it, however, and the rest of the day at the office went by easily with the satisfaction of morning of skiing.

Pat hucking the ridge

June 23, 2012 - McClellan Butte

Another June weekend, more alpine plans put on hold! This time we aimed to get out in the morning as strong storms were forecast to come in after noon and last the remainder of the weekend. McClellan Butte, along I-90 just beyond exit 38's views, had been on the list for a while, and the time of year seemed right to try for a scramble at the hopefully snow free summit block.

Views down towards I-90 and the calm half of the weather

Views towards summit and innocent looking clouds...

The trail follows a well signed and treaded track up through the forest, and we hit snow just as the trail starts to traverse south paralleling the ridge before swinging around and looping to the summit. We decided that since we totted the axes and crampons along with, we may as well make use of them and headed straight up to the ridge, which was reached pretty directly, only minor adjustments needed for rock bands or thin snow bridges.

The summit scramble proved fun, and rather short... or so we thought at first. Just as we got to the "summit" clouds blew out and the views cleared, showing the summit perhaps about 1/4 mile further along the ridge. This last section featured the most exposed, but very solid scrambling.

Final scramble and summit, in the background

Summit views in monochrome

Weather came in on que (thanks UW WRF-GFS model!) and the rain started to drop just as we got off the rock, and LOUD cracks of thunder rumbled through the mountains as we got under the cover of the thick forest. The rest of the hike was a quick jog down the trail in pouring rain.... quite the leg burner!

June 9, 2012 - Colchuck

Another weekend in June, and another weekend of weather cancelling plans! Not complaining.... but the marvelous days of May have quickly succomed to the often dreary days of June. Tauntingly the weather still offers up 2-3 day beautiful weather windows, but instead of falling like clockwork on the weekends, June's high pressure systems have been landing in the middle of the week, thus rendering them only useful for bike commuting (which I do apprecaite, to some extent!).

For a second time, plans for Baker fell through and we scrambled to find an area of the state which wasn't getting hammered with snow or pelted with rain. We settled on the eastside, and decided to use the last permit-free weekend in the Enchantments to camp at Colchuck Lake and explore options on the Colchuck Glacier or Aasguard pass for views into the basin and time on snow. Nicole and I met up with Bryan, Erika and Becky on Saturday morning and we were off over SR2. We headed up the trail to Colchuck lake in the early afternoon when weather was supposed to be clearing, but found plenty of clouds and a few raindrops still hanging around.

up through the woods to Colchuck

Weather slowly clearing...

The weather was taking its time improving, but we made it up to the lake in a few hours, and despite the crowds found a great campsite about 2/3 of the way along the lake, with a great rock to cook / eat and gawk at views upon.

Views from our cooking / dinner spot

After setting up camp we cooked, ate, and gawked at views, as Colchuck and Dragontail came in and out of the clouds. The weather mercifully held off overnight, and by morning blue skies dominated... ahh east side.

Beautiful AM weather. let's move!

The next morning we joined the crowds heading up the nearby slopes. We moved as a group up to the moraine on Colchuck to have a look- the wet slides looked daunting and those on foot decided to try their luck at Aasguard with the better chance for views out towards the Enchantments Basin.

Nicole on Colchuck glacier

Gus, an early morning addition to the crew, and I continued up with skis on our backs, to the top of Colchuck col. The climbing was pretty straightforward - being in the shade during the morning hours the snow was solid. The slid paths from the wet slides left behind something close to glacial ice, which proved to make the climb a bit more interesting... rolling your ankle in AT boots is NOT straightforward.

Crowds heading up the glacier and beautiful views behind

Ways to go up the glacier still

nearing the col... this line would dictate where good snow started and where bulletproof ended...

Gus aimed for the true summit from the col while I rushed back down and went up Aasguard, looking to meet up with Nicole and crew (for the second trip in a row, I had her lunch...oops!). We all met up near "one of" the tops of Aasguard Pass, and everyone enjoyed their ski / glissade down the softening snow. From there on out it was pack up camp and trudge downhill.