Entries from North Cascades
Hi Everyone,
Yesterday we hiked past Lake Ann and climbed 3rd and 4th class terrain to our bivy site at 5700'. The weather was generally cooperative, with light to moderate rain showers coming in and out.
The weather today is less accommodating; after a pleasantly dry breakfast we got back in our tents as heavy rain moved in. So, we're taking advantage of some down time to rest and hopefully we'll have a crack at climbing tomorrow.
This rain event is very unusual for July in the Cascades, and we're hopeful that we'll get back to the standard fare of sunshine.
RMI Guide Mike Walter & Team
The weather hasn't cooperated with us the past couple of days, and we're getting ready to pack up and descend through the Fisher Chimneys, and return to the trailhead. It's still raining here, and we have a lot of climbing ahead of us just to get back to the approach trail. We'll enjoy the climbing, but we're also looking forward to a warm shower!
We've done the bulk of the climbing on this route already, and only about 2000' stand between us and the summit. But there's no way we can move upwards in these wet conditions.
We'll touch base when we're back at the trailhead.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
After a great day of climbing yesterday, we had high hopes for a summit push today. Unfortunately, the mountain had other plans and the weather kept us in our tents all day as it has been consistently raining and windy. Things are seeming to ease up a bit this evening, and the forecast shows an improving trend. We'll see how the situation progresses, but right now we are hoping to go for the top early tomorrow morning.
Either way, we'll be climbing back down through the Fisher Chimneys tomorrow and headed back to the trailhead. Hopefully we'll get a chance to climb up before we climb back down.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
We had a great day of climbing today on Mt. Shuksan. We started at the Lake Ann trail head (4700') and climbed up through the Fisher Chimneys, which consisted of a couple thousand feet of 3rd and 4th class rock climbing. The weather and climbing conditions were perfect for us, and we climbed at a leisurely pace, making it to high camp in a little over 6 hours. Our spectacular camp is at just below 7000', on a rock ridge nestled in between the Upper Curtis Glacier and the White Salmon Glacier. We've got views southwest to Mt. Baker and north into Canada; it is truly a stunning alpine setting.
We're hoping the weather cooperates with us (the forecast is calling for some rain) and let's us climb to the summit tomorrow. We'll be in touch tomorrow to let you know how it goes.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Good morning everybody. This is Leon and team calling from our way out of Boston Basin in this morning. Another beautiful day today, just like yesterday, and we climbed up the West Ridge of Forbidden. We had a successful trip, starting out at 2:30 in the morning under a full moon. It was beautiful, a perfect day. And yeah, we're all doing well heading out to the cars hopefully in time to watch the World Cup Finals. Talk to you guys later. Thank you. Bye.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
RMI Guide Leon Davis checks in from the North Cascades.
July 11, 2014 - 8:15 pm PT
Hi Everybody this is Leon and Bryan in the Boston Basin, we climbed Sharkfin Tower today. It was a beautiful day. Everyone did great, everyone is feeling it but we got a lot of good training in.
Tomorrow our plan is to wake up early and get an alpine start and head up to the west ridge of Forbidden and climb that thing.
All is well, we will talk to you tomorrow.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
RMI Guide Leon Davis checks in from Boston Basin.
Hi, this is Leon calling from Boston Basin Camp. We had a beautiful day getting here and just enjoying an evening after dinner. All is well. Tomorrow we are having a training day and planning to head up and climb Sharkfin Tower. Tomorrow's weather looks great so we are psyched. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Bye.
RMI Guide Leon Davis
RMI Guide Leon Davis calls in from Boston Basin.
Hi to Meredith, Leon, and the whole team! Wishing you stellar conditions and a great experience.
-Geoff
Posted by: Geoff on 7/11/2014 at 6:51 pm
In the North Cascades, RMI Guide Lindsay Fixmer and team reached the summit of Forbidden Peak via the West Ridge. Lindsay reported perfect weather during their summit bid and good route conditions.
Way to Climb!
Posted by: Geoff Schellens
Categories: Expedition Dispatches North Cascades
Hi all,
Today is our last day on Shuksan before we hike out tomorrow. We spent the morning relaxing getting in and out of our tents as the rain storms were sporadic. By early afternoon it seemed stable enough and we did some training. First we practiced knots and hitches, then we moved on to building snow anchors, and wrapped up with some crevasse rescue scenarios. We are now back in tents as a very dark ominous looking cloud quickly approaches.
That's the latest from Shuksan,
RMI Guide Geoff Schellens & Team
We had a mixed bag of weather this trip: some sunshine, some rain, some thunder, some lightning. A strong low pressure system moving in from the south has been causing heavy rain and flash flooding in Oregon and Washington, but we were able to squeak in an enjoyable climb today. We climbed from our bivy sight at 5,700' on Mt. Shuksan, climbed up through the Fisher Chimneys, on to the White Salmon Glacier, up Winnie's Slide, onto the Upper Curtis Glacier, up Hell's Highway, and onto the Sulphide Glacier before weather forced our hand and we headed back down to camp. We had a full day of climbing, and almost got to the top. Now we're back in our tents, safe, dry, and content, listening to the rain. The squirrelly weather did provide us with this beautiful sunset last night though!
RMI Guide Mike Walter
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And i will work on my stumbles & try nor to ‘strumble’ so much. :o)
Climb on!
Posted by: Mary on 7/19/2014 at 5:35 am
I strumbled across your blog post & found the climb intriging but ‘no photos?’
I need visuals. Safe travels.
Posted by: Mary on 7/19/2014 at 5:32 am
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