Catching Up - June through Mid July

Well, as usual I'm doing a crappy job keeping this blog up to date. Lot's has been going on and I haven't really had enough time to sit down and sort through photos from the past couple of months. Anyway, this is going to be a photo onslaught, so I apologize in advance :)

First off is a spring skiing trip that we took in early June (Maybe late May??) to Mt Bailey and Mt Thielsen down by Crater Lake. I don't really remember when we went, but I figured that in the doldrums of summer everyone can appreciate a few skiing pictures, right?


Aaron skinning up Bailey


Bailey's summit ridge


Aaron on the first run


Full on lethargy after the first run in the sun


View of Diamond Lake and Mt. Thielsen, the next days objective


Me on our final run through some rock bands


Bailey and Diamond Lake from Thielsen


Lounging spot while waiting for the snow to unfreeze


Crater Lake Rim



Next up are a few pics from a trip that Mel and I took to the Northeast Oregon. We had intented to spend a bunch of time in the Wallowa Mountains, but crappy weather had us searching for dryer weather near Hell's canyon.


We tried to camp here but the mosquitos were a little nasty


Was a nice spot though!


Hills near Hell's canyon


I like this pic... Makes it look like I'm playing hard to get.


Mel and Bella perched over Hell's Canyon


Bighorn sheep we saw on a hike. We also saw mountain goats and a lot of deer.


More Hell's Canyon


More... Lot's of thunderstorms to watch!


Everyone's a redneck in Eastern OR. Yep, that's a hotdog. :)


Parting shot from Hell's canyon


On the way back we hiked up to this lake in the Elkhorns


Mel was digging all the granite out here... We don't get much in OR


Believe it or not I was able to go for a swim here. Kinda wanted to clean up. I went over the basics of CPR with Mel first though ;)


We drove over elkhorn summit on the way back... Probably the first of the year!


Full on!



Here is a few pictures from a Mt. Hood trip I got roped into guiding for a bunch of people from around the country who were in Oregon for the annual Mountain Rescue Association conference (this year at Timberline!). Thankfully half of the climbers got too drunk to go climbing so I had a more manageable group of 4. The mountain was a total zoo, but thankfully my team was pretty competent and we were able to climb without the added chaos of ropes. One of the guys who came was 73, and didn't really have ANY trouble keeping up... I hope to be that rugged at 73.


Looking down on the Elliot glacier from the summit ridge


Summit shadow


My boyz rolling up the final gulley


And then topping out on the summit ridge


Scary/fun traverse to the true summit (see the climbers in the background??)


Total chaos breaking out on the descent


Full on MAYHEM! I've never seen anything like this. Never again I hope... This is why I don't choose to climb the mountain at this time of year.



Then Random came out over the 4th of July for a week... Yeah, we managed to stay pretty busy, and I'm hoping that I was at least able to show him a halfway decent time. The highlights of his visit were probably climbing Three Fingered Jack on Thursday, followed by a descent of upper Henline Creek on Friday. Lot's of disc golf and good Oregon beer too though!


Random approaching the summit of Three Fingered Jack


View from the top


Happy summit shot... Too bad there were mosquitos all the way up there!


Random after rapping off the summit.


Here's the Henline pictures:


Random pulling the entrance rappel into Henline Creek


Mel on the first rap?


Mel digging the scenery!


Happy couple shot!


Mel on a "guided rappel", which keeps her out of the scary slot w/ the water


Mel's guided Rap video


Random sans guiding rope. :)


Aaron on another drop


Again!


Random on the same one. He looks happy!


Aaron finds a comfy pool


Group shot!


Mel on one of the latter falls


Same falls but from the bottom maybe??


Random sitting on what was our anchor for the final 170' rappel


Random goes big!


Mel on the big one!


Again


Aaron with some sunbeams. Cool pic for sure!


Aaron on the big one... Hey, where did his pack go!?



Last but not least, I wanted to throw up a couple of pictures from CMRU's summer rock practice that we held yesterday. I got to plan the training this year and found a pretty cool spot to do it where nobody from the unit had ever been. Lot's of people got a chance to practice running our rope rescue system and acting as litter attendents dangling over a 100' dry waterfall.


Jerry inspecting the main line rigging


Catherine over the edge


Jonathan Hoy getting ready to be tossed off


The Hoy on the way back up... Note the rock in the litter... On the way up the rope dislodged a half dozen of those and Jonathan was lucky to only take one hit (on the hand, he's okay but had he been lower it could have been bad).


View from across the canyon


Again


Again


Aaron working with our patient "Wilson".

Phew, that's it for now. Thanks for checking these out! :)

Sunset Ampitheater Headwall Couloir - 5/24/09

An overview of our route from first camp to second camp (yellow dot), then left up to the headwall couloir, and right down the Tahoma glacier back to camp.



This Memorial Day my good buddy Chris and I took a trip to climb a seldom done route on the northwest face of Mount Rainier. The Sunset Ampitheater is the mountain's highest cirque, although geologically it is a feature that was likely formed by landslides and avalanches, rather than being scoured out by glaciers like the other cirques on the mountain. Our goal was to climb a couloir that splits the ampitheater's 1500' rock face that was first climbed just 9 years ago. We departed from the trailhead after noon on Friday and began the longest approach I've ever made on a climb. The trailhead was at a measly 2100', just barely within the park boundary. That meant we had around 12000' of elevation to gain and a lot of horizontal miles just to get to our high camp from where we'd attempt the route.


Looking way to happy and optimistic!


Three miles into the hike we ran into snow


We ended up traversing miles of steep snow on Emerald Ridge. Eck.

After an exhausting day of post-holing in steep snow while traversing a much "nastier than expected" ridge we made our first camp, still below treeline. We were both exhausted and surprised by how much effort we had put to just get up to 6000'. The next morning we woke up early and were soon wandering our way between the icefalls on the Tahoma glacier. It got hot quickly, and I paid the price for forgetting to put sunscreen on the front of my neck (which had blisters on it today).


The first nice look at the expanse of the Tahoma glacier, and our planned route to the summit


Regular


Crispy


Extra Crispy (doesn't it just look hot!?)


This is a picture Chris snapped of a rather massive Serac avalanche we saw while on our approach to high camp


A picture of our high camp. I was probably already asleep when Chris took this.


Tent life when it's too hot to be outside.


After another day of hard work we made it too our high camp around 10,000 feet on the Tahoma glacier. I was pretty spent, but we managed a good dinner and were asleep well before it got dark out. The alarm went off depressingly early, and we fumbled into our gear and were on our way before first light.


Downclimbing a steepish section of the glacier below some ice cliffs to get to easier ground.


Switching from glacier gear to climbing gear above St. Andrew's rock around 12K. Summit shadow in the background was pretty cool.


Chris leading the way up to the base of the couloir


After climbing above the bergschrund we traversed into the couloir itself


Me climbing up to our first fixed belay point


Here I took the lead up the couloir and around a corner to the right


Looking down at Chris climbing up to my belay point


After swapping leads, Chris headed around a corner, and when I caught up I saw him scrambling over this rock face. From where I was it looked pretty intimidating, but it wasn't too bad when I actually got on it.


Me leading out again up our last pitch to the summit ridge


Looking back on Chris' belay above the rock step


Summit of Liberty cap!


Beginning the descent of the upper Tahoma glacier.


Well, that's basically the end of the excitement. We descended the Tahoma in crappy snow conditions and heat that was almost unbearable. As we got closer to our camp we were frequently post-holing up to our thighs in the soft snow. Chris punched into a small crevasse (small being relative... he coudn't see the bottom) at one point, and although we were roped up I was glad he didn't go all the way in simply because of the additional effort that would have required of both of us. Again we passed out in the tent with the intent of waking up early and making the 8K foot descent back to our car via a different route than Emerald ridge.


Pictures don't do justice to how awesome of a morning we had descending the glacier. It was simply beautiful.


We hiked out the Tahoma creek trail, which had been mostly obliterated by a massive flood a couple of years ago. Still easier than Emerald ridge though.