1-8th June, Tromso, Northern Norway

Last summer I was a very lucky boy. I had the fortune that one of the most important conferences in my field (yes, that's work!) was held this past June in the far north of Norway, in a cool little city called Tromso. Tromsonites (or could it be Tromsoners?) like to describe it as the northernmost city in the world, host of the northernmost university, hospital, and brewery. The conference ran for 5 days, and I had a couple spare days at the end. The midnight sun visits the region from the end of May to the end of July, which means that one can ski all the time. And the terrain is fantastic. Heaven on Earth? or just a case of Norwegians being a little bit more blessed than the rest of us sinners?

I was joined by my beautiful friend Simon Weatherall who came up from his summer retreat in southern Norway- Chamonix extreme skier, extreme modeler, extreme taxi driver, and extreme scrumpeteer. It certainly bode very well. The weather didn't fully co-operate but we still enjoyed the odd weather window that allowed us to explore the region's delights. Snow levels were around 300-400 meters asl, which meant a little hiking to get to the goods, but nothing too serious... AND we even scored some powder.

Tromso, with Whale Island in the background

The man

The midnight sun

On June 1st we ran over to the mainland after Simon picked me up from the conference, excited to see the sun poking through the clouds for the first time in days. It had been raining and cold in town, and we could see there was quite a bit of fresh snow up on the hills.

Up Knutsenkogen

Norwegian Coolies...


and Norwegian Peaks...

We essentially wandered up a valley and started climbing an east facing couloir that looked fun. The views around us were beautiful, shining in the midnight sun. It was a strange sensation to see north facing slopes sunny and south facing slopes shady. Towards the top half of the coulie, we actually found nice boot-top powpow. June in Norway? Love it!

Simon at the top of the couloir (to his right)



The top pitch

Lower down. Steep and Tight!

The next day, 2nd of June, our plan was unchanged. Simon picked me up after the conference and we drove over to Kvaloya, 'Whale Island' in Norsk, to ski a fun north facing line at the head of a fjord that had a tongue of snow going down almost to sea level. In spite of leaving the car in warm sunshine, the next band of shite-ness was quick to dampen our hopes of sunskiing and so the summit greeted us with rain. The ski was a little wet, but that isn't always a bad thing, aiiii?

The route goes up the finger of snow on the left

Norwegian fjords...

Simon skinning up the glacier, with the mainland in the background

The line: up the left, behind the central buttress, up to the snowy summit on the right

After the conference ended on the 4th June, we left Tromso en route to the mystical land of Lyngen. Much has been written about this place. Even more spectacular than the land around Tromso, it is truly a paradise for skiers. Alas, when we arrived there, we found a higher snowline than in Tromso (probably around the 500-600mt mark) and even worse weather, the summits shrouded in thick fog. We spent a night in some godforsaken hostel in the hope that the following morning would dawn somewhat more promising. Far from it. It was crappier than crap. So we decided to drive to the Malaren Peninsula, which is just southwest from Tromso. I'd seen some promising peaks and quite a generous snow cover during my time in the city.

We didn't have much info on this area though, so we were guessing where it would be best to go. Again, the lack of easy approaches, with no high roads, or even seemingly trails (at least we did not find them) conditioned us. Nevertheless, we camped on a field by the road in a valley that seemed somewhat promising. That evening, we bushwacked a couple miles up the valley, slow and wet progress up thawing mud. For good laughs, it included an incredibly cold river crossing.

Suffering

Simon and our destination, the peak center-right

'That line doesn't look too shabby!'

From the summit, looking west

And East, with Tromso the island on the left

The line we skied had a nasty entrance, most of the ridge was massively corniced but we found a way in. I decided to stay on skis, but got my axe out and gingerly sidestepped the steep, icy wall of death. I didn't have a helmet on, and a fall would probably have been a bad idea. Simon downclimbed. The top half of the ski was fun, with an inch or two of fresh on top of a smooth, firm base.

Simon scoping out the entrance...

...and the entrance scoping out Simon

Fun ski!

Skiing at midnight with incredible views. We'd camped at the head of the valley not far from the water

And a nice bushwack back to camp

Over the next two days, we again ran into piss poor weather and had 'fun' skiing some mellow wet snow in the fog in the hills above Tromso. And so with a wonderful last supper shared with our beautiful hosts Tori and company we ended a marvelous trip. Would love to go back, especially earlier in the season. Takk Norge!!!

13-16 May, Mt Olympus, WA

I went up to Mt Olympus, the highest (and most glaciated) peak in the Olympic mountains, last weekend to help my friends TJ and Aaron with some glacier survey field work. TJ runs the University of Washington glacier surveys on Blue Glacier and the other glaciers coming off Olympus. Having not done glacier fieldwork in years (and missing it...) I had no problem in accepting the invite to head out there... even if it did involve 22 miles (34km) walking through rain forest and just under 2000mt (6000') climb.

The plan was to spend a couple nights up at the Snowdome research station aka hut, at about 6,500 feet and a mere two miles from the West summit of Olympus. We got what looked to be a 6 day weather window starting last Tuesday (11th May), but had to delay because we couldn't locate the hut key from the National Park service till Thursday. Key in hand, we loaded up packs Thursday afternoon and headed up the Hoh. Leaving the visitor center at 500 feet above sea level, it looked like this:

Aaron not looking too excited about carrying these babies...

Our heavy packs with skis, glacier gear, etc. got some funny looks. Quite a few punters about wondering where the hell we where going. There's a few short loop trails (like a mile max) where most of the tourists mill around, and beyond these the Hoh valley trail runs along the north banks of the Hoh, pretty damn flat for the first 12 miles.

In the rainforest... a long way away from snow

The first afternoon we walked this flat section and camped at a beautiful spot by the river, just before the trail starts to climb up.

Our camp spot on the first night

The next day was on the tough side. About 12 miles, lots of vertical straight from the word go, and no chairlifts in sight...
We finally made it to snow probably around mile 16 (after 25km...), and reached the bottom of the Blue glacier at mile 18.

About to reach Blue glacier, Panic peak and the Snowdome in the background

Skinning up the lower glacier was amazing. The solitude was incredible, and coupled with the sights around us it gave us the feeling of being more in a place like Alaska. Mount Mathias and the ridge that runs west first appeared, with beautiful steep snow covered faces that dropped onto the Blue glacier. TJ unpacked his nerd stick, turned on the GPS unit, and proclaimed himself hard at work.




We quickly rounded the lower portion, the icefall and summits of Olympus now in sight, and came off the glacier to start the moderately steep climb up to the Snowdome.

Mount Mathias on the left, the Blue glacier ice fall on the right

The Blue glacier ice fall and the various Mt Olympus summits

Our guessing game of where we were turned to relief when we saw the hut, or a small piece of the hut. Only the roof was poking through the snow, which at this time of the season was probably close to its seasonal maximum, leading to questions of 'which side is the door on???'



Had there been another couple feet of snow, we would have been wandering in the white desert... an unwelcome prospect after a 11 hour day under full packs. As it was, we had to locate the door (3rd try) and spent a good two hours digging and unjamming the door.



Luckily trusty DHo is a sneaky little bugger and he managed to slip in the door (which was jammed from snow and ice that had blown in) and after some tugging and forcing we were through and surveying our lair for the following nights.



We spent the rest of the evening sitting on the roof which had warmed nicely under the suns rays looking in awe at the incredible scenery around us, probably 20 miles and a days travel from the nearest human...




Unfortunately on the way up my left knee had become quite sore, so the next day I stayed at the hut reading and chillaxing (i found some goodies in Gui's backpack hehe) and icing the knee while Aaron and TJ went out on the glacier taking GPS surveys. I gave Aaron my camera and he did good!

TJ on the Cirque portion of Blue glacier

The boys got back in the late afternoon, and we spent the rest of the day lounging on the hut's roof and enjoying another of TJ's wonderful dinners. After dinner, we climbed up to Panic peak, which is a 5 minute walk out of the hut, with some amazing views in all directions. Unlike the previous day, there were some high clouds rolling in, harbingers of nastier weather to come, but for now just providing one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen in the mountains. The alpenglow was spectacular at one point.

Looking west

Cool Alpenglow...

The following morning we packed up and skied down the Blue glacier en route back to civilization. The snow was super firm and smooth, really fun to ski, even with our heavy packs. The lower glacier was a fast straightline down to the morraine, and the surface was covered by millions of ice worms- I've never seen anything like it!

And after the fun ski, came mile after mile of trail walking, aided by painkillers and gravity and thwarted by, well, just a shit ton of miles of trail.

We were pretty happy to make it back to the parking lot, but even happier with the whole experience. I would love to return to that area with a more ski-minded agenda... Lots of cool lines... and probably lots of first descents lurking...

7-8th May, Colchuck Peak

Aaron, James, Andy and I left Seattle just after noon on Friday 7th May with Mt Maude on our minds. That beautiful north face has been on my mind too long now. To get to Mt Maude you have to drive 23 miles up a forest road, and unfortunately 12 miles away from the trail head there was a gate... locked :( Time for plan B! Which probably turned out to be the best plan B in the history of plan Bs. So we headed to Leavenworth and from then on to the Mountaineers creek trailhead, to find our perfect moment on the handsome steep slopes of Colchuck Peak.
We managed to drive within ~300 meters of the trailhead, and the trail was skinnable all the way. Camped just under lake Colchuck as darkness fell to envelope us in dreams of white.

Camp in the morning

The following morning dawned fine, with an inch of fresh that fell overnight and promises of a fantastic day. Made it to Colchuck Lake which is one of the grandest places I've so far seen in this part of the world. Stunning.

Colchuck Lake, Dragontail Pk in the middle, Colchuck Pk on the right

From then a quick skin up to the base of the North Buttress Couloir, which was well filled in.

The North Buttress Couloir is the obvious line ahead of us

The climb to the saddle went quite fast, the snow in the top half was powder, and apart from one brief graupel shower, the weather was holding.

Aaron (top) and Andy climbing up the couloir

Andy and I carried on and traversed onto the North face - I'd read Jason Hummel's description of the route, first skied 7 years ago to the day today, and he's right, what a classic line!! The North face is a touch steeper than the North Buttress Couloir and above a ~200 foot cliff, making the sense of exposure phenomenal.

Traversing onto the North Face from the col

Summit pitch. 50 degrees and powder. Niiiiice...

We found mostly good snow on the face and climbed to the top of the snow line, some 30 feet below the true summit. Worries of incoming showers to our west made us desist the scramble to the top, so we clipped in and began our ski descent. The skiing was superb. What a line. What a line. What a line. The traverse back to the NBC is well filled in so we managed to ski continuously into the couloir, which again had some superb skiing, especially along its skiers right bank, where steep and deep was the name of the game.

Colchuck Peak with our line

We joined Aaron and James at the foot of the couloir and enjoyed nice turns down to the lake. The ski out from camp was fast and fun, especially the section between the two footbridges. All in all an amazing day skiing on an incredible line.

25th April, Mt Pattison and environs, Blackcomb BC

Went up to Whistler for the weekend with a vanload of BadBoyz (Matt, Aaron, Pete, Brendan and Rob). Saturday was a bit of a write off given the weather, not very good inbounds snow conditions and the state of our heads... Sunday was excellent though, playing around in the Blackcomb Backcountry. Skied Mt Pattison, then its north shoulder, and then a steep gnarly line round the south side of Decker as we were going back toward 7th heaven.

I'll let the pics do the talking...

On the skin up


We skied the NW face of Pattison, a short but super fun pitch.




Then we climbed back up to a smaller summit on Pattisons' north side. Here's our tracks on Pattison



And a final picture of the DHo skiing some sweet pow

18th April, Columbia Peak, WA

After getting back from Chamonix a couple weeks ago, I've been hungry (starving, you might say) for steep skiing. Here in Seattle though, one can't just walk to the Midi cable car and be taken to a ice and rock paradise 13k up... but beautiful wild mountains await those ready to put in the effort to get there...

Last Sunday 18th I skied the main couloir on the NW face of Columbia in the Montecristo area with good old Aaron the DHo.
I'd been wanting to investigate this area for a bit, and in pictures in Beckey's guide and John Scurlock it looked like it had a nice couloir coming off the summit. Unfortunately, this is now above a rock band, it seems 76 glacier has thinned considerably, so we ended up skiing the more open couloir to its north.

Taken from the road to Montecristo, Columbia peak is on the right


Parked at the gate on Barlow Pass, we had bikes hoping there wouldn't be much snow but we dumped them just pass the river crossing. Went up the eastside of 76 creek towards the head of the valley and eventually turned eastwards towards the 76 glacier. Apart from a short crappy section where we postholed up steep hollow tree ridden snow, skinned all the way to the foot of the NW face. There, short moderately steep climb up the main couloir to the ridge line.



Our original pla, the coulie that comes off the main summit... with no climbing gear with us, we had no way to make it over the rock barrier at the bottom.



We were hoping earlier to maybe reach the summit from there, but once we arrived at the ridge, realised it wasn't going to happen...

Looking towards the main summit from the top of the couloir



Snow was pretty awful (saturated glop) but the terrain was really fun. The couloir skied not too bad...

Aaron near the top, with Puget Sound in the background


Steep skiing is fun


The rest of the ski was more perfunctory than anything else... The cycle out was fun



All in all a fun ski in a remote place with a not-so-bad access...

Heliotrope Ridge, 4th October, season opener

Mt Baker, 4 de Octubre

A new season starts. All the familiar feelings; fuck where are the skins, etc. 3 months and a week after skiing Mt Rainier, we're back in business. And boy does it FEEL GOOD.

Some snow fell at the end of September and early October, so we headed up to Heliotrope ridge, on the west side of Mt Baker- me, Charlie Lane, AaronD, Kyle and Robert.

Aaron skinning up, with Mt Baker in the background

Top of Heliotrope Ridge, a nice spot for a little comida

Skied a couple laps on mostly wind packed powder snow. Aaron provided for some good photoslutting... he happens to be a brilliant skier too ;)