AP-Adventures

June 30th, 2019:   The weather forecast sucked. It was an unfortunate turn of events in an already odd summer season. During a typical year in the Cascades, you can expect generally dry conditions lasting from the beginning of July, pretty much until the end of August. Climate change? Perhaps, but whatever the reason for the warmer and wetter weather throughout the past few years in the Cascades, our plans had to change, and that sucked.  In the summer of 2018, our group set out to climb W. McMillan Spire, and the East Ridge of Inspiration Peak in the Pickets sub-range of the North Cascades. This terrain is mega; hard to get to, challenging to climb, and absolutely beautiful!  The approach took us 2 days, and on the third day, we climbed W. McMillan as planned, and had a blast. The descent took a toll on us though, and we arrived in camp quite a bit later than we had hoped for. Decision time. The next day was meant to be spent climbing the much more challenging...

The wind, unforecasted, unexpected, came in the night. Our tents were protected, but the gusts whipped and ripped at our guy lines. Sleep was elusive at best. Exhaustion came with a benefit...the wildfire smoke had been forced down into the valley, providing clarity and vision.....The summit pyramid called to us, beckoning us to climb above the rising smoke. By the time we made the summit, Mt. Baker was all that remained in the clarity of the windstorm. The smoke had caught us, but not before our moment of victory. We would soon descend into obscurity, walking away from our singular objective, into the complexity of life, a glacier. Preparing to descend from the summit PC: Ryan -- This week marks yet another first day of school for me. While I am excited to be that much closer to finishing up at the University of Washington, I had hoped to get a post up on here before I needed to complete required writing assignments. No such luck! I cannot believe how much I have neglec...

February 25, 2017 Tod and I had plans to take a quick trip out to Alberta for some quality ice climbing. He has been climbing ice and alpine routes for about twenty years longer than I, so obviously I was psyched to get out and gain some experience with him. On our drive to Canmore, we stopped to check out Marble Canyon. This slot canyon is home to some awesome rappel accessed climbs of about 40m in height. We spent a few hours top-roping a cool WI5+ pitch (Tokkum Pole) with a few variations and some fun mixed climbing. It was a perfect start to the trip. We eventually made our way to Canmore and found a place to call home for a couple days. Tod rappelling into Marble Canyon Standing beneath Tokkum Pole We made our plans for the next day and prepared the kit for our objective: The Sorcerer. The climb is a remote and adventurous outing with about 215m of water ice and goes at WI5. The climb is located near Ghost Valley, in the Johnson Creek drainage. The drive o...

Mt. Stuart in the distance Every year my goals and aspirations for alpine grandeur grow exponentially. Right or wrong, and without regard to previous successes or failures, I make more plans that are increasingly complex. My time is always tight due to the various obligations I have accrued, and the plan for this day was not outside of my distorted “normalcy”. I had to drop my kids off at the airport with their mom in the morning, and then pick up my partner and head to Leavenworth to climb Scarface (III 5.10+) in the Enchantments. I was not certain that we would even attempt the climb, as the weather forecast was looking rough. The Spring had been warm and sunny, so I expected the hike and approach to be mostly snow free. We leisurely made our way east, arriving at the Stuart Lake trailhead around 11 am. We grabbed our gear intending to hike up to the lake, but not intending to climb. Turns out that carrying a pack of climbing gear to the base of a climb makes it difficult to wa...