Sulfide Glacier, Mt. Shuksan on 5/16

Later season view of Shuksan. The top of the Sulfide Glacier can be seen to the right of the summit pyramid.

Nabbed my first cascade summit last weekend when my friends Dave and Emily and I made an early season jaunt up the Sulfide Glacier route on Mt. Shuksan in the North Cascades.

Heading up the Sulfide. The summit pyramid is just to the right of Emily in the photo.

We packed up friday night and headed to the trailhead for a parking lot bivy. Started off Saturday to beautiful sunny weather. Snow was still low on the trail, so it wasn't long before snowshoes were out. Even still, any snow in the sun was a sloppy mess, so uphill progress was strenuous.

Dave on the Sulfide.

Avalanches on the steep slopes were going off like shotguns on a regular basis, which had us a little nervous once we got out of the trees. We were stopped at one slope for about 30 minutes while a party ahead of us dug a snow pit, when out of nowhere 11 dudes from the Boeing Alpine club flew by like a freight train. This left us with a phenomenal boot pack that we poached the rest of the day (all the fun and none of the work!)

Campin' it up on the glacier. A sunny and cold summit in the background.

After setting up camp at about 6500', we hung out in the sunshine and tried to catch some late afternoon z's. The alarm hit at 2:00 am, and as we looked up the glacier we already saw 15+ headlamps making a bee line for the summit. This just goes to show that people who work in office environments are way too motivated for their own good.

View of Mt. Baker from camp.

We roped up and left camp at 3:00 am, and dawn broke just as we were heading up the final slopes to the summit pyramid. Unfortunately, the summit was a train wreck of boeing employees, who are apparently great at making bootpacks, but much less motivated on steep terrain. We ended up waiting about an hour for them to finish their siege assault on the summit - hmmm, should have slept in. Oh well, lesson learned.

Summit shot with Baker in the background.

Once we were on the summit pyramid, though, the climbing was really fun. It felt great to be on something cold and steep. Nothing too technical, but I was glad that we each had a second tool (its what I know, dammit! Crazy cascade kids and their one ice axe...). Once we stepped onto the summit ridge, there was a step of rime ice that was close to vertical, and the drop off to the glacier on the right was at least 500'! Great exposure, and having just a snow picket 50' below me as pro made it pretty exciting.

Down climbing the summit ridge.

The summit itself was spectacular. This was by far the coolest summit I've stood on to date, and it definitely made the rest of the glacier slog worth every step. I've wanted to climb this peak ever since I first looked up at it while snowboarding on the Shuksan Arm from the Baker ski resort in high school, so it was cool to look down on that from the top and feel like I had come full circle. Even though it was "just" the dog route (which at this point was about the only safe bet on the mountain anyways), this was a sweet weekend and a great intro to Cascade mountaineering. Big thanks for a great climb, Dave and Emily!

Dave descending the summit ridge, with the West Face dropping dramatically below him.

Low Life New Years Resolutions

Purdy. Early season scenery from Dreamer in Darrington.

Alright, 2010 is upon us. Umm, I guess that was 5 months ago. Sorry, I blacked out. What happened? Anyway, its time I updated this blog or deleted the damn thing. So here we go.

The end of 2009 was amazing. Two months climbing on the road (8,000 miles in the 4Runner, baby!) was solidly one of the best things I've ever done. My monkey ass even put together a dvd of all our footage on the ol' Macintosh. If you want a copy of Phil and Brett's Excellent Adventure: The Movie, just get me yer address and I'll send you one.

Francis representin' Montana at Stone Hill on Lake Koocanusa. Notice the Big Sky sized member (its like over 50 ft. long) kindly etched by locals in the background.

But that was last year. This is the Future. 2010. The Year Of Revenge (which is the official name on the Dirtbag Chinese Calendar put together by Brett Mollenhauer). Which, as far as the Future goes, could easily be viewed as a major disappointment. Instead of the flying cars, hovering skateboards, and the inevitable War Against The Machines that I was promised growing up in the 80's, the life changing technological advances that we actually got are Facebook and Twitter. Damn it.

But I'll leave that negative nancy talk for the pessimists out there: I'm on an optimistic kick these days. Cause all told, the Future for this dirtbag is pretty kick ass. Last year I climbed more than I ever have in my life, and this year I want to up the ante. With the birthday they call 30 looming in less than two years, I've decided to dedicate this year to goin' big.

Fellow climber on the trail to Snow Creek Wall in Leavenworth, WA.

So here are my climbin' goals for the year. I want to attempt 10 of the original North American 50 Classic Climbs. For those that know, that would be a lot of long lines. Ideally I'd like to complete 10 of those, but there's a lot of things in climbing and in life that I can't control, so my baseline is to at least attempt 10 of 'em. Either way, that's a lot of climbing.

Along with that, I'd like to climb El Capitan, which has been haunting my nightmares and daydreams ever since I saw that monster for the first time on our road trip last fall. And to top it all off, I'm currently trying to convince Ben Smith to skip class at U of Montana and head on down to Patagonia for some climbing during the 2010/2011 season. Fitz Roy and its terrifying neighbors beckon.

Mark and Dave on Vertigo at Peshastin Pinnacles.

So that's it in a nutshell. And if you've actually read this, I'd like you to help hold me to it. To pull it all off, its gonna take a lot of motivation, plenty of suffering, and a tough balance between working for money to afford it all (as well as an obscene amount of gear, gas money, and plane tickets), and time to get out and get after it in the mountains, not to mention staying healthy. Ask me how its going, keep me honest.

Adam Lawson in Darrington. Dreamer climbs the buttress through and above the water streaks in the background.

As far as where I'll be at and when, I'm currently living at the folk's place (real proud, I know) and working for my dad's construction company in the Dirty South Sound, which means I'm climbing in the Cascade's this spring and summer. Come September work will be on a hiatus, as Brett Mollenhauer and I are heading back to Yosemite battle white granite, black bears, and too-tanned California douche-bags for prime big wall real estate (hopefully some road trippin' again after that, too). And if all goes well, a PataGucci plane ride will follow soon thereafter.

Nice granite on Dreamer. I have by this point in the game learned that the term "nice granite", whether in Yosemite or anywhere else, means huge scary slab runouts and tough arm burning cracks.

Right now the season is off and kickin'. Highlights so far include early season successes on Infinite Bliss (5.10c, IV, 23 pitches of kick ass "alpine" sport climbing) on Mt. Garfield and Dreamer (5.9+ R, IV, 10 pitches) in Darrington. Smith and I got skunked for ice in Glacier National Park at the end of March, but still was a great trip to Montana. And this weekend will mark my 5th straight Leavenworth weekend in a row. Thats whats up for now. Yippie Kay Yay, Mother F@#%ers!

Cheesy summit shot from Dreamer. Typical Cascade alpine wonderland in the background.