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.

And The "You Guys Are F#@*in' Nuts!" Award Goes To...

Just wanted to throw out a quick shout for the gnarliest alpine push that I've heard of this season. Last weekend Ryan Wakowski and Ben Smith finished their week of hooking logs on a Friday afternoon/evening, and decided to charge a big line in the Bugaboos. Driving all night from Missoula, they crashed out in the Bugs parking lot for a few hours and hit the trail at around 4 a.m.

They blazed up to Snowpatch spire and proceeded to climb the S.E. Ridge route - to the tune of 19 pitches! True to form, Smith dropped his headlamp into the void, but fortunately for their asses they ended up not needing it as they topped out before dark and made it back down with time to spare.

The S.E. Ridge of Snowpatch Spire roughly follows the left skyline in the picture.

Apparently, it wasn't enough to call it a day and crash out in the hut. They then hoofed it all the way back to their truck and proceeded to drive all night back to Zoo-town, hitting the valley at 5 a.m. That makes it roughly a 36 hour straight push doorstep to doorstep! From Montana. Holy shit. Congrats, guys - that's officially bad ass, and you're officially crazy.

The Loop Road Goes On Forever And The Party Never Ends

The Old Girl rides again! Red dirt, blue skies. The 4Runner at Snow Canyon State Park in Southern Utah.

Alright, so I'm not very good at making dedicated posts on this damned blog thing. It's usually a pain in the ass, and I'm inherently lazy with this sort of thing. Oh well, here's a long overdue trip report from this spring.

Smith at Snow Creek, warmin' up on sandstone, which is a little bit like whiskey: scary shit for a while before you learn to like it.

Without boring the ever-loving shit out of whoever is unfortunate enough to actually be reading this thing, here's the abbreviated version of the end of my winter. Ice season, like all good things in life, had to end sometime. See ya next year, screaming barfies. After an unbelievable winter of logging over fifty days swinging ice axes, the end of March saw the closing of the Hyalite road, which meant one thing for me: Red Rocks, Nevada.

Zion National Park - After Ben said that this was his fourth attempt climbing here, I figured the odds were stacked in our favor for good weather (No one gets stormed out 4 times in a row, right?). Wrong. Here comes the snow and the rain.

After shedding a few tears while packing away the ice gear for the season (a HUGE thanks to all my friends and climbing partners in the Bozone who made this winter climbing season one that I will remember for the rest of my life), it was time to man up and pack the truck for three straight weeks of desert Southwest rock climbing madness. I slammed the 4Runner into gear and drove up and over the Divide to the quaint drinking town of Missoula, MT to pick up fellow dirtbag Ben Smith, who had made the wise decision to say screw it to catching up on shool lab assignments in favor of pulling hard in the desert sunshine.

This might be my favorite pic from the whole trip. This fashion statement turned the climbing world on its head. Or its just plain creepy. Either way - parents, lock up your kids. Smith racking up for Crabby Appleton (5.9+).

We drove all night in a vehicle that tops out somewhere around 60 mph on the highway, and finally crashed out in the desert scrub just north of St. George, Utah at the Prophesy wall. The plan was to warm up on some sport climbs so we could get in the sandstone groove before gunning some aid lines an hour away in Zion. The warm up was great, but as soon as we got to the Park it started snowing on our asses, in spite of three different forecasts saying nothing but sunshine.

Minutes after my first whipper on a cam, a few hundred feet off the deck (Dream of Wild Turkeys, 5.10a). Thank God for those traverse bolts at the end...

We talked briefly with this bad ass little French dude and his hot blonde California girlfriend who had managed to fix the first 4 pitches of Moonlight Buttress just before the storm hit (apparently its not enough for the French to invade our country and pull harder than we do, they also have to pillage our women). They were going to shiver it out in the cold weather and let the wall dry, but we weren't down with snow or missing a climbing day, so we bailed for Vegas.

Smith makin' it look easy, business as usual in the life of a bad-ass. No big deal on Dream of Wild Turkeys.

We hit Black Velvet Canyon in Red Rocks at midnight on the edge of some serious wind. After blazing the truck around a freshly rolled over SUV (which was pretty creepy - smashed out windows, dome light on, with nobody around) that was blocking the road, we poached the B.V. Canyon parking lot for the next three nights. The first day we climbed a long line next to Frogland called Bourbon Street (5.8+) that instantly had me hooked on long multi-pitch rock routes.

Ladies and gentlemen, Brett Mollenhauer and Ben Smith. Men want to be them, women just want 'em. I think it's the matching grey t-shirts. The imposing Rainbow Wall can be seen in the background between them.

The next day was a trip highlight as we launched off on Dream of Wild Turkeys (5.10-, 1000 ft.) that pretty much blew me away. This was the most sheer wall I've ever been on with pitch after pitch of awesome 5.8 to 5.10 climbing. After whipping on a cam for the first time ever, we finished the final pitch as the sun was setting. This usually isn't a big deal, until you realize that you are a couple of bozo's who left their headlamps in the truck. Yep, we were definitely Those Guys.

Me on the first pitch of the really fun Dark Shadows (5.8).

About half way down the wall, the last of the light was officially gone, and it was dark enough that we couldn't see the rap stations if they were more than five to ten feet in front of our faces. This essentially meant that the only way down was a slow rappel, trying to pendulum from side to side looking for rap anchors. Imagine a blind guy swinging in space on the end of a rope looking for tiny sets of chains tacked onto a massive chunk of vertical rock, and that's about what the lower half of our descent was like.

Mollenhauer topping out on pitch three of Johnny Vegas (5.7), his first mult-pitch rock climb.

Fortunately for us, we eventually finished our vertical-Easter-egg-hunt-style search for anchors, and managed to hit the deck at a speed that wasn't terminal velocity. Unfortunately for us, though, was that it then took almost two hours for us to find our way out of the canyon in the dark. This included funky hand over hand rope down-climbing and even getting lost in the cactus scrub out on the flats. Long story short, it was one seriously kick ass day of desert climbing.

Me pretending I can climb 5.11 at the Panty Wall. What you can't see is the other two dirtbags at the bottom belaying/drinking cans of Olympia. We got used to nasty stares from other climbers pretty quick, and wouldn't hesitate to punish any stuck-up attitudes with soft rock hits from the 80's as loud as the iPod speakers would play them. Climbers beware - don't fuck with dirty Montana bums.

We eventually left Black Velvet, and kept crankin' on sweet, long rock routes. After the first week, Brett Mollenhauer took over Ben Smith's spot on Team Dirtbag, and would finish the final two weeks of climbing on the trip. Both myself and Brett were essentially new to multi-pitch rock climbing, but but after Ben left we quickly found our rhythm and kept knocking off some bad ass long rock lines in the 5.7 -5.9+ range, mixed with some sick sport climbing days in the Calico Hills area.

Mollenhauer on the sharp end, somewhere in the First Pullout area.

Smith killin' it on some tough 5.10/11 sport lines in the First Pullout area.

Brett and I took a quick trip up to Zion to do some slot canyons. We were able to descend the Zion classic The Subway, but were quickly stormed out of there the next day. Before that, though, we were able to climb The Pulpit, which is a free standing tower in Zion's main canyon. This was hilarious because the book we had listed the climb as a 5.9. But after crossing the river and getting to the base, it was looking pretty stout. However, I just chalked this up to the Park's nasty reputation for terrifying climbing and sandbagged ratings. The start was an overhanging sandstone slab that was so smooth I couldn't even get off of the ground.

Yeah, that's really a U.S. Navy sailor uniform that I stole from the Charlie's Pub lost and found box in Missoula (The Pulpit, 5.9 A0). No, I have no plans to give it back.

Feeling like a pussy, I quickly rigged up some slings to use as aid ladders, and promptly began my first aid climb. I was barely even ten feet off the ground before I immediately understood why aiding is completely terrifying. The bolts that I was hanging my nuts off had to be decades old, rusted all over, and hanging halfway out of the rock, with wierd homemade hangers that looked like they were designed to lever bolts out of the wall. Slowly, I made my way up the initial overhanging start to the top half that I hoped was going to be significantly easier. It wasn't.

Mollenhauer modeling our "dry suit/cold water" gear when we did the Subway slot canyon hike. Our solution to the mandatory swims through 38 degree water involved putting as much dry clothing as possible in a single small drybag, and then pretending that we weren't actually feeling the beginning stages of hypothermia. Yeah, we're river professionals.

Mollenhauer in the classic Subway photo-spot. Pictures don't do it justice.

I quickly realized that I wasn't going anywhere by free climbing except quickly downward. So I kept aiding up the crack, pulling on gear and clipping the occasional rusty bolt. I didn't have nearly enough gear for the crack I was on, so I had to keep bumping up the only three cams I had that were big enough. The weather was cold and windy, but I was so damned scared that I was sweating like I was at the fucking gym. Gripped and completely stoked I finally flopped onto the top of the tower grinning like an idiot. Brett prussiked the line, and we lounged out in the evening light drinking a few Natty Lights. We opened the summit register to check it out, and I started cracking up when I read the opening page: "The Pulpit, 5.9 A0, or 5.12 Free." After that climb, anything that looked hard jokingly became a "Zion 5.9."

Looking back into the Subway. Parallel cracks in the rock even looked like tracks.

On a climbing trip like this, the routes end up blending together in a blur of long days, tired bones, and limitless stoke. Brett and I lost count of how many times we drove the Red Rocks loop road, but one of my favorite things every day was getting back to the truck, usually in the evening or often after dark. Tired, smelly, and completely haggard from a long day of pulling on sandstone, we would crack a beer and drive the loop road back to the campground. It was always the perfect ending to what seemed like endless perfect days.

Got yer tickets... to the Gun Show? Mollenhauer on the first pitch of Lotta Balls (5.8).

Towards the end, we were generally so tired every night that we were eating straight out of cans of black beans that we were too exhausted to heat up (We decided to adopt the team name "The Fiber Bandits"). Muscles ached, and we were starting to lose layers of skin from our fingertips. Not that I was complaining - we were running around like Dirtbag Kings, living the dream and feeding the rat.

Mollenhauer crankin' away on the second pitch of Lotta Balls.

All in all, I couldn't have asked more from a first trip to Red Rocks. It's a kick-ass place, get down there if you haven't been. If your lucky, you might even get to see a Rock vs. Stick fight (but that's another story...). Vegas, Baby! Yeehaw!

Only two stars my ass. This is the best climb we did - 1000 feet and not a goddamned soul to share it with. Mollenhauer pullin' onto the final ledge before the headwall pitch of Frigid Air Buttress (5.9+).

Holy shit! Why did I bring my pack for the hardest trad crack I've tried so far? Oh right, I'm a dumb ass... Sounds like its time to head for the Excalibur and the first shower I had in Three Whole Weeks! Vegas, baby. Woohoo! (Final Pitch, Frigid Air Buttress, 5.9+).

Climbs done this trip:

-Bourbon Street 710' 5.8+

-Dream of Wild Turkeys 1000' 5.10a

-Dark Shadows 340' 5.8

-Crabby Appleton 550' 5.9+

-Johnny Vegas 480' 5.7

-Tunnel Vision 750' 5.7+

-Lotta Balls 480' 5.8+

-Black Magic 500' 5.8

-The Pulpit (Zion) 1 pitch, 5.9 A0

-Frigid Air Buttress 940' 5.9+

-And a shit-ton of sport climbin'/beer drinkin'.

Watch Your Cornhole!

The War On Gravity continues! All right, so I haven't put up anything in several weeks, but thats because the climbing season has been kickin' right along. Its hard to believe its almost March already. Well, long story short, the weather's been good and the climbing has been sick - it's been an unbelievable February. I'll let the photos do most of the talking:

I finally got the chance to lead the classic Green Gully in Pine Creek. Long and sustained WI 4 equals mean forearm and calf burn towards the top.

Eric Skinner on a seriously fat Blue Gully right next door to Green.

Gas station Aviators represent at the Unnamed Wall. Yeah Baby.

Blaine Heavner swingin' in the sunshine on The Fat One, WI 3 in Hyalite.

President's Day weekend saw myself and buddies Ben, Pete, and Jeff skiing yet again into Black Canyon Lake deep in the Beartooths. And while this time around I came armed with skis and food that wasn't all Snickers bars, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell I was thinking. We were chasing some ice lines on the north side of Mt. Rearguard that we had spied on our last trip in, and as I lifted my way-too-heavy pack, I knew that we were probably in for another rough weekend.

First Ascent? Who knows, who cares... But we're calling it Watch Your Cornhole anyways.

After skiing up the long, easy trail in beautiful conditions - great snow, packed out trail, bluebird skies - I thought we might be in for a surprise with the weather for the weekend. Wrong. Skiing up and over the steep glacial moraine into the Black Canyon is like entering a different world. Apparently, that world is constantly miserable in the winter. Looking down-canyon for the rest of the weekend you could see clear skies and sunshine, just out of reach. For the next two nights we would be pounded relentlessly by 0 degree temps, snow, and steady wind gusts of 40+ mph.

The beard says it all... Ben Smith freezing his nuts off with massive Beartooth Mountain in the background.

No one really wanted to get out of the tent on Saturday morning, but after some determined effort Smith and I began the long slog up a typically brutal Beartooth gully/scree field toward the base of the route. Jeff and Pete took off to check out the first line, which coincidentally had been soloed the week before by Stan Price in an 11 hour car-to-car push (he's got legs, and he knows how to use them). Damned impressive.

Roping up at the base, we realized we were in for some heavy duty punishment. Every time we had to use our hands for just about anything, they were pretty much already numb. At the top of the first pitch I enjoyed one of the worst bouts of the screaming barfies I've ever had. When Smith arrived at the belay, he sat there for about 10 minutes tucked into the fetal position while his hands went through the excruciating re-warming process. We both admitted that if we could have, we probably would have actually cried.

Not much besides rock, ice, and very cold hands and feet. Smith working up a sweet case of the screaming barfies on the second pitch of Watch Your Cornhole.

We finally topped out the ice line in a boulder field not too far from the summit of Mt. Rearguard. With the wind still whipping, we began the descent, which like the climb itself ended up taking forever. Struggling with finding good v-threads, tangled ropes, and my dumb ass dropping my belay device into the void earlier in the climb meant that we hit the base of the route just as night was falling.

The morning of the hike out, we opened the tent door to find boots, food, and cookstoves covered under about 6 inches of fresh snow that had blown into the vestibule. Pete Dronkers doing some rescue digging.

With headlamps out and the snow and wind blowing hard, we descended the 1000+ feet to the tent. Unfortunately, Ben was dealing with some cold toes that he was never able to fully rewarm, leading to some minor frostbite (who needs those big toenails, anyways?). Sitting in the tent listening to some tunes courtesy of Pete's speakers that he had hiked in, we decided that if the route didn't have a name, we should probably call it something along the lines of Watch Your Cornhole - mostly because four of us dudes had somehow decided that shivering closely in a tent on the backside of a mountain called Rearguard was a good way to spend Valentines Day. Just another example of when keepin' it real goes wrong...

Smith more than happy to be heading for the truck after a gnarly Beartooth sufferfest.

The next morning we high-tailed it out of there, dreaming of warm trucks and non-dehydrated food. And sure enough, as soon as we had descended into the main canyon, the wind died down and the sun came out. Don't get me wrong, both of the ice lines up on Rearguard are really cool climbs, especially if you could somehow score some good weather (probably in the Spring). They're both quality multi-pitch ice lines in the WI 3 range in some of the most stunning alpine settings the Beartooths have to offer. All I ask is that someone slaps me if I talk about going back there anytime soon...

Eric sweating it out on the steep stuff - The Good Lookin' One, WI 5, Unnamed Wall in Hyalite.

Dan's second lead on ice - Jeff's Right, WI 3, Unnamed Wall.

Toproping some free hanging daggers on Jeff's Left.

Ice Climbing Update 1/30/09

This is how you access the crapper at the Hyalite Trailhead parking lot.

How do a couple of Forest Service outhouses come to resemble shelled-out buildings in Kosovo, you ask? Close range shotguns, that's how! Montana kids don't mess around when it comes to vandalism. The funny thing is, this one is the better of the two. I walked into the other one several weeks ago only to find the windows and vents blasted out, the walls charred black from smoke, and burned chunks of wood, ashes, and used quarts of motor oil littering the floor.

And while someone was nice enough to add fresh branches as a make-shift vent cover, the back window has been gunned down in cold blood, so your cheeks will still be subject to a frosty morning wake up. However, the tantalizing reward of freshly stocked t.p. awaits those willing to crawl for it. Laugh now, but this bit of info may save your shorts if your morning coffee/gas station breakfast won't wait, and you're not the type of person to leave a Cleveland Steamer on the hood of your buddy's car (not that I would ever consider or suggest doing that...).

Anyways, here are some more photos of recent climbing and backcountry adventures:

Like a monkey ready to be shot into space - Blaine on his first ice lead at the left side of Genesis I.

Not a cloud in the sky. Just another bluebird day up Hyalite Canyon.

In a slight change of pace from the usual day trips up Hyalite, last weekend saw myself and new friend Pete Dronkers on a fairly brutal 10 mile slog into the rugged backcountry of the Beartooth Mountains. Our goal was a winter summit of the impressive 12,346 ft. Beartooth Mountain. Sounds good, right?

Well, never really being into doing things the easy way, I decided to spice up the adventure by leaving all of my food for the weekend at home in Belgrade, 4 hours away. Realizing my error just after midnight on Friday, I drove the ten miles from the trailhead back into the nearest civilization - Red Lodge, MT. Cruising through town, I noticed a suspicious lack of open food markets and gas stations. The nice lady working at the casino I stopped into kindly informed me that it was more or less physically impossible to purchase food at that hour - anywhere.

Pete trudging through a tough boulder field before Black Canyon Lake.

While she was giving me the bad news, I spotted a vending machine over her shoulder that was beginning to look like my only option for sustenance that weekend. I started feeding the machine dollar bills, and it returned the favor by tossing me copious amounts of Snickers bars. Apparently impressed by my tenacity to aquire food (or more likely floored by my stupidity), she took pity on me, unlocked the machine, and gave me several packages of Reeses and Twizzlers.

Leaving the casino with my precious booty (6 Snickers, 3 Reeses, and 2 Twizzlers), I went on a semi-desperate hunt for bar food in Red Lodge's finest establishments. I struck out several times, but I finally lucked out when I got the drunk bartender at the Blue Ribbon to cook me a frozen pizza. After watching her slam several shots and 2 beers while the pie was cooking, I paid her for the 'za and a flask of Canadian Mist, and was off into the wilderness.

Home sweet home - camped out beneath the massive Beartooth Mountain. The peak is just barely disguised by clouds, and the impressive spire on the right is the aptly named Bear's Tooth.

Pete had been kind enough to lend me his snowshoes, and I followed his ski tracks up the Lake Fork of Rock Creek in the 'Tooths. After having my ass handed to me by ten miles and a couple thousand feet of elevation gain, we made camp on the glacial moraine below the peak. That evening I ate a dinner that would have made the average hippie in line at the Good Food Store in Missoula vomit, and we drank some whiskey as our clear skies finally vanished while daylight faded and snowfall moved in.

With temps at or below 0 degrees F, we woke up the next day to about a foot of fresh snow. Pete and I both agreed to leave the final push up the peak for another day with friendlier avalanche conditions, and packed up and headed out. We were definitely a little bummed not to have bagged the peak, but also stoked to have made it that far back into an unbelievable area. With so many massive rock walls, big peaks, and a few big ice-climbing objectives, this area is chock full of unreal climbing opportunities. I'll be headed back as soon as I get the chance, hopefully with a little more food next time.

Frozen Black Canyon Lake and a few of its surrounding behemoths. I'm pretty sure this place would even make Andre the Giant feel small and insignificant.


Pete beneath a 1000+ ft. high sheer granite wall.


Another one of many big spires and rock faces in the Beartooths.