Brianna Hartzell

2010-02-24T14:19:00.000-08:00

Brianna Hartzell

briannahartzell@gmail.com

(206) 321-0420

Monarchist's Cookbook

2009-08-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all, I'm back! The expedition was loads of fun, and 2 out of 4 summited. Not bad at all for a first ascent, in my opinion! We were on the glacier for 5 days, all of which were bluebird! Ok, so here's the short story. Check back in with Marmot Mountain Works around the holidays for a slideshow date! That's where you'll be able to see all the pictures and get the real scoop!! We left the morning of Friday, July 17th to start the two day drive. Matt, Eric and I met up in Bellevue, and we picked Mike up in Bellingham on our way North. So there we were, 4 climbers in a full Suburban with skis on top trying to cross the border into Canada. Nice try, eh? They marched us inside for individual questioning. 2 hours later, we were back on our way. We stopped that night at about 2 in the morning to camp out at Williams Lake B.C. The campground host told us that he had the "best swimming hole in the whole country". We went to check it out, but it was fairly disappointing; it was a dirty eddy underneath a "danger no swimming sign" with a lump of packing styrofoam spiraling around in the current. We decided to pass and continue along. The next 8 hours of driving included a 100km of dirt road down the most precipitous, guard-rail-less stretch of highway I have ever seen. Once down in the valley, it was a clear shot into Bella Coola, and to Eagle Lodge, where we camped on the back lawn. The next day was a prep day, so we went and checked out the heli-pad, explored the area's granite walls, picked up some fresh smoked salmon, shared a few beers with and borrowed a radio from Fraser at Coast Mountain Lodge, and organized our gear and food for our flight out the next morning. We got up the morning of the 20th, threw all the gear back into the Suburban, and drove over to West Coast Helicopters where Pat and Richard helped us weigh all of our packs, duffels and bins, and get it all situated into the helicopter. Then we were off! In the air, flying over fields, then trees, then waterfalls, then glaciers, and granite for all of 10 minutes. We landed just a few hundred feet below the South Ridge of Desire. We made a deluxe base camp; we planned on spending at least a week there, and expected poor weather. We even had a pirate snow man. Later towards the afternoon, we roped up and went for a wander to scope out the approach to the ridge. It wasn't bad at all! We descended the SE glacier to a 4th class ramp which let us access the E. Ridge. What a view! We were all psyched to get on it for the real business climbing. The rock was solid granite, the ridge looked totally do-able, and we were totally pumped on actually making this project a reality. We scurried back to camp, ate dinner, and hiked up to the S. Ridge to watch the spectacular sunset. The next morning, we hit the ridge, and headed off! It was mostly simple simul climbing. There were a few steeper pitches in there, up to 5.7ish, but they were covered in grippy, 1/2" lichen. The terrain sailed by, route finding was pretty easy-breezy, a bit of hopping to one side or the other occasionally, but no biggie. At the end of the last gendarme, we finally got a good look at the headwall pitches. They were off vertical, and looked to be quite loose, and hard to get a protected belay. Eric and my guts both vetoed continuing, but Matt and Mike felt good and motivated as always, and so they pushed on while Eric and I began the descent. We didn't realize how committing our little ridge was until we tried to get off of it. It took 9 hours of business style down leading and down simuling, all of which happened in mountaineering boots. And some of which was in the dark. It took 5 rappels (all of our bail cord and all but one of our cordelettes) The last bit was definitely the most sporting; descending the sandy 4th class slab back down to the glacier in the dark, Eric without a real headlamp, and both of us in full TPU soled boots. Whew! Were we glad when we got back to camp! We were beat tired. Mike and Matt, having beat us back to camp by about 5 hours, passed out jetboil cup corn snow margaritas, and we swapped stories over the roar of the XGK stove that was melting water. Our third day on the glacier we went to do an off-shoot of the S. Ridge of Desire, which Mike and Matt dubbed "Manergy Ridge". Eric had a blistering sunburn, and my lead head was fried from the day before, so an hour into climbing we rapped to the glacier and headed back to camp. Day 4 Mike and Matt were still full of energy, so they went to go scope out the unnamed south peak of the S. Ridge of Desire and to see if they could continue on the ridge. Eric and I skied the SE glacier in swimsuits and packed up camp. Team energizer bunny returned back to camp at sundown to spicy chicken stew, having summited the peak all the way across the valley via a system of ridges. Day 5 we flew out early in the morning, and headed back to Eagle Lodge to dry gear, get showers (with I'd've remembered shampoo!!!!!), and share pictures. Then it was off to Coast Mountain Lodge to return the radio we'd borrowed from Fraser. After a quick visit, we hit the road and headed home, through a MASSIVE thunderstorm. No border troubles this time, thank goodness! I got home at around 6am Sunday morning, and caught 3 or 4 hours of sleep before the Mountain Rescue pager went off for a mission at Snow Lake, and I was ripped from my rest. The rescue self-resolved shortly after, and I spent the next 3 days eating.

~The End~

Another grant!

2009-06-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Monarchist's Cookbook received a Mountain Fellowship grant! Thanks to the American Alpine Club, Eric Dalzell, Matt Van Biene, Mike Pond, and I are headed to the BC Coast Mountains on July 17th. In the meantime, there's lots and lots of training and preparation. Dehydrating food, building finger strength, and regaining ankle flexibility. Who knew rehydrated curry could be so delicious?! As our departure date looms closer, the stoke builds. We are all psyched for our project. Many thanks to John Scurlock for the pictures provided of the route. I encourage you to check out his website at http://www.pbase.com/nolock The photos here are incredible! Whether you are snooping around for a new line, or simply need to wade forehead deep in alpine beauty from a desk chair, John's got you covered. Also, check out the fabulous AAC at www.americanalpineclub.org They've taken good care of climbers for a long time, and I'm honored and grateful to be among the grant recipients of 2009. They do a lot for the climbing community beyond funding expeditions. Enough shameless plugs for now. I'm headed for the hills.

McNeill Nott Award

2009-05-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

I was recently awarded the McNeill-Nott Award from the American Alpine Club and Mountain Hardwear. This grant will fund a trip to the Northern BC Coast Mountains near Bella Coola. Mike Pond, Matt Van Biene, Eric Dalzell, and I will attempt the first ascent of a rock and snow ridge. Our plan is to head in mid July, and be home sometime in the first few days of August. We get to fly into our basecamp too! Should be fun! A bigger, nicer helicopter for passenger travel than Mountain Rescue, too. We'll even get seats in this bird! Oooh! Deeeluxe.

Red Jacket

2009-05-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Since my freshman year in High School when I saw my friend and mentor Seth wearing a red Seattle Mountain Rescue softshell jacket, I've deemed that the epitome of awesomeness. And I hoped that maybe, just maybe, at some point in my life that I too would be awesome enough to earn a red jacket. That day came yesterday. At 18, I was admitted into the "boys club", as the fourth female. The age requirement was, and still is 21. I'm not sure how that worked, since every other member has to fight for entrance, and the other females tell stories of how ridiculous the admission process was for them. I just sent in my resume with the forms, said I was an EMT, and called back every few weeks to check on my application. No raking over the coals at board meetings, and no bitterness that I can tell. I really don't know what changed their minds about admitting a woman, and I'll never be able to tell you why they let me in three years earlier than their bylaws allow. But I'm super grateful. And so far it's been a blessing. Right as politics are getting ugly in KCESAR, SMR offers me another roster to sign in on, even on the same missions. Also, one must be a member for one year, and fulfill a minimum number of missions, and "prove their probationary worth". After that one year, the board members take a vote, and they deem you worthy or not of a red jacket. I asked, used my recent grant award as a shameless bargaining ploy, and picked up my red jacket yesterday morning. I had gone on the minumum mission number for the year too, but ony 3 months into my membership. And now I'll be able to fly around in the Coast Mountains, throwing down FA's in a shiny candy apple red SMR jacket!

Ouray

2009-03-31T01:51:00.000-07:00

The bitchin-est adventures so far has been my two months in Ouray, CO. I had applied for a scholarship to Chicks with Picks at Bree's suggestion, and I won, so that meant 3 days in Ouray. I had remembered something about an ice festival though, so I got set to do do both. I figured I should look up when the ice fest was, I thought it was pretty close, but it was three weeks away. I decided to go for both. I emailed Mike to see if he had any beta on where to camp out, and if there was enough to do outside of the ice park to merit a 3 week vacation. Turns out, he was going to be there for the winter, and offered me a place to stay. Perfect! We split rent on a two bedroom apartment right in town, a 15 minute walk from the ice park. Two awesome Scotts lived with us for the first three weeks. James and Finley are amazing climbers!! Fin and I snuck the Scottish flag into the ice festival and tied it on with rubber hair bands. The Chicks with Picks clinic was awesome too. I climbed with Kitty Calhoun! My whole stay in CO was inspiring and motivating. It seemed like everday, I met someone I'd read about. And every Wednesday night, the coolest kids in town met back at Mark and Tyler's house north of town for "family night". I'd always bring cookies, except for one week when I made pie. It caught on fire. But it turned out fine 'cause I just scraped the burned top layer off. It was still delicious. I ended up with strong arms and a lot of great stories. Next time we meet, I'll tell a few more.

Boot

2009-02-23T23:21:00.000-08:00

I spent a good chunk of the fall as a cripple in a walking boot. I was a terrible patient, a doctor's worse nightmare, and when they told me they were going to put a cast on my foot in three days, I figured that gave two and a half days to climb. So I went to go do the NE col on Dragontail. I was in such a world of hurt on the way in. As we slogged up Asspounder Pass, I felt my ankle get weaker and weaker as it started to throb. Not awesome. Then I rolled a child sized block over my thigh, leaving a sweet goose-egg. And then a storm blew in, with high enough winds that the spindrift from the top of D-tail that it was making a growling noise. So we bailed. But we didn't hike down right away. Instead we played around on the uber lensed snow near the start of Hidden Col and Micah and Matt taught me how to place knifeblades. And they scare the living daylights out of me. Especially stacked shorty blades. Euggugug!!!!!! YUCK! But it really opened my eyes to the potential protectability of micro cracks, and I'm psyched to practice aid this summer. Finally out of the boot, and on the mend too!!!! Now I can focus on getting strong again! Watch out! I'm gonna rip it up this summer! I'm trying to decide between getting a guiding job, or simply teaching a few weeks of rock climbing and enjoying a last few months of dirt-baggery before I have to head to school. School will give me just shy of a whole week off every 2.5 weeks in addition to big winter, spring and summer vacations. I'll still have plenty of time to go climbing. But I'll just have to decide how much of my summer I want to spend working. It really is a tough choice! A guiding company is going to want my whole summer, but it pays fairly well, especially with a WEMT cert, but I'd get guides training and a whole bunch of experience. On the flip side though, I could teach three 5 day classes from 6/22-7/10, and spend the rest of the summer playing. I'm kinda leaning towards the latter since I can always settle down, but can't always play. I think I'll take the opportunity for personal climbing. I've already got a pretty good tick list going: Bugaboos (take two), Monarch Ice Field (BC Coast Range), Pickets, Boston Basin, Ranier (an embarrasing gap in my resume), and of course oodles of cragging and picnicing in Squamish, North Bend, Washington Pass, Darrington, and the Worth. Which kind of squeezes work to the sidelines, making guiding kinda hard. Oh well, we'll see.

Yosemite

2008-12-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

Yehaw... The Valley! I left for Yosemite the day after I got back from the Bugaboos, September 14th. I drove down with my Mom, who flew back home out of Santa Clara, where I picked up my older brother, Kevin, for a weekend of climbing. I was dog tired, and still jazzed about the wild, free alpine, so driving into Yosemite was a real shock. There were no campsites left, and the park rangers were out patrolling, so we drove back out of the Valley, just to find a place to sleep. The next day, we wandered around, got aquainted ourselves with the valley proper, and picked up groceries. That night, Camp 4 was still full. The next day, we headed over early enough, and got a site. Then we went and climbed Sunny Side Bench, a short 5.4 with a looong walk off. Then we headed back to camp and barbequed some kosher dogs and bagels. The next day, Kevin had to head back to school, so we drove back, and spent the night at his dorm suite. The next morning, I hit the road back to Camp 4. I met up with some friends a few days later, and climbed a few days with them. Then I pinched a nerve in my foot on Sloth Wall, and ended up nearly crippled until I left for home on the 30th. Still got in a bit of aiding, and a lot of litter clean up with the Yosemite Facelift. The slideshows at night were fantastic! I saw a lot of big names... Which is cool- it is sooo motivating to be near people who get after it hard. Oh, and I befriended a lizard. So, in a nutshell, I was nearly skunked by a foot injury... Pretty much the story of my life right now.

The Bugaboos!!

2008-12-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

Ever since Matt told me about his trip to the Bugaboos in May, I'd been itching to check it out. Steep, pristine alpine granite calls climbers like dinner bells call cowboys. I made up my mind that I'd go the first two weeks of December. I just needed to find a partner. I started by asking around work... Matt and Eric seemed pretty jazzed about the whole idea. Eric dropped off the face of the earth though, and I didn't hear from him all summer. Matt on the other hand, is fairly dependable, so we sorted out exact dates, and planned it out. Then Climbing did an article on the Needles down in California, and pretty soon, Matt didn't want anything to do with the Bugaboos. Yikes! That was a week before I wanted to leave! So I called Max, my trusty partner on Ingalls. A wild coincidence, the two weeks I had off for the trip happened to align perfectly with the time he had taken off to get prepped for school. Parfait!! So Max was in. I had my wisdom teeth pulled 5 days before we left, had helo-hoist training the next day, helped a friend move the next, worked the next two, and hit the road September 2nd. My parents had fixed us a huge dinner, so we didn't get on the road until almost 9. We drove almost to border crossing in Idaho, stopped at around 3 am, slept until sunrise in a gas station parking lot, and hit the road again. Once we were at the trail head, we wrapped the car in chicken wire, logs, and rocks... it looked like a demilitarized zone... no critter was getting past it! NO WAY, NO HOW! It took everything I had just to get my pack on... but we hit the trail. On the way in, we stopped at the Kain Hut to fix dinner. A storm blew threw as we ate... we lucked out! With the fresh snow, the trail was a little obscured, though, and we wandered until midnight at the elevation we expected to find Applebee at, with no luck. Finally, exhausted, we bivvied on a boulder, and shivered through a clear night. I woke up first, and low and behold, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the Applebee toilet. It was a little embarrassing!! We were only a few hundred yards from where we wanted to be!! So we threw our packs together, and stumbled over. We found an awesome campsite, well protected from the wind, and right next to the critter boxes and gear tree. The weather looked like it was holding, and the baro pressure looked decent, so we made up day packs and headed up to the Bugaboo Snowpatch Couloir to do a little bit of Pigeon Spire recon. We made it 80% up the col before we found the bergshrund. It was 5 or 6 feet wide, and went all the way from Snowpatch to Bugaboo. Plus, the conditions weren't hot- it was 2' of packing peanuts consistency dry snow over black ice. No Bueno. With no snow or ice pro, we decided it was a bad idea and started back down. The wind had really started to pick up, though, and a heavy crust started to form. In the 3o minutes it took to descend the col, it went from blower snow, to thin, hardly noticeable crust, to breakable crust, to sometimes breakable crust. When we got down to the moraine, the weather system was still a ways out, and with the climbing day spent, we sat down, told stories, had an epic snowball fight, and then wandered back to camp for dinner. Day three we sat in the tent and waited out the system that had blown in the day before. Day four looked a lot like day three, but I pulled out Battleship, and we sharpened our elementary level "strategery". Day 5 was spent in the same fashion, day 6 we did a little bit of cragging around the camp. Day 7 we did McTech Arete, Day 8 we sat out weather. Day 9 we fired Westside story, and day 10 we went for Lion's Way with Tom and Micah. Then we headed out. The walk out seemed to take forever, and the packs seemed to weigh just as much as they did going in. Returning to the car was bittersweet. It had been such a great trip. We drove most of the way home, stopped for the night, and made it the rest of the way back the next morning, just in time for me to shower and run off to a friends wedding, with a hot peach cobbler for the potluck in one hand, and garden gnomes as a wedding gift in the other.

REI Garage Sales

2008-08-10T11:49:00.001-07:00

I work at Marmot Mountain Works. I get really sick deals on gear... Not gonna lie. When a customer returns something, we give them their money back, and send the item to the manufacturer for warranty. When somebody returns something to REI, they give them their money back and then sell the item for around 10% of its origional cost back to the members. REI loses a ton of money this way, but it creates some ridiculously awesome opportunities for great deals. So I've been hitting up the sales lately, and stocking up on awesome for the winter climbing season.

Night Climbing

2008-08-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of days in the alpine recently, with the Tooth, and Ingalls. My ankle has been getting worse again, though, so I needed a way to get out climbing without quite so much walking. Cragging and gym climbing is the solution. But neither hold nearly so much appeal as the back country rocks. I had to figure out how to make clipping bolts interesting. Sitting next to Alie on the way to the gym, explaining my dilemma, and the lack of motivation that bolts offer, it took about all of 30 seconds before I offered up a solution: the dark. If sport climbing was boring during the day, how was it at night? It had to be more interesting.... It was! We met up with Lily after Mexican food with the SAR crew, and started climbing. By this time, it was around 10:30 or 11... and completely dark. Just how we wanted it. Turned out, I was the only one who led. Leading bolts, meh. Leading gear, pretty sweet. Leading bolts in the dark... WOW! Ya! Waaay more interesting than day-time sport clipping, and that's for sure. So I set up top-ropes for the rest of the gang on an 5.8, 5.9, and 5.6. Fighting the mice was the toughest part. The rodents decided that if they couldn't beat us, that they would join us, so they stuck around, and let us pet them. That was aweseome. We did laps until we were stupid tired, which put us around 3:30 in the morning. Alie and I took down the climbs, while I organized the gear. Then we did sun salutations on the trestle. AWESOME! The whole valley was lit up with the very beginnings of the light of the new day. After yoga, we wandered over to Nevermind Wall and bouldered around before heading back to our bags. We took an hour nap at the base of Write-off Rock, and then headed back down the trail, dodging the camp kids walking up the trail. Back at the parking lot, we ran into Ian, a good friend of Alie and mine. Then, Max, my partner for Ingalls drove up! We had the whole gang. But poor Ian was trying to size harnesses for that day's clients, so we let him get back to work while Max and J headed off to fire Negatherion. We stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way back, and I picked up a box of 'nuts for the family. Back at home, Alie and I laid around for a good couple of hours, just being tired. But then I realized that I had Dosage III on Netflix (rad climbing movie), so we watched that. And while the credits were rolling, we looked at each other, and said almost in unison that we weren't done climbing yet for the day and that we should hit up the gym. Off we went! We were pretty worked over, already, so Alie (only been climbing for a month!!) hit up some 5.8's and then got too pumped on a 5.9. I took laps on 5.9's until I realized that my toenail was falling off, took a break, then hit up a healthy dose of 5.10's to get worked stupid. It worked. Then, feeling pretty good, I hopped on a 5.11, and fired all but the last move. We were both whooped, so we headed over to the vertical 5.7 to finish ourselves off. I think I only got 3 laps in before I called "uncle". Happily defeated, we headed back home and slept 14 hours.

A really long day

2008-07-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

So here's the story. I got off crutches last Thursday, went to Squamish on Friday, got home at 1 in the morning on Monday, and got up again at 10:30 to climb the Tooth with Alie, another girl from KCESAR. We stopped at REI in Issaquah to pick up a nut tool, and replace the cordalette that I had sacrificed in Squamish to back up the rappel to belay ledge at the Upper Malamute. So onward we went. We had heard that there was a mission going on up at High Point at exit 20 off I-90, so we stopped in to see how that was going, ate a bunch of the Operation Leader's wheat thins, and went on our merry way to Snoqualmie Pass. Finally there, we parked in the middle Alpental lot, right below the gate. We unloaded the car, packed up the gear, and hit the trail. We were both in sneakers, expecting somewhat minimal snow, beings the end of July and all. Along the trail, Alie's stomach was reacting to the chicken she had brought along, so we made slow time getting up to the Source Lake Overlook. From there, it was clear that we would be in snow up to the base of the climb. Turns out, Alie really hadn't walked in snow before. So I gave her one of my trekking poles, we took it slow, and I kicked nice steps around the descending traverse of the bowl, taking pictures of the incredible view as Alie made her way along, experiencing snow travel for the first time. Once around the bowl, we started to make our way up the snow choked gully. That took a while too. Finally, we popped our heads out of the trees into a gorgeous, snowy basin, looking right up at the Tooth. There was an initial flat spot, a quick steeper spot, another flat spot with a cairn and a bunch of giant boulders, and then a longer slog up to the gendarme. Alie declared that this was no longer fun, so I walked even slower, stopped even more frequently, and kicked even better steps. That seemed to be enough, and she kept moving. Once up to the gendarme, one crosses around the southwest side to a rocky traverse, and then back up and around to Pineapple pass, a narrow, steep notch in the rock at the base of the Tooth, peppered with gorgeous purple wildflowers, and surrounded by incredible views; West to Mt. Rainier, and East back towards Source Lake. So I racked up and set out. Alie, mind you, is overcoming a crippling fear of exposure. So I lead up, and get her on belay. Alie makes her way up. The sun's around a foot and a half off the horizon. I explain that we need to pick up the pace. This is Alie's 5th time rock climbing, so despite my impatience, her speed is explainable and expectable. I think I took a more direct route than suggested on the 2nd pitch, which held a cruxy move, slowing the lead down momentarily as I placed the magical green #12 stopper. The process slowed down even more as my friend pulled first the crux, and then the mantle. We needed to be going faster. The third pitch went smoothly, albeit slowly. The fourth and final pitch marked the beginning of the drama. A #0.4 camalot, that beautiful, secure, purpley-grey bit of cnc magic was just past Alie's reach into a horizontal crack. I shouted down that it needed to be moved to the right, to where the crack flared. So, instead of fishing her pinky fingers in there, or using the nut tool to hook the trigger wires, she hammered it back and to the right. My precious pro was then overcammed and slammed deeper into trouble. She shouted back that it wasn't coming out, so I suggested that she climb up. She did, and then I had her lower me back to my shiny amigo. I wiggled my little fingers in there to the trigger, but to no avail, that sucker was WAAAY over cammed. So, I got a rock and hammered it towards freedom. No luck. Even after 20 minutes of nut tool weilding, knuckle bashing, liberation warfare, my precious 0.4 remained stuck. I kissed it goodbye, willing that somebody, somehow, would be able to free it one day, add it to their own rack, and put it to good use. I climbed back up, admired the sunset in a hurry, found the rap station, set an anchor on the tree, belayed Alie to it, clipped her in, stacked the rappel for Alie's sake, rapped to next station, gave Alie a fireman's belay, pulled the ropes, and repeated the process. But the rope got stuck. So I led back up on the other half, unstuck it, down climbed, and THEN repeated the process once more, this time all the way to the packs at Pineapple Pass. Now, it was dark, and I slapped my headlamp over my helmet and threw on another layer as I packed up my things for the next two raps off the pass. Once again, down I went. It took 30 harrowing and terrifying seconds to find the second rappel station. But there it was, and so I clipped in, and hollered up to Alie that she was free to go. The 2nd rappel went smoothly, and set us at the edge of the steep snow field. I coiled up the rope in a hurry, threw it in my pack, and set out. I cut and kicked some lovely steps in the icy snow, and started making my way down. By this time, the warm front had moved in, and we were swallowed up into the belly of a cloud, destroying what visibility I had with my dying headlamp in the middle of the night. We had to stay within 20 or 30 feet of each other to be able to see the light coming off each others lights. I traversed over and down towards the middle of the basin which hadn't been as shaded earlier in the day. As I expected, it was softer, and made for slightly quicker travel. We made our way slowly down, covering our lights every few minutes, barely able to make out the shape of the basin. Once we got down to the flat spot, a break in the clouds revealed that we were indeed headed exactly as we planned to. So onward we went towards the gully that would drop up into Source Lake Basin. As we got to the gully, we had to cross the edge of the river, from the snow to the dirt, I hopped across via a stepping stone. A stepping stone that turned out to be 3 and a half feet under the water. It's true, LED lights, especially ones that are almost out of battery, don't offer much in the way of depth perception. I scramled back out, shaking the icy water out of my pant legs. Adrenaline is pretty warming, and softshell pants dry pretty quick, so I was still in good shape. My phone had rung just as I clambered out of the water, so I called my mother back to let her know that I was on my way out, and that I would call her back when I made it to the trail. Onward we went, still slowly, scrumbling down the really steep snowy gully, through super thick pine trees, and out in to the basin. Turns out we went down the gnarlier of the two gullies. 10 points for unnecessary suffering. The sky was starting to clear, revealing absolutely spectacular stars right above us, and the clouds even opened briefly to reveal a full yellow moon. We began the ascending traverse of Source Lake Basin. We were making really slow time, back on the icy snow. I was getting good at making steps, and Alie, despite exhaustion, was starting to get a bit more comfortable following them. After a while, we passed one of our landmarks- a boulder that had fallen and putty knifed a bunch of snow down with it. That was pretty orienting, and we cut higher up the slope. Next, we crossed the talus field. At the other side of the talus, we still didn't see our boot track, so we headed farther up hill to where our earlier steps intersected the rock field. Then, it was just a matter of walking along to the base of the water running down the rocks, where we would meet our trail. And sure enough, there it was. I kissed a downed log. It was beautiful. I was damp, we were both tired, and yet barring spontaneous injury, we were going to make it out! All we had left was to cruise the 1.5 mi back to the cars. We split the last of the water, and hauled ass down the trail. The car was so beautiful and inviting. We hopped in, cruised down to North Bend where we picked up enough gas and food to make it back to my house. Back at home a little after 3am on Tuesday, we fell fast asleep, glad to be warm and dry. Despite having had a rough time, I'd had a blast. It's always fun to catch a glimpse of your own meddle.

2008-07-12T19:37:00.001-07:00

So while I was up at Washington pass, I got hit by a rock a little
bigger than a grapefruit. It was party inflicted from a few
switchbacks up the trail. It came rocketing down and hit me hard
enough that it knocked me down, even though I was standing on the ankle that it hit. I
hobbled out for a mile and a half down the steeper part of the trail
( on the descent from south early winter spire) but then the
instructor of the course decided (widely) that I shouldn't be putting
weight on it and gave me a piggyback ride the rest of the rest of the
two miles. Ian, I am eternally grateful!!!!! Once I got home, I had to
teach a 4 day rock class, where I had to hike around a mile each day.
That wasn't doing it any good though, so on Wednesday I went to get x-
rays. Nothing was obviously broken , but they did pick up some blood
pooling up on my tibia, not to mention a lot of soft tissue slush (a
technical term). The pain continued to double daily though, so back I
went for more xrays. Still nothing other than the tibial hematoma
showing up on the x ray, so that's good, but now they've got me
wrapping my ankle all special, icing it a whole bunch, and walking
around on crutches for a week. Never fear, though. I should be back
in action soon enough. I've just got to make it to Thursday, my next
day off.

2008-07-12T19:13:00.001-07:00

Leavenworth, Washington Pass

2008-07-09T23:30:00.000-07:00

So in an effort to climb trad more effectively, efficiently, and stylishly, I signed myself up for Mountain Madness' Alpine Rock Seminar. We started out at O'Grady's in Leavenworth, spent a few days there, and then tooled up to Washington Pass in the North Cascades. It was incredible!!! The climbing was awesome- super textured granite with slabs, chimneys, splitters, and off width. Ian, our guide and instructor was a human encyclopedia, a patient teacher, and a bank of stories. I had such an awesome time. I learned a bunch too!!!! I can't wait for my ankle to heal up. I've gotta go climbing!

Pencil Thin on Baker

2008-07-09T23:19:00.001-07:00

So here are some pictures from the North side of Mt. Baker in June. We climbed a variation of the Colman Demming route, skirting left just under the Roman Wall for the ice gullies on the left hand side. Perfect conditions, fair weather, and a great way to practice the skills from the rest of the Alpine Ice course through AAI

Ow.

2008-07-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

So on my way down from South Early Winter Spire on Monday, I got whacked down via a grapefruit sized rock to the ankle bone. It's been hurting to weight it and throbbing since, so I finally took it in for x-rays tonight. All the bones are in the right number of pieces, but the rock did a pretty good job of contusing all of the local tissues as well as gifting me a fatty hematoma on the medial side of my tibia. But I've got to keep working, so I've been hobbling and wobbling my way around, still trying to teach rock climbing. Dos mas days. Then I'll spend the weekend and first half of next week at Passages, sorting food, sending groups out, and checking gear back in. No rest for the bummin' ankle. The crux'll be trying to ice it every 30 min for the next few days as per doctor's orders.

For real.

2008-06-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

It's official. I graduated. High school is past tense! It's such a relief, knowing that my adventure is really ramping up. This last week, I took an alpine ice climbing class through AAI. It was incredible! We climbed Pencil Thin, a variation of the Moustache route, up through the ice gully system just left of the Roman Wall, on Mt. Baker. It was incredible and life changing. My guide, Mike, was incredible, a human alpine encyclopedia. The climb itself was cool, but on the way up, we bivied at high camp along the black buttes. Mike and I watched as the ridges overlapping through the horizion faded from pink to gray, and the summit fade from a glowing peach lantern to a silouette. Then the stars came out. After a few hours of sleep, we got up around 3 to make the summit before conditions got too soft. I had been using the rope as a pillow, but it had stuck to the ground, and my boot shell laces had froze all cadie wampus. Even my sleeping bag was coated in a thick layer of frost. That night was truly one of the greatest experiences of my entire life. I got a new perspective on the joy of climbing, and now I've got the bug bad! Plus, we climbed around on overhanging seracs. I loved it. I couldn't get enough! It was a crash course on technique and a pump fest all rolled into one. Most awesome. I can't wait for the next chance to get back out there. Looks like it won't be until next weekend, at least. I'll be setting routes tomorrow, and then teaching rock climbing mon-fri. The weekend's all mine, though, so at least I can start scheming! The weather looks like it might be sort of drizzly, so I'll plan on staying mostly off the rocks for sat/sun. Good thing I've got a fat tick list!!! I'm super excited for the summer to really get underway. I've got so much fun stuff planned! Now it's just a matter of cramming every last day with climbing, and trying to find people to climb with. Pictures of Baker will be up soon!

Takeoff!!!!!!!!

2008-06-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

So guess what? I graduate on Tuesday! That's the beginning of the 15 month adventure! I'm going ice climbing the 14-19th, and then teaching rock climbing the week after. The week after that... I haven't decided... maybe an alpine climbing class... maybe climbing in Darrington. Then, I'll be teaching another week of rock climbing. The week after that, I'll be out rock climbing, and the week after that, I'll be climbing Shuksan and Ranier. August makes the beginning of my internship with Passages, and then in September, I'll be headed to the Bugaboos. October-November, I'm taking my W-EMT. That's what I've got so far. Suggestions?

skiis!

2008-04-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've now got my very own pair of tele skis. I've been skinning up Hyak a few times, and I love my skis! They're light, stiff, carvy, and have an uber low swing weight, which comes in handy saving my ass from gnar wipeouts! I got some great pictures! I did a aerial flip the other day when by tips sunk and stuck into the semi-consolidated base. lol. I lost the corners to a couple of fingers and dribbled people juice all the way back to the car. but, on a lighter note, I think I've found me some tele boots! We'll see in a couple of days...

The plan

2008-04-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've got so far!!! And it's always changing... I'm looking for internships with guiding companies for February-April, or even June. The only company that's offered so far is Passages NW, but they're looking for someone in the summer. Any other ideas?

I'll be teaching rock climbing:
-June 23-27
-July 7-11
-July 14-18

13 day mountaineering course (tentative)
-August 16-28

W-EMT course
-October 20-Nov 14

Chicks with Picks clininc (tentative)
-January

Why this blog exists

2008-04-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

Ok, with fifteen months of living out of my car ahead of me, mostly unplanned, without a dedicated road-buddy, I had to figure out how to keep family, and friends, both new and old, connected and updated on my progress and whereabouts. The blog was the idea of Lynette, a fantastic woman, and yoga instructor exra-ordinare. She figured that this would be a darned good way to go about it. I think she's right too! So far so good. And while I haven't actually set out yet, that will soon change, and with it, my entire way of life. I hope that this blog will keep all of my dear posse up to date on what I'm up to, how I'm doing, and my train of thought. Feel free to email me with questions or suggestions as to how I can do this better.