Ice in WA

So it has been unseasonably cold in WA this year.  For those on the westside of the state, they have been driving around with a foot or more on the ground for some time now, and transportation in the cities was all but shut down until just a few days ago.  While this may have reaped havoc on the urban areas, it sure made some great ice climbing.  Waterfalls all over the state have been climbed, including climbs at Index and Skookam falls, which don't really form up all that often.  

I went out and climbed The Pencil about a week ago.  It was a super good climb.  It is up near Drury Falls in Tumwater Canyon outside of Leavenworth.  The climb was wet and cold, but it felt good to swing some tools.  I would certainly say that the crux of the climb was the three-plus hour approach that it took us to get up to it.  Casey and I cruised the river crossing with no problem in our borrowed aluminum canoe.  It was more the slogging through nipple deep 4 percent snow over a brutal boulder field that made the trip.  It really wasn't all that bad, but let's just say it was a bit frustrating at the time.  The last 100 meters of the approach took us a good 45 minutes.  It was standard slogging in deep snow- dig, dig, stamp it out, move a little bit, do it again.  

Soon after we arrived, a spout of water opened towards the top of the first pitch and proceeded to drench the left side.  We climbed the right side no big deal.  I was super stoked to let Casey put up the rope, as I ended up being pretty worked just following.  We climbed the second pitch with frozen gloves and wearing our puffies.  The final third pitched looked to be quite good, but between the waning daylight and our frigid appendages, we decided to make the trek back down the canyon.  It is a super aesthetic climb for sure.  I would love to go back sometime and finish the last pitch.  The first pitch was great, steeper than I expected and a real rope stretcher.  Highly recommended if you can get on it.

Post Christmas

A happy crew after the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket 

session at Steven's

Things were a blur leading up to Christmas.  After such a late winter, when it finally showed up, I had a tough time leaving it for the mess on the westside.  But, it was good to see family and friends over the holiday.  I made the drive back over to Leavenworth today, after sitting on Snoqualmie pass for an hour while AC work was done.  

It is still snowy around here, rather than the black slush on the side of the road that I left behind, and that is reassuring.  Back up to Steven's tomorrow.  The backside will be opening up for the season tomorrow.  I am super stoked for that, but after getting back there for the super secret session earlier this year, I am worried I might have too high of expectations.  Either way, it will be good to be on the skis.  

Cionek making the first turns of the season

 in Tunnel Creek

Winter is upon us..

It has been an epic long fall here in the Cascades, not to mention elsewhere, but it has  finally turned white... and it has done in brilliant style for sure.  I have been wandering aimlessly around for the last several weeks.  This is always a tough time of year for me, not a lot of work, too cold and dark for a lot of activities, and no snow.  I find myself shifting aimlessly and questioning whether my life is really moving in the right direction.  Fortunately for me, the snow starts falling and winter begins and those questions of direction seem to be washed away with my first turn.

I started this blog with high hopes.  But as you can see the last entry was from this summer, and my feeble attempt at a blog has sputtered and failed.  I am however, fulling planning on making a much more valid second attempt.  Even powering through the difficulties of a completely crashed hard drive and loss of all the pictures, articles, and music I have accumulated over the last year, I will make it happen.  So stay tuned, and it will be worth your while.  

Good times in the North Cascades

I am busy trying to catch up on life at the moment, between a couple of trips on Rainier and a 13 day Alpine Climbing Course I have worked every day of the last 22 days!  It was a good stretch though, some really fun climbing and I was able to work with some great people.  

The sun coming up at High Break on Rainier

The highlights had to have been a stormy trip on Shuksun, a climb of the West Ridge of Forbidden and a sunset climb on Mt. Rainier.  After spending a few days honing in our alpine skills, the gang headed out the Mt. Shuksun with the Sulphide Glacier in our sights.  The weather reports had been playing games with us

 for the previous five days already, and what was supposed to be a bomber forcast for us, once again flipped and we spent a wet couple of days on the mountain.  Luckily, all prevailed and we summitted in full-on weather conditions and the gang showed some true-grit on the climb as well as descent!

After some serious drying of gear as well as ourselves we enjoyed a monster feast in Seattle and bid farewell to half of our crew before heading back out into the field.  Jeff, Micah and I went in to Boston Basin and did some more climbing.  The highlight was an ascent of the West Ridge of Forbidden, surely one of the Cascade's true gems.  

Jeff and Micah finishing up Sahale

I also worked two climbs on Mt. Rainier.  One on the Disappointment Cleaver route and another on the Emmons route.  Both were good climbs and we got 100% of our climbers up as well, so that is always a bonus.  

Heading back to Rainier tomorrow to start another program!  Hope everyone out there is out getting it done!  Fire it up!

Checking in...

Things are getting pretty crazy busy for me around here in the good ol' Northwest.  I did a program on Rainier, then 13 days guiding around the Cascades, and today I am staring a program on the Emmons Glacier on Rainier.  I have tons of pictures and stories from the last several weeks, but due to the fact that I am going to start the close to three hour drive over to Sunrise in a few minutes they are going to have to wait until after this program is over.  I have a whole three days in a row off!  The first in 22 days!

Paragliding!

So I have begun a new sport.  I am learning how to paraglide nowadays.  It may be folly, to try to learn another sport that is going to take a bunch of time and energy when it never seems like there is enough time for the activities I am currently involved with.  However, I am going to try. 

I was up in Cashmere, which is just outside of Leavenworth at Aerial Paragliding taking some lessons over the last few days.  Denise and Doug are great instructors and have a top notch facility if anyone is interested in trying it out.  It was actually recommended to me by a ski buddy as a great place to learn.  They have these monster hills to go fly off of and little trucks to drive you back up, so you can really make use of the conditions when they are good.  

I started out just learning how to launch the wing and put it down.  Then we did some running downhill with the wing and getting a bit of float.  Before long I was launching off of "Don's" and getting flights of a few minutes.  It really is a great feeling to be flying along.  I am stoked to go do some more and really get some long flights in....

Denali 2008

Well, another season of guiding on Denali is done for me.  We had a great trip up there, really one of the most straight forward trips I have done on the good old West Buttress.  It was a small team, three climbers and one other guide, so it made for easy travel together.  That combined with everyone being strong and about as good of weather as we could hope for made for a smooth trip.   

Hugh and Liam with their Igloo

The only kinks occurred on the arrival to AK.  I had a bag go missing and hence arrive in Talkeetna a day late.  Let me tell you, that can make you pr

etty nervous when you know that you need everything in that bag in order to make the trip go, and it is completely out of your power to do anything about it.  Shortly after realizing that my bag was missing, I thought we had lost one of the climbers.  Through some sort of miscommunication, I thought that Hugh was meeting us in the airport, while he thought he was meeting us in Talkeetna.  Suffice it to say, I drove away from the airport feeling one bag and one climber too light.  It all worked out the next morning though, and the trip ended up getting onto the glacier without a hitch.  

Heading down the Autobahn to 17 Camp

This trip was also super fun for me because I was able to climb right next to some really great friends of mine.  My buddy Nate was guiding a trip on the same schedule as us for AMS.  There was another climb of Air Force people that was led by a great friend who I went to school and have been climbing with for years, Mark.  They were a riot as well, singing and playing cards and competing with out crew for who could build the best igloo at 14 camp.  They were also climbing for charity, raising money for the Warrior Fund.  Check out their site if you get the chance.  We also go to climb and summit next to Mike Haugen and Zach Price another couple friends of mine.  They are attempting to summit the 50 high points, one in each state, in 50 days.  Good luck to you guys!

Like I said, all in all, a great trip.  100% of our team summited and 100% got back to the real world safely.