Trip Report - 8/10-12/19 - Backpacking Tapto Lakes & Copper Ridge

Overall trip - 44 miles, 12,700 ft of gain, and 24 hrs of hiking (in 2.5 days).

Just finished a 3 day backpacking trip to Tapto Lakes, Whatcom Pass, and Copper Ridge. The clouds hung low during the entire trip, so views were sparse, but Marc and I pushed hard on the mileage and did some big days. Hopefully I can get back out here someday and see some of the peaks!

The bases of Whatcom Peak and Challenger in the clouds

Tapto Lakes!

Hiking through the clouds

Finally some sun!

Copper Lake

Hiking Copper Ridge in the clouds

Trip Report - Dragontail Peak via Colchuck Glacier + Pandora's Box, then through the Enchantments

Had a big day on Friday with my good friend Pete. No idea on mileage (somewhere around 20 miles?) with almost 6k’ gain and 7k’ descent, all in a long 15.5 hours.

We set out from Stuart Lake TH at 5 am. Once we got up to Colchuck Lake, we could see the Colchuck Glacier looked to be in pretty bad shape, but we thought we’d go suss it out.

Once we got closer, we saw that there was a large band of blue ice across almost the entire snowfield, but there was still a small continuous snow finger on the right. So we climbed it. This was definitely the crux of the route, and it was pretty hairy. We could kick solid steps into most of the section, but there were a few points where blue ice lay only a cm beneath the snow, which made things sketchy.

Once we were through that section, the rest of the day was pretty cruiser. We got up to Colchuck Col, then scrambled some minimal class 3 terrain up to Pandora’s Box. We were worried about snow the eastern descent off the Box notch, but there was an easy path around it.

Then we climbed up Dragontail and enjoyed views of the Stuart Range and the Enchantments high country.

After enjoying the summit, we descended toward Asgard Pass. There’s still a lot of snow on Snow Creek Glacier, but there’s a solid bootpack up it.

Once we got down to Asgard Pass, we decided to descend through the Enchantments proper, so we slogged out the supposedly 12 miles (though it felt much longer once we’d gotten down to Snow Lake). The Enchantments were as beautiful as always!

Descending Snow Creek Glacier

The end of the slog

Trip Report - Mt. Baker (Easton Route) - 7/7-8/19

After years of dreaming about the big Washington volcanoes, I finally felt like I had the experience to make an attempt on Mt. Baker. And early on Monday morning, we were the first party to reach the summit. We got super lucky on the weather, and I feel really grateful to my amazing team (Becky, Marc, and Kate) for how well it all went. Here are some photos!

Trip Report - Trapper's Peak - 6/1/19

10.8 miles, ~3,500 ft of gain, 7.5 hrs

I’ve had Trapper’s Peak on my list for years, mainly so I could get a view of the Picket Range up close (which was absolutely worth it). But the climb was beautiful by itself too - a wonderful ramble through the forest up to the Thornton Lake notch, then up along the ridge to the summit knob. There was intermittent snow, starting around 3.5 miles in, and the ridge alternated between snow-covered and fully melted out. For the final push up to the summit, we had the option between chossy looking rock + heather and steep snow, so we chose the snow and then enjoyed the view!

Bear Tracks?

Photo Essay - 27 Days Rafting the Grand Canyon - February + March 2019

I’m still processing this trip, but here are some photos from one of the most incredible months of my life!