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Who Needs Ropes on Mt. Baker?

AndreCharland — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:17:16 -0400

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A couple months back Jordan Manley, Tobin Segal and I decided to go for a quick spring tour on Mt. Baker and shred the Roman Headwall.

We were all fresh off big missions so you figured we should have had it dialed. At least I figured out which mountain I'd been on before I guzzled 3 beers in 30 seconds.

Bougie 7

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:11:01 -0400

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Ryan Bougie's Denali photos

Bougie 6

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:10:12 -0400

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Ryan Bougie's Denali photos

Bougie 5

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:09:09 -0400

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Ryan Bougie's Denali photos

Bougie 4

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:08:01 -0400

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Ryan Bougie's Denali photos.

Bougie 3

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:06:45 -0400

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Bougie's Mt Denali photos.

Bougie 2

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:05:27 -0400

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Bougie's Mt Denali photos

Bougie 1

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:00:18 -0400

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Bougie's Mt Denali photos.

Speedflying Mt Baker

J Dogg — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:49:32 -0400

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This is a link Bougie found on Youtube, definitely belongs in the video gallery. that's sawweeet. crevasse gap jumping was my favourite part.

Dengnarli

Bougie — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:32:43 -0400

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DEEN’ALI SKI

Known by many different names Denali is what it is, the biggest mountain in North America. Its enormity and title attracting some of the best and worst climbers from all over the world. June of 2007 I was to join up with friends Marcus Waring and Jared Brooks to attempt to ski the Messner Couloir.

Residing in the quaint mountain hamlet of Whistler, B.C I got the call to join the two implant Alaskan’s on their planned expedition. In the end I couldn’t refuse the invitation to come join the crew for some summer turns even though it meant giving up my subsistence job of tree planting. Oh well what good is money anyway.

After completing the planning stage of our trip by filling out our Park Permit more than 60 days prior to our climb we were pretty much ready to go. Shralpers Party of 3. Permit for 2007/15/06 – 2007/15/07 West Buttress. Jared our fearless and all knowing leader (on the permit) had been to the mountain several times in the past as a babysitter, I mean guide so we never had to look far to answer our quandaries. We warmed up as a team by putting our hands on some shovels and taking a landscaping job for a week, while contributing to the immigrant worker problem in the states as Marcus and I are both Canadians. Jared made it perfectly clear in that dusty week that he had no intentions of going to the summit. "I have already been there and I don’t want to go back". "Put simply the whole buddy up mantra goes out the window up there". "Besides if anything happens in the Couloir your gonna end up at 14 camp anyway". What form you’d be in leaves something to the imagination. So it was, we had a plan.

A trip to the Anchorage Costco and $150 split three ways later we were ready with all of our gear and one-week’s worth of food and fuel. Wait now just a second Jared. "I thought it takes a week to get up to 14000 ft camp where you then have to acclimatize for several days and then you wait for your weather window". "Yes" Jared answered. "Then you have to get off the mountain and what about the bad weather if the planes aren’t flying and you’re stuck without supplies". "Well it sounds like you’re on to something there Ryan". "Thing is, is that everyone else on the mountain is thinking that way too". "So they take all this time getting up the mountain ferrying loads and then when they do get there window they go for it and if that window comes early well then wvola you have an abundance of food". An abundance of food that takes the same effort to get off the mountain as it did to get up the mountain. "So what does any smart person do"? "They try and get rid of it". "And there we’ll be open arms, helping out our fellow man".

So off we set from 7800ft Base camp after getting dropped off by the amazing Paul Roderick of Talkeetna Air Taxi (T.A.T). We switched to sleeping during the day to avoid crevasse difficulties on the lower glacier and cruised on up to 14000 ft in a very mellow 3 days. Once there we took one day to play some chess and chew on some Diamox while trying to re-adjust to staying awake through the day. Our first ski day provided us with some pleasant powder skiing from the 16000 ft level on what is known as the Riblet a couple hour skin out of camp. We would become very fond of this zone as it is the most sheltered terrain out of camp and the ever powder hungry park rangers were not allowed to ski there. Basically this means is usual freshies. It was also on this day that we heard about some first descents happening on the mountain by some other skiers out towards the rarely visited north summit. I believe that was the final straw, for Marcus and I. Sick and tired of our acclimatization program we wanted to make an attempt tomorrow. But the Messner looked to be in horrible shape with blue ice showing in multiple areas. Plan B. Climb the Riblet to the upper west rib route were we could get into the upper Orient and on up onto the football field which then would lead us to the final 1000ft summit ridge. Then we’d ski all the way back down, face shots and babes the whole way. What a Plan, and that’s pretty much how it went minus the face shots thing. And well come to think of it there was only one babe. Hiking up the Riblet as we ski’d by Lisa (fellow Canuck) turned out to be a really nice babe, so that was better than nothing I guess. Sweet Summit Ski Success, time to celebrate. The following night brought upon a solstice party with 24 people cramming into "The Stronghold". A dome shelter that the N summit ski party had brought up the mountain. Complete with a rocking banjo player, 2 litres of Canadian whiskey and others going round we were the highest people in all of North America. We would wait out the next week with a trend of precip and winds occurring later in the day. Taking the windows when they came one morning we hiked up what is known as rescue gully a variation from the normal route to get to 17000ft. camp. The 3 of us ski’d different lines myself skiing the Sunshine face and Marcus and Jared doing different variations of the Dogleg couloir. All three lines were very icy with high a consequence fall hazard. Upon returning to camp we were asked in a smart manner what we were going to do now that we had ski’d all the icy lines up and all that was left on the mountain was all that "dam powder". The person who asked this question led me into some interesting self-reflection, focussing on my own personal motives for choosing and skiing a line.

When the clouds lifted our thoughts again turned to the Messner, which was now looking very inviting. Unfortunately our teammate Jared had already made his exit plans joining another party to leave the mountain with. Marcus and I saddled up and took off for the Rib. Up we went topping out at the football field in just over 7 hours. Marcus feeling inspired for another summit push went on to the top to deliver a plaque given to us for a fallen climber from earlier in the year. I on the other hand was feeling the altitude headache coming on and just wanted to get it done with so we parted ways. 15 min later I collapsed as I ski’d in front of our tent throwing off my puffy in exhilaration of what had just happened. Not quite 2 hours later we watched Marcus negotiate the crux ice fall at the Messner exit signifying his addition onto the short list of people to have ski’d this beautiful line.

Having "bagged and tagged" what we had come to do on the mountain we could have just packed up and left quite contently. But no, not just yet. With people still giving us food and fuel we thought we’d stick around to see if we could go ski those north summit couloirs that the earlier ski party had pioneered. In the next week’s time our window never really came. Our time being consumed up by assisting in a rescue of an Altitude sick snow blind man. Mr. Kobai-ashi was a member of a nationally sponsored Japanese team who was doing work on a weather station that they maintain on the upper reaches of the mountain. I was impressed with the ranger’s ability to in-act a rescue at altitude having the ability to administer drugs like Nifedipine and Albuterol.

If the rescue wasn’t enough excitement the size 3 avalanches that came out of the Messner and other areas was. It was our time as skiers to get out. Waiting for dusk on July 4 we pulled out getting in the last POW turns for the 06-07 winter. With light packs we easily cruised through the lower glacier and into base camp 4 hours later to re-unite with our case of America’s finest, PBR. A couple hours later there was Paul and Rico from T.A.T to take us through some evasive cloud maneuvers back to civilization. Oh the good times!

Stay Tuned for Fairweather Mountain Photo story

Wrappin' on Mt Joffre

J Dogg — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:09:20 -0400

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Bluebird skies in the forecast and plenty of snow still to be had in the alpine - it was time for a heli-drop. But not one of those lazy one lap heli-drops. We had our minds set on a Slalock to Mattier to Joffre heli-drop, but it wasn't meant to be.

At 5:30 am Ryan Connelly texted to say his car had been towed in Vancouver, so he was out of the picture. Then, just as we'd all anticipated, Les 'is nowhere to be seen' Manley texted us right before he was meant to be picked up, saying 'I'm out, something came up'. Riiiiigggght.

So two men down, we cancelled the heli and drove up to Joffre with a new plan in action... the wrap around chute on the North-West Face of Joffre. On previous trips we'd only noticed the two gnarly couloirs on the North Face, but photos and stories of this wrap around chute had us hooked. A couple thousand feet of 55+ to 45 degree shredding, several dog legs, and a bergscrhund at the bottom for kicks, we knew we were in for good times.

T-ditty, Dre and I threw our skins on at Cerise Creek at 9am and cruised through the forest up to the base of Joffre, drooling over the North West Face as soon as we got there. So many tempting choices. Both couloirs looked prime for the picking, but we decided to stick with the hour-old plan and head for the wrap around.

After a warm slushy slog across the benches we stopped for lunch at the bottom of our line. Quote of the day came from me reminding Andre that it's a good thing he drinks alot, or he'd have nobody to keep up with him touring.

After lunch we roped up with our ghetto harnesses made of slings and crawled over the bergschrund at the bottom of the chute, then started the long, when-the-hell-is-this-gonna-end climb up to the peak. After sussing out the hard-packed steep snow and seeing a few chest-sized chunder balls come smoking past us, Tobin opted to call it a day and stick to the lower slopes. So with 3 men down and 2 still going, Dre and I continued the slog up to the peak.

Breakable crust and variable snow left us drained at the peak, with thawing hands (really minor frostbite) and weary legs, but all in good fun. The temps cooled off so no more ice cookies had fallen and the cornice stayed right where it belonged. Excellent.

But right when we hit the peak after 4pm, cloud cover rolled in and even 2 hours of waiting wasn't going to make it go away. So without the vis we needed to ski the 55+ degree fluted face from the peak, we instead hit the ridge for a hundred feet then dumped into the North West face and down to the bottle necked chutes below. With everything from buttery pow to a gnarly crust and steep hard-pack, we got it all on the descent, and we're all smiles when we finally hit the super-smooth pow on the apron below.

(Red line is us, green lines are the 2 other couloirs, next time)

So 10 hours after we started the day, we pulled up to Tobin and cruised through the icy woods back to the car. Good times had by all.

It wasn't a heli-drop, but it was an epic descent for our first real backcountry day of the season, and a hell of a lot more fun than whatever Les 'action more talk' Manley was up to. And we're definitely coming back soon for the central couloir, too good to pass up.

Photos by Tobin Seagel. Video coming soon to a theater or website near you.

(on our way up we caught sight of a Shane McConkey Huck-Doll about to base jump off Joffre's peak. If he can do that, the least we could do was ski it.)

NOTES:

Damn that was detailed. Now all I need to do to get this published on one of those techy backcountry sites is tell you it was a 11 hr trip in the conditions (including 2 hrs on the peak), that we each brought an ice axe, sling harness, and a 30 m half rope, that skies were sunny with cloudy periods, avi danger was low-moderate, no gore-tex sombreros were used in the making of this mission, and that yes, you should ski it. It's rad.

Mt. Baker's Back-Country open now! 203cms!

Pat Mulrooney — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:55:02 -0500

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John Armstrong tearing up Baker's Back-Country. Photo: Pat Mulrooney

Okay I'm not sure what everyone else was doing on Monday but for some reason we were the only crew in Baker's Back-country! The group was Danielle, Mike, Dave, Lee, and John. We got to the parking lot at 9:00 am and no one else was there? This just meant that we had to break trail with at least a 2 foot deep skin track. One of the ski patrolers told us that everyone left early who came up on on Sunday as the freezing levels got too high and the snow was too heavy. All we could see in front of us was a base at 203cm, Temp -3deg C, and no one else there! The first uptrack took around 2 hours but the 1 metre deep blower face shots seemed to make up for it. By the time we were on out way up again our track had 30 cms of fresh on it! We ended up getting 3 ridiculous runs and by the end of the day no one else had been in the entire area and 2 more feet of pow had fallen! Some how this was better than last opening day at Baker on Nov 12 2005. Check out all the pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/patmulrooney/sets/72157594376190367/

wedge6

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:06:58 -0400

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wedge5

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:05:58 -0400

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wedge4

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:05:10 -0400

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wedge2

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:04:22 -0400

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rainier 2

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 13:47:00 -0400

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Skiing on Mt Rainier.

Andre on the Summit of Mt Rainier

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 13:45:47 -0400

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Skiing on Mt Rainier. Blurry summit self portrait. What can you do when your partner is picketed to the glacier a few thousand feet below?

adams 3

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 13:27:18 -0400

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adams 2

J Dogg — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 13:26:33 -0400

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