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Back story -
Since
I began climbing back in late 2010, I've wanted to climb in the alpine and
become an alpinist that thrives in the mountains that inhabit my "backyard".
I don't remember exactly when I heard about or saw Colin Haley's name and
story, but I was instantly drawn to the fact that he had grown up in Seattle
and had been climbing from a young age throughout the Cascade Range. By climbing
so much throughout Cascades, he was able to amass the skills and experience
necessary to progress into the "greater ranges". It was this success
story, and many others like it, that helped kindle my dreams of one day climbing
in the "greater ranges". Colin's first real alpine climb was the West
Ridge of Forbidden Peak, a mountain that Fred Beckey and party made the first
ascent of in 1940, and that is also one of Steck and Roper's "Fifty
Classic Climbs of North America".
So
I reasoned that I should start in the on the same route and the same mountain.
Forbidden's West Ridge requires a vast array of mountaineering and alpine
climbing skill, and the experience to be confident and efficient in those
skills, therefore, if I could climb it, then that would mean I had the experience
to do bigger stuff, a way of testing my skills.
Between
my “start” and last winter I had finally found a place I could call home, and
people I could call friends and partners. I joined the Skagit Alpine Club, and
I started volunteering at my local climbing wall for my naval base's outdoor
recreation program. I bought an ice axe, and got to use it. I started sport
leading then trad leading in the span of a year. I discovered the American
Alpine Club at their annual Craggin' Classic in Smith Rock, Oregon where I
instantly fell in love with the community and the opportunities they accommodate.
I climbed with my "hero", the one and only Colin Haley at Index. Probably
most important, I met Dave and Kari; two people who have done so much for me,
perhaps being the only reasons why, or at least the catalysts, I've been able
to live my dream.
A
lot happened in those years, but the goal remained the same, with the help from
so many people. There were two important things happened last winter that
enabled me to realize this goal: one, I saw an ad on Facebook talking about the
AAC's and The North Face's "Live Your Dream" grants; and two, I met
Stephen, who would eventually become my partner for this climb. I had tossed
around the idea of applying for a grant, but I always thought that bigger and badass
expeditions would get funding before someone like me, until I read accounts and
stories from other “LYD” awardees. The sponsors actually want people like me to
apply and receive these grants, because not everyone lives an economically
privileged or financially secure life and they deserve the chance to live their
dreams too. So with support from my mom and friends, I applied for this grant
with the West Ridge of Forbidden as my goal. After submitting my application, I
needed to gain a huge amount of experience in the few months leading to summer.
Even if I didn’t win the grant, I would still go through with my plan to climb
it. I then asked around in my group of friends and started to make plans. I
climbed my first mountain with Stephen in April, Sahale Peak via the Quien Sabe
Glacier. I learned crevasse rescue and how to climb steep snow on the climb.
That was also the first time I saw Forbidden Peak as a climber, I'd previously seen
it from Cascade Pass in 2008, and it was intimidating to say the least.
Soon
after this climb, I received an email stating that I had been selected as one
of the winners of the 2015 Live Your Dream Grant. At this point my training
kicked into overdrive, with long days and alpine finishes most weekends. I
thought I as in a pretty good position to attempt the climb when I heard that
Stephen was talking about the TFT, or the Torment-Forbidden Traverse. I had
read about the traverse previously and instantly said we should do that too, as
it was a "simple" rock traverse and climb with sections of snow and
ice, which also avoided (for better or worse) the loose approach gullies to the
West Ridge. I thought it was a good decision, until I saw the steep snow
sections and poor rock quality of Torment. I was on a mini vacation for a week
from late June till July 8th. During this time, every second I was
not devoting to something else was used to plan and get ready for the traverse.
Stephen and I hashed out a rough plan over email and set the dates for July
11th-13th.
We
both checked the weather often in the days leading up. Unfortunately, it did
not look like the "best" sending conditions, lots of cloud cover,
some rain, and the potential for lightning. I certainly was a little
apprehensive when it came time to get on the road on the 11th. The three days prior,
I had been grabbing last minute gear and food, packing and repacking gear, and
nervously waiting. I was scared of the steep snow traverse, about 1/3 of the
way across, that might not be in condition due to the bad snow year, my
inexperience on snow was definitely going to show on that, and the fact that we
and to move past compounded my fear that I might endanger the team on it. I was
really concerned about that, so I spent time learning about the bypass route
around the opposite side of the ridge, and I only hoped that Stephen wouldn't
want to traverse the snow either.
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| The pack, maybe a tad too heavy. |
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| Weather Report... |
The
night before was a little nerve racking, I had to take two sleeping pills just
to get to bed at a reasonable time. I had to wake up at 5:30 AM and meet
Stephen at the Burlington Haggen's parking lot (the start point for many of my
adventures) at 7:00 AM. I woke up on time and I set off for Burlington. Stephen
is a guide with Alpine Ascents International and had gotten off Rainier the day
before, so with only a little rest he met up with my mom and I. We talked a
little bit about the weather and rescue/SPOT stuff, and then we went to get
permits at the ranger station in Marblemount.
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| I'm a little scared at the moment. |
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| The TFT's in there somewhere (some stuffs mislabeled). |
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| TR from MBMG manager John Minier. |
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| Stephen packing and dividing group gear (the rain started right about now). |
When
we arrived, we got our permits and had an "interesting" conversation with
the head climbing ranger. Since we couldn't get permits to camp in Boston Basin
the first night the ranger suggested we get a permit for the Torment Basin and then
Boston permits for the next two days. Approaching Torment via the Torment basin
requires going up a different climbers trail near the winter closure gate on
the Cascade River Road, it is not nearly as defined and traveled as the Boston
Basin trail, even though the ranger assured us it was defined and easy to
follow, citing his own "recent" experience. Armed with knowledge,
permits, and some new gear, we set off for our trail head about 21 miles up the
Cascade River Road in a torrential downpour. Let’s just say the weather was not
on our side while we drove up the gravel roads to the TR; psych-up music
definitely helped ease the uncertainty.
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| It only just stopped raining. |
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| The packs. |
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| Boots are gonna get worked!!! |
It
was still pouring when we arrived at the trail head, so we waited around thirty
minutes while thunder boomed and rain pelted around the car. We changed
clothes, got our rain jackets out, and started up the Torment Basin Trail at 11:10
am. The trail ascends quickly up the steep mountainside. The tall cedars and
firs rained water onto us, even though we were shrouded in mists. We stopped
for a quick break after climbing about 1500 feet in an hour and ten minutes. We
were making good time; the trail was nice, defined, and even fun. This is where
the ranger's beta started to fall apart. Within 15 minutes of leaving the break
spot, we were lost. The trail terminated at a huge fallen cedar which made no
real way over or around it without traversing far to one side, so we traversed
to the west. For a while we just followed trees that were marked with pink
survey tape and signs of a trail, but those eventually petered out and we were
lost again. We bushwhacked and cussed our way up stream beds, ridges, and a
couple miles of soggy forest until we busted out onto a talus field. We tried
to wring out our socks and shirts at this location. Our boots and clothes were
soaked, the theme of the day, and we were both pretty miserable at the moment,
the heinous bushwhacking is one of the few times I've seen Stephen legitimately
irritated, this is not that his frustration was not well founded. At this point
we had an inclination of where we were, so we climbed steep slopes of talus and
heather slopes until we got to the crest of the ridge separating the Torment
and Boston Basins. We tried to dry out some more, and then we embarked on a wet
fourth class scramble down into the Torment Basin, passing the escape route
down into the Boston Basin, a shitty gully rappel from slung blocks. For the
next hour we scouted around the basin for a bivy site, settling on a small
ridge between two snowfields. We set up our tent and lounged around while drying
out our gear and clothes. We ate dinner and talked about our chances of climbing
in the morning. We came to an agreement that if it wasn't raining at 4:30 AM,
then we would go for it; however if it was raining, wait to see if it cleared
up later in the morning. Alarms were set and we shrunk into our warm sleeping
bags for the night.
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| Up we go. |
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| Wetness. |
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| Looking around for an "obvious" trail. |
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| Break time. |
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| Trail? |
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| We can't see shit! |
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| Having fun! |
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| Wet scrambling... Fun? |
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| The bivy site. |
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| Stoked to be at camp and somewhat dry. |
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| We scrambled down from the ridge crest in the center of the photo. |
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| Stephen soaking up the sun. |
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| First view of Torment. |
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| The South Face of Torment. |
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| Torment's SW Ridge (?) |
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| Part of Torment showing through the clouds. |
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| WE CAN SEE STUFF!! |
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| Just before we went to sleep... |
When
we awoke to our alarms at 4:30 AM it was pretty apparent that were weren't
going to go for it at that moment, noise of the rain hitting the tent was
louder than our alarms, so we settled back in for what would be another 7 hours
of sleep. We woke again at about 11:00 AM to an awesome view of the South
Face/Ridge of Mount Torment; the ridge being our intended line of ascent, and
the notch that enabled us to access the ridge. The weather looked like it was
on our side for the moment so we decided to go for it. We could always just
climb Torment and descend it if the weather turned south. We ate breakfast,
packed up our bivy gear, and got our snow stuff on, finally leaving at 12:56
PM. We would approach the notch via a 700 foot snow field that was about 500
feet from our camp. We drank water from the runoff stream by the snowfield, and
topped off our bottles. From there, up we went, donning crampons about halfway
up, and negotiating the moat to get to the notch and the rock climbing. Things
were going smoothly and the going was fun, I got to swing two tools into nice,
hard snow during the moat shenanigans, my crampons and approach shoes were
working well. I was feeling good! After that, we racked and roped up, and then
Stephen led off, up a small, low-fifth chimney to the first belay. We agreed
beforehand that he would lead everything to the West Ridge notch on Forbidden,
for the sake of speed and time; then the actual West Ridge would "be my
dragon to slay". I followed him, and he led up a low fifth dihedral to an
exposed belay above the South Face. At that point we switched to
simul-climbing, and dispatched a couple hundred feet quickly, until I hit a
steep spot where I was belayed up. We did some more simuling across more third
and fourth class terrain, until we crossed over onto the Boston Basin side of
the ridge. We took a break at a sweet ledge. We unroped there and scrambled a
couple hundred feet of third and fourth until we dropped out packs and
continued up some third to the summit of Mount Torment, a couple thousand feet
above the ground, only my second successful summit, at 4:09 PM.
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| Gearing up! |
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| Time we left. |
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| Getting water. |
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| Pitch 2 low-fifth dihedral. |
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| Our approach snowfield and the SE Ridge's terminus. |
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| Almost to the summit. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Lets sign the register!! |
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| Summit #1. |
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| The scramble up/down to the south side. |
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| Proof. Lol. |
We signed our names in
the summit register and made the decision to continue with the whole traverse,
the weather had cooperated up to this point while climbing, and with that in
mind we decided to climb onward to the bivy sites at 1/2 mile across the ridge.
Personally, I did not want to descend Torment; it looked a little hairy to say
the least. The sky started to clear up as we descended down to our packs and
then east towards the rappel point onto the north side of the ridge in a notch,
on third class ledges. Once we got to the rappel point, there would be no going
back. Total commitment would be necessary since there would be no escape route
until we got to the West Ridge notch of Forbidden, the end of the traverse and
the start of the standard descent off the peak. After donning our crampons and
beefing up the tattered mess of an anchor, we began the free hanging rappel
onto the north side glacier. Stephen rapped first and was able to avoid moat
shenanigans by kicking away from the wall at the last moment onto a nice snow
ledge. I then rapped and Stephen pulled me over to the ledge. We pulled the
rope and noticed the snow picket anchor at the top of a mandatory rap free
hanging rap over a crevasse. A trip report at the ranger that the manager of Mount
Baker Mountain Guides, John Minier, let us know of this little obstacle. To get
there involved a bit of steep snow climbing, I was a little scared of this, so
as I lead out with Stephen belaying me, I was pretty hesitant and slow. Stephen
kept telling me to go faster and with his insistence I finished the rope
length. Stephen down climbed to my position where he re-buried the picket,
tested it, and rapped off it to another snow ledge. We repeated the same thing
we did on our first rap, and soon we were off on mellow snow towards a rock
band. The mellow snow quickly turned into steep stuff, and suddenly one of my
footholds sheared and slid about 20 feet until I arrested myself and climbed
back up. My heart was in my throat and I was shaking with adrenaline. Scared
shit-less, and with another slip on Stephen's part, we climbed down a moat onto
the rock band we needed to cross. I wanted a break, but now was not the time
for it. We put the snow gear away and racked up for more simul-climbing.
Stephen led out again and soon I was following. Dropped but retrieved gear, terrifying
loose rock, and wild exposure over Moraine Lake were the highlights of this
rock band. We moved further east onto some polished slabs, where we took a
short break and discussed the next part of the traverse that had come into
view, the steep snow traverse.
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| Rapping into Commitment. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Almost down the first rap. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Starting the second rap over a crevasse. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Pulling me across. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Down climbing the moat (pretty gripped). Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Route finding in this... |
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| Switching gears. |
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| Exposure. |
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| Before we had the conversation about the traverse. Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| Cool view. |
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| Awesome stuff! |
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| THE STEEP SNOW TRAVERSE. |
The
combination of my slip on snow and Stephen's intention to simul-solo the
traverse, I had to state my mind and say that we should do the bypass route
over rock, not the steep snow traverse. I rationalized my thinking in this
regard due to how slow I had moved on less steep snow with a rope. I felt that the
exposure would get me pretty quick, and how the traverse was showing signs of
hard ice near the end, stuff I couldn’t/shouldn’t do in my approach shoes. We
had committed both routes to memory at the off chance that the snow traverse
was out of condition. It was probably still in condition, but I was scared of
doing it unroped or roped (I fall, I screw us both); but really I was scared of
disappointing Stephen by showing him that I wasn’t ready for this. I also told
Stephen that we didn't have to do Forbidden that I was content with what we had
done, this was mainly out of just wanting to end this so I wasn’t scared
anymore. Stephen hushed those thoughts up and said that we should focus in the
present, and not in the past or future, boosting my morale slightly. My
inability to attempt the steep snow, led us to move around a rock ridge, up a
gully, face, and across the crest until we reached a rap station that deposited
us, in two raps, onto third class ledges that Beckey and Steph Abegg describe
in their respective route descriptions.
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| When we started dinner. |
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| SWEET SLOPING BIVY!! (Excited to be warm) |
It
was about 8:00 PM when we took a break and had this discussion at the polished
ledges. The sun came out and we saw some pretty cool stuff, like the Thunder
Creek valley and tons of peaks I don't yet know the names of, while I was
feeling a mix of terror and nervousness, I was still smiling and I was happy
that I could see these sights. This last photo is the last one I took until we
reached the bivy some hours later, sorry for the lack of documentation; I was
in full survival mode.
Stephen
left the break spot to scout out a route to the ridge crest. I followed him a
few minutes later by traversing a section of easy snow (scary, I think the
reader has gotten the hint that I have and will continue to be scared during
most of the climb) and scrambling down to Stephen's position. He found a way
down one gully and up another, in order to bypass a small gendarme. Lots of
loose, second, third, and a bit of fourth followed, a highlight being a
foothold breaking under my feet, and myself running up the gully to the top
once I cleared the hard bits. It was about 9:00 when we got there and I
suggested, naively, that we should bivy here so we avoided climbing in the
dark. Stephen quickly shot that idea down by showing how this spot was
unsuitable and how it would only be detrimental for us to stay there. Stephen
re-racked the rock gear and he lead off up a low-fifth loose and dirty face,
the only way we could gain the ridge crest. It was about a half hour until I
was able to start climbing. All the while, Stephen was cursing and yelling into
the clouds that enveloped us, as I began climbing. This lead was the most
impressive and potentially dangerous that I've ever seen. He ran out the first
30-40 feet and the gear was not the best at that. I climbed the face to the
rock ridge and then up a smooth chimney with a huge slung chock stone to his
belay. He led off again, the rock quality improved, and the stars came out. It
was surreal. Wind howling through me, clouds obstructing my vision, then quiet
and clarity, the only sounds were the jangling of Stephen's gear on his harness
and my breath. I could see across the valley towards Johannesburg Mountain and
the Cascade Pass trailhead, where a car was running. I broke out my headlamp
and soon was following Stephen, while a cloud quickly surrounded us again. I
reached Stephen's belay which turned out to be the rap station to get off the
crest onto easy ledges. We rapped down and mused that I would have to teach
Stephen some more French besides "très
bien". We were soon on the ledges and we kept moving in the cold, windy
night. After covering lots of ground, we eventually started to look for a bivy
site knowing the route finding and technical cruxes were out of the way. Our
morale was good as we climbed wet heather and boulder slopes to the notch at
1/2 mile that also hosted out bivy sites. We set up our tent on a too small
platform and got into our sleeping bags as soon as we could. We started melting
snow for dinner at about 12:35 AM on Monday July 13th, almost 12 hours, on-the-dot,
to when we left our previous bivy. We got water for dinner and we relished the
feeling of warmth the hot water brought to us inside our sleeping bags. I think
we both passed out from exhaustion and we woke up some time later to eat our
dinners. After, we set alarms for about 4:30 AM, and we quickly passed out. I
awoke with a panicked start to our alarms blaring music.
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| The bivy's water supply. |
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| Boston Basin FAR below. |
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| The route from the bivy. |
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Mountain Man Stephen
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| The Rap. |
|
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| Almost done with the traverse. |
Stephen
started the stove, while I gathered snow for oatmeal and water admiring the
pretty cool scenery about that early in the morning. After eating and breaking
camp, we began simul climbing, at about 6:50 AM, around a tower to the ridge
crest, which we would follow directly or on the north side to a rappel point
that would take us to more ledges and the West Ridge notch. The ridge climbing
was really solid and wildly exposed, with thousand foot drops on either side of
us. We dispatched the second half of the traverse in a couple hours, arriving
at the single rap around 8:00 AM on the really cool "sidewalk". After
rapping, we traversed across easy ledges until we hit the West Ridge notch at
8:30 AM.
We
took a break at the notch, and I suggested that Stephen lead Forbidden, he
would climb it faster because he knew the route and the stuff it entails. Alternatively,
Stephen said that I should lead it. I couldn't believe it, after all that had
happened, after all the mistakes and general inexperience I had shown, he still
wanted me to lead the whole West Ridge. It shows how he has the patience for
teaching and inexperience that makes him a good guide. He also suggested that
we simul climb everything but the two cruxes, and I agreed knowing that it
would take a long time to pitch the long ridge out. So, for the first time on
the trip, I racked the rock gear, laced my boots tight, and entered the leading
mindset. I have photos from the notch and the summit but none in between, I was
pretty focused at just climbing and not falling or being slow.
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| Lets start simuling!! |
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| On belay! |
I
started my first simul lead by leaping across the gaping crack in the ridge
right out of the notch. I climbed on the crest and within 50 vertical feet of
the crest on the ridge's north side. A couple hundred feet of terrain was
dispatched and I built an anchor and brought Stephen up. We re-racked and I led
off again and I was quickly able to glimpse the technical crux of the route;
the "tower". I built another anchor and belayed Stephen up to a nice
ledge at the base of the tower. I then led off up the crux, clipping a fixed
piton and plugging solid 0.75 and 1 cams above the crux. I topped out and built
another anchor in a jumble of large blocks. Then Stephen followed and soon
enough we were back to simul climbing. One simul lead on the crest brought me
to the false summit and I was shocked at how fast the whole climb had gone. Here
I was less than 100 feet from, as Stephen would say, "Living the Dream".
I slung a horn and I brought Stephen up, and then used my lankiness to execute
the "high, down step". I walked across the ridge and onto the 8815
foot summit of Forbidden Peak at 10:50 AM on July 13th. My four-plus year old dream
had finally been realized. Stephen came over and we took a break at the summit.
I'm sure I was smiling the whole freaking time!!!
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| Stephen's second time to Forbidden's summit. |
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| The false summit. |
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| Living my dream! |
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| Cumbre! Photo by Stephen Williams. |
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| An two hours after leaving the notch we're on top!! |
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| Summit #2 |
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| The iconic Forbidden photo. |
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| It's starting to clear up!!! |
We
ate, drank, took photos, and talked for about 20 mins until we decided to start
the long descend to the car and home. I want to say that standing on the summit
was eye opening and such, but really I was too dumbfounded to really think
about anything else. There was no room for reflection at the summit. There
wasn't much of a view either as we sat on the summit. The REAL view came when I
crested the false summit.
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| My first summit is over there, 3 and a half months later I'm here. |
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| I like the way the Quien Sabe Glacier and how the moisture is condensing across the peaks. |
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| Boston basin's bivy sights below Forbidden's forbidding South Face. |
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| Way over there is the ridge we scrambled down on Saturday. |
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| The TFT, or from whence we came, this is the one view we got of the traverse the whole weekend. |
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| The Cascadian Ice Cap draining into Moraine Lake a couple thousand feet below. |
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| Peaks off to our North and Northeast. |
We
continued simuling down until we hit the tower where we made a short rap down
and then we switched back to simuling. We only stopped to get swap gear, until
we made it back to the west ridge notch. In descending one spot, I took a wrong
way down and ended up doing a 5.7 unprotected down climb instead of the fourth
class scramble around a small arête.
That was a "fun” and intense little detour, as it started to sprinkle a
bit on the way down. Once we got to the notch we unroped and took a nice break.
We hit up the bathroom, ate food, and then repacked for the final stretch to
the flat ground of Boston Basin.
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| Me and the West Ridge above me. |
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| Me at the West Ridge Notch with the wild North Ridge of Forbidden in the background. |
After
getting ready for the raps down to the infamous and deadly loose descent
gullies, we embarked on the last hard leg of the journey. We scrambled to the
first rap anchor (huge slung block with 10 mm rope protected by 2 inch webbing,
the NPS had done some work!!) and rapped down. Four or five raps followed with
varying amounts of loose rock, until we ran out the rope on the last rap and
had to scramble down fourth class, which was polished granite to the next and
final rap station. Stephen was scrambling and walking down, pulling the rope along
the way. As I am not even close to as fast as Stephen on that moderate terrain,
I was trapped as the rope came down and with that a flurry of small pebbles and
stones that rained on top of me and I was very lucky that nothing big came
down.
The
final rap was from a bunch of shitty anchors strung together to make a
"good enough" anchor, over a face and onto the unnamed glacier that
guarded Forbidden's West Ridge. That glacier was a mess; it looked like an
earthquake had come through and tossed the whole thing like a salad. Huge
sections of it were sticking out in jumbled mess; only a week prior a three football
field sized chunk broke off and slid a ways down (holy shit!!). All that
separated us from the safety of Boston Basin was a 1/4 mile long, 20-30 degree
sloping snow field. And that was when the psychological barrier and charisma I
had tried to keep up began to break apart.
Stephen
started down the line of steps from a previous party as I slowly followed him.
The previous days fall, my inexperience, and the fear of falling led to the
worst thing I could have ever done in the mountains; panic. Everything
compounded as I reached my mental breaking point. As I reached a flat spot,
Stephen called out for me to hurry up, saying it wasn't safe where we were.
This was further exacerbated by the fallen rock strewn across the slope we were
on. I weakly replied that I couldn't go on, that I was gripped with fear and
panic, that I couldn't even convince my body to take a step forward out of the
"safety" of the flat spot onto the "danger" of the slope. Stephen
started yelling that I was in a dangerous spot again and said "Do you want
me to call a fucking helicopter to rescue you?!” I realized just how stupid my
current situation was, so I attempted to move. Stephen, seeing that I wasn't
moving fast or even in the correct form, came up and put me into a short rope
and explained to me how to properly descend the snow with an ice tool, not
using the ice tool as a crutch but as a spot to balance on when I needed it. I
was fearful of my footholds shearing away and leading to a fall. As I was using
my ice tool as a crutch, it was actually making it easier for my holds to shear
not keeping my knees-nose-and-toes aligned over each other, encouraging grip
and keeping my body in balance. We moved in unison down the second half of the
snow field. The last hundred feet Stephen was literally pulling me down as fast
as possible. I think he was pretty frustrated at my inexperience and the fact
that I allowed panic to control me, and rightly so. We took our crampons off
and we sprinted down wet granite and small snowfields, using my new technique,
to the Boston Basin bivy sites by a creek.
My
fear and Stephen's frustration had lessened, as we took a nice break and took
off our harness for the first time in 28 hours (besides sleeping of course). We
waited there for about 20-25 mins while a rain squall passed through and
started down the climbers trail at a (hehe) appropriate 4:20 PM.
We
then started the "home stretch", about 6 miles and a couple thousand
feet of descending to the car. Following the trail we passed through nice
smelling flowers, saw huge marmots scurry under rock, and crossed multiple
creeks. We entered the tree line and passed a couple parties on their way up. We
talked gear, climbs, and strategy for more peaks. We took a break at a big
stream crossing where we drank a gratuitous amount of water and ate a bunch of
food. We continued down, legs burning from the endless impacts and descent,
until we finally broke out of the trees onto the Cascade River Road. A pretty
silent three miles of road walking ensued, with every bend and hill hurting
more and more; my body was wanting nothing more than to collapse under its own
weight. We reached the car at about 7:00 PM, got in and sped off down the road.
We listened to music and started talking about stuff, mostly about my
inexperience and psychological/emotional breakdown on the snowfield. We talked
about guiding, Mark Twight, and Himalayan ascents. Eventually, we hit Hwy 20
and Marblemount and we gave the all clear signal to our respective contacts. My
mom and my little brothers were staying in Sedro-Woolley to pick me up due to
the Deception Pass bridge being closed for repaving purposes, so we invited
Stephen to stay there instead of driving all the way back down to Seattle for
guiding in the morning. Food, showers, and a place to sort gear that was warm
and lit influenced that decision (haha).
 |
| The post trip gear pile. |
We
got to Sedro, ate, rested, showered, and finally sorted/exchanged gear before
going to bed. Before we turned in, Stephen said something that really eased my
thoughts of this being our last climb together. My thinking was of all the
mistakes I had made would be too much to handle again. But, he told me that if
I had any more ideas for climbs or adventures, to let him know. I think he
realized the true extent of my inexperience and his ability to help me along my
way. I really respect him for that. I fell into a very sound sleep at around
11:00 PM that night. I dreamt of the incident on the snowfield and the terror
it caused.
-Reflections-
Since completing the TFT, I've looked
for the reasons why things happened the way they did, both inwards and
outwards; and I think I found them.
I
wasn't honest with my partner because I wasn't humble enough to admit my
faults, my inexperience, and my fear. I was never humble about my experience
level or humble enough to heed to other’s warnings. I pushed myself far out of
my skill level/comfort zone and paid for it in fear. There's pushing yourself
out of your comfort zone to progress. Everyone would agree with that. However, there's
also pushing yourself too far out of your comfort zone, and that is stupid,
immature, and dangerous. I cast myself into the fire, and I was lucky to escape
without getting burnt, only a little heated and singed. I would say that the only
two reasons I was able to complete the climb was “beginners” luck, and a
capable partner named Stephen. They are the only reasons I was able to do it. I
could not do it with any other partner than Stephen, and I was so inexperienced
that I needed luck just to survive the alpine realms.
What
this climb taught me, more than any skill I could ever learn, is to have
humility, to be humble, and to be honest. I have a long way to go to achieve my
dream of climbing in the greater ranges, and I realize that. I know that it
will take years, thousands of days on snow, hundreds of bivies in the
mountains, and a shitload of mistakes to make it there. And that's alright. To
understand is to perceive problems.
The journey there and
back is more important than the dream itself.
Thank you to all who
have and will help me on my journey, no contribution is too small.
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