Mount Tallac

After completing Lassen the previous week, I was stoked on finishing off another incomplete project -- Mount Tallac! The last time I was on Mount Tallac the weather was incredible but we turned around thinking the avalanche risk was too high. I think it was the right decision last time given our lack of experience. This time Melanie, Christoph and me were quite motivated to summit it. We were initially debating where to go -- Shasta, Lassen or somewhere in Yosemite but ended up deciding to do a day trip to Tallac. Visibility was quite poor through out the route the trip. The total trip length was 6.44 mi which we covered in approximately 6.5 hours with 3500 elevating gain.

Lassen, Eagle and Ski Heil Peak

I always wanted to go back to Lassen after turning back a little after Helen lake last year. I had Lassen at the back of my mind always as a quick up and down trip. I was initially planning to go solo again given Melanie & Christoph had some prior arrangements but JQ and Chris joined me last minute! Both JQ and Chris are avid outdoor hikers and volunteered to take care of all the food logistics :) The plan was simple but unlike last time we decided to drive up Friday night and have a good nights sleep in the Lassen parking lot. Also instead of trying to attempt the summit from the parking lot we decided to camp above Helen Lake. Day 1 hike to Lassen summer parking lot and set up camp. Day 2 summit and head back to the car to drive back.

The drive up from bay area was surprisingly fine. We ended up reaching Lassen around 11:30p which is totally acceptable after leaving the bay area around 5p and spending an hour for dinner. There was no wind so we quickly set up our Hubba Hubba's and slept peacefully till we were woken up early morning by the excitement of nearby boy scouts. Ideally we would have liked to sleep for another hour or two but given no other option we decided to head out. It was a beautiful sunny day with no wind. The snow this year was quite more then my previous visit.

We head out on the summer highway which is easy to snow shoe through the ranger's shortcut to avoid any Avy danger. In about 2 hours we were at Helen lake which looks really beautiful in summer but in winter when frozen it looks even more mesmerizing! Chris suggested we tag Eagle peak and Ski Heil peak given how much time we had in our hands. So we dropped our bags at the edge of Helen lake and ran up to Eagle Peak. It took some route finding but was fairly easy to contour to the base of Eagle peak and then plow through a gentle slop to reach the peak. Descending Eagle peak was a little tricky as it involved descending a steep short gully which was made challenging due to the slushy afternoon snow conditions. Once at the bottom it was an easy hike to the summit of Ski Heil peak. Ski Heil is massive inverted bow. It has a flat top with gentle slopes all around. We ended up glissading down which was a lot of fun!

JQ and Chris heading up Eagle peak

It took us another 45 mins to an hour to reach our campsite which overlooked a nice lake (probably Snag lake). We had an early dinner and retired by 5pm so that we could have an alpine start for the summit. It was again a surprisingly quiet night with absolutely no winds. 

Campsite overlooking the Lassen valley 

We woke up early and started hiking on the ridge towards the summit. The snow up to the ridge was quite soft so we decided to continue with our snow shoes. During the day the route finding seemed so easy but at night it was clear that without any bootpack it would be quite easy to get lost and meander. We ended up going up on snow shoes but the steeper sections seemed a little sketchy so I decided to put on my crampons 45 mins into the climb. A little later we had the first signs of sunrise with alpenglow. It looked so beautiful that even JQ who hates waking up early for an alpine start had to agree that it was worth it (photo TBD).

The hike up was quite chill not requiring any protection until we reached the last 50m. This section required traversing across the steepest side of lassen. The snow was soft but the exposure was close to 2000ft. I have personally done much harder traverses with higher exposure but for the first time I was un-roped with such a high exposure which gave me a little bit of  the Heebie-jeebies! I was playing back in my mind how to self arrest in case need be and also really focusing on my technique.

It was again a surprisingly nice day with clear weather and no wind. Also, on reaching the summit we had it to ourselves for a good 30 mins. In fact we could have stayed there all day and no one would have showed up. 

Chris and JQ on the high exposure traverse

On the way down form the summit I was quite enthralled by the possibility of hiking the whole ridge line from Brokeoff mountain to Mt Diller, stitching Ski hill and Eagle peak on the way to Lassen. The ridge line looks incredibly beautiful!

Greater Lassen ridge line that I would like to do some day! Brokeoff and Mt Diller on the right 

Day 1: 7.06 miles, 3074 elevation gain, 1355 elevation lost, covered in 6 hours (3 hours active)

Day 2 (camp summit camp): 3.04 miles, 1800 ft elevation lost and gained, 1.5 hours moving time
GPX tracks - ski & heil peak, lassen summit

Mount Baker, North Face & Coleman Deming, Aug 2018

After palisaded Kique had suggested the cascades as a natural progression to get a taste of massive crevasses in the north West. This was going to be just me, Christoph, Melanie and Kique. Our plan was to spend 2 nights on Mount Baker and summit it twice on consecutive days. Before heading up we had planned to camp at Hogsback camp for the first night and then summit first through the north ridge and then through the Coleman Dening route. The hike from the parking lot up to Hogsback is pretty chill and took us a little less than an hour and half. We were expecting rain for the whole trip so we knew from start this will be a touch and go trip. Our camp site was quite isolated and spacious. From the campsite we could see the massive prominence of Baker behind us.

Campsite at Hogsback

First mini crevasse

Day1: We setup camp and Kique made me, Christoph and Melanie perform some rope skills. Given we were expecting large glaciers and snow bridges and Kique was the only experienced guide I was given the duty to learn kiwi coiling.  The weather was becoming worse and we got rained on a little bit. Kique wanted to run up part of the route to checkout how conditions on north ridge looked given the massive crevasse field but given we the weather was not holding up we switched the itinerary a bit. Day3 was looking better than Day2 so we decided to first go to Coleman on Day2 and then go to North Ridge on Day3. The thought was that bailing from north ridge will be way harder than bailing from Coleman Deming (CD) route. 

Before supper we went for a brisk warm up to acclimatize and checkout the snow conditions. This was just to get the muscle memories back and also get a feel for the route. On our way up we saw our first mini crevasse.

Day 2: We had an alpine start close to 2:30 am and started towards baker via the CD route. The weather was holding up (no rain) but visibility was quite poor. Before the trip Kique had mentioned that I will be in charge of taking us through CD and though on paper and website CD is mentioned as an easy route there were quite a lot of hurdles. I started setting pace for the group and following a bootpack set by previous climbers. The first hurdle was an icy section and I wasn't sure of how to approach it or how bad it was going to be. The second hurdle was a massive crevasse that had a tiny snow bridge. After crossing this snow bridge the weather started to get worse. The visibility reduced so much that we could not see the whole party. I was at the end as Kique wanted to set the pace and route and I could only see the person in front. We raced through a debris filed where a serac had collapsed. All through the journey for the past two days we had heard others climbers speak about a massive crevasse that had opened up with a single snow bridge to cross and we knew we had to be very close to this crevasse. Bad visibility, being in an unknown debris field and given this massive crevasse was close by  we decided to turn around. The weather was predicted to get worse and we didn't want to take any risks.

After turning back we raced out of the debris field. We were literally running on a rope team which not the most pleasant experience but we had no clue how loaded the upper slopes were. On the way out we can back to the icy sections that we all struggled on while coming up. Kique decided that would be a great learning opportunity on setting up snow picket anchors and another ice clinic so we spent a good couple of hours practicing all our skills.

Placing ice screws that we were going to rappel off

On our way out the weather started clearing up a lot so we decided to go and scout a bit for the north ridge. The crevasses looks pretty impassable but we were literally threading through ice bridges and jumping over crevasses. There were some crevasses where we were ready to plunge with the ice axes in case the snow bridge gave away. This ended up being an easy 12 hour day even though we decided to bail on our main objective of reaching summit through the

Crevasses that we had traversed through in the background

On Day3 Christoph stayed back while me, Melanie and Kique set up after another alpine start at 2am back on our scouted route from the previous day to attempt at climbing the north ridge. We were fairly quick on reaching the spot from previous day through all the crevasses. A little before day break we reached our first hurdle - our first bergschrund.

Crossing the bergschrund at the base

If the snow had covered this crevasse it should have been an easy 45 minutes hike to the next spot but not this season. Kique started setting up the route on our first ice climbing objective. Before this trip I knew that we were going to do multiple pitches of ice climbing WI-3 or WI-4 but this looked crazy. We were going to side climb on ice in total darkness above a crevasse! Luckily the snow was not totally icy and I could get a couple of inches of my foot actually in which made this easier. All bad thoughts of slipping the way I had in Lee Vining with my crampons coming out or harness opening up started coming. I actually started panicking a bit cursing my self why I get my self into such things and why can't I be at home doing what normal people do.

View from the belay point where Kique shot up the ridge.
We saw and heard a few ice falls routinely.

After crossing the bergschrund we made to the ridge with some ice fall. We were going to ice climb the ridge by traversing ridge up and over and move left. Kique shot up leaving us to look at mini avalanches. If crossing the bergschrund was scary then this next part was insane. The conditions were more icy and way more exposed. For this section both me and Melanie were climbing together with Kique belaying us both. Both me and Melanie had to be really careful to not swipe each other or thrust a steel crampon into each others face! Of the whole trip this section was the scariest for me. I was worried about losing an ice axe, dropping a crampon or just getting cramps which would make us all turn around.

We kept doing these running belays when needed for the next couple of hours and reached the crux of our climb which is what Baker is known for. The easy section if it can be called that was below us. The reason it was easy is because the terrain was not as steep as 80 to 90 degrees hence only considered WI-1 or WI-2. 

'Easy section' below us!

The actual climb was definitely intimidating but after luckily for me at this point I was feeling fairly  confident. The weather had improved, the sun was out and my fear or losing crampons or harness had not happened. My arms were feeling good and I was not making the whole group slow down or making them turn around. We took a quick water and snack break and hit the famed wall with Melanie going first.

Melanie on the near vertical north ridge

Climbing the north ridge was a fabulous experience. I had so much adrenaline that this was actually happening that honestly I don't remember much except the part when it got over. I just remember going all in with one stroke after another without thinking much. Both me and Malanie didn't slip or struggle at all. It felt like all the previous training at Lee Vining and climbing earlier in the route had prepared us for this section. We ended up reaching the last bit of climbing which looked straight from the movies. We were on soft snow which looked like a knife edge with thousands of foot of exposure.

Once this section was done the terrain eased out. We were close to 1 hour from the summit and it was getting quite late. It was already 11pm and we had a 8pm flight to catch from Seattle which seemed impossible.  I mentioned Kique that reaching the summit is not the primary objective and I would be more than happy to make it down safely if we are losing time. To which Kique replied no way he was letting me tell my friends that Kique doesn't summit :P

So we started the push towards the summit. On the way we encountered a crevasse or a gap on the top of the mountain. I wish I had take a photo of the approach. We literally ice climbed from one side down to a snow bridge and climbed up on the other side with me and Melanie on either side of the lip to protect Kique in case the snow bridge gave way. This was the realistic last objective and the summit was in sight.

Summit half and hour away

We quickly raced to the summit tagged it, pissed on the summit and wrote our names on the summit register and started the descent via the Coleman Deming route.

On the way down we quickly descended the Romain wall and rocky section and came to this famous massive 'impassable' crevasse. This crevasse was huge but we were above it and didn't quite realize how big it was before crossing it. It took us a good 1 hour to figure out a way around it. We setup a belay spot, Kique descended looked around for the only snow bridge climbed back up and said no luck. We were considering leaving a rope behind and actually traversing the whole thing on ropes, or stay the night there and wait for help. Luckily after 4 attempts Kique spotted the bridge and we could cross this crevasse. We raced across the Debris field that we had encountered the previous day on our way up and realized how sketchy this section was. A massive serac had fallen hundreds of feet from the top. After a few more hours we could see our camp and Christoph who was super relieved on seeing Melanie and all of us safe. We packed up got into our car to head back to civilization.

Lassen - Solo Camping

For this trip I was supposed to take Mudit and Bharat for their first snow camping trip. Bharat had been asking about going on a snow trip for a long time but this ended up being a solo camping trip. Both Bharat and Mudit backed out at the last minute to celebrate Bharat's birthday in SF partying late into the night. Given Priyal was in Lithuania I decided to go ahead on my own. I have gone on a few camping trips solo but this would be the first solo camping trip in the snow.

I was initially unsure where to go. I had decided going either to Shasta or Lassen given both these places do not need permits. I decided to head up to Red Bluff and check out the weather and make a call. The weather forecast for Shasta wasn't great. The winds could be up to 30mph and it was going to snow all night. I would have to drive one extra hour to Bunny flat if I went for Shasta so I decided to head over to Lassen instead. It was already raining and I had decided that if it continued to rain I would sleep in my car instead of pitching my tent.

Luckily the rain stopped when I reached Lassen. My plan was to try and summit Lassen solo in the winter. If I would have planned the trip a little better I would have found that people normally camp behind diamond peak but I didn't look this up. I ended up asking the rangers who warned me about the Avalanche dangers and asked me to camp near the parking lot specially because I was alone. I was a little dejected as I wanted to camp out in the wild but also didn't want to risk any avalanche so reluctantly went for the safer option.

Wet Lassen parking lot

Camp site near the parking lot

After setting up camp I decided to put on my snow shoes and head up the route to checkout how it would be. My plan was to head up to Diamond peak which was close to 3 miles one way. I set up camp, put out the sleeping back and mat to air and headed out. The weather was clearing up and the wind was quite low. Due to the rain and it being late in the afternoon the snow was quite soft and it was taking quite a bit of effort to snow shoe.

I have been to Lassen before a couple of times in Summer and was eager to see how the Geyser would look in winter. I was expecting it to be covered with snow and no visible activity. To my surprise that was not the case -- It was fairly! The snow around the mud pots were completely melted.

Sulphur mud pots

The hike up to diamond peak was quite easy. There was a clear boot pack that I could follow. I decided to not continue on the road given there is a avalanche warning and decided to take the ranger cut out that goes behind diamond peak crossing a small rivulet. I reached Diamond peak fairly quickly and decided to head back way before sunset for an alpine start the next day to try and summit Lassen. 

I reached back to the camp site and melted snow for water and cooking. The campsite was fairly empty so I had the campsite completely to myself. I went to sleep before the sun had completely set. It was getting fairly cold and then it started snowing.  With any snow camping tent you need to shake the snow off the tent to prevent it from caving. I have heard horror stories of people buried in their tent failing to shake the snow of the tent. I was a little worried given I was alone and also because my Hubba Hubba tent is not a 4 season winter snow camping tent. The wind had picked up quite a bit and snow was falling a lot. I made sure to clear the snow from the tent by shaking the tent from inside every 30 mins to 1 hour and was afraid of falling asleep too deeply. There was little fear of me oversleeping given the high winds were rattling the tent and any sleep was actually welcomed! 

I had initially decided to wake up and leave at 4 in the morning but due to the lack of sleep and exhaustion I pushed the start time to 6am. I got ready packed my crampons, ice axe and head off solo to Lassen. The hike was beautiful -- the clouds had cleared up, no signs of rain. I crossed diamond peak and crossed Emerald and Helen Lake. Both these lakes are supremely beatiful in winter. Also it was quite satisfying to be the first person to break snow there.

View of Lassen standing on Helen Lake

It was only 10:30 am when I reach the summer parking lot of Mount Lassen. I was monitoring the clouds and the winds. I had easily hike more than 5 miles from the camp site and knew that I had close to 4 miles more to go. I was really hoping to meet another group on the way to not be alone on this mountain. The way up on Lassen is to climb the ridge but be aware of any false ride which can happen due to high winds. The wind started picking up and I could see some clouds coming in. I had a set a return time of noon, meaning I would turn around at that time even if I was 50m from the summit and there was no way I was going to summit in that time. Reluctantly I decided to turn around. The weather was still good but  the risks of an unknown route and being solo on a mountain with no other party is quite high. The mountain will still remain! This was quite a learning experience for me in terms of risk and time management.

  

Ice Climbing in Lee Vining

Lee Vining is a small town close to East Side of Yosemite. Before this trip I have crossed it multiple times but always during the summers. Either on way back from a long drive from Vegas or as a part of  visit June Lake. This time we were visiting the area to get some ice climbing experience specially after struggling on the bergschrund in Palisades. For this trip we going to stay in a motel and not camp. Sleep comfortably and be ready to get our ass kicked. I was doing this trip with Melanie and Kique and Kique had brought along Melonie an aspiring guide. This allowed us to climb in pairs without having to wait.

Trail to Chouinard Falls

Trail to Chouinard Falls

On Day1 the conditions were not ideal. The trail was snow covered but just not deep enough to use snow shoes. We needed to be careful to not punch through the edge of rocks.  This approach should normally take 30 mins from the parking lot but due to the non ideal conditions it took us close to an hour and half. 

We were the first party to reach Chouinard Falls and to be honest the frozen waterfall was quite intimidating. This was definitely way outside my comfort zone. I had not being climbing in the gym recently and was really scared.  I was pretty cold and already started to get hungry as we couldn't get any warm breakfast.

Kique lead the two routes and set up top ropes for me and Melanie to start practicing. The waterfall was frozen solid and it was solid blue ice. I was the first one on the route and Melonie was belaying me. The goal was to reach the first bench (flat section) but midway up one of my crampons came off and I slid a good 6-10 feet. This was pretty scary for me. Both ice axes scraping on the wall as I slid down. This incident really shook me and I came of the rope to take a break. After Melanie climbed the route I went back up. The second time was a bit better but the previous fall definitely had an impact on me. I was very cautious and my heart rate was quite high. I was incorrectly using my arms too much and they got pumped up very soon. 

Chouinard Falls

To help me and Melanie improved our technique Kique suggested using only one ice axe for the next attempt. This exercise was devised to reduce the reliance on our arms and use our feet more. This further helped me to gain some confidence on standing on the two front points of the steel crampons.  Melanie and Kique did some laps on the mixed route climbing on the left side of the wall.

Day2 climbing a frozen waterfall in June Lake

On Day2 we had the option of going back to Chouinard Falls but we wanted to try something else so we headed to the June lake area. Here we hiked up an old cart line to a frozen water fall. We chose this area given Chouinard Falls would be very busy and we wanted something a little bit easier. The chosen waterfall in the June lake area ended up being a blast. The ice was softer here and the terrain less steep. This in addition to a good breakfast was more ideal than day1 :)  We hacked on the ice climbed to the top and practices some v notches in the ice.

Palisades

Palisades is a group of peaks in the sierras which is not so famous. A trip to palisades is something that I have been thinking about since Scott mentioned to them to me during our trip to Whitney. For this trip we had Kique and Scott as guides and me, Melanie and Christoph as the clients. Kique's friend Christine also joined us for the trip.

We parked our cars at the trail head and started the long 9 mile approach to the base camp. The approach to the base camp was long and arduous but lined with multiple lakes and water falls!

It took a long time to reach the camp ground. Initially we were thinking of camping a bit higher at the moraine but we were pretty tired so Kique in all his wisdom called the Sam Mack meadows as our campsite. The camp site was beautiful. Mountains and hill all around with a meadow and glacier run off in between. After setting up camp Scott and Kique went up to the base to scout some routes while me, Melanie and Christoph did some acclimatization.

 

V-notch (left) and U-notch straight ahead

The next day we started at 3am for our summit attempt. Before the trip we knew we have many options to go up on Palisades. One of the possible routes were Thunderbolt to Sill which cover 5 14'000ers! The three main options that we had were

1) Mount Sill, Swiss Arete Grade III, 5.8 (summitpost)
2) Thunderbolt Peak NorthEast Couloir Grade III 5.6 AI2 (summitpost)
3) Starlight Peak, Starlight Buttress Grade III, 5.4 AI2 (summitpost)
To be honest after reading a bit I was more stoked about the famous U-notch!

Christoph approaching the base of the bergschund

From camp to the main approach site it was roughly 3 miles of hiking. The hike was simple but the altitude made things a bit worse already. We had to rock skip with moving boulders the size of a car! The sight of snow as always motivated me. We put on our crampons and began traversing the glacier. I always enjoy glacier travel with crampons. The sound of the metal spikes piercing the soft snow gives me the desire to just keep going. At this point we decided to climb the starlight buttress and then if possible descend through the u-notch.

Kique setting up the route 

Before we could start climbing there was a bergschrund that was required to be crossed. Kique saw this and in his usually self called this "spicy" and started leading it and setting up ropes for us. This was solid vertical ice climbing something that none of us were really prepared for but we  managed to do so somehow.

Some fingers might have been lost

Once we climbed up the bergschund it was easy going up for the next 6 to 8 hours. We rock climbed pitch after pitch sometimes with a running belay, some times with a short pitch.

Extreme exposure throughout the climb

While climbing the rocks I completely lost track of the time. Once we reached the top of the buttress I looked at the my watch and it was 4pm. In all my previous day summit attempts we were well in our camps by this time after tagging the summit. This actually gave me some panic attacks. I totally trusted Kique and Scott but I had seen too many documentaries to know that this is not good news. I spoke to kique and the plan was to push for the summit not because of the summit but because the route down through u-notch would be easier and faster. 

Any ways that didn't happen. We tried two different routes to reach the summit but both routes were a no go so we decided to retreat. This is where things began to really spice up. We were a total of 5 folks and we needed to descend around 10 pitches of 60m to reach the bergschrund and then tackle it.

Our retreat involved multiple rappels. Some rappels were 30m with a single rope some were 60m with double ropes. We also tried to speed up the rappels with trying two folks descending at the same time on each end of the 60m but that felt way more secure rappelling one at a time so we switched back. Rock fall was a major hazard. A pretty massive rock hit Kique leaving a massive dent in his helmet while Melanie was hit by two smaller ones. All in all we were all pretty glad to get off the rock face. It was definitely something way beyond ours (Mel, Christoph and mine) comfort zone. 

It is one thing to be climbing in the gym or leading a few pitches outside but its a totally different thing rappelling for hours in the darkness, sitting alone at belay points waiting for your turn. We took turns at being the last one waiting at the belay point. On the last repel Scott left his ice tool 6 to 8 feet above the belay point. On a normal trip grabbing the tool would be totally normal but here it really freaked me out. Our belay point was a small string thrown over an outcrop. I was afraid that if I undid the belay point while and someone yanked on the rope  I would be thrown over 60m. I mustered my courage and went for the tool and rappelled down the ice wall glad to be done with all long rappel pitches. 

Once we reached the bottom there was the inner side of the bergchrund. Kique set up a another rope system so that we could climb out of the moat. At this point it was close to day break. We had been out for almost 24 hours totally destroyed. Melanie had slipped during one of her rappels and me and Christoph were pretty much done.  

We gathered all our energy for the exiting the bergschrund and heading to dry land. To our surprise we saw Christine at end of the glacier travel. She was worried sick. She could see us rappelling down at night and thought one of us was injured. She hadn't joined us for the trip as she had massive blisters on her feet from the previous day so she decided to hike back and forth on flip flops carrying all our sleeping bags, a bivouac, food and water.

I was pretty happy to see the back of the vertical wall. It was definitely an adventure and I swear I must have thought never again but mountaineering amnesia is real. While writing this blog two months after the even I am sure all three of us would love to go back.