Summer Starts...

June has been an uncharacteristically warm and sunny month. I'm sure we are due for a few weeks or perhaps a month of rain before we actually get a consistent summer.

We enjoyed the warm days of June, however.

Kye and Nason wade in stump lake (aka Keechelus)

Kye with his friend 'Dafe' playing ball

He now loves the water park...

I signed up for a trail run somewhat near Mt. St. Helens, my first (maybe only) 25K. The run was pretty great, actually. It began with six miles of roly-poly wooded trail, past a beautiful waterfall and through wildflowers. Then it steeply climbed for four miles, the wildflowers becoming much more alpine, and I enjoyed views of St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Adams as I ran along a ridge line. Back up another ridge line, the views continued, and we even ran through a rock archway. Pretty cool and definitely interesting the whole time. We finished mile 12 at the top of Silver Star peak and then headed down to beer and a nice gathering of interesting folks. 

 After the race...

We camped out that night and then Brandon had a chance to run the trail the next day. Kye and I went for a hike. He yammered on about flowers and rocks and airplanes and birds and then promptly asked to be held and fell asleep in my arms for an early nap. It was sweet.

A budding trail runner.

Then we headed to the Hood Canal area to visit a friend. A short but nice visit, enjoyed a cookout dinner, good conversation, and some banjo/fiddle/tin whistle music.

Kye, trying to catch the rain

At the nearby beach

A ferry ride home from Bainbridge

And tonight, after hanging out with Grandma all day, K got spoiled with some ice cream. I think this picture says we are ready for summer, even though it was 60 and rainy all weekend. We are in the summer mind-set, at least. 

Sahale

Since the skiing was so good on Mt Baker and the next weekend was forecasted with good weather, when Lowell emailed to do Sahale I jumped again.  Glad I did, another great day in the mountains.

 Ross, Jens and Lowell starting towards Cascade Pass

 Cascade Pass

 Sahale has some of the easiest accessed scenery in the Cascades

Lowell on the summit

Little bit of rock at the top, ripsaw ridge in background(photo Lowell Skoog)

 Jens me, Lowell (photo Lowell Skoog)

 Ross with Johannesburg in background

Me and Steve Stroming (photo Lowell Skooog)

Watson Traverse

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to complete the Watson Traverse on skis in the North Cascades.  When I first received the email invitation from Lowell Skoog I was hesitant, I had just put away my ski gear for the next season, and the warm weather already had me in Summer mode, thinking of riding bikes etc.  When Lowell told me it was the 75th Anniversary of the first traverse and that he wanted to shoot some film to recreate the film that Dwight Watson had taken on the original trip, I knew I couldn't pass this up.

For those that don't know, Lowell Skoog has quietly established himself in the history of the Cascades as a ski mountaineering pioneer, especially in the North Cascades.  Any trip with Lowell is an opportunity not only for good company but also a lesson in efficient mountain travel, ski technique and history.

On the history side of this story, the brief version is that the Watson Traverse was originally done in 1939, completed by Dwight Watson, Andy Hennig, and Erick Larson in a single day.  At the time, they called it the Mt. Baker traverse because the traverse was from Mt. Baker to Artist Point near the Mt. Baker ski area.  Lowell, being the historian that he is, decided that it was only fitting to name the traverse after Dwight Watson who is credited with planning the first traverse.  Dwight Watson was an amazing individual, establishing many of the first ski descents around the Cascades.  An interesting tidbit of info on Dwight is that he was the first person to take Fred Becky climbing.  The story goes that Fred's dad knew Dwight was a responsible, religious man and thought that he could teach Fred and keep him from killing himself in the mountains!  For more interesting reading check out Lowell's site here: LINK, and the video link to Dwight's film: LINK (the film is halfway down the page on right side).

Fast forward 75 years, and another group of skiers -myself, Lowell, Ross, Crispin, and Dwayne- started out to complete the Watson Traverse, leaving from the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead at 4:30 AM.  We started hiking on dirt in comfortable temps under clear skies, perfect weather.  The day was long and somewhat uneventful; we enjoyed excellent skinning conditions, only donning ski crampons for a couple areas.  Ropes were not needed as the glacier was still filled in.  We periodically stopped at key points so Lowell could shoot some film to recreate scenes from Dwight's film, so the pace was nice and comfortable.  On the summit we found warm temps and no wind whatsoever, really nice!  There were multiple descents, on which we found surprisingly good 'corn' conditions despite the warm temps.

Oddly enough, there was another party (large group of 12 people) on the same route this day.  The fact that we were on the same route is where our similarities ended.  These were a bunch of "bro-bras" with baggy pants, trucker hats, huge rocker skis, and music playing loud from their packs as they skied along, very interesting.  They also had a somewhat careless approach to how they skied the Park Headwall.  We chose a conservative descent, skiing down to the Cockscomb, then traversing onto the headwall at a lower and less exposed area.  The bro-bras just dropped onto the big open face above a gaping bergschrund, taking huge fast turns down the face and then jumping the schrund at the bottom!  Guess some people's idea of risk assessment is a bit different.

Despite the shenanigans of the big group we were able to enjoy the route first, and to ourselves as we moved a bit faster.  Which was good as listening to their bro-bra talk and loud music took away from the mountain experience a bit.  We arrived at the Mt. Baker ski area around 5 pm, and headed down the mountain to retrieve our cars and enjoy a delicious dinner at Milanos in Glacier.  I was back home and in bed by midnight, almost 24 hrs later!

Lowell and company heading out

Sunrise over the Coleman Glacier

Amazing!

Lowell below Colfax 

L-R Dwayne, Lowell, Crispin, me and Ross

Crispin dropping onto the Park Glacier below the Cockscomb

Lowell styling the Park Glacier

All tracked out

Crispin

Clouds building

Dwayne with the Portals in the background

Almost Perfect

This weekend was literally almost perfect. The only thing that would've made it better was if B and I were together a bit more. Well, actually, what would make it perfect is if it wouldn't end...my summer break is soooo close!!!

B concocted a plan at the last minute to do a ski tour on Mt. Baker called the Watson Traverse. We'll do a separate post on that. In his absence, K and I enjoyed a trip to the beach in the sunny & 70 degree weather.

Sunday, we met up with several Betties and Babies (toddlers) at a local climbing crag. We got a bit of climbing in, the kiddos played with trucks in the dirt, and a couple of them bouldered a bit. A good time was had by all and we managed to get the kiddos in the packs by nap time.

While K napped, I went for my long training run of the week. I hit the trail at Summit West, thinking I'd run to Rockdale Lake and then up the nordic trails and home. However, I got a bit turned around at Rockdale. Instead of turning onto the nordic trails, I ended up continuing all the way to Silver Peak. By the time I realized my mistake, I decided it would be harder to retrace my steps (there were several fast stream crossings at Rockdale) than it would be to continue on home down the forest service road. So, what was probably going to be 8-9 miles ended up more like 10-12...not sure. It was a beautiful run in the mountains, sunshine, and not a soul to be seen past the first couple of miles.