AMTL part II: June 15, 2007

I woke up periodically during the night to hear Joe in his tent singing or carrying on conversations in his sleep. By 2:30, I was ready to take off and get some peace and quiet. Our morning started with a headlamp-assisted creek crossing and then we followed a steep trail up to the glacier.

After tying into the rope and putting on our crampons we traversed across the snow, each separated by about 60 feet, living in the feeble light of our own headlamps. We could see the lights of a few other climbers approaching from below, but everyone seemed to be sticking with the normal Coleman-Deming route. We were headed toward the north face of the mountain.

Once we reached a flat area below where Joseph and I had camped last year, we reversed positions and Joseph asked me to lead across the glacier toward the Coleman Headwall. I was nervous about the huge crevasses in the glacier and tried to keep as straight a line as possible toward the start of the climb while navigating these gapping wounds in the landscape. Some of the crevasses could easily have swallowed a bus, but thankfully most would close up after short runs or offered substantial snow bridges to cross. The bridges looked like torn sections of the crevasse walls, going well down into the crevasse and not something we'd punch through.

Thankfully, we took a wrong turn and had to backtrack from a dead end and by 5:30 am we had reached the snow ramp we'd climb up to access the headwall. Chunks of ice and rock lay all round us, having been funneled here by the mountain's face. But we didn't have to worry about hidden crevasses anymore, so we reordered ourselves on the rope and all the snow anchors were passed my way.

I continued leading up the snow ramp and the mess of fallen and re-frozen ice blocks. I was glad we were doing this early in the morning when hopefully the upper mountain was still well frozen. At the top of the ramp I traversed right above a crevasse to some clean snow. Straight up we went from here, I would place a picket (snow stake) once the rope had run out completely then continue climbing until the last person reached that anchor, then I'd place a new one. With this running belay, we could climb continuously for hundreds of feet without having to stop and belay each other.

Some cliffs above me indicated that it was time to traverse right again. I could see some more crevasses cutting across the face, but couldn't tell for sure if we'd be able to find away through them. I was out of pickets, but thought that Joseph hadn't yet reached the last one I placed and that we were still anchored to the mountain. So I started traversing out on the lower lip of a crevasse wall until I could see that we would be able to bridge the gap where falling snow had partly filled in the crevasse.

I stopped before that point, thinking we wouldn't want to sit there for a long time if new snow blocks started coming down at us, the point I picked for a belay was still under the large upper lip of the crevasse and I hoped would shield us from anything coming down. Mike traversed across and joined me at the belay, then Joseph came. I was still happy to have found a route that would go through the crevasses, but my contentment was shattered when Joseph arrived obviously angry and thought I'd taken a danger chance in doing the traverse along the crevasse without placing any anchors. It was about now that I really looked down and realized how much steeper the terrain was and what the consequences of a fall would have been. I'd definitely been too focused on the route going up, and not paying attention to the hazards I was leading others into.

My hands had gotten cold from the dripping wet rope at this belay, so I let Joseph take the lead while I tried to absorb new lessons on leading in the mountains. Had I done anything this dangerous on Granite Peak last year? Or did I let my guard down partly because I had a guide along and could relax in his presence?

Joseph called for us to start moving up, but the terrain soon grew to step to keep up the running belays, and we started pitching out one rope length at a time with solid belay anchors. I worked on bringing feeling back to my fingers while Mike generously offered to belay. He and I then started up after Joseph when we heard a warning shout from above. I looked up to see a mass of snow falling right toward us. Having just reached an intermediate anchor I didn't have much room to maneuver. I planted both ice axes firmly in the snow and held on, trying to disappear beneath my helmet. A wet mass of snow found its way into my neck but didn't threaten to push me off. I looked up and saw that Mike had leapt to the right off the fall line for the snow. He'd taken a hit in the leg with a block of ice but both he and Joseph told me that a larger block must have bounced over us.

I had to dig in the snow to find and retrieve the anchor before we headed up. The snow conditions were really becoming a mess, very soft, but with some ice below. Joseph had to scrape away the soft snow and reach the hard ice before he could place any ice screws. And by the time I came up to those screws to remove them, they were covered with an inch or more of slush.

We were getting close to the top of route and it almost seemed for a minute like the sun was going to come out and dry us out. Taunting us was more like it, as we finally exited the steep part of the route and walked toward the tracks of the Coleman-Deming route we entered a complete whiteout. We were probably only 400 or so feet from the summit, but between the winds and lack of visibility and the time (11:20 am) we didn't deem it prudent to go on. All three of us had been to the summit before. At least we completed the route, if not the whole mountain.

After a quick refueling stop we turned into the wind and rushed down the Roman Wall, the steep (relatively) upper section of the Coleman-Deming route. Quickly we reached the rock rib that sat between two glaciers and we took off our crampons and ran down the beaten trail.

We then exited the rock rib and returned to the soft snow on the Coleman glacier - soft enough that we didn't need our crampons. At the less steep sections on the descent we took to boot skiing, or glissading and we practically ran across the truly flat sections. I felt like I was ridding a dog sled down and yelled out "Mush! Mush!" at one point as we sprinted by a group of 5 climbers all carefully roped together and moving slowly down the route.

In a little over an hour we'd descended the whole route and returned to dry ground. We could finally put away our helmets, ropes, harnesses and ice axes. We could each stagger into camp at our own pace.

As I walked into Harrison Camp I noticed Joe sitting my himself looking off into space. I was able to walk to within 8 feet before he noticed I was there. The spot was deathly quiet until I asked "What did you do with all the co-eds?" Once Joe had recovered from the shock of seeing us again he told me how he'd woken up completely soaked: his sleeping bag, pad, tent, etc and nearly hypothermic. He'd been able to scrounge up some dry clothes and cook some hot meals for himself - but "I had to eat some of your granola" he said, "I hope that's okay". "That's fine, now I won't have to carry it out of here." I wondered if he'd been feverish since he'd been talking all night long. Thankfully, he was fine now.

We took down our tents and repacked our bags and began the hike out. The water level wasn't as high as a few days before when we'd hiked in, so the stream crossings were easier, but I was pretty tired, after all, we'd spent 10 hours and 45 minutes climbing and returning to camp with nearly 6,000 feet of elevation gained.

We piled into the van for the ride back to civilization, stopping at Graham's store for snacks and drinks before reaching Bellingham where both Mike and I ordered personal large pizzas and picked up a six-pack of Fat Tire to split. I managed to finish off the pizza in two sittings, but after a couple beers had to dig deep and find the motivation to walk up to the ranger station at Larrabee State Park and pay for our site.